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Prominent Oil Industry Insider: "There's Another Leak, Much Bigger, 5 to 6 Miles Away"

Submitted by George Washington on 05/27/2010 17:27 -0400

Dylan Ratigan

Matt Simmons was an energy adviser to George W. Bush, is an adviser
to the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre, and is a member of the National
Petroleum Council and the Council on Foreign Relations. Simmon is
chairman and CEO of Simmons & Company International, an investment
bank catering to oil companies.

Simmons told Dylan Ratigan that "there's another leak, much bigger, 5 to 6 miles away"
from the leaking riser and blowout preventer shown on the underwater
cameras:

I
have no idea whether or not Simmons is right. The government should
immediately either debunk or admit his claim.

If accurate, the
bigger leak could have been caused by the destruction of the well casing
when the oil rig exploded. That is Simmons' theory.

Or it could
be caused by a natural oil seep, although the odds of a seep of that
size occurring right around the time of the Deep Horizon disaster is
nearly zero.

There is another possibility.

It is well-known that there were previous accidents at the Deepwater
Horizon rig. For example, as AP notes:

From
2000 to 2010, the Coast Guard issued six enforcement warnings and
handed down one civil penalty and a notice of violation to Deepwater
Horizon, agency records show.

On 18 different occasions during that
period the Coast Guard cited the vessel for an "acknowledged pollution
source."

And as 60 Minutes reports:

[Mike Williams, the chief electronics technician
on the Deepwater
Horizon, and one of the last workers to leave the doomed rig] said
they were told it would take 21 days; according to him,
it actually took six weeks.

With the schedule slipping, Williams says a BP manager ordered a
faster pace.

"And he requested to the driller, 'Hey, let's bump it up. Let's bump
it up.' And what he was talking about there is he's bumping up the rate
of penetration. How fast the drill bit is going down," Williams said.

Williams says going faster caused
the bottom of the well to split
open, swallowing tools and that drilling fluid called "mud."

"We actually got stuck. And we got stuck
so bad we had to send tools
down into the drill pipe and sever the pipe," Williams explained.

That well was abandoned and
Deepwater Horizon had to drill a new
route to the oil. It cost BP more than two weeks and millions of
dollars.

"We were informed of this during one of the safety meetings, that
somewhere in the neighborhood of $25 million was lost in bottom hole
assembly and 'mud.' And you always kind of knew that in the back of your
mind when they start throwing these big numbers around that there was
gonna be a push coming, you know? A push to pick up production and pick
up the pace," Williams said.

Asked if there was pressure on the crew after this happened, Williams
told Pelley, "There's always pressure, but yes, the pressure was
increased."

But the trouble was just beginning: when drilling resumed, Williams
says there was an accident on the rig that has not been reported before.
He says, four weeks before the explosion, the rig's most vital piece of
safety equipment was damaged.

It is therefore possible that there has been another ongoing leak
which BP has tried to cover up.

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Thu, 05/27/2010 - 20:56 | 378135 berated

I've heard on good authority the live feed is actually a 20-hr looped replay. After watching the 'live' feed for 3 straight weeks I can confirm this is true! :-)

Fri, 05/28/2010 - 00:11 | 378416 Howard_Beale