Report finds 'alarming unaddressed deficiencies' in US offshore oil drilling [CNN]

Even as the Trump administration has taken steps to expand offshore oil drilling, a new report shows that thousands of oil spills are still happening and that workers in the oil and gas industry are still dying on the job.

The report comes from Oceana, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to protecting and restoring the oceans, which has sued the federal government to stop seismic airgun blasting in the Atlantic Ocean. The blasting is the first step needed to allow offshore drilling, when seismic airguns are used to find oil and gas deep under the ocean.

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The Deepwater Horizon aftermath

Surface burning of oil slicks during the Deepwater Horizon event.

Credit: David Valentine

Researchers have analyzed 125 compounds from oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico to determine their longevity at different contamination.

The scientists have now analyzed long-awaited data from the Natural Resource Damage Assessment to determine the specific rates of biodegradation for 125 major petroleum hydrocarbons -- compounds from the oil that settled to the deep ocean floor when DWH's Macondo well discharged 160 million gallons. Through that analysis, the team found that a number of factors influence how long the impact of such an oil spill lasts. Their results appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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BP loses effort to see documents in claims probe | WWL

A federal judge has ruled that BP is not entitled to see confidential documents used by a court-appointed investigator who has alleged that some attorneys acted improperly in the claims process arising from the 2010 Gulf oil spill.

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Transocean's Deepwater Opportunities In The U.S. Gulf Of Mexico | Seeking Alpha

The U.S. Gulf of Mexico (GoM) is currently the firm’s most important deepwater market and is likely to remain to be cornerstone in Transocean’s deepwater ambitions going forward. We take a quick look at the region's importance to Transocean and how it can drive revenue going forward.

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Feds approve plan to identify source of Gulf sheen | Bellingham Herald

Federal officials said late Friday they have approved a joint plan from BP and Transocean to identify the source of a sheen in the Gulf Of Mexico associated with the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Officials said in a news release that the federal on-site coordinator approved the joint plan on Thursday. Coast Guard Capt. Duke Walker had required the plan, and federal officials informed BP and Transocean they might be held responsible for the costs of identifying the source and the cleanup.

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Hurricane Prep Failures in Every Sector of the Oil Industry | Louisiana Bucket Brigade

Hurricane Isaac was in the region for approximately three days, beginning on August 28th. During that time, over 100 reports about oil industry accidents were filed with the National Response Center (NRC), the federal single point of contact for oil spills. Some reports were filed by industry, others by eye witnesses. The following information is based on a review of all of the NRC reports filed.

Adjusting for reports that reported the same accident and irrelevant reports, there were 93 total accidents in the oil industry...

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Oil falls below $112 as Isaac misses oil platforms | CNBC

Brent crude oil slipped below $112 per barrel on Wednesday as Hurricane Isaac, which hit land in Louisiana, left U.S. Gulf Coast oil production facilities without significant damage.

U.S. energy companies have shut most facilities in the Gulf of Mexico, cutting the region's oil output by more than 90 percent. Most shutdowns were precautionary...

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Forecasters say Tropical Storm Isaac on verge of becoming hurricane | LubbockOnline

Isaac was on the verge of becoming a full-blown hurricane today as it rolled over the Gulf of Mexico toward Louisiana, where residents of the low-lying coast left boarded-up homes for inland shelter while people in New Orleans waited behind levees fortified after Katrina.

Forecasters predicted the tropical storm would power up to hurricane strength, which starts at winds of 74 mph, later in the day and be at least a Category 1 hurricane

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Track Tropical Storm Isaac's path as it moves into the Gulf | weather.com

Live Tracker
Weather.com Exclusive: Track Tropical Storm Isaac's path as it moves into the Gulf.

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Will Isaac hit New Orleans on Katrina anniversary? | Shreveport Times

Tropical Storm Isaac now has a chance of striking New Orleans as a hurricane on Wednesday, the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, according to one computer model at the National Hurricane Center.

The federal center put New Orleans on a hurricane watch at 2 p.m. ET Sunday, meaning that a hurricane probably will strike somewhere in the watch area — though not necessarily the city — in the next two or three days.

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Isaac looks like it's bound for Gulf | Houston Chronicle

Forecast models inched Issac slightly westward on Saturday, predicting a landfall between southeastern Louisiana and the Florida Panhandle.

Along such a track the storm will spend more time over the warm Gulf of Mexico waters, allowing Isaac the opportunity to strengthen into a hurricane, and possibly even a major hurricane, before striking the northern Gulf coast.

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New Orleans in Isaac cone - at least for now | WWL

There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the future of Tropical Storm Isaac. For now, however, New Orleans is in the cone of possible landfall locations. The official forecast track calls for Isaac to be a hurricane in the Gulf early next week.

The man in charge at the Hurricane Center says until Isaac gets better organized, they are not going to be sure where Isaac is going.

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Fraud pollutes BP oil-spill compensation fund for Gulf Coast victims | shreveport times

Not a single drop of the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico touched the land-locked city of Homestead, Fla., or the Keys peninsula to the south.

But a Homestead businessman saw the April 2010 oil rig explosion and subsequent environmental disaster as an opportunity to cash in, authorities say. Jean Mari Lindor filed about $15 million in BP damage claims for himself and others for wages purportedly lost due to the spill’s economic hit on the region’s tourism and fishing industry...

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Sen. David Vitter wants drilling permits issued faster | NOLA.com

Continuing the lengthy battle with the Obama administration over complaints it is still taking too long to approve new drilling permits, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., joined an Indiana Republican last week to propose legislation switching permitting decisions from the Interior Department to the Department of Energy.

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Coalition offers vision for Gulf restoration ‎| Houston Chronicle

More than two years after the catastrophic BP oil spill, environmental groups say billions of dollars the British oil giant is expected to spend on restoration should go toward buying tens of thousands of acres of coastal land for conservation, rebuilding Louisiana's eroding wetlands and creating nearly 200 miles of oyster reefs.

Under the Oil Pollution Act, companies must pay to restore areas fouled by a spill. The amount BP will have to pay is subject to ongoing litigation...

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BP Ignored Well Test Warning Before Blast, Transocean Says on Eve of Trial | Bloomberg

BP Plc (BP) officials overseeing the Macondo well that spewed millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico ignored questions about whether safety tests done hours before a fatal blast on the drilling rig were flawed, lawyers for Transocean Ltd. (RIG) said in a court filing. The filing came three days before BP, Transocean, the U.S. government and plaintiffs suing over the oil spill are scheduled to begin a trial in New Orleans to apportion blame for the disaster and determine exposure to punitive damages.

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BP faces billions in fines as spill trial nears | Northwest Herald

On the cusp of trial over the catastrophic 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, phalanxes of lawyers, executives and public officials have spent the waning days in settlement talks. Holed up in small groups inside law offices, war rooms and hotel suites in New Orleans and Washington, they are trying to put a number on what BP and its partners in the doomed Macondo well project should pay to make up for the worst offshore spill in U.S. history.

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BP Says Halliburton Destroyed Evidence in Gulf Spill Case | BusinessWeek

BP Plc accused a unit of Halliburton Co. of intentionally destroying evidence that could be used to prove the oilfield services firm shares blame for the blowout that caused the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Halliburton Energy Services Inc. destroyed test results that showed samples of the cement used to seal London-based BP’s Macondo well, which exploded off the Louisiana coast last year, were unstable, BP said in a filing today in federal court in New Orleans...

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BP wins approval for new deep-water drilling in Gulf of Mexico | Salt Lake Tribune

stock photo © BP p.l.c.

BP won approval from the Interior Department to drill its first exploratory oil well in the Gulf of Mexico since the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion touched off the country’s worst offshore environmental disaster.

The new well will be much farther out to sea and in deeper water than BP’s Macondo well, which exploded in April 2010, killed 11 workers and spewed nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the ocean over several months. 

At a depth of more than 6,000 feet, the proposed well is part of the company’s Kaskida oil and gas development drilling area in the Keathley Canyon located about 250 miles south of Lafayette, La.

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Gulf oil spill cleanup workers' health claims drawing scrutiny from Kenneth Feinberg | NOLA.com

As a massive federal study aimed at gauging the human health effects of exposure to oil and chemicals during the cleanup of last year's Gulf oil spill gets under way, the man in charge of compensating the spill's victims reports that only 200 people have put in claims saying they were injured or sickened by the disaster. Kenneth Feinberg, who was appointed by BP and President Barack Obama to administer a spill-damage claims fund, has paid more than $5 billion to more than 200,000 victims, and he has received about 1 million claims in all. But only about 0.02 percent of them are health-related -- including those from the workers injured or killed on the rig itself. He is skeptical of some of the other claims...

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