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BREAKING NEWS! OIL LEAK IN GULF CONFIRMED FROM THE BP GULF OIL SPILL MACONDO WELL!

August 26, 2011 Comments off

In this video shot near the site of the Deepwater Horizon accident, globs of oil are seen blooming on the Gulf surface in iridescent yellow circles. Chemical analysis of the Press-Register’s samples by LSU scientists found that the oil could be from the BP well, but results were not conclusive. BP meanwhile said no oil was present when the company flew over the area Saturday.

Read more…

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Has BP really cleaned up the Gulf oil spill?

April 14, 2011 Comments off

guardian

A brown pelican coated in heavy oil wallows in the Louisiana surf, June 2010.

A brown pelican coated in heavy oil wallows in the Louisiana surf, June 2010. Photograph: Win Mcnamee

There are few people who can claim direct knowledge of the ocean floor, at least before the invention of the spill-cam, last year’s strangely compulsive live feed of the oil billowing out of BP‘s blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico. But for Samantha Joye it was familiar terrain. The intersection of oil, gas and marine life in the Mississippi Canyon has preoccupied the University of Georgia scientist for years. So one year after an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig, about 40 miles off the coast of Louisiana, killed 11 men and disgorged more than 4m barrels of crude, Joye could be forgiven for denying the official version of the BP oil disaster that life is returning to normal in the Gulf.

The view from her submarine is different, and her attachment is almost personal. On her descent to a location 10 miles from BP’s well in December, Joye landed on an ocean floor coated with dark brown muck about 4cm deep. Thick ropes of slime draped across coral like cobwebs in a haunted house. The few creatures that remained alive, such as the crabs, were too listless to flee. “Most of the time when you go at them with a submarine, they just run,” she says. “They weren’t running, they were just sitting there, dazed and stupefied. They certainly weren’t behaving as normal.” Her conclusion? “I think it is not beyond the imagination that 50% of the oil is still floating around out there.”

At a time when the White House, Congress, government officials and oil companies are trying to put the oil disaster behind them, that is not the message from the deep that people are waiting to hear. Joye’s data – and an outspoken manner for a scientist – have pitted her against the Obama adminstration’s scientists as well as other independent scientists who have come to different conclusions about the state of the Gulf. She is consumed Read more…

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Russia emerges as unlikely energy safe haven

March 14, 2011 Comments off

AFP – Turning the page on former disappointments, the world’s energy giants are flocking to Russia, whose vast resource riches look even more tempting at a time of turbulence in the Middle East.

In just a matter of weeks, the country has put the finishing touches on a clutch of joint exploration and share-swap agreements whose negotiation seemed impossible just a few years ago.

But with natural gas production stagnant and new oil wealth resting in hard-to-reach reserves, Russia is swinging the door open to Western companies, their presence now seen as essential to the country’s economic growth.

“Russia is today the go-to place for Read more…

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If Libyan unrest spreads, gas could reach $5

February 22, 2011 Comments off

Gary Strauss on Feb. 21, 2011 USA Today News

If political unrest in Libya spreads to other oil-rich countries and the ensuing chaos disrupts crude oil production, gas prices could hit $5 a gallon by peak summer driving season, industry analysts say.

Benchmark crude oil prices soared Monday, rising about 6% to $95.39 a barrel for April contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange as violence and a military crackdown spread in Libya, the first major oil-producer hit by a burgeoning anti-government movement. The increased violence prompted BP and Norway’s Statoil to pull oil workers from the besieged country.

“If this thing escalates and there’s a good chance that there’d be a shift in supplies, $5 gas isn’t out of the question,” says Darin Newsom, senior analyst at Read more…

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New Claims: BP Oil Disaster is Causing Health Problems

February 8, 2011 Comments off
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“Very disturbing findings” in chemical tests of Gulf residents -Bleeding from ears

January 31, 2011 Comments off
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No baby oysters being found in Louisiana’s most productive areas

January 28, 2011 Comments off

Oyster fishermen worried about problem area along the coast

NEW ORLEANS — In the waters stretching from the MR-GO, down to the mouth of the Mississippi River, oysters are having a tough time, and a mystery is unfolding in one of the state’s most productive areas for oysters.

“It’s not a good sign,” said John Tesvich, chairman of the Louisiana Oyster Task Force.

The sign is a lack of oyster spat, in what is known as coastal zone number two. Scientists are baffled, and they said so at a meeting on Tuesday of the Oyster Task Force.

“That’s really alarming, when we see large areas, some of the areas that are the heart of the predominant oyster seed ground, we’re not seeing the young spat this year,” Tesvich said. Read more…

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Russian government now largest shareholder in BP

January 20, 2011 Comments off

“Will almost certainly complicate the politics of levying and collecting damages” from Gulf oil disaster says Congressman

BP’s frantic efforts to repair its devastated reputation in the US have been set back by a major new alliance with the Russian government, prompting outraged comments from all sides of the political spectrum.

Amid continuing anger from the American public over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, politicians are calling for an investigation into BP’s deal to sell a 5 per cent stake in the company to the Russian state-controlled oil giant Rosneft.

That deal, which gives BP access to vast untapped oil reserves in the Arctic, was signed with fanfare in London on Friday night, but across the Atlantic, one Congressman renamed BP “Bolshoi Petroleum”. US critics also suggested BP has now become a national security threat, as well as environmental one.

“The national security implications of BP America being involved with the Russian company – that does require scrutiny by the Committee of Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS),” Michael Burgess, a Republican from Texas, said in a television interview hours after the deal was signed. Read more…

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Louisiana officials: Parts of coastline still heavily oiled

January 10, 2011 1 comment

More than eight months after an oil rig explosion launched the biggest oil disaster in U.S. history, Louisiana officials say they’re still finding thick layers of oil along parts of the state’s coastline.

“Every day, this shoreline is moving inland,” lessening flood protection for residents, Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser said.

On Friday, Robert Barham, secretary of Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, joined Nungesser on a tour of portion of Louisiana’s coastline still heavily oiled by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, according to a statement from the wildlife and fisheries department.

“It has been eight months since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, and five months since the well was capped. While workers along the coast dedicated themselves to cleaning up our shores there is still so much to be done,” Barham said in the statement.

During a walking tour of an area called Bay Jimmy, Nungesser said oil can be seen from a distance.

“When the tide is out … you can see thick oil onto the water for 30, 40 feet out,” the parish president said. “There’s been no mechanism to clean that up thus far.” Read more…

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BP Oil Spill: “People are getting sick all over the Gulf Coast”

January 6, 2011 Comments off

The effects of the disaster that poured millions and millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico last spring will have global ramifications, a Gulf Coast activist recently warned.

“What’s been done in the Gulf is going to eventually affect every single American citizen,” Kindra Arnesen told Project Gulf Impact in a recent interview.

She continued, “This is still going to go global because as the economy and the United States goes under the sledgehammer… the rest of the world is going to feel it.”

“This isn’t just about the United States. This isn’t just about the Gulf Coast. This is about a whole planet because one hand washes the other,” she added.

Arnesen, a South Louisiana mother who with BP’s invitation toured areas devastated by the Macondo Well explosion, described the negative health effects to which she and others, including oil spill clean up crews, were exposed around the Gulf Coast.

One such crew she encountered had brown spots on their bodies. Her friend on the same crew currently has bruising across her stomach, she said.

“It didn’t look like someone punched her in the stomach,” Arnesen explained. “It looked like the blood vessels underneath the skin surface were literally breaking and the blood was slowly coming to the surface.”

“People are getting sick all over the Gulf Coast,” she added. “If people who live here can get sick, then people who come here can very well get sick.”

Arnesen also noted that the chemicals used in the clean up are known to make animals sterile.

“We’re not that much different than a species in the Gulf,” she said, taking into account the area’s children.

According to the coastal zone director of Plaquemine Parish, the oil spread across the Louisiana shoreline after the well was capped in September from 287 miles in July to 320 miles in late November.

“The government does not have a plan,” Arnesen said. “BP is about to pull the response efforts out of the gulf. We’ve got to step up to the plate and say something.”

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