check this story out...based on this article, i would expect to see a huge sell-off tomorrow going into the weekend...it's good to be short!
ill Responders Brace For Hurricane Season's First Storm
Jun 24, 2010 17:55:43 (ET)
By Susan Daker and Angel Gonzalez
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
HOUSTON (Dow Jones)--Responders to the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history have struggled for two months to kill the flow from the mile-deep Gulf of Mexico well. The challenge will soon be compounded by the arrival of powerful storms that pummel the region in the summer.
Metereologists say a tropical wave brewing in the Caribbean could become Alex, this season's first named storm, by this weekend. BP Plc (BP, BP.LN), which owns the well, and federal authorities have been making preparations to mitigate the impact of storms on their oil containment efforts, but their plans hinge on a hurricane hitting later in the summer. If Alex materializes and heads over the site of the Deepwater Horizon spill, the 1,800-person flotilla that has been painstakingly assembled by BP and the U.S. Coast Guard will have to scatter days in advance.
That means that the gusher, which has been somewhat contained by two storage vessels vacuuming crude from the damaged Macondo well, would once again freely flow into the water. The drilling of the two relief wells that are supposed to permanently kill the leak by early August would be stalled for days. Moreover, if a storm shows up next week, BP's plans to double the rate of capture to 53,000 barrels a day by bringing a third collecting ship next week could be temporarily dashed. Scientists currently estimate that the well is spewing 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil a day.
Hurricanes are nothing new to the Gulf Coast, and oil companies routinely evacuate their personnel and sometimes shut down production platforms when a storm approaches. But the oil collection effort, the result of several failures and improvisations, is still a fragile construct. It stops at the slightest sign of bad weather: if lighting is seen within five miles of the well the system must be halted, U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen has said. Moreover, the combined onshore and offshore response effort has brought thousands of additional people to hurricane country, which would be need to be evacuated too. There are over 6,000 response vessels from Florida to Louisiana that are helping in the effort to spot oil and place protective booms.
The interruption of BP's delicate dance above the spill site would have to begin six to seven days before the arrival of a storm, Adm. Allen said in a recent news conference.
"We're going to have to look at the tracks of these storms, look at the probabilities, and have to act very early on," said Adm. Allen. Any storm entering the area between the Yucatan Channel and the Straits of Florida "should prompt action at that point."
At the Deepwater Horizon site, the Discoverer Enterprise would have to be the first ship to unplug from the collection, six to seven days before a storm arrives. BP spokesman David Nicholas said it could take "a couple of days" to disconnect the fixed riser that captures oil from the well and ships it to the vessel. The Q4000, a smaller collecting vessel, would take less time to disconnect because it is connected to the well via flexible hoses, Nicholas said. The 15 or so subsea robots that crawl around the seabottom would have to be pulled up into their home vessels, and the two drilling rigs, each of which have 150 people on board, must also pick up and leave, Nicholas said. He added that the company would act with utmost caution to the perceived threat of a storm. "The safety of the people is paramount," he said.
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