The vessel's written safety procedures appear to have made it difficult to respond swiftly to a disa

The top kill involves pumping heavy fluid under pressure into the failed blowout preventer, the huge stack of valves that stands on the seabed. Theoretically the fluid should be heavy enough to counteract the pressure of the oil surging upwards. If it's successful, cement would then be injected into the well to seal it.
So far, BP engineers have notched up a partial success: oil stops flowing out of the well when the fluid, known as kill mud, is being forced in. But they haven't reached their objective of killing the well, the point where the weight aarp discounts on rental cars of the mud column overwhelms the oil gusher completely. A BP spokesman compared aarp discounts on rental cars the current situation to two cars pushing against each other with the accelerator pedal down.
US President Barack Obama arrived in Louisiana Friday to tour what has become the worst-ever US oil disaster, as energy company BP's critical top-kill operation to cap the ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico entered its third day.
BP Plc's (BP.L) critical "top kill" effort to smother a gushing oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is making progress, but the company can't call it a success or failure until Sunday, Chief Executive Tony Hayward said.
Hayward said on Friday in a series of television interviews that the procedure, which began Wednesday afternoon, was operating aarp discounts on rental cars "according to plan" and it would be another 48 hours before BP had "a conclusive view."
A dramatic change in the Gulf of Mexico's loop current has trapped a slick of oil in a huge circular eddy that scientists said Thursday appears likely to push slowly west instead of pumping the oil south into the Florida Keys.
The shift, which oceanographers have been watching strengthen for a week, has at the least reduced the imminent environmental threat for Florida. Tar balls predicted to be floating in the Florida Straits by now instead might not arrive for weeks, months or -- depending on lots of variables -- maybe at all.
The oil leak on Mississippi Canyon seafloor of the Gulf of Mexico proceeds apace. It is not clear that recent actions have succeeded in plugging the leak. The widely dispersed petroleum is a great disaster, but I get the distinct impression that this oil is seen as despoiling a pristine environment aarp discounts on rental cars . Nothing could be further from the truth. I get this impression because, to my knowledge, aarp discounts on rental cars the sorry state of the Gulf of Mexico before the oil spill has not been discussed. Before the oil spill, the Gulf of Mexico was being ravaged by—
Production climbed 187,000 barrels, or 0.6 percent, to an average 29.372 million barrels a day, the highest level since December 2008, according to the survey. Output by members with quotas, all except Iraq, climbed 167,000 barrels to 27.042 million barrels a day, 2.197 million above their target.
OPEC cut its quotas by 4.2 million barrels aarp discounts on rental cars to 24.845 million barrels a day beginning in January 2009 as fuel demand fell during the worst recession since World War II. Compliance among the 11 members with quotas fell to 48 percent from 52 percent in April. All members with quotas exceeded their production limits.
Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. had hoped that the line — shut down since a spill earlier in the week — could be restarted by Thursday night, but officials said the process of coming back online has taken longer than expected.
"Volumes could be quickly ramped up to 100,000 bpd and hit 200,000 bpd by year end," Natural Resources Minister Ashti Hawrami told the Middle East Economic Survey (MEES) in its edition to appear on Monday.
The NOAA Ship Gordon Gunter conducting sampling in the Gulf will expand its mission to use its sophisticated sonar equipment and other scientific instruments to help define the subsurface plume near the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill site and adjacent area. The mission is a collaborative aarp discounts on rental cars project aarp discounts on rental cars among NOAA, academia and the private sector.
The Gunter will sail to the vicinity of the well head and begin a systematic survey using its 18 and 38 kHz sonar to define the shape and extent of the underwater plume. University of New Hampshire Joint Hydrographic Center aarp discounts on rental cars scientists onboard aarp discounts on rental cars will explore the feasibility of using mid-water mapping sonar to image the submerged plume in combination with new software that could result in 3-D images of what is happening underneath the surface.
If potential plumes aarp discounts on rental cars are identified, the Gunter will deploy a unique autonomous underwater vehicle provided by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Called the Gulper, the vehicle will take discrete water samples at various depths to allow precise characterization of any oil, dispersants, or other substances in the plume.
The flow of oil and gas from the broken well in the Gulf of Mexico has been stopped by pumping mud into it however the challenge will be whether that can be sustained, the U.S. incident commander Admiral Thad Allen said on Friday.
Allen said the next 12 to 18 hours will be "very critical" in the effort aarp discounts on rental cars to stop the gusher which has sent thousands of barrels of oil into the fragile ecosystem there, he said on ABC's "Good Morning America".
President Barack Obama ordered all 33 deepwater oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico to halt drilling and extended a moratorium on new deepwater wells, as BP temporarily aarp discounts on rental cars suspended its latest effort to contain the US’s biggest aarp discounts on rental cars oil spill.
Declaring that BP was now operating under his administration’s orders, Mr Obama used a rare televised press conference to try to assert control over the “tragedy” in the Gulf, as public frustration over the five-week-long disaster reaches boiling point.
Thrown on the defensive, President Barack Obama acknowledged aarp discounts on rental cars his administration could have done better in dealing with the biggest oil spill in the nation's history aarp discounts on rental cars and misjudged the industry's ability to cope with a worst-case scenario. Obama will make his second tour of the battered Gulf Coast on Friday.
"I take responsibility. aarp discounts on rental cars It is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down," Obama declared in a lengthy news conference at the White House on Thursday. As he spoke, well owner BP struggled anew to plug the blown well that exploded five weeks ago, killing 11 workers and sending millions of gallons of polluting oil gushing out.
Obama's words marked a clear shift of emphasis for an administration that previously had said it was generally "in charge" aarp discounts on rental cars but there were limits to what it could do — and that oil giant BP was responsible for stopping the flow and cleaning up the disastrous damage.
The vessel's written safety procedures appear to have made it difficult to respond swiftly aarp discounts on rental cars to a disaster aarp discounts on rental cars that escalated at the speed of the events on April 20. For example, the guidelines require that a rig worker attempting to contain a gas emergency had to call two senior rig officials before deciding what to do. One of them was in the shower during the critical minutes, according aarp discounts on rental cars to several crew members.
The written procedures required multiple people to jointly make decisions about how to respond to "dangerous" levels of gas—a term that wasn't precisely defined—and some members of the crew were unclear about who had authority aarp discounts on rental cars to initiate an emergency shutdown of the well.
The restrictions won't boost consumer gas prices in the short term because there's currently excess oil production globally, aarp discounts on rental cars says Robert Peterson, industry consultant aarp discounts on rental cars with Charles River Associates. The delays in drilling today will, instead, affect production years from now. . .
The delays will add up, says a report from consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. Earlier this month, before work was ordered halted on the 33 exploratory wells, Wood Mackenzie estimated that a six-month ban on new drilling would cause a 4% drop in deep-water Gulf oil production in 2011. Tighter safety regulations aarp discounts on rental cars will also drive drilling costs higher, which could make some areas in the Gulf too costly to explore further.
One thing at least is certain after BP’s makeover of the Gulf of Mexico into a sludge pit: corporate self-regulation and public oversight have failed. We need to rethink how companies operate in a fragile world and how governments monitor them.
Even energy lobbyists are changing their tack. Catherine aarp discounts on rental cars Reheis-Boyd, president of the Western States Petroleum Association, readily conceded at a debate in San Francisco last week that what happened with the Horizon was a "game-changer."
BP is likely to eventually stop the flow of oil from its explosion aarp discounts on rental cars in the Gulf of Mexico. After that happens, the autopsy of the spill will begin in earnest. But if the information dribbling into the public domain proves correct, the British energy giant will be a weakened creature aarp discounts on rental cars — so weak it will be vulnerable to a takeover.
aarp discounts on rental cars BP is the single biggest supplier aarp discounts on rental cars of fuel to the Department of Defense, with Pentagon contracts worth $2.2 billion a year, according to government records. BP is also the largest producer of oil on federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico, which makes it a significant contributor of revenue to the government.
During another of five congressional hearings Thursday into the disaster, two Transocean Ltd. workers who were aboard the rig when it exploded told members aarp discounts on rental cars of the House Judiciary Committee that there were safety issues with the rig.
Douglas Harold Brown, the chief mechanic and acting second engineer on the rig, said Transocean, the rig's operator, had reduced the number of crew members in the engine room from six to three, which put employees behind in completing preventative maintenance. One worker was eventually added back, but "that still left us two people short," Mr. Brown said.
That early outlook issued Thursday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric aarp discounts on rental cars Administration doesn't aarp discounts on rental cars say that any one part of the Atlantic or Gulf is targeted, only that there will be more tropical-storm bullets to dodge than normal -- 14 to 23 -- with as many as 14 developing into hurricanes and up to seven becoming major hurricanes, with sustained winds of at least 111 mph. . .
NOAA climate scientists say several factors are makin