US oil giant says China spill worse than thought

Since coming back from my self-imposed isolation and pilgrimage, I have been kept busy with a deluge of bad news around the world. I have seeded several articles outside my normal scope of geohazards and environmental disasters because these corrupt and murderous scandals were all rooted on human greed and self-preservation. As I wrote before, many of our oil installations and exploration required heavy financial investment but were seriously compromised by sub-standard geohazards assessment - the direct results of professional negligence and heavy vested-interest interferences.

Many honest and professional industry workers had been edged out. In place, are subservient workers eager to please their unscrupulous masters. The result - a potent recipe for disasters. The recent spate of disasters are the results of stewing the potent soup of man-made disasters for the last 10 years. The "potent soup" is now ready for serving. Soup, any one?

The BP Macondo Gas blowout is a classic case; foreboding of more disasters to come. That was why I published on 13 July 2010:

http://bklim.newsvine.com/_news/2010/07/13/4671812-the-imminent-threat-of-a-bps-style-disaster-in-our-midst

Could a BP’s style disastrous oil spill happen in South-East Asia? It is not a question of IF but when. If the threat of a disastrous oil spill is imminent, should we then not try to avert it or be more prepared for the containment following the disaster? Should we not be concern of the environmental damages and its financial woes about to hit our shores?

As recent as 10 years ago, most wells would have blown at the GWSF hazardous zones. Now with advanced drilling technology, many of the wells “safely” bored through the GWSF hazardous zones without blowing out, to reach their high-pressured gas/oil reservoirs thousands of metres below. Unfortunately, gases (even at low pressure) do cause cavitations in the overlying unconsolidated sediments, as they escape into the water column. Drilling mud invasion into the highly fractured rock formation can seriously undermine the cementation of the top-hole section. “Damaged” geotechnical conditions beyond the immediate vicinity of the wells are not normally monitored. Abnormal drilling losses, complicated well cementation, erratic test results and gas influxes such as those observed while drilling the Macondo Well, are indicative of the problematic GWSF zones.

Given the high daily costs (>1 million USD/day) of drilling operation, the pressure to drill and complete the well in the shortest time possible is understandable for any oil company. Suppressing the blowout at shallow depths however only postpone and compound the disastrous consequence to the next higher cost level.

When I first heard of this Conoco-Phillips oil spill in the Bahai Bay, China, my initial fears that "the little leaks reported by Conoco-phillips" had been grossly understated. You cannot have a series of leaks near 2 platforms or locations, several km away from each other in such a short time. The common geological factor - most certainly a regional fault, means big problems. Not something minor you can handle using "band aid". Coming so close after the 11 March 2011 9 mag Japan Earthquake and their after shocks, I would think many of the Growth Faults in the region would have reactivated and released deep-seated gas and oil to the upper shallow emplacement (or accumulations). This would in turn trigger shallower gas and oil leaks to the seafloor periodically once the accumulations breached the overburden hydrostatic pressure.

This was what happened to the new found oil in my article published on 10 April 2011.

http://bklim.newsvine.com/_news/2011/04/10/6443959-part-1-mystery-of-the-new-found-oil-revealed

'Although the amount of the discovery is unknown, we anticipate that it will push the total amount of oil and oil-based drilling mud released past the previous estimate of 1,500 barrels.'

The discovery of "oil-based drilling mud on the sea floor' confirms the slow-acting but potent GWSF geohazards before the recent oil leaks. SO why did the world's foremost geohazards company did not see this coming in their geohazards assessment? Professional negligence or incompetence comes to mind.

As in the BP's Gulf Disaster, there would be definite cover-ups - to protect their dirty oil business practices from further liabilities. The oil industry is a basket case full of bad apples. So are the main media, the financial industry.........so what else is new?

More news on the oil spill cover up:

http://www.asianews.it/news-en/China-and-the-United-States-cover-up-oil-spill-in-Bohai-Bay-22244.html

You just can't win against these crooks.