Political India: Engaging America

From The Hindu

In an indication of the depth of his administration's concern over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday spoke directly to the American people in a rare televised address from the Oval Office.

During the address, Mr. Obama not only underscored — as he has done repeatedly over the last few weeks — the various steps his government had taken to combat the disaster in the Gulf but also made the case for ending the United States' “addiction” to fossil fuel.

Outlining what he called his “battle plan” to tackle the consequences of the leak, Mr. Obama laid out three dimensions of his strategy: the clean-up operation, recovery and restoration of affected areas and persons, and ensuring that such a catastrophe never recurred.

In terms of the cleanup, Mr. Obama said that through the efforts led by Coast Guard chief Admiral Thad Allen, there were nearly 30,000 personnel working across four states to contain and clean up the oil. Over five-and-a-half million feet of boom had been laid across the water to block and absorb the approaching oil.

With regard to recovery and restoration of the Gulf Coast, Mr. Obama said he will not let the way of life of fishermen and other coastal residents be lost. He said he would direct the chairman of BP, whom he would be meeting on Wednesday, to “set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners who have been harmed as a result of his company's recklessness.” Mr. Obama added that this fund would not be controlled by BP but by an independent third party.

Mr. Obama emphasised on the steps being taking to ensure that “a disaster like this does not happen again.” A National Commission had been established to understand the causes of this disaster and recommend additional safety and environmental standards where needed.

He noted that he had also sought to reform the ailing Minerals Management Service, the agency responsible for regulating drilling and issuing permits. In part he hoped this would be aided by his decision to bring in new leadership at the agency in the form of Michael Bromwich, a “tough federal prosecutor and Inspector-General,” who has been charged with building an organisation that acted as “the oil industry's watchdog — not its partner.”

Labels: Barack Obama, BP oil spill, Gulf Coast oil spill

From The Hindu

Even as British Petroleum (BP) reported tentative signs of success in its latest attempt to slow the powerful gush of oil from the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico, Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, leading the federal government's response to the spill, said this was a “siege that is going to go on for a long time”.

He added that the mop-up operations were spread from south-central Louisiana to Port Saint Joe, Florida and they were “not going to end soon”. He went on to describe the situation in the Gulf as a “very, very, very tough problem”.

The Deepwater Horizon rig operated by BP, sank on April 22 following an explosion that killed 11 workers.

Speaking to CBS news channel, Admiral Allen said the effort would be a long-term campaign that would last for several more months. “This will only end when we intercept the well bore, pump mud down it to overcome the pressure of the oil coming up from the reservoir and put a cement plug in,” he said.

Further Admiral Allen warned that even after such a procedure, there would be oil on the water and along the coastline for “months to come”. This would be well into the fall, he noted. In earlier statements he had also indicated that the digging of relief wells, to take the pressure off the damaged rig, could take until August.

Admiral Allen’s comments came as BP reported it had started drawing the oil to a ship on the surface by deploying a containment cap on the lower marine riser package. The company said the cap, installed on June 3, had collected a total of 10,500 barrels of oil by June 5 and transported them to the Discoverer Enterprise drillship. However official estimates place the leak somewhere between 12,000 and 25,000 barrels of oil a day.

In a statement BP added that 22 million standard cubic feet of natural gas had been flared.

Costs and liabilities

BP also announced that the cost of the response to date amounted to approximately $1.25 billion, including the cost of the spill response, containment, relief well drilling, grants to the Gulf states, claims paid, and federal costs. This did not include its costs for a Louisiana barrier construction project, which was estimated to be $ 360 million. "It is too early to quantify other potential costs and liabilities associated with the incident," BP said.

Visiting fishermen and others in local communities in Louisiana recently, President Obama had reiterated his administration’s commitment to get BP to compensate them for their loss of income and damage to their livelihoods.

Yet BP’s share price actually rose 2.7 per cent on Monday morning, reportedly in response to statements by its Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg late last week that the company would aim "always to strike the right balance for shareholders between current returns through the dividend, sustained investment for long term growth and maintaining a prudent gearing level".

He said, "We will do all we can to protect and grow the value of the company in which you have invested," and added, "We fully understand the importance of our dividend to our shareholders."

Labels: Admiral Thad Allen, British Petroleum, Deepwater Horizon spill, Gulf Coast oil spill

From The Hindu

After 37 days of failure to halt the torrent of oil spilling from its damaged offshore rig into the Gulf of Mexico, engineers from rig owner British Petroleum (BP) and other agencies reportedly stemmed the flow using a “top kill” operation that choked off the leaking pipe with drilling fluids.

Quoting United States Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, leading the effort to curtail the spill, the LA Times newspaper reported on Thursday morning that “industry and government engineers had pumped enough drilling fluid to block oil and gas spewing from the well… [and the] pressure from the well was very low but persisting”.

The next step in the operation would be to pump cement into the hole to entomb the well, in preparation for which, Admiral Allen said, engineers were also pumping some debris into the blowout preventer at the top of the well.

However, neither the administration nor BP has yet commented on whether or not the flow of over 5,000 barrels of oil per day from the damaged MC252 offshore well had been stopped.

Earlier U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar had said, “We will keep our boot on their neck until the job gets done. And… we will make sure that all of their responsibilities are fulfilled to the people of the Gulf Coast and to the U.S. government.”

The early reports of success surfaced even as the Obama administration came under a barrage of criticism for failing to act decisively to stop the leak and clean up the massive environmental damage that has already occurred. Significant loss of animal and plant life as well as the livelihoods of shrimp farmers among others has been widely reported for weeks now along the fragile coastal marshlands of Louisiana.

Under rapidly mounting political pressure, the President was poised to announce an extension of a moratorium on deep-water offshore drilling for a further six months, according to reports that quoted the White House.

Enhanced safety standards

As stated by Reuters, President Obama “will announce standards to strengthen oversight of the industry and enhance safety, a first step in a process that the independent Presidential Commission will continue”.

The White House was further reported to have indicated that Mr. Obama would announce the cancellation of drilling leases for projects off the coast of Virginia and delays in both exploration and drilling off the coasts of Alaska.

In a further fallout from the crisis, it was reported that Elizabeth Birnbaum, Director, U.S. Minerals Management Service overseeing offshore drilling, had been fired.

Labels: Barack Obama, BP, British Petroleum, Gulf Coast oil spill, top kill operation

From The Hindu

In a pitched battle to shut off the MC252 well that has been spewing vast amounts of oil into the Gulf of Mexico for over a month, British Petroleum (BP) announced plans to use a new technical manoeuvre called a “top kill” operation.

The announcement was made even as the Obama administration came under fire from various quarters, including Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana, who expressed frustration at the delays in containing the damage the spill was doing to his State’s coastline. BP CEO Tony Hayward was reported to have said the manoeuvre had a “60 to 70 per cent chance of success”.

The top-kill operation entails the use of heavy drilling fluids that would be injected into the well to stem the flow of oil and gas and, ultimately, kill the well, according to a statement by BP. The petroleum major noted that preparations for this operation were already under way, with a view to deployment “within a few days”.

It also explained that the equipment was also in place to combine this operation with the injection under pressure of bridging material, aimed at sealing off the upward flow through a blow-out preventer (BOP).

Speaking alongside Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu and others, Mr. Jindal told the media gathering on the coastline, “For over two weeks we have been asking the United States Army Corps of Engineers to issue an emergency permit. We have answered every set of questions the same day they have asked those questions.”

However, Mr. Jindal reportedly said he had not yet obtained a permit to dredge up large amounts of sand to build massive booms along the coastline. He added, “Every day we do not fight this oil on a barrier island, every day we are not dredging sand means one more day this oil has a chance to come into our ecosystem, into our wetlands that are home to some of the nation’s most important fisheries.”

Govt determined to clean up spill

Ken Salazar, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, had strong words on the government’s determination to ensure that BP took the necessary actions. He said, “We will keep our boot on their neck until the job gets done. And… we will make sure that all of their responsibilities are fulfilled to the people of the Gulf Coast and to the U.S. government.”

Janet Napolitano, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary added, “We are going to stay on this and stay on BP until this gets done and it gets done the right way.”

Doug Suttles, COO for Global Exploration, BP, said the government was “clearly” expecting BP to “get this flow stopped and to get this cleanup done as quickly as possible”. However, he said, “We are putting everything we [can into] this. We have got the best people, the best scientists, whether it is from our own company or across the industry or from the government. So, I think everyone is frustrated.”

Providing technical details on the operation planned in parallel to the top-kill, BP said it was developing a “lower marine riser package” (LMRP) cap containment option. This would first involve removing the damaged riser from the top of the BOP, leaving a cleanly-cut pipe at the top of the BOP’s LMRP, BP said.

Then, as per the process proposed by BP, the LMRP cap, an “engineered containment device with a sealing grommet,” would be placed over the LMRP with the intention of capturing most of the oil and gas flowing from the well and transporting it to the drillship on the surface.

Labels: blow-out preventer, BP, Gulf Coast oil spill, oil spill, top-kill operation