Public release date: 13-May-2009 (from EurekAlert)
Contact: Stephanie Murphy
508-289-3340
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Natural petroleum seeps release equivalent of eight to 80 Exxon Valdez oil spills
Study off Santa Barbara is first to quantify oil in sediments
A new study by researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) is the first to quantify the amount of oil residue in seafloor sediments that result from natural petroleum seeps off Santa Barbara, California.
The new study shows the oil content of sediments is highest closest to the seeps and tails off with distance, creating an oil fallout shadow. It estimates the amount of oil in the sediments down current from the seeps to be the equivalent of approximately 8-80 Exxon Valdez oil spills.
The paper is being published in the May 15 issue of Environmental Science & Technology.
“Farwell developed and mapped out our plan for collecting sediment samples from the ocean floor,” said WHOI marine chemist Chris Reddy, referring to lead author Chris Farwell, at the time an undergraduate working with UCSB’s Dave Valentine. “After conducting the analysis of the samples, we were able to make some spectacular findings.”
There is an oil spill everyday at Coal Oil Point (COP), the natural seeps off Santa Barbara, California, where 20-25 tons of oil have leaked from the seafloor each day for the last several hundred thousand years.
Earlier research by Reddy and Valentine at the site found that microbes were capable of degrading a significant portion of the oil molecules as they traveled from the reservoir to the ocean bottom and that once the oil floated to sea surface, about 10 percent of the molecules evaporated within minutes.
“One of the natural questions is: What happens to all of this oil?” Valentine said. “So much oil seeps up and floats on the sea surface. It’s something we’ve long wondered. We know some of it will come ashore as tar balls, but it doesn’t stick around. And then there are the massive slicks. You can see them, sometimes extending 20 miles from the seeps. But what really is the ultimate fate?”
Based on their previous research, Valentine and Reddy surmised that the oil was sinking “because this oil is heavy to begin with,” Valentine said. “It’s a good bet that it ends up in the sediments because it’s not ending up on land. It’s not dissolving in ocean water, so it’s almost certain that it is ending up in the sediments.”
To conduct their sampling, the team used the research vessel Atlantis, the 274-foot ship that serves as the support vessel for the Alvin submersible.
“We were conducting research at the seeps using Alvin during the summer of 2007,” recalls Reddy. “One night during that two-week cruise, after the day’s Alvin dive was complete and its crew prepared the sub for the next day’s dive, Captain AD Colburn guided the Atlantis on an all-night sediment sampling campaign. It was no easy task for the crew of the Atlantis. We were operating at night, awfully close to land with a big ship where hazards are frequent. I tip my hat to Captain Colburn, his crew, and the shipboard technician for making this sampling effort so seamless.”
The research team sampled 16 locations in a 90 km2 (35 square mile) grid starting 4 km west of the active seeps. Sample stations were arranged in five longitudinal transects with three water depths (40, 60, and 80 m) for each transect, with one additional comparison sample obtained from within the seep field.
To be certain that the oil they measured in the sediments came from the natural seeps, Farwell worked in Reddy’s lab at WHOI using a comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatograph (GC×GC), that allowed them to identify specific compounds in the oil, which can differ depending on where the oil originates.
“The instrument reveals distinct biomarkers or chemical fossils — like bones for an archeologist — present in the oil. These fossils were a perfect match for the oil from the reservoir, the oil collected leaking into the ocean bottom, oil on the sea surface, and oil back in the sediment. We could say with confidence that the oil we found in the sediments was genetically connected to the oil reservoir and not from an accidental spill or runoff from land.”
The oil that remained in the sediments represents what was not removed by “weathering” — dissolving into the water, evaporating into the air, or being degraded by microbes. Next steps for this research team involve investigating why microbes consume most, but not all, of the compounds in the oil.
“Nature does an amazing job acting on this oil but somehow the microbes stopped eating, leaving a small fraction of the compounds in the sediments,” said Reddy. “Why this happens is still a mystery, but we are getting closer.”
Support for this research came from the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and the Seaver Institute.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, independent organization in Falmouth, Mass., dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930 on a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, its primary mission is to understand the oceans and their interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate a basic understanding of the oceans’ role in the changing global environment.
And for some bizzare reason we are prohibited from drilling new wells (there are old wells there already) and sucking the oil out rather than letting it leak out…
And yes, drilling wells stops or slows dramatically the seepage.
Just Insane.
Oil is a natural substance and bacteria eat it; obliquely commented upon when they say “degraded” … Look, its BUG FOOD, not evil at all…
Sheesh. Yes, messy on your hands. Yes, you don’t want to spill a billion gallons of it on a beach. But it’s natural and not evil. ( You would not want a billion gallons of salt on a beach either…)
An interesting factoid: After the Exxon Valdez spill, some beaches were left “uncleaned”. THEY recovered the best since the natural bacteria on the beaches ate the oil. What beaches did worst? Those “steam cleaned” by all the concerned “helpers”. Why? Steam cleaning killed the bugs…
Get a clue, folks, oil has been around for millions of years and is a normal and natural part of the ecology. Messy, yes. Evil, no.
E.M. Smith said:
Yes, but think of all the children who were killed by the oil spills.
Its not seeping only from the site talked about here. It seeps all around the continental shelf, west coast, gulf coast etc. Oil from any oil drilling is a spoonful compared to this natural seepage.
Yes, the oil has been here a long long time.
I worked on some rigs on the California coast just above Malibu. I doubt if the Hollywood brats even know its there. When you drive along the coast highway and look to those hills on the East side of the highway , just over the top of them are THOUSANDS of oil wells. The field I was in had over 1100 on our lease. They have been there since the 1920-30’s.
To bad that now that Calif. is going broke they wont allow the coast to be drilled. There are thousands of jobs and billions of dollars out there. With today tech, very little oil would be lost…and even it is is. So what. Pick it up and that left will be naturally eaten by various bacteria. Messy for a bit, but it can be cleaned up, just as it always has been.
Looks like Calif. had its teat in a wringer for money, maybe they would break loose and allow it.
Then we can all watch in wonderment as Waxmans head explodes. Which would be a good thing.
Re drilling offshore California to reduce oil field pressures and oil seepage, it is amazing what a state-wide fiscal crisis can do. Oil production means money for the State. This is from Friday, May 15, 2009 Sierra Sun newspaper (link below):
“Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is pushing legislation that he believes would raise $1.8 billion for cash-strapped California by allowing the first new oil drilling project off the state’s coast in 40 years. . .
The governor’s proposal would revive a project for the Santa Barbara coast that was rejected by the State Lands Commission in January.
The project, which was unveiled last year [2008], enjoyed unprecedented support from many anti-oil drilling environmental organizations [including Surfriders]. Several key groups in Santa Barbara agreed to lobby for the project after reaching an agreement with the oil company, Houston-based Plains Exploration & Production. Under the deal, the company would provide money for the state and a commitment to shut down its operations countywide by 2022.
Sheehy estimates the state would immediately receive $100 million and a combined $1.8 billion over the time span of the project.”
(Sheehy is the Governor’s appointee to the State Lands Commission)
I was at the State Lands Commission hearing in Santa Barbara in January, and heard one enviro group after another speak in favor of oil drilling. This was surreal. Some made the argument that drilling would reduce the seepage.
It was voted down 2-1, with the chair, Lt. Gov Garamendi stating that no oil would be drilled offshore in state waters, EVER, no matter how much money would be brought into the state treasury. (my paraphrase)
$1.9 billion over 12 years is not much, in a state where the annual budget deficit runs $20 to $40 billion.
http://www.sierrasun.com/article/20090515/NEWS/905159995/1066&ParentProfile=1051
Beat to the punch by Howard (18:20:32) :
As a geology student at UCSB in the late 60’s, we and everyone else was fully aware of natural seeps off Isla Vista/Coal Tar Point/Santa Barbara.
And yes, Sir Francis Drake brought his ships into Goleta Bay to seal leaks with the abundant asphalt available from natural tar seeps.
If the name hadn’t already been taken, the UCSB Gauchos would have rightly been called the “Tar Heels”.
Mineral oil was too fancy-schmantsy. We used regular (leaded!!) gasoline to remove the tar.
The oil platform leak that became the enviro-mental poster child of Santa Barbara in the late 60’s was trivial in the real world. Most of us beachcombers said “Who could ever tell?”
Tar removal becomes a type of expertise when one lives in the SB area.
Tim J (20:25:04) :
Following on from previous post (12:14:50) about abiotic hydrocarbon:
I got interested in this some years ago as I could not imagine that the quantities of oil and gas that we experience could have come solely from degraded bio-mass. It just did not gel with me and it seems many others from my bit of research.
Tim—Expand your imagination. Not only is most of it biotic, when we produce oil we are only recovering a few percent of what was deposited. Most of the world is covered with sedimentary rock. It all contains a trace of organic matter. It adds up.
It is disturbing how many people here with no in depth knowledge of oil and gas feel qualified to post on the subject. I hope we do better with climate science.
deadwood (20:23:13) :
“The consensus on a biological origin for petroleum hold primarily due to the presence of most reservoirs in sedimentary rock and the lack of solid evidence in an alternative explanation. ”
>>>that and the entire science of petroleum geochemistry>>>
I recall learning as a graduate student of a granite hosted oil reservoir in California, but this was explained as oil migrating from its source to a suitable host –
>>>perhaps the largest field in the world in which oil is produced from granite is Bach Ho, offshore Viet Nam. I have a very nice Russian seismic line (actually recorded by a French contractor) across it showing Miocene sediments with organic rich shales of lacustrine origin feeding directly to the granitic horst block.>>>
I am a retired chemist who worked for the U.S. Enviromental Protection Agency for 35 years. I worked out of the San Franscisco office (region 9). During the early 1970s there was a bad oil spill in the Santa Barbara Channel. There was a blow-out at platform alpha. The underground/underwater oil reservoir was under pressure sufficient to drive the oil to the surface. The well tubeing/caseing became seperated and a large quantity of oil was lost to the surrounding water before the well was repaired. After that incident drilling in the channel was no longer allowed.
My duties included charicterizing the oil from the spill and differentiating it from the natural seep at Coal Oil Point. This was easly accomplished with the gas chromatography technology of 35 years ago. We also provided analytical support to the U.S. Coast Guard identifying the vessels from which illegal spills and discharges originated.
To collect the oil from Coal Oil Point I gathered dried hard “sand dollars” from the beach, soft sticky globs from the beach, and actually swam into the surf and beyond to collect more pristine oil samples.
The physical properties of the oil were somewhat as described in the article. However, weathering included evaporation, oxidation, microbal degradation along with incorporation of sand into the oil globs. Much of the oil washed onto the beach and back into the surf and carried away with the tide. The sand particles contributed to the oil sinking. I question the quantities stated in the article as they seem unreasonably high. Platform Alpha was leaking oil on the same magnitude as the article attributes to the seep. The oil spill was a major event that made national headlines for weeks until it was cleaned up. The oil slick extended for miles and fouled the beaches of Santa Barbara.
The oil from the underground reservoir at Coal Oil Point was part of the same system as the the platforms in the channel. This was determined by their similar nickel/vanadium ratioes. The local people could not understand that by pumping down the reservoir they would eleminate much of the seepage at Coal Oil Point and in effect clean up the channel. Instead they put an end to further drilling. I find the article interesting, however, it offers little in the way of new information.
!. There isn’t much difference between a hydrocarbon and a carbohydrate, either can be used as a nutrient if a bug is chemically built to oxidize it.
“just over the top of them are THOUSANDS of oil wells. The field I was in had over 1100 on our lease. They have been there since the 1920-30’s.”
I was really surprised the first time I drove down Sepulveda Blvd. in Los Angeles. Even more surprised when I went to Bolsa Chica beach for the first time … about 20 years ago. Nothing but oil wells everywhere. People don’t think of oil when they think of California.
Further reading on the Abiotic Theory for anyone interested…
Fuel’s Paradise (Wired)
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.07/gold_pr.html
Gas and oil may exist in miles-deep wells (The Times, UK)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article482178.ece
Petroleum From Decay? Maybe Not, Study Says (The New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/14/science/14meth.html?n=Top/News/Science/Topics/Space
The Deep Hot Biosphere : The Myth of Fossil Fuels (Thomas Gold, 1999)
http://www.amazon.com/Deep-Hot-Biosphere-Fossil-Fuels/dp/0387952535
Abiotic Natural Gas…We know that apparently abiotic methane exists in large quantities in outer space. Oceans of abiotic methane might even exist on Titan. There is very little evidence of abiotic natural gas on Earth. The Soviets/Russians have been looking for it for a very long time.
Abiotic Oil…I won’t say it’s impossible…But there is a lot more scientific evidence to back up An Inconvenient Truth than there is of abiotic oil.
Tim J (20:25:04) wrote: “I was therefore very interested in the Cassini mission to Titan where hydrocarbons were discovered in great abundance in many forms.”
At the very least that must inspire some thinking, Tim.
________________
Poptech (00:29:25) wrote: “Further reading on the Abiotic Theory for anyone interested…”
Thank you!
… and Vince could wipe up any spills with his Sham-Wow!
Basil (08:25:12) :
Actually, I believe there is a bacteria that feeds off of crude that leaks out.
But why feed the bacteria when you can outfit some deep-sea dredges and fill up supertankers off the coast? Joe Dredger to the rescue.
Exxon Valdez Oil Spill (EVOS) Workers – Exxon’s Collateral Damage
Exxon Authorize the Toxic Chemicals for Spraying Alaska’s Oily Beaches which has caused many deaths and health complications, without any compensation from Exxon. Survivors of the cleanup are struggling as Exxon’s collateral damage.
Little attention was given to EVOS workers who blasted Alaska’s oily beaches, with hot seawater from high pressure hoses. They were engulfed in toxic fumes containing aerosolized crude oil—benzene and other toxic chemicals. View photos at: http://www.silenceinthesound.com/gallery.shtml
Below is a video to view which explains the toxic spraying.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5632208859935499100
I was the first commenter to raise the Abiotic Oil angle on this post, but did it in oblique way because I didn’t want to be accused of hijacking the post (its main point being that oil exploration and production are not a burden on the environment).
But others have now followed up.
I have spent the over the last year intensely and thoroughly investigating Abiotic Oil theory.
It proves out at every level — from micoscopic examination to geologic formations — Brasil’s substalt oil is a perfect illustration of Abiotic Oil: The oil is found as deep as 25,000 feet below the sea bottom under two kilometers of salt at as high a temperature as 450 degrees Fahreneit, 170 miles off shore, under tremendous pressure in waters as deep as 7,000 feet.
Oil has been found as deep as 30,000 feet deep.
(Oil companies now have drilling ships that can drill in as deep as 12,000 feet of water.)
All of the above violates the so-called Oil Window corollary of “fossil” theory.
With all due respect to doug, he is wrong.
Oil is abiotic.
This is not the place to fully debate the merits. I have, however, exhaustively debated the merits of Abiotic Oil theory with the most determined “debunkers”, oil geologists and other wise, all comers have failed to falsify Abiotic Oil theory and in the process “fossil” theory has been falsified numerous different ways.
So-called “fossil” theory is a hypothesis that was proposed in 1757 over 250 years ago before almost anything was known about deep geo-chemistry.
The Earth’s deep crust is a chemically active place, indeed, and hydrogen and carbon have a strong chemical affinity for each other.
Oil geologists admit abiotic hydrocarbon formation takes place, but while claiming it only happens in small quanities, fail to identify what limits would restrict hydrocarbon formation from being abundant given the huge amount of necessary chemical elements available deep in the crust.
Abiotic origins of hydrocarbons was first proposed by Humbolt and others shortly after 1800 and has been followed up ever since.
Regrettably, certain “strong personalities” doggedly retained the primitive “fossil” hypothesis, and Group-think took over and a “consensus” emerged.
Obviously, certain interests are happy to maintain this prespective in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary (sorry Doug and others).
One example: heavy rare Earth metals are found in great abundance in oil there is no explanation how or why heavy rare Earth metals like valandium and others would be concentrated in a supposedly surface derived residue (organic detritus sinking to the bottom of a lake or shallow warm sea).
All arguments and evidence of an organic detritus origin for oil fail on close inspection. Organic detritus is a pollutant of the oil, which is a very effective solvent and collects organic impurities as it rises toward the surface. Sedimentary basins are the best oil TRAPPING structures. The largest oil fields are sedimentary basins above deep tectonic faults leading from chemically active deep-crust geologic profiles.
A oil well (field) in Northern Iraq produces 400,000 barrels of oil a day, it has been producing since 1934 and shows no signs of letting up. Ghawar, the largest oil field in the world (Saudi Abrabia) produces over 5 million barrels a day, it has been producing since 1951.
The scientific evidence is clear and unambiguous — Oil is abiotic.
That some cling to “fossil” theory is testiment of socio-psychological inertia in the field sciences.
Where have we seen that before — or are seeing now?
I have read that the Indian sub-continent broke off Antarctica and drifted north, achieving a high rate of speed, something like 30 cm per year, before slamming into Asia and raising the Himalayas.
Question: What happened to the Indian continental-shelf gas, oil and coal fields when they crashed into the Asian continental-shelf gas, oil and coal fields?
Was there a terrific explosion, as occurs in Hollywood movies?
Or is a lot of that oil, gas and coal buried deep under the Himalayas?
Both?
Was there a spike in CO2 levels when this continental collision occurred?
The world is so full of a number of things,
I’m sure we should all be as happy as Kings.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Anaconda tells us:
“Oil has been found as deep as 30,000 feet deep.
“(Oil companies now have drilling ships that can drill in as deep as 12,000 feet of water.)
All of the above violates the so-called Oil Window corollary of “fossil” theory.
With all due respect to doug, he is wrong.
Oil is abiotic.”
Actually, Doug is right
Thermal gradients vary all over the globe.
Take a look at the Paris Basin. Wildcat success rate at depths shallower than the “thermal oil window” is about 1 in 20. In the oil window 1 in 5, below the oil window 1 in 40. How does all that hydrocarbon coming up from the depths bypass all those deep structures?
Read with an open mind:
Petroleum Geochemistry and Basin Evaluation (Aapg Memoir) (Hardcover)
by Gerard Demaison (Editor)
The oil companies, with all their financial ability, have hired so pretty sharp scientists, and given them the resources to do a vast body of research..
Anaconda (13:21:02)
“That some cling to “fossil” theory is testiment of socio-psychological inertia in the field sciences.”
Exploration based on abiotic oil theories has been tried. It failed.
But I can see that you, Anaconda, are not deterred by the high probability of economic disaster. Brilliant!
I’d like to introduce you to Sandw15’s Abiotic Oil Limited Partnership. We’ll get ourselves out and buy up a bunch of leases cheap since “Big Oil” won’t be competing with us. Then we’ll drill ourselves a bunch of oil wells and get rich. Yahoo!! How about we start in Georgia? The last I heard they never found a drop of oil there, but I’m a little out of date on that. Won’t everybody be impressed when we find all that abiotic oil there.
I’ll set up the exploration program and manage operations and all you have to do is kick in…oh let’s see…25, well no, 35 million dollars ought to be enough to get started.
We’ll need more when operations get going good, but what the heck, it’s only money. I’m looking forward to getting the check. Be sure to make it out to Sandw15’s Abiotic Oil Limited Partnership or SAOLP.
@Sandw15:
Sandw15 states: “Exploration based on abiotic oil theories has been tried. It failed.”
You totally ignore the Brazil example. Your avoidance of that example and the long producing oil wells in Iraq and Saudia Arabia is telling.
Your statement is completely false. There is a reason Russia is the # 2 producer in the world. Yes, Russia pioneered deep drilling.
Your castigation with silly detrogatory hypothestical is again telling.
You fail to address any of the facts or examples given.
@ur momisuglysandw15:
Readers, please analyze sandw15’s comment.
There is one declaratory assertion, ““Exploration based on abiotic oil theories has been tried. It failed.” There is no reason or evidence offered, period.
(That is actually pretty typical.) It is what one might call “content free”.
What is interesting is that he actually deludes himself into thinking that kind of comment is persuasive.
@ur momisugly Doug:
Again, readers, note that Doug doesn’t meet or discuss one iota of the evidence I raised. Doug could have, but he didn’t respond to a single reason or piece of evidence I rasied.
Regarding the Brazil oil, the “head guy” has boasted that they “have found oil every time” below the salt.
A lot better than one out of forty.
Oil wells below 20,000 feet deep used to be rare — average less than 8,000 feet deep – why drill deeper when it’s more expensive.
But now oil wells deeper than 20,000 feet are quite common.
Tahiti is an oil well in the Gulf of Mexico that just started producing, it is also below the salt barrier (they used to call it the “salt abyss” in the oil industry — not anymore) and the deepest wells are 22,600 feet.
Also, oil and vocanic activity are often associated with each other, in fact there is pillow lava (underwater lava) that has been analyzed and contains bitumens, hydrocarbon that is solid. The association of hydrocarbons and volcanic activity is strong (much to the dismay of promoters of “fossil” theory), that is why Indonesia has a lot of oil.
Doug is a ~snip~ for the oil industry or oil speculators.
Don’t take my word for it. Study the documents and the scientific papers.
Oil is abiotic and Doug and Sandw15 by the “content free” character of their responses to my comment identify themselves as ~snip~ for those who want to maintain the status quo.
I’m sorry, I left out responding to one of the two assertions Doug made (the other one was the “success” rate): “Thermal gradients vary all over the globe.”
Yes, thermal gradients vary (how hot it is at various depths in different regions of the world), but oil is being found at depth all around the world where the temperature is hotter than the 275 degrees Fahrenheit that the “Oil Window” corollary states oil either never forms (too hot) or breaks up into methane gas (once formed). Notice Doug never responded to the specific temperature I cited (450 degrees F). This “hot” oil is the deepest oil and under the most pressure (can crush hardened steel).
Again, don’t take my word for it.
And as far as Doug’s memoir, what is the date of publication and does it serve to propagate the “standard line” of the oil industry?
Talk to retired oil geologists and they will tell you oil geologists never expected to find oil below the “salt abyss” — they thought it was impossible (for all the reasons I cited) — but they have.
When scientists are “surprised” or find something “unexpected” it usually is because their “theory” is incorrect about the processes that cause the result.
The study of the Earth’s climate is not the only field of study where assumptions were made that on closer and more acute observation & measurement don’t pan out.
I’ll continue my “content free” discussion. Hard to teach petroleum geology in a paragraph or two.
The deep stuff in Brazil produces because inspite of being deep, the vitrinite reflectance is below 2.2, tmax below 500C, and is within the oil window.
The wells in Saudi continue to produce because the reserves are huge, and large oil collumn has pushed oil into all sorts of microporosity. My wife spent years working on it for a large research group.
I can show you long lived oil wells everywhere…they are continuously recharged fron their organic source.
The pillow basalts in Indonesia have nothing to do with the oil. I’m no (snip) for the oil companies, I’m an independant consultant. I wrote “The Petroleum Geology and Future Exploration Potential of Indonesia” in which I showed how to locate organic source rocks in Indonesian lacustrian basins using seismic amplitudes. Over twenty oil companies bought the report, some payed $85,000 for my ideas. Maybe the ideas had some value. They are based upon degrees in Biology, Geology and Geophysics, as well as thirty years of work. Upon what, may I ask dear Anaconda, do you base your ideas? A book or two? Something you saw on the internet?
You ask me to study the “the documents and scientific papers” Please list a few.
Anaconda
“Your castigation with silly detrogatory hypothestical is again telling.”
My hypothestical is detrogatory? That’s alarming. Will antibiotics help?
I thought for sure that you would want to get in on the ground floor of the coming abiotic oil boom. Is it the name? SAOLP really doesn’t have much of a ring to it. Well, it’s your money…what if we call it Anaconda Petroleum Exploration? The headlines would read, “A.P.E. Discovers Abiotic Oil in Georgia.”
Yep, we better stick with Georgia. I don’t think you can afford to drill subsalt wells in offshore Brazil. And besides, you wouldn’t believe the engineering problems involved with drilling through salt.
“heavy rare Earth metals like valandium”
Ah yes, valandium. I think that all scientists agree that valandium is the rarest Earth Metal of them all and as such is very valuable. I just happen to have a valandium mine in west Texas, and I can say, with confidence, that it has valandium deposits as large as any known to exist on Earth. I’ve got this cash flow problem and I’d be willing to sell it to you cheap if you’re interested.