Deepwater Horizon Macondo oil bubbling up to the surface: chemical match to BP crude confirmed

CONFIRMED: Oil bubbling up above Macondo well is chemical match to BP’s crude, says NOAA’s Ed Overton (PHOTOS)

AUGUST 26TH, 2011

Scientists: Oil fouling Gulf matches Deepwater Horizon well (photo gallery, video), Press-Register by Ben Raines, August 25, 2011:

Press-Register

Scientific analysis has confirmed that oil bubbling up above BP’s sealed Deepwater Horizon well in recent days is a chemical match for the hundreds of millions of gallons of oil that spewed into the Gulf last summer. [...]

“After examining the data, I think it’s a dead ringer for the MC252 oil, as good a match as I’ve seen,”[Ed] Overton* wrote in an email to the newspaper. [...]

In an emailed statement, BP officials wrote that the company had a vessel stationed at the site all day Thursday but never saw any oil. [...]

“There is still no evidence that the oil came from the Macondo well,” BP officials wrote in the emailed statement. [...]

How is the oil escaping?

Bob Bea, a prominent University of California petroleum engineer:

“Looks suspicious. The point of surfacing about one mile from the well is about the point that the oil should show up [...] Perhaps connections that developed between the well annulus (outside the casing), the reservoir sands about 17,000 feet below the seafloor and the natural seep fault features” could provide a pathway for oil to move from deep underground to the seafloor.

*”During the aftermath of the oil spill, Overton’s lab evaluated samples for NOAA, performing chemical analyses to determine toxicity levels and other important qualities of the oil. His lab has been studying the environmental impact of oil spills for NOAA since 1984, analyzing samples [...]” -Louisiana State University Media Relations, March 15, 2011

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