Is the cap really working? An image progression

Is the oil spill cap really working? At least working to the extend "they" say it is? I don't think so, but let's take a look at the progression of the news stories and images for more detail.

Even the numbers are murky. Estimates peg the amount of oil floating in the ocean between 23 million and 49 million gallons. BP's latest fix, the "cut and cap," appears to be working, capturing more than 460,000 gallons per day, but it's aim is containment and not a permanent solution.

Cap Story from today.
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The top kill was supposed to have worked too.

'Top kill' stops gulf oil leak for now, official says

May 28, 2010|By Jim Tankersley, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Houma, La. — — Engineers have at least temporarily stopped the flow of oil and gas into the Gulf of Mexico from a gushing BP well, the federal government's top oil-spill commander, U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, said Thursday morning.

The "top kill" effort, launched Wednesday afternoon by industry and government engineers, had pumped enough drilling fluid to block oil and gas spewing from the well, Allen said. The pressure from the well was very low, he said, but persisting.

Top Kill Works Story
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The company temporarily stopped the flow of hydrocarbons while it was pumping drilling mud at high pressure earlier this week, but pressure from the well pushed back out into the ocean a combination of oil, gas and drilling fluid when the pumping stopped.

Mr. Hayward, in an appearance on CBS's "Early Show" said that his confidence level in the well-plugging bid remains at about 60% to 70%.

May 28th Story
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Gulf oil spill: BP says 'top kill' a failure, moves to new maneuver

May 29, 2010 | 5:02 pm
BP acknowledged the failure Saturday of its three-day effort to tamp down oil gushing from a blown out well and began work on a new operation to install a set of valves and pipe to pump oil to a surface ship.

May 29th Story
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And now June 8th:

Gulf oil spill reaches day 50, Obama wants an 'ass to kick,' residents just want a solution

Back to story from today, June 8th
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So now lets look at images from the spill.

Here is an image of the main leak from May 15th. Notice, this actually appears to have less oil coming from it than later images.
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/afb2c2e1fba7.jpg[/atsimg]


This is the supposed smaller leak from the pipe taken on May 26th:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/9b27a27a3bc4.jpg[/atsimg]
The above image was the one that BP showed the world for the most part almost exclusively since they started filming the leak up until the top kill method was started.

This image was from May 28th. The day the above article from the LA Times says BP claimed the top kill had worked:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/4dd1ad429cbf.jpg[/atsimg]

Just in case anyone seeing the last photo believes most of what we are seeing is mud from the top kill, here is an image from earlier in June:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/f552da8985aa.png[/atsimg]

And now, live and in living color from today, June 8th with the supposed cap and suction in place:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/9da798d2dcbc.png[/atsimg]

I will repeat what I posted at the start:

BP's latest fix, the "cut and cap," appears to be working, capturing more than 460,000 gallons per day....

Now I ask, if this is capturing 460,000 gallons of oil a day, how much more is coming from the pipe, and how much was coming from before the cap and suction?

Is this actually working? Or has BP made it worse? In my opinion it's at least the same as it was before the cap. It is definitely more than it was in the main leak image from May 15th.


[edit on 8-6-2010 by webpirate]

There has been speculation that the cut and cap with suction has actually made the leak worse.

"The oil was not freely flowing before the top kill or before they cut the pipe, Leifer said, but once the riser pipe was cleared, there was little blocking the oil's rise to the top of the blowout preventer," the paper noted. "Video images confirm that the flow of black oil is unimpeded."

"If the pipe behaved as a worst-case estimate you would have no visual change in the flow, and I don't see any obvious visual change," Leifer remarked. "How much larger I don't know but let's just quote BP."

This statement comes from Ira Leifer who is a University of California researcher and member of the Obama Administration's Flow Rate Technical Group.
Her comments

She also says that even BP admitted in their worst case scenario that up to 100,000 barrels a day could spill, but that was "highly unlikely."

As i said in a previouse post, the leak you have as the supposed main leak was not the leak BP where treating as the main leak, If you look at it the leak from the riser was only a partial leak from the cracks in the bent pipe. the other piture which has been called the "smaller leak" is a full pipe diameter leak.
Also in the picture dated May 15th you are looking at the leak from further away aswell as a different angle causing the illusion that it is smaller when it probably isnt.
As for it looking worse now, this could possibly be true but i think what some people are forgetting is that the oils is now having to out under the cap which may mean that the cloud looks wider. an example of this is if you hold a glass under the tap and let it overflow the water flowing over the edges will make it appear as if the flow was origionally that size.

[edit on 8-6-2010 by shmo5]

reply to post by shmo5


Oh I know about the illusion effect of making it wider. My point with that image and the article about collecting the amount of oil it was was to illustrate how much BP says it's collecting, and how much still appears to be escaping and finally that that has to be way higher than they have publicly estimated and admitted.

I still say whichever one is the main leak, it certainly looks like more is leaking now than a month ago.

reply to post by webpirate


Just making it clear incase other members didnt think about this affect. Also it is still a valid point considering the subject of using photos to compare the amount of oil leaking over a period of time.

At the end of the day we cannot estamate correctly the amount of oil from the pictures because we have no idea the amount of chemical dispersant they are pumping into it aswell.

BP claims that they are capturing at least half of the oil currently leaking out.

So, they have successfully slowed it down after increasing the flow.

In other words, it is still leaking at nearly the same rate, but they can now fill some tankers with some of the oil.

Impressive.