Allen dismisses speculation about early well plug. McClatchy (7/9, Seibel), in an article titled, “Thad Allen Scoffs At Idea That BP Will Finish Relief Well Early,” reports Allen “dumped cold water on suggestions that BP might be able to plug the well in time for its July 27 announcement of second quarter earnings. Speaking by conference call to reporters from Theodore, Ala., Allen said he thinks that a mid-August date is still the most realistic for a relief well to have intercepted the runaway well and killed it by filling it with heavy drilling mud and concrete.” Allen is quoted as saying, “I’ve been around these folks for long enough to know that you need to under-promise and over deliver.”
The Washington Post (7/9, Kaufman, Achenbach) also reports Allen “pointedly stuck to the official government estimate that the leak will be plugged by mid-August. If the effort succeeded earlier, Allen said, ‘we’d all jump for joy.’ … With so many imponderables, he said, predicting a July finish seemed overly optimistic.”
According to the CBS Evening News (7/8, story 4, 3:00, Couric), “BP has said for weeks now come mid-August those relief wells will be done,” but “now it’s actually talking about an earlier finish” and that “is actually making some people angrier.” CBS noted “one theory why BP is now hinting at an earlier finish,” is “July 27 date is also when BP reports second-quarter earnings to nervous shareholders,” and “for every leaked barrel, BP faces potential fines of $4,300. At 60,000 barrels — the current estimate — that’s $258 million a day. Finish by July 27 rather than August 15, that’s a potential savings of almost $5 billion.”

Some oil spill events from Thursday, July 8, 2010

A summary of events Thursday, July 8, Day 79 of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that began with the April 20 explosion and fire on the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, owned by Transocean Ltd. and leased by BP PLC, which is in charge of cleanup and containment. The blast killed 11 workers. Since then, oil has been pouring into the Gulf from a blown-out undersea well.
RELIEF IS WELL
A relief well being drilled deep into the seafloor of the Gulf of Mexico to shut down the gushing well could be completed ahead of a long-set deadline of mid-August only if conditions are ideal. National Incident Commander Thad Allen said the relief well is expected to intercept and penetrate the Deepwater Horizon well pipe about 18,000 feet below sea level within seven to 10 days. But they won’t know how long it will take to stop the oil until they get there. If everything goes perfectly and weather doesn’t intervene, it could begin working by late July.
SLUSHY REMARK
Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle said Thursday she was wrong in calling BP oil’s $20 billion victims’ compensation program “a slush fund,” backtracking just hours after her widely criticized remark. She told a Las Vegas radio station that President Barack Obama strong-armed BP executives to set up the fund. “My position is that the creation of this fund to compensate victims was an important first step — BP caused this disaster and they should pay for it,” she said a day later.
FLORIDA DRILLING BAN?
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has called a special session of the state Legislature to get a constitutional ban on offshore oil drilling in Florida waters on the November ballot. The session will be held July 20 to July 23. Crist said he has the support of Panhandle legislators, where some beaches have been oiled by the massive Gulf of Mexico spill. But legislative leaders in areas so far unaffected have been uncooperative. The amendment would require 60 percent approval from voters in November.
ANOTHER WHALE OF A TEST
The giant Taiwanese oil skimmer known as ‘A Whale’ is getting another chance to prove its value in the Gulf of Mexico. But the leader of the federal response, Thad Allen, doubts the effectiveness of the “A Whale.” Allen said Thursday it seems more useful in a huge pool of oil than in thousands of smaller slicks. Bob Grantham, spokesman for TMT Shipping, says the U.S. Coast Guard has approved another week of testing.
MEDIA RULES
An outspoken Louisiana official wants the Coast Guard to lift restrictions on news organizations covering the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser said he’s drafting a letter to the Coast Guard, BP and President Obama opposing a recent rule keeping the public and media about 65 feet from containment boom and vessels participating in the cleanup. He says the only way to maintain public confidence in the cleanup is to make it as transparent as possible.
DISGRUNTLED PENSIONS
The exasperation with BP felt by residents of the Gulf states is spreading to shareholders — and some are taking the oil giant to court. BP shares have lost about $85 billion in value. The toll for institutional investors who hold 79 percent of the company — including public and private pension plans — is around $67 billion. At least five individual investor suits have been filed, along with BP employees.
WATER-WHIRLED
Kevin Costner’s company has sent an oil-skimming vessel to help clean some of the crude that has fouled the Gulf of Mexico. The actor told workers and visitors “the machine I once dreamed of is here to help you.” The Ella G, now one of the Vessels of Opportunity, was retrofitted to receive oil and water from the skimmer, separate the oil and place it in storage tanks, and return the cleaned water to the Gulf. It had once been an offshore supply barge.
THE TOTAL …
The well has spewed between 86 and 169 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, according to federal estimates. That’s enough oil to fill about 3.4 million standard bathtubs.

Administration pushing BP to boost oil recovery, swap caps.
The CBS Evening News (7/8, story 4, 3:00, Couric) reported, “On day 80, nearly three months into the spill, the White House told BP to speed up the containment operations. The company is already trying to hook up a third ship to siphon the oil and the Obama Administration wants it to put a new cap on the gushing well while the weather’s still good.”
The New York Times (7/9, Broder) reports, “With a weeklong window of favorable weather opening in the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama administration is pressing BP to move quickly on two operations that could double the amount of oil captured from the gushing well. An oil recovery ship known as the Helix Producer, capable of capturing up to 25,000 barrels a day, has been waiting near the crippled well for more than a week, unable to connect to the well because of high winds and waves from Hurricane Alex.” The Times notes that the hurricane also “delayed deployment of a new, tighter-fitting cap for the well that not only will be able to capture more of the spewing oil but could potentially shut down all oil releases from the well.”
AFP (7/9) says Adm. Thad Allen “wrote to BP managing director Bob Dudley saying that after talks to be held in Houston on Friday the British energy giant must hand over ‘detailed plans and timelines’” regarding “its next steps in the fight to stop the…spill.”

The AP (6/24, Kunzelman) reports, “Oil had spewed uncontrolled into the Gulf of Mexico for much of the day Wednesday before engineers reattached a cap being used to contain the gusher and direct some of the crude to a surface ship.” The logistics coordinator on board the Discoverer Enterpriser said “that after more than 10 hours, the system was again collecting the crude.” BP “later confirmed the cap was back in place, but said it had been hooked up about an hour and half earlier. The coordinator said it would take a little time for the system to ‘get ramped back up.’”

The Washington Post (6/24, Achenbach) reports, “The Deepwater Horizon well became an uncapped geyser once again Wednesday.” The “morning mishap with the makeshift cap on the well ended a 24-hour period of relative success. On Tuesday, the cap had managed to capture 16,668 barrels (700,056 gallons) of oil; 10,429 more barrels (438,018 gallons) were flared through a separate containment operation that continues uninterrupted. The amount was the highest yet contained since the April 20 explosion.”

The New York Times (6/24, Robbins) reports incident commander Adm. Thad Allen of the Coast Guard, “at a briefing in Washington, said a remote-controlled submersible operating a mile beneath the surface had most likely bumped a vent and compromised the system. Live video from the sea floor showed oil and gas storming out of the well unrestricted. By evening, the cap was back on, nestled in place on the eighth try after about 90 minutes of effort.”

The Los Angeles Times (6/24, Hamburger) reports a top Coast Guard official, Rear Adm. Kevin Cook, “told the House Education and Labor Committee on Wednesday that his agency would be investigating the command structure aboard the Deepwater Horizon to see if that played a role in the confusion surrounding the rig’s April 20 explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.” Cook said, “We do need to clarify who was in charge.” The Times adds Cook was “testifying with a panel of other government agency heads about safety issues facing oil and gas industry workers. An Interior Department official pledged at the hearing that the agency would issue new mandatory safety guidelines for oil rig and cleanup workers, dozens of whom have already reported illnesses.”