Leaking Oil Well Lacked Safeguard Device

By RUSSELL GOLD, BEN CASSELMAN And GUY CHAZAN, WSJ.com, April 28, 2010

The oil well spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico didn't have a remote-control shut-off switch used in two other major oil-producing nations as last-resort protection against underwater spills.

The lack of the device, called an acoustic switch, could amplify concerns over the environmental impact of offshore drilling after the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig last week.

The accident has led to one of the largest ever oil spills in U.S. water and the loss of 11 lives. On Wednesday federal investigators said the disaster is now releasing 5,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf, up from original estimates of 1,000 barrels a day.

U.S. regulators don't mandate use of the remote-control device on offshore rigs, and the Deepwater Horizon, hired by oil giant BP PLC, didn't have one. With the remote control, a crew can attempt to trigger an underwater valve that shuts down the well even if the oil rig itself is damaged or evacuated.

The efficacy of the devices is unclear. Major offshore oil-well blowouts are rare, and it remained unclear Wednesday evening whether acoustic switches have ever been put to the test in a real-world accident. When wells do surge out of control, the primary shut-off systems almost always work. Remote control systems such as the acoustic switch, which have been tested in simulations, are intended as a last resort.

Nevertheless, regulators in two major oil-producing countries, Norway and Brazil, in effect require them. Norway has had acoustic triggers on almost every offshore rig since 1993.

The U.S. considered requiring a remote-controlled shut-off mechanism several years ago, but drilling companies questioned its cost and effectiveness, according to the agency overseeing offshore drilling. The agency, the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, says it decided the remote device wasn't needed because rigs had other back-up plans to cut off a well.

The U.K., where BP is headquartered, doesn't require the use of acoustic triggers.

On all offshore oil rigs, there is one main switch for cutting off the flow of oil by closing a valve located on the ocean floor. Many rigs also have automatic systems, such as a "dead man" switch as a backup that is supposed to close the valve if it senses a catastrophic failure aboard the rig.

As a third line of defense, some rigs have the acoustic trigger: It's a football-sized remote control that uses sound waves to communicate with the valve on the seabed floor and close it.

An acoustic trigger costs about $500,000, industry officials said. The Deepwater Horizon had a replacement cost of about $560 million, and BP says it is spending $6 million a day to battle the oil spill. On Wednesday, crews set fire to part of the oil spill in an attempt to limit environmental damage.

Some major oil companies, including Royal Dutch Shell PLC and France's Total SA, sometimes use the device even where regulators don't call for it.

Transocean Ltd., which owned and operated the Deepwater Horizon and the shut-off valve, declined to comment on why a remote-control device wasn't installed on the rig or to speculate on whether such a device might have stopped the spill. A BP spokesman said the company wouldn't speculate on whether a remote control would have made a difference.

Much still isn't known about what caused the problems in Deepwater Horizon's well, nearly a mile beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. It went out of control, sending oil surging through pipes to the surface and causing a fire that ultimately sank the rig.

Unmanned submarines that arrived hours after the explosion have been unable to activate the shut-off valve on the seabed, called a blowout preventer.

BP says the Deepwater Horizon did have a "dead man" switch, which should have automatically closed the valve on the seabed in the event of a loss of power or communication from the rig. BP said it can't explain why it didn't shut off the well.

Transocean drillers aboard the rig at the time of the explosion, who should have been in a position to hit the main cutoff switch, are among the dead. It isn't known if they were able to reach the button, which would have been located in the area where the fire is likely to have started. Another possibility is that one of them did push the button, but it didn't work.

Tony Hayward, BP's CEO, said finding out why the blowout preventer didn't shut down the well is the key question in the investigation. "This is the failsafe mechanism that clearly has failed," Mr. Hayward said in an interview.

Lars Herbst, regional director of the Minerals Management Service in the Gulf of Mexico, said investigators are focusing on why the blowout preventer failed.

Industry consultants and petroleum engineers said that an acoustic remote-control may have been able to stop the well, but too much is still unknown about the accident to say that with certainty.

Rigs in Norway and Brazil are equipped with the remote-control devices, which can trigger the blowout preventers from a lifeboat in the event the electric cables connecting the valves to the drilling rig are damaged.

While U.S. regulators have called the acoustic switches unreliable and prone, in the past, to cause unnecessary shut-downs, Inger Anda, a spokeswoman for Norway's Petroleum Safety Authority, said the switches have a good track record in the North Sea. "It's been seen as the most successful and effective option," she said.

The manufacturers of the equipment, including Kongsberg Maritime AS, Sonardyne Ltd. and Nautronix PLC, say their equipment has improved significantly over the past decade.

The Brazilian government began urging the use of the remote-control equipment in 2007, after an extensive overhaul of its safety rules following a fire aboard an oil platform killed 11 people, said Raphael Moura, head of safety division at Brazil's National Petroleum Agency. "Our concern is both safety and the environment," he said.

Industry critics cite the lack of the remote control as a sign U.S. drilling policy has been too lax. "What we see, going back two decades, is an oil industry that has had way too much sway with federal regulations," said Dan McLaughlin, a spokesman for Democratic Florida Sen. Bill Nelson. "We are seeing our worst nightmare coming true."

U.S. regulators have considered mandating the use of remote-control acoustic switches or other back-up equipment at least since 2000. After a drilling ship accidentally released oil, the Minerals Management Service issued a safety notice that said a back-up system is "an essential component of a deepwater drilling system."

The industry argued against the acoustic systems. A 2001 report from the International Association of Drilling Contractors said "significant doubts remain in regard to the ability of this type of system to provide a reliable emergency back-up control system during an actual well flowing incident."

By 2003, U.S. regulators decided remote-controlled safeguards needed more study. A report commissioned by the Minerals Management Service said "acoustic systems are not recommended because they tend to be very costly."

A spokesman for the agency, Nicholas Pardi, said the decision not to require the device came, in part, after the agency took a survey that found most rigs already had back-up systems of some kind. Those systems include the unmanned submarines BP has been using to try to close the seabed valve.
—Jeff Fick contributed to this article.

Write to Russell Gold at russell.gold@wsj.com, Ben Casselman at ben.casselman@wsj.com and Guy Chazan at guy.chazan@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications:
The oil rig that exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico was owned by Transocean Ltd. and leased by BP PLC. A previous version of this article incorrectly said that BP owned the rig.

Officials investigate Argentina bomb threat as pilot claims Air France Flight 447 was blown out of the sky by terrorists

By Peter Allen, Ian Sparks and David Williams, Mail Online, June 3, 2009

Investigators are examining a bomb threat called in on a flight from Buenos Aires to Paris just days before Flight 447 disappeared over the Atlantic ocean, it has been revealed.

Aviation authorities are examining the possibility of a link between the threat to the Buenos Aires flight and the mysterious disappearance of Flight 447 with 228 people on board, a source has claimed.

Meanwhile an Air France pilot said it was 'highly likely' the jet was blown out of the sky by a bomb.

The long-haul captain said he believed Flight 447 was the victim of terrorist attack. No terrorist group has yet come forward to claim responsibility for such an attack, but the French government - baffled by the disappearance of the aircraft - has not ruled such an attack out.

Speaking under condition of anonymity to Le Figaro newspaper the pilot said: 'It is highly likely a bomb went off on board.

'I have flown these jets for Air France for more than ten years, and the chances of an electrical fault seem unfeasible to me.'

Ezeiza International Airport officials in Buenos Aires delayed an Air France flight from the city to Paris on the evening of May 27 after the bomb threat was called in.

Federal Police and airport safety officers inspected the plane and it was cleared for take-off, Argentine media reported. The search lasted about an hour and a half, and passengers were not evacuated from the plane.

Just four days later, Flight 447 dropped out of the sky so quickly that pilots did not even have time to make a Mayday call.

All 228 on board are believed to have perished.

‘Investigations are in process to see if the Argentina bomb threat was linked to what happened with the Brazil flight,’ said an Air France source.

‘Terrorism cannot be ruled out as we search for the reason for this tragedy.’

Investigators found debris from the wreckage of the doomed plane floating in the Atlantic yesterday - including a life jacket and a plane seat.

Now it's a race against time for the Brazilian Air Force to reach the crash site before the remaining debris sinks into the ocean - taking any chance of discovering what happened to Flight 447 with it.

They are desperate to recover the plane’s two black-box flight recorders which are now likely to be at the bottom of the ocean. They emit location signals for only 30 days.

But officials said there was virtually no chance of finding any of the 228 crew and passengers, including five Britons.

Distraught relatives who had prayed for a miracle gave up hope as experts were certain that all aboard died on the flight, which left Rio de Janeiro on Sunday night bound for Paris.

'I just want to find my son's body so that he can have a dignified burial,' said Aldair Gomes, the father of Marcelo Parente, who was the head of the Rio mayor's cabinet.

So far no bodies have been sighted on flyovers by the air force, which spotted evidence of the catastrophe yesterday, allowing the navy to mount a retrieval operation.

'The ships are equipped to arrive and pick up pieces of the Airbus,' Nogueira said.

'Each ship has two divers on board and smaller ships to throw into the ocean to try and get pieces.'

Helicopters would then be used to take wreckage of the Airbus A330 from the ships to a base on the Brazilian archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, 430 miles (700 km) from the crash site.

Today armed forces spokesman Christophe Prazuck said that the French army had no doubt that the debris belonged to the stricken plane.

Authorities are at a complete loss to explain why the four-year-old Airbus disappeared 400 miles off Brazil without issuing a Mayday.

A former Air France pilot said the aircraft might have hit a military jet or a plane used by drug smugglers.

‘Anything could have happened. Maybe a collision with another aircraft, maybe a military aircraft, maybe a drugs-smuggling aircraft which nobody reports missing,’ said Cedric Maniez.

Herve Morin, France’s defence minister, admitted last night there was ‘no evidence whatsoever’.

He added: ‘We cannot, by definition, exclude a terrorist attack, because terrorism is the main threat for all Western democracies.’

But it was significant that no terror group had claimed responsibility, he said.

The last radio message from Flight AF447 as it cruised at 522mph between Rio de Janeiro and Paris early on Monday reported heavy turbulence.

This raises the possibility of a catastrophic lightning strike – even though planes are built to withstand one.

‘It would be very unusual to have all the communications systems fail at once,’ said David Gleave, of Aviation Safety Investigations, a UK-based airport and air traffic control risk management consultancy.

‘That would tend to indicate that something catastrophic happened.’

An automatic message sent from the plane just before it disappeared said that it was losing pressure and had experienced an electrical failure.

French officials said bad weather was making the search difficult, with heavy cloud forcing planes to fly low over the water, limiting their line of vision.

A plane seat, a life jacket, metallic debris and signs of fuel were found by Brazilian military pilots yesterday about 410 miles north of the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha, roughly along the jet’s flightpath.

Investigators have confirmed they were from Flight 447.

There were no signs of life in two sightings of debris about 35 miles apart, Brazilian air force spokesman Jorge Amaral said.

‘The locations where the objects were found are toward the right of the point where the last signal of the plane was emitted,’ Mr Amaral said.

‘That suggests that it might have tried to make a turn, maybe to return to Fernando de Noronha, but that is just a hypothesis.’

Mr Amaral said authorities will not be able to confirm that the debris is from the plane until they can retrieve some of it from the ocean. Ships are not expected to arrive in the area until later today.

Air France is considered to be one of the world’s safest airlines and its A330 is one of the most secure passenger jets.

Jean-Louis Borloo, the French minister overseeing transportation, said: ‘There really had to be a succession of extraordinary events to be able to explain this situation.’

The chance of finding survivors was ‘very very small, even non-existent’, Mr Borloo added.

The five Britons, including an 11-year-old boy, were among passengers who numbered 61 French citizens, 58 Brazilians, 26 Germans, nine Chinese and nine Italians.

The 12-member crew included three pilots.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1190307/Pilot-claims-Air-France-Flight-447-blown-sky-terrorists-officials-investigate-Argentina-bomb-threat.html

Brazil launches shantytown works program

MICHAEL ASTOR, AP, March 7, 2008

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva traveled to a notoriously lawless shantytown to launch a public works project Friday, seeking to improve housing, roads, schools and sewage systems.

The nearly $1 billion program aims to wrest control of slums from heavily armed drug gangs by creating thousands of jobs and bringing an official presence into the squatter settlements that cover most of Rio de Janeiro's hillsides.

The program also seeks to grant land titles to residents, giving many an official address for the first time, as well as the ability to apply for credit and more incentive to invest in their homes.

"I'm tired of seeing Rio on the front page of newspapers as if the city is a symbol of violence and stray bullets, when 99 percent of the people here are honest," Silva told a cheering crowd at in the Alemao shantytown.

"Citizens who are bandits don't have to be treated with rose petals, but the police before coming here have to know that men, women and children also live here," he added.

Last year, the Alemao complex gained notoriety as the site of a monthslong battle between drug gangs and police that claimed at least 38 lives.

The violence culminated in a June police raid involving 1,350 officers that resulted in the killing of 19 alleged drug traffickers.

The violence has subsided, but police remain stationed behind sandbags outsides the slum's principle entrances, and drug gang members with automatic weapons remain a constant presence in Alemao's mazelike alleyways.

But on Friday a spirit of hope edged out fear.

"Here we vote and then we never see the politicians. It's unprecedented for the president to come to Alemao. This day will go down in history," said 29-year-old Roni Charles, who works with the AfroReggae community group that works to steer young people away from violence.

Hundreds of residents, many waving white flags, descended from exposed brick hovels, down narrow alleyways, to hear Silva speak on a makeshift stage set up in a small square.

Samba percussionists warmed up the crowd and a video showed an artist's rendering of the sprawling shantytown transformed into a utopian hillside community filled with wide avenues and an overhead cable car system to carry residents up and down steep hillsides from the commuter train station.

Silva said that in Alemao over 2,000 homes would be replaced and 4,000 would be renovated.

The program would also build new schools, job training centers, a health clinic, post office and create some 2,000 jobs in the community.

Rubem Cesar Fernandes of the Viva Rio anti-violence group said the investment program was an important step toward reducing tensions in a city where about one-fifth of the population lives in shantytowns.

"This is an important sign of the priority given to the urbanization of shantytowns," Fernandes said. "Because social policy is an essential precondition to a security policy."

"I really hope this will improve things. We really need peace and we really need jobs, let's hope we get a little of both from Lula, after all that's why we voted for him," said Roseangela Coutinho, a 31-year-old housewife, referring to the president by his nickname.

U.S. supplied intelligence for Colombia's military raid in Ecuador

Crisis deepens as Venezuela closes Colombian border
Henry Orrego, AFP, March 4, 2008

BOGOTA (AFP) - A crisis between three Latin American nations worsened Tuesday when Venezuela said it was closing its border with Colombia, even as frantic diplomatic talks to stave off war were about to begin.

Venezuelan Agriculture Minister Elia Jaua said "we have taken some measures, like closing the border," according to the Colombian television station Caracol.

The announcement aggravated a stand-off between Colombia and leftwing neighbors Venezuela and Ecuador that was triggered by a Colombian raid inside Ecuador to kill a senior FARC rebel commander.

An emergency session of the 34-member Organization of American States was to take place in Washington later Tuesday in a bid to quell the rising tensions.

There are fears an escalation of the dispute between Bogota, the United States' main ally in South America, and the two other nations -- both run by fiercely anti-US leftwing leaders and both OPEC members -- could engulf the region.

Venezuela and Ecuador have already ordered thousands of troops to their borders with Colombia, and ordered Bogota's ambassadors out of their countries amid sharpening rhetoric.

Colombia initially apologized to Ecuador for the pre-dawn Sunday raid on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia camp that killed Raul Reyes, considered the number two leader of the decades-old Marxist insurgency.

But it said it was justified in making the attack, and claimed documents recovered from rebel laptops proved the FARC had links with Quito and Caracas and had "transnational terrorist ambitions."

Ecuador has angrily rejected the allegations, and severed diplomatic relations with Bogota over the "succession of events and unfriendly accusations."

Ecuarian President Rafael Correa was to visit Brazil, Latin America's biggest diplomatic power, later Tuesday to present his grievances and drum up support. He was also to visit Peru, Venezuela, Panama and the Dominican Republic.

Venezuela has also denied Bogota's allegations, which included a charge that President Hugo Chavez paid the FARC 300 million dollars, calling them "absolute lies."

But Colombian President Alvaro Uribe on Tuesday said his country was going to ask the International Criminal Court to try Chavez for "sponsoring and financing genocide" by allegedly providing the money.

Colombia has said its raid on the rebel camp was an "autonomous operation," but admitted US intelligence was crucial.

Washington since 2000 has supplied Bogota with five billion dollars under Plan Colombia, ostensibly to fight drug trafficking.

Much of the money has gone to combating the FARC, which profits from the narcotics trade and kidnappings, and which is considered a "terrorist organization" by the US and the EU.

Cuba's former leader Fidel Castro weighed in on the matter Tuesday with an article in the state-run media accusing the United States of complicity in the "monstrous crime" in Ecuador.

"They were Yankee bombs guided by Yankee satellites," he wrote.

US officials have called for calm and urged the Organization of American States to resolve the crisis through dialogue.
_______________________________________

The AP reported on March 4, 2008 in an article by FRANK BAJAK:

Several Latin American leftist leaders have suggested the U.S. was intimately involved in executing the raid that killed Reyes. Colombian military officials have said U.S. satellite intelligence and communications intercepts have been key to putting the FARC on the defensive.

On Tuesday, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command would neither confirm or deny American military participation. "We do provide intelligence support to partner nations but I can't get into details on operations," Jose Ruiz told the AP from Miami.