Guest “I hate hurricanes, particularly three letter ones that start with ‘I'” by David Middleton
NATURAL GAS | OIL | SHIPPING 02 Sep 2021 | 21:22 UTC
US Gulf of Mexico oil production inches up despite hampered offshore transportationStarr Spencer & Janet McGurty
Four days after Hurricane Ida slammed the Louisiana coast, output in the US Gulf of Mexico is inching up even though damaged road and transport infrastructure has delayed producers’ ability to get out and inspect their platforms.
On Sept. 2, 1.702 million b/d of crude remained shut-in, about 93.5% of the US Gulf’s roughly 1.8 million b/d of total pre-storm oil output, according to the US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.
That compares to 1.705 million b/d of crude oil shut-in as of Aug. 31, or 93.7%.In addition, 2.0 Bcf/d of natural gas was shut in Sept. 2, or 91.3% of the US Gulf’s roughly 2.2 Bcf/d of pre-storm output. That compares to 94.5% shut-in on Aug. 31.
[…]
While a weaker storm may see producers begin to return oil and gas flows a day or two after it passes, the downtime after Hurricane Ida, which made landfall Aug. 29 packing winds of 150 mph, is likely to drag on because of the extensive damages to terminals and heliports used to access offshore facilities.
[…]
S&P Global
The primary shore facility supporting offshore drilling & production is Port Fourchon…
Port Fourchon, other Gulf oil facilities likely offline for weeks after Ida
By DAVID WETHE on 8/31/2021HOUSTON (Bloomberg) –Port Fourchon, America’s largest base supporting the U.S. Gulf of Mexico offshore oil industry, will take weeks to recover after Hurricane Ida tore through the Louisiana community, leaving a wake of destruction in its path.
“How many weeks is a good question,” Chett Chiasson, executive director of the Greater Lafourche Port Commission, said in an interview with National Public Radio that aired on Tuesday. “We have a long road ahead of us and there’s a lot of damage for us to assess and try to recover from.”
Damage to the port, which services about 90% of output from U.S. Gulf deepwater oil and natural gas wells, is extensive and widespread, he said. Louisiana Highway 1 will need to be cleared of debris for heavy equipment to travel south to the port, while navigable waters around the port will have to be surveyed for safe travel, he said.
[…]
World Oil
https://www.offshore-mag.com/regional-reports/us-gulf-of-mexico/article/14209533/port-fourchon-suffers-severe-damage-from-hurricane
Things could have even been worse…
Noble Corporation drillship crew evacuated several days after Hurricane Ida
Spouse of crewmember believes husband’s life was put at risk when Ida made landfall on SundayBy Briana Conner
Thursday, September 2, 2021GRAND ISLE, Louisiana (KTRK) — Some crew members who were stranded in the Gulf of Mexico during Hurricane Ida on an ultra-deepwater drillship are finally headed to Houston.
[…]
The Category 4 storm battered the ship stationed off the coast of Louisiana, injuring some crew members and leaving their loved ones angry and afraid.
“They just left people out there to fend for themselves, and it just makes me so angry,” the woman said, who wished to remain anonymous out of fear that Noble Corporation would retaliate against her husband.
The crew on board the Noble Globetrotter II was not evacuated ahead of Hurricane Ida, though Noble Corporation said the rig did take “evasive actions” to avoid the storm’s path.
[…]
ABC 13
They will recover, as always. Here’s what’s predictable….
https://www.npr.org/2021/09/01/1033503093/aerial-photos-show-a-miles-long-black-slick-in-water-near-a-gulf-oil-rig-afer-id
What’s predictable is NPR’s prejudice, ignorance and hatred.
I can’t even listen to the NPR radio news anymore I get so annoyed with them.
Their news writers and broadcasters clearly have been given direct instructions to include a “climate change” reference to every weather, fire, flood or drought story they broadcast.
Simple Stock Propaganda lines are added to every story line now at NPR and PBS. It’s all Junk science to drive the coordinated, funded climate propaganda campaign.
Your world is getting smaller by the day. You need a refresher on the Rule of Raylan.
Now you are telling us how you want to be treated?
Uh, you mean the NPR that outed Exxon’s estimate of Macondo leakage at 5,000 barrels of oil per day?. NPR hired an actual expert, and reported that it was, in fact, 70,000 barrels of oil per day. Exxon caved and agreed the same day.
THAT NPR?
Exxon ???
What the bloody hell are you on about?
Recommendation:
Get the facts right. Then post.
You’re right, but apparently you don’t know the correct company. BP. bigoilbob regrets the error.
More to the point, you don’t dispute the fact that NPR had to dope slap BP.
What predictable messenger murder.
npr, you really are a moron, boob.
The gulf, as you said, will recover
Dr Tony Gutierrez, associate professor at Heriot Watt’s School of Life Sciences, said: “Many big scientific papers have come out and shown the dominant types of bacteria in oil slicks, particularly at the Deepwater plume, but they have not confirmed that the bacteria were definitely using the oil as food and breaking down the hydrocarbons. This paper does that.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/world/deepwater-horizon-disaster-bugs-ate-bp-slick-1570422
Bacteria have adapted to breaking down organic compounds that are much more recalcitrant than crude oil. Biodegredation is a farily mature technology for cleaning up chlorinated solvent-contaminated groundwater plumes. One must have the right “bugs” to do the job.
Agreed
So, how come bigoilbob is so ignorant of this?
He probably isn’t, but the urge to say something stupid could not be resisted.
When you spend your life avoiding any fact that goes against your chosen religion, eventually you get good at it.
Bacteria may have eaten some of the oil.
But I have it on good authority that most of that huge oil spill went to the Bermuda Triangle.
Never to be seen again.
Bacteria Lives Matter (BLM) and terrestrial black holes.. who h/t NAA… no, holes.
Yes, over geologic time.
There have been oil seeps as long as there has been oil.
Geologic time has already happened. Such bacteria already exist and are very active in the environment.
I beg to disagree RE “over geologic time.” I’ve attended and presented papers and chaired sessions at multiple of Battelle’s conferences on Remediation of Chlorinated and Recalcitrant Compounds. Their bio conferences were every other year. I’ve also managed remediation at super fund sites with significant plumes of chlorinated organics (PCE, TCE, DCE, & VC). We fed the bugs (specially dehalococcoides) to increase the speed of dechlorination of the VOCs. I’ve reviewed VOC remediation programs with a group of tech experts at air force basses from coast to coast (Edwards, Shaw, Arnold, Robins, Massachusetts Military Reservation, etc. etc.). I’ll assure you, biodegredation happens much faster than over geologic time.
“I beg to disagree RE “over geologic time.” I’ve attended and presented papers and chaired sessions at multiple of Battelle’s conferences on Remediation of Chlorinated and Recalcitrant Compounds.”
Predictably. no links to any of these papers. And no metrics on efficacy and speed of bioremediation for offshore spills. WUWT acolyte business as usual, folks.
And there he goes again.
RE “no links to any of these papers”
PCBs are more difficult to biodegrade than volatile organic compounds (VOCs). I’ve served as expert witness for PCB remediation litigation and have chaired a Battelle conference session on PCB remediation.
https://www.battelle.org/docs/default-source/conferences/sediments-conference/proceedings/2019-sediments-conference-proceedings/b6.-sediment-bioremediation/597.pdf?sfvrsn=6a00fced_2
“. . .no metrics on efficacy and speed of bioremediation for offshore spills”
While working the Gulf Oil Spill cleanup, I was told about ~ 50% of the oil was atomized to droplet size that was neutrally buoyant as it exited the well head at the ocean floor and as such, that oil remained at depth and did not rise to the surface. They undertook an extensive sampling program to search for that oil at depth but did not find it. What they did find were the fingerprint markers that biodegredation had occurred.
Here are conclusions from one of many MC252 biodegredation studies:
“CONCLUSION
A systems biology approach closely integrated with chemical and statistical analyses fueled by interest from the scientific community, regulating agencies, and general public led to an unprecedented near real-time understanding of the fate of MC-252 oil degradation in the Gulf of Mexico (Chakraborty et al., 2012). The rapid response by the scientific community was greatly successful in documenting a comprehensive sequence of events resulting from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. It was evident that microbes indigenous to the Gulf of Mexico waters were highly capable of mineralizing oil, and groups of microbes capable of degrading certain components of the oil hydrocarbons bloomed in sequence when those hydrocarbons were made available as substrates to them. Natural attenuation was partly facilitated by the addition of dispersant that increased the bioavailability of oil.While the dispersant was detrimental to the survival and health of different macro-organisms, representative microbes enriched from the plume were able to degrade oil better in its presence, and could further degrade certain components of the dispersant as well. Application of traditional microbiological methods with modern genome-based technologies led to an extensive understanding of how the deep-sea and shoreline microbial community responded. This provided an excellent opportunity for the scientific community to be able to predict microbial involvement in major oil spills in future.”
Full report:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232536266_Microbial_Response_to_the_MC-252_Oil_and_Corexit_9500_in_the_Gulf_of_Mexico
No evidence of enough clean up to make spills any more acceptable. But this is the case you are trying to make.
The case I’m trying to make is to respond to your initial “over geologic time” comment regarding biodegredation. You and I agree that spills are not acceptable. The microbes would disagree with us if they could. Life on earth is made possible in part by the CO2 feedstock in the atmosphere and to processes such as those the microbes use to break down hydrocarbons. To paraphrase Yogi Berra “It’s tough to make a carbon-based life form, especially without carbon”
He shows evidence of the oil being cleaned up. And your response is that he didn’t show evidence of the oil being cleaned up.
Bob, you really should stop digging, that hole is deep enough.
Nada relevant to the problem at hand.
Nice dodge their bob, I give 8 on a scale of 10.
Black as in green. A veritable smorgasbard of organic nutrients. Think of the bacteria (BLM)! and the cascade of green and higher lifeforms that feed off them. That said, everything in context, and, generally, in moderation.
Didn’t look like much of a slick considering. Industry has decades of moving offshore experience at the same time that oil on Texas beaches has been disappearing. Central coast accumulates wood, oceangraphic drifters, sargassum and all sorts of flotsam and jetsam, more than anywhere else in the gulf. Oil used to be beach visitors’ problems, businesses provided cleaning stations. Of course, both better pollution control from the industry and probably taking pressure off natural leaks helps, but area still collects interesting items.
Those going to such beaches even with oil had bigger problems, more drowned from water. People had better sense than to sit in big blobs of oil, or used to.
The problem right now is getting out there.
Yes, kinda ironic that the very thing causing the climate to change was taken out by a feature of climate change.
So much sunken Spanish treasure proves you a fool.
It is so telling (and entertaining) when people use childish putdowns and in their haste to do it, make simple childish errors in grammar…..”you a fool.”
On the other hand, I do apologise if English is not your fist language.
Simon, if you want to portray yourself as a pedant when it comes to grammar, perhaps you should also brush up on your proficiency in punctuation.
https://www.thepunctuationguide.com/ellipses.html
Hey, I’m not the one saying “you a fool.” I am the first to admit I make mistakes when “I do writering.” it is just so funny when it comes from someone accusing me of being a fool.
Then perhaps you should look up that perfectly correct expression and admit your mistake.
Hilariously, I just found the following quote that uses a similar structure, and it’s soooo appropriate:
I see the pedant is now trying to talk his way out of a hole of his own making. You are the one who sought to criticize another for less than perfect English.
“Kinda” vs “ you a fool” ???
Simple Simon says:
And yet:
Is perfectly correct English. Is is perhaps a mode of expression that is slightly too advanced for your simple abilities. I’m assuming that English is your first language and that you are just ignorant. Apologies if English is not your first language.
“Mock not others lest ye be mocked mightily in return”
Zig Zag Wanderer
Notice how Simon deftly avoids actually dealing with the contents of the post.
Pseudo intellectuals like him are so predictable.
In this context, there is nothing wrong with “you a fool”. In this case it can be considered to be a shortening of “you to be a fool”.
In my own sentence “considered to be a shortening” could also legitimately be written as “considered a shortening”.
Simon, why don’t you just admit to yourself, that you are no where near as intelligent as you believe yourself to be.
Thanks Simon, you helped me connect the dots on some history and current events.
At the famous Cerro de Pasco mine in Peru there is a medium sized open pit mine that you once passed on a road going to the modern pit. The mine tour stopped at the edge of the older pit along the road to point out that it was called the “Pit of Death” because of all the indigenous slaves that died working there for the Spanish. Some of that silver ended up in Spanish shipwrecks.
Fast forward to the Green Revolution in the 2020s and the slaves are in western China. The modern shipwrecks are unreliable grids backed up by excuses and massive investments with borrowed money. The empires will probably end the same way, as relicts of past missteps and overconfidence.
Unreliable energy (renewable wind and solar, in the parlance) takes far worse beatings from tropical cyclones. TC’s that have always happened and will continue to happen regardless of the climate scam schems and artifices.
A large Puerto Rican solar array farm taken out by Irma in 2017:
PR wind turbines and blades destroyed by Irma:
Turbine blades delaminated and destroyed by high winds of Irma:
Joel good examples how a storm can impact energy production.
Made me thinks about the resilience pros and cons of different types of energy. But not just production, transport, storage and consumption.
While offshore oil production can be severely impacted a resident can still utilise the petrol in his cars tank.
This gives oil a significant resilience advantage over solar and wind.
The mere fact that much bigger storms have been happening as far back as we have recorded records, demonstrates that your belief that big storms are a new feature is as false as you are.
The climate may be changing somewhere but apparently not in the USA.
A mile long oil slick. That would be about a quart of oil total.
Yes, in the last millimeter of depth. Is this an actual defense?
Since that’s about the thickness of the “slick”, yes it is a defense.
Since it’s ignoring anything under it, the propensity of molecular levels of hydrocarbon pollution to poison and destroy, and additional pollution over time, not too thoughtful.
Oh, almost forgot to mention extractor promises to avoid and be penalized for volumes orders of magnitude smaller than these. The usual Republican/Bill Murray conflation of rules with “guidelines”.
Oil floats on water. I was assuming an expert in oil as you claim to be, would now that already.
As to your fear of hydrocarbons, I’m sure a good therapist could help you with that.
It really is pathetic how desperate bob is getting these days.
It is so sad.
“Oil floats on water. I was assuming an expert in oil as you claim to be, would now that already.”
Not when it degrades and separates into light and heavy ends. I.e., quickly. If ALL oil floats, wonder how we get so much dropping into the seabed after virtually every oil spill.
OK, so perhaps the total leaked was 2 quarts instead of one.
Regardless, the bugs always take care of it quickly.
Wow! I’m guessing that the crew of the Noble Globetrotter II have some wild stories to tell, good thing nobody died there. The recovery of production and distillation is usually aided by a price increase due to limited supply, so these things, production wide, work themselves out. Sorry for the millions of people damaged by the 3 letter word starting with I.
In 2011, TS Irene remnants battered New England so badly that NOAA/NHC retired the name and replaced it in the list for 2017 with Irma. But Irma was so bad they retired that and replaced it with Ida for 2021.
The problem is the I letter falls about right at the end of August-early September when the Atlantic Basins waters are warmest and likeliest to produce nasty TCs.
Now if Ida gets retired, I’m going to suggest to them they replace Irma, and with iden. One B short of the dementia patient now occupying the White House. A far worse disaster.
Sounds like an excellent time to do much needed upgrades and improvements.
Jaw-dropping find from NASA:
LOL. Of course I know already CO2 can not possibly drive recent warming and it has to be contrails. I am still working it out in the details. Also I knew the IPCC is covering up the contrail warming, to protect their “can only be CO2” narrative. However it strikes me there are (forgotten) papers from NASA out there, which are literally telling the truth. You can’t make this up.
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/releases/2004/04-140.html
https://greenhousedefect.com/the-holy-grail-of-ecs/the-2xco2-forcing-disaster
Still suspicious of anything climate-wise coming out of NASA.
Wouldn’t increased cloud cover over North America be more of a result of increasing temperatures rather than the cause?
Increasing cloud cover, caused by increasing evaporation as a result of temperatures climbing out of the 70’s cold snap – act as a NEGATIVE feedback by blocking the Sun during the day. The positive feedback during the night would be dwarfted by the daytime reduction.
The climate system has a great deal of inertia and resists any force from disturbing it’s equilibrium.
a) contrails are caused by aircraft, nothing else
b) other than the IPCC claims, clouds are not cooling but warming the planet. Though it is undisputed that contrails are warming anyway.
At the risk of being accused of being a Simon like pedant, I’ve seen meteorites that cause contrails as well.
Excellent point!
Meteorites also create smoke which produce Noctilucent clouds.
We get loads of these at this latitude in summer.
Your cannot be cirrus!
I don’t think you are nimbus enough to pull that off.
Spent a several months stationed in Grand Isle as one of the auditors of the Gulf Oil Spill cleanup. I recall there were about 3000 employees working out of that command center. Seems like mother nature can wreak so much more damage than was done through the oil spill. Much of my time was spent in Port Fourchon and islands off of Grand Isle. Here’s Grand Isle beach nearing completion of the cleanup.
In case you’re wondering, it’s FOO-shawn.
That’s about as close as one can spell how it’s pronounced.
Creole French is ugly. French speakers can’t even understand it.
Or possibly they just refuse to, like when anglophones attempt to speak French.
I must admit that hearing Canadian French is painful to my ears, and I’m not even French. I can tell you that hearing most anglophones speaking French is very painful indeed, though.
As my dear sainted late mother used to say, “being French is a full-time occupation”.
Back in 2009-2010 we hosted a French high school exchange student. Took her to Montreal several times and she just couldn’t stand to listen to French Canadiens. She preferred they just speak to her in English, since pretty much every French Canadien speaks decent English.
I have been told by contemporary Parisians that Cajun French is archaic, stemming from two centuries of isolation from the francophone world. It’s not as bad as contemporary Americans trying to understand Chaucer, but it grates on the ear.
Probably as bad as contemporary English trying to understand American. 🤣
Now we know the damage Hurrincane I did to the oil industry in the Gulf.
Now we need a report on how all the windmill farms in Hurricane I’s path did.
Well I doubt there were many wind turbine farms in Ida’s path. But wind turbine blades and trains certainly don’t mix well.
Meanwhile in Luling, Texas last week:
https://youtu.be/_GamxPy0kfk
BTW, Luling is home to perhaps the best Buc-ee’s on all of I10. It’s almost a mandatory stop.
The Noble Corp’s statement:
“Initial findings from the ship’s ongoing condition assessment confirm that several riser joints and the lower marine riser package separated from the rig during the storm and sank to the seabed. Efforts are underway to locate and recover that equipment, and the Company believes that, if necessary, it can replace any missing or damaged equipment promptly. Additionally, one of the ship’s cofferdams in the moonpool area sustained damage during the weather event. The damaged cofferdam does not compromise the stability or structural integrity of the rig nor the safety of personnel onboard. The vessel successfully secured the well and detached from the blowout preventer in place on the well as part of its departure procedures.”
Translation: Going to be out of production for a while (several months?).
Fortunately, hydrocarbon fuels can be efficiently stored and distributed to weather these events and minimize disruption.
The storage of energy for easy retrieval is important in the recovery of any area impacted by the storm.
It’s not just keeping a small generator and tin of fuel in the garage.
Imagine if a town was run totally on renewable energy. How would the fire trucks and ambulances run?
You could look up the plans for NY state made after Sandy to create small independent island grids with battery and fuel cell backup to keep things running
Plans that were quickly abandoned. I wonder why.
Natural gas is a BULL market right now that can’t afford to lose any production:
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/74505/
Who remembers Hurricane Ike?
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/74505/#74587