Prominent Oil Industry Insider: "There's Another Leak, Much Bigger, 5 to 6 Miles Away"

[Ruby the Liberal]

From ZeroHegde, video from Ratigan:

Matt Simmons was an energy adviser to George W. Bush, is an adviser to the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre, and is a member of the National Petroleum Council and the Council on Foreign Relations. Simmon is chairman and CEO of Simmons & Company International, an investment bank catering to oil companies.

Simmons told Dylan Ratigan that "there's another leak, much bigger, 5 to 6 miles away" from the leaking riser and blowout preventer shown on the underwater cameras.

This article also references backup points from the 60 minutes video.

Article & Video at: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/prominent-oil-industry-insider-theres-another-leak-much-bigger-5-6-miles-away

[LakeSamish706]

1. They had this guy on the ED show today, and yep he does not feel that the amount

of oil came from this one pipe. That indeed there is a leak some 5 miles away. Be interesting to hear this from others.

[Catherina]

2. I'm not sure how much more bad news I can handle

Another leak? Much bigger?

Will this ever end?

(Mike Williams, the chief electronics technician on the Deepwater Horizon, and one of the last workers to leave the doomed rig) said they were told it would take 21 days; according to him, it actually took six weeks.

With the schedule slipping, Williams says a BP manager ordered a faster pace.

"And he requested to the driller, 'Hey, let's bump it up. Let's bump it up.' And what he was talking about there is he's bumping up the rate of penetration. How fast the drill bit is going down," Williams said.

Williams says going faster caused the bottom of the well to split open, swallowing tools and that drilling fluid called "mud."

"We actually got stuck. And we got stuck so bad we had to send tools down into the drill pipe and sever the pipe," Williams explained.

That well was abandoned and Deepwater Horizon had to drill a new route to the oil. It cost BP more than two weeks and millions of dollars.

"We were informed of this during one of the safety meetings, that somewhere in the neighborhood of $25 million was lost in bottom hole assembly and 'mud.' And you always kind of knew that in the back of your mind when they start throwing these big numbers around that there was gonna be a push coming, you know? A push to pick up production and pick up the pace," Williams said.

Asked if there was pressure on the crew after this happened, Williams told Pelley, "There's always pressure, but yes, the pressure was increased."

But the trouble was just beginning: when drilling resumed, Williams says there was an accident on the rig that has not been reported before. He says, four weeks before the explosion, the rig's most vital piece of safety equipment was damaged.

[dgibby]

3. OMG.

The hits just keep coming.

K&R

[Duer 157099]

4. Bizarre. Is this "Hey, look over here!" or is it

"Eh, leaks this big happen all the time, why there's one right over there..."

???

[Ruby the Liberal]

10. Not sure. The cross reference to the 60 minutes interview was interesting given the thesis.

How I wish we could get independent scientists (government/academia) out there with their underwater cameras to give us a view of what is actually happening. I can appreciate BP wanting to monitor their valves, but the pubic deserves to know what is going on.

[BootinUp]

5. Apparently he has lost credibility with the bloggers at TOD

as people there pointed out, the riser pipe isn't that long, probably just leaking from a tank on the sunken rig.

[Ruby the Liberal]

6. I hope they are right.

[Iwasthere]

7. Unless there is some king of fissure or path for the oil to get that far

Next we will here there a actually several of them, then a massive hole miles across will open up and ......

[TransitJohn]

8. Improbable.

Very improbable. Otherwise it would have been leaking out of the seafloor five miles away over geologic time...before this well spudded in.

[KansasVoter]

9. I call "bullshit" on this story. People love mystery's!

[Junkdrawer]

11. Where was the first, failed hole drilled? Remember on 60 minutes....

the witness said that they drilled a well that was later abandoned because of fracturing at the bottom.

[Ruby the Liberal]

12. Sadly, I think it is going to take years to sift through the pieces of data

and even then, we will end up with another useless 911 Commission or Warren Report.

[Catherina]

14. There were reports at DU about the fracturing in the bedrock n/t

[Canuckistanian]

13. So there's ANOTHER drilled hole at a depth of 10,000m?

Why weren't we informed about this?

[Ruby the Liberal]

15. Apparently, it was on the 60 minutes interview

I watched it, but missed that somehow. I need to re-view the video.

[amborin]

16. saw this in a TOD post, scary if accurate!