Here We Go Again?

Shares in Royal Dutch Shell fell more than 4 er cent today after an oil 'sheen' was spotted near its facilities in the Gulf of Mexico. The company admitted it does not yet know the cause of the one-mile by 10-mile sheen.

It added it had 'no current indication' it had come from its Mars or Ursa wells about 130 miles southeast of New Orleans.

Definitely something to keep an eye on.

However, in a statement on its website, the company said it had sent the Louisiana Responder, an oil spill response vessel with skimming and boom capabilities to the area 'out of prudent caution'.

It has also requested flights to monitor the sheen closely with additional aerial surveillance, it added.

Seems kind of fishy, i'll try to update as more news comes along.

[url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/markets/article-2128767/Shell-share-price-falls-4-sightings-unexplained-sheen-Gulf-Mexico.html?ITO=1490]source[/ url]

Hmmm, of course we are getting conflicting reports, but April again?!?! Isn't this month Satan's birthday or something crazy?

Royal Dutch Shell is blaming “natural seeps” for the 10-mile-long slick observed Wednesday evening between two of the company’s largest-producing sites in the central portion of the Gulf of Mexico. Despite Shell’s denial that either of its Ursa or Mars oil platforms is to blame, aerial surveillance footage shot by On Wings of Care pilot (and former NASA physicist) Bonny Schumaker casts doubt on the “natural seep” scenario (see photos below).

Here’s how Kristen Hays covered Shell’s denial for Reuters on April 12:
Royal Dutch Shell said an oil sheen near two of its offshore Gulf of Mexico oil and natural gas platforms was dissipating Thursday, and it was “very confident” its installations were not to blame.

www.stuarthsmith.com...
Man this issue is so volatile it is going to have everyone swimming in that great Egyptian river...Da Nile.

The company said in a statement that although Shell is confident that the sheen did not originate from its operations, the company would continue to respond.

source

The Gulf of Mexico is full of fissures in the sea bed which have been seeping oil and gas for a very long time. There are even sea creatures which have evolved to survive on the oil:

"Our first discovery was with trawls. We knew it was an area of massive seepage, and we expected that the oil seeps would poison everything around" the site. But they found just the opposite.

"On the first trawl, we brought up over two tons of stuff. We had a tough time getting the nets back on board because they were so full" of very odd-looking sea.floor creatures, Kennicutt said. "They were long strawlike things that turned out to be tube worms. "The clams were the first thing I noticed," he added. "They were pretty big, like the size of your hand, and it was obvious they had red blood inside, which is unusual. And these long tubes -- 3, 4 and 5 feet long -- we didn't know what they were, but they started bleeding red fluid, too. We didn't know what to make of it."

The biologists they consulted did know what to make of it. "The experts immediately recognized them as chemo-synthetic communities," creatures that get their energy from hydrocarbons -- oil and gas -- rather than from ordinary foods. So these animals are very much like, but still different from, recently discovered creatures living near very hot seafloor vent sites in the Pacific, Atlantic and other oceans. The difference, Kennicutt said, is that the animals living around cold seeps live on methane and oil, while the creatures growing near hot water vents exploit sulfur compounds in the hot water.

The discovery of abundant life where scientists expected a deserted seafloor also suggested that the seeps are a long-duration phenomenon. Indeed, the clams are thought to be about 100 years old, and the tube worms may live as long as 600 years, or more, Kennicutt said. The surprises kept pouring in as the researchers explored further and in more detail using research submarines. In some areas, the methane-metabolizing organisms even build up structures that resemble coral reefs.

So the whole area has been seeping oil for millenia, apparently.

It has long been known by geologists and oil industry workers that seeps exist. In Southern California, for example, there are seeps near Santa Barbara, at a geologic feature called Coal Oil Point. And, Roberts said, it's clear that "the Gulf of Mexico leaks like a sieve. You can't take a submarine dive without running into an oil or gas seep. And on a calm day, you can't take a boat ride without seeing gigantic oil slicks" on the sea surface.

Roberts added that natural seepage in places like the Gulf of Mexico "far exceeds anything that gets spilled" by oil tankers and other sources. "The results of this have been a big surprise for me," said Whelan. "I never would have expected that the gas is moving up so quickly and what a huge effect it has on the whole system."

Although the oil industry hasn't shown great enthusiasm for the idea -- arguing that the upward migration is too slow and too uncommon to do much good -- the search for new oil and gas supplies already has been affected, Whelan and Kennicutt said. Now, companies scan the sea surface for signs of oil slicks that might point to new deposits. "People are using airplane surveys for the slicks and are doing water column fluorescence measurements looking for the oil," Whelan said. "They're looking for the sources of the seeps and trying to hook that into the seismic evidence" normally used in searching for buried oil.

From www.rense.com... April 10, 2005

A search on the web indicates that seepage is fairly common. Although I am no fan of oil companies, there is a chance that, for once, they may actually be telling the truth.

Originally posted by FissionSurplus
The Gulf of Mexico is full of fissures in the sea bed which have been seeping oil and gas for a very long time. There are even sea creatures which have evolved to survive on the oil:

This is all new information to me. Thank you for that.

It would make sense that this sort of thing happens quite often when the oil is there naturally. Whether or not this turns out to be another busted part in the oil drilling process that just spews thousands of gallons of oil a day is still to be determined.

Still I am a little shocked to learn that oil randomly spills itself into the gulf.

and of course life will thrive given time. Simply amazing.

reply to post by FissionSurplus

This is true FS, we once had an oil rigger from the gulf on the boards providing evidence for these natural leaks that occur throughout the gulf. It makes sense though that people get a knee jerk reaction these days. I just hope natural "seeps" are all it is and nothing more serious, Thanks for the perspective.

A 2003 National Academy of Sciences report estimated that the many natural seeps in the Gulf of Mexico together emit an average of about 2,762 barrels per day. The exact amount fluctuates over time.

Read more: www.mysanantonio.com...

www.mysanantonio.com...

reply to post by FissionSurplus


I dont buy that for an instant

The pressure on that well head when it blew was huge. At the time it was stated that the pressure was so great it "may split the seabed" if the well head is blocked.

And this is what I believe happened. Oil may seep a little but certainly not enough to be noticeable on a scale looking like a leak.

If this has leaked again you can bet all yoir momey safely knowing that they will do anything and absolutely everyhing to keep this from the public.

They are criminals, they are liars and all those in charge at BP should be in prison for a very very long time.

They didnt even clean the damn beaches, they just shipped sand in and covered up the oil. Hey have created massive polution with corexit and created massive dead zones. We are seeing massive animal die offs across the ocean, we dont jnow BP are reaponsible for many of them but I hold them responsible.

They are obky interested in lining thier pockets, when it comes to responsibility they are the worst cowards and will do anything to shirk that responsibility.

These people are pure criminals, plain and simple.

Originally posted by speculativeoptimist
Hmmm, of course we are getting conflicting reports, but April again?!?! Isn't this month Satan's birthday or something crazy?

I believe you are referring to the "Feast of Moloch" which occurs around April 20th each year. There are several ATS threads about it, such as this among others.

I suspect we may see another tragic event/false flag this year on that date. Hopefully not...

Peace

reply to post by TheMindWar


If you are referring to the wellhead that blew courtesy of the crappy job done by Halliburton, I believe that well depth was around 18,000 ft, or over 3 miles down. www.offshore-technology.com...

The Gulf of Mexico is severely fissured, and oil can seep out, but that doesn't make it easy to get to the deep pockets of oil. Little blobs will seep up from way down, but a little bit of seepage does not make a well.

The oil companies want to hit the big pockets in order to get the most oil in the shortest amount of time, hence the deep water drilling. As was stated in the link in my previous post, geologists fly over the Gulf and look for seepage as a clue that the mother lode is deep underneath.

When the BP drillers hit the pocket of hydrocarbons under pressure, they hit it big, but it was too big for them to handle, obviously, and was done carelessly. Oil drilling is a dangerous job due to the pressures of the oil pools deep within the earth.

There are places around the world which seep oil tars (in the old days, called bitumen), which the ancients found quite handy for waterproofing stuff. But to get to the big sources that produce many barrels a day, they gotta dig down for it.

Again, I'm not fan of oil companies, and I believe for some weird reason the BP disaster was allowed to happen, but that doesn't change the natural geology of the Gulf nor the science of drilling for oil.

Drilling for oil is risky business both to those drilling, and those in the immediate surrounding environment.

Don't blame the drillers or the companies, blame ourselves for not choosing alternative sources of energy and demanding conveniences that we really have "no rights" to.

One day soon, alternate energy will be significantly more viable, and we'll be able to put these events and risks in the past.

reply to post by congoGORILLA


The companies deserve to be blamed. If I were running them, I would accept responsibility because I'm in control of the people under me, and so on and on until you reach the money-hungry guys at the bottom. That's right -- they want their money just like the guys at the top, and that's why they do what they do. The work is hard for a lot of them, but they do it because it pays well. They don't give a poo about the effects their job has, because they aren't the ones calling the shots. The guys at the top ultimately decide that, including investors. It's all mistakes due to greed and pressure.

I fill up my car with gasoline, but there are safe places from which to get oil, and then there are risky places. Who the hell had the idea of drilling miles below the surface of water to get oil? I mean, I wouldn't even imagine doing that because even something completely natural could cause it to break. What would make it worth it? ...some people apparently believe it's worth the money they get from it, and it ain't me or most of you. It's the rich pigs that live the high life who care more about themselves and their money than the people and things at the bottom of the pyramid.

Thanks for posting, though I am a little skeptical

Thanks for posting, though I am a little skeptical

sadly the world still revolves around oil

I think it's very typical..


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