Here are some BP presentation documents about what went wrong leading up to the disaster. There is quite a bit of information with assuredly a heart wrenching hearing tomorrow on the environmental impact.

I personally cannot look at those photos of animals drowning in oil and dying.

The above link has some good diagrams for more details on what we're looking at.

I guess we're really geeking out here, but considering the entire disaster impact is dependent on stopping the flow plus clean up, I guess that's ok.

Supposedly there are 4 vents on the cap, which we noted earlier. I guess what's going on is they are taking readings, seeing the volume getting up to top side and other metrics to then make adjustments.

The vents are not closed, so ya know, looking at spillcam and just the flow, we really cannot tell what's happening, beyond oil spewing out of the cap.

There seems to be some new activity, something coming off the seabed, but it looks like a box.

If someone finds a tweet or blog doing official real time updates on what's happening, let me know.

It's astounding I cannot find a few engineers somewhere using social media for accurate real time updates. They must be on the unemployment lines or scared shitless by some non-disclosure agreement where they are working (sic).

That's if they can capture enough of the oil, but that also means the top side capacity cannot handle all of the oil out of the well. I guess if they manage to capture any significant amount they could deal with that limitation.

spillcam looks like the oil flow out of the cap is slightly less. Anyone else taking a look and seeing any new activity, like a closing of a vent or a latch pin and so on?

It's not much less, just slightly to me. But who knows, this thing is almost hypnotic and I wonder if I'm getting hypnotized into wishful thinking.

On June 4, a total of 6,077 barrels of oil was collected and 15.7 million standard cubic feet of natural gas was flared

There are various estimates on total flow, typically 20,000 barrels a day but the real rate, which I wish they would measure, live on spillcam, so this guessing game can stop, is unknown.

It's pretty clear there are a host of variables they are having to deal with, plus not freeze up the pipe and the seawater itself is cold, which can cause hydrates to form and clog everything.

But assuming BP press people aren't lying (and clearly there press/marketing/public relations teams are quite the twister people)...

I know the relief values were open yesterday, not closed and they are a good diameter size, so if all of this is true hitting a 25% capture rate on first pass isn't too bad.

Sure there is crap spewing all over the gulf, but this appears to be an iterative process.

It looks like they are shutting off a value. I sure hope it doesn't freeze the damn thing.

The estimates on the spill rate vary widely, which is why I attached the latest report so you can see the methods and the details and the disparity. I'm going with at least 20,000 barrels a day and assume that's a minimum so this means, if BP isn't lying, they hit a 50% collection rate with the cap.

That's pretty good really all things considered. It's obviously a tuning game, dealing with pressures, stability and so on, I've watched them on spillcam continually "tune" it to try to collect more.

I think they need a second system.

That said, I just checked spillcam and right before the videos went off line, I could see the cap moving. It's a pressures/freeze game they are playing, truly a bitch.

Last reason I saw on why they cannot remove the BOP 5000 miles below the sea with a gushing well is it's too dangerous and it might all blow up. The details I do not know.

I'm assuming that they had it planned for 15,000 barrels a day already which is supposedly what the ship could process so the fact they ran out of room
is a very good sign!

I also watched one of those mechanical arms trying to get a socket wrench around a bolt to the point you would assuredly either need valium, or throw the computer screen across the room.

Seriously, trying to fit a socket wrench on one bolt went on for hours.

There is a real question on the true flow rate out of the broken BOP. Firstly, BP ran out of production capacity, which is 15,000 barrels per day (bpd). This means either BP didn't believe their cap would work, or BP itself is grossly underestimating the spill rate.

I took as the absolute minimum 20,000 bpd, but obviously designing for the minimum is not wise if one plans on capturing > 90% of the spill amount.

They have pressure gauges sensors now all around that BOP and cap. Also, those ROVs are each equipped with Sonar. Assuredly they could put some measurement sensors somewhere in the stream and find the true spill rate. I have no idea why they don't that, but maybe they believed their own denials and thus designed for a low spill rate.

Even now they are shooting for 20,000 bpd capacity, but is that really wise and shouldn't they be preparing for at least 30,000 bpd?

There is a massive amount of gas coming out of the well. It seems they have no other solutions but to burn it off at the surface. These are some scary pictures watching the controlled gas burn from the ship.

Right now, they have more of these caps moving to the sea floor. It looks like they have taller valves, closures on the valves that can be remotely controlled (which if you watch a mechanical arm try to close a value, that sure sounds more efficient!) and a host of new sensors and pipe heights. So, it looks like they are learning from their current cap design and doing redesigns top side to improve efficiency.

In other words, they are mechanically engineering new caps as a result of what they are learning about each attempt. This truly is engineering on the fly, anyone with a technical background can tell that by watching them through spillcam.

On the current cap, with 3 of the 4 vents open, just one vent closure increased the oil capture rate by 600 barrels per day. Last report was 11000 bpd and that is when they exceeded production capacity top side. Recall them must separate out seawater, gas, whatever from the actual oil before storage. That's not to make $$, that is to make sure they do not blow themselves up.

The more you let oil not escape, i.e. close valves, the more the overall force of the gusher grows, the pressure grows and potential hydrates can form and so on. The cap weight is 2 tons and is loaded with lead, trying to counter the force pressure net of the well vs. the sea pressure.

This is why it's an iterative process. Last thing you want to see is that cap get blown off by the gusher force itself. Or worse, it gets clogged.

Why I am focused so much on the engineering of this effort is all things are affected by total amount spilled and the rate.

It's the key thing, to stop the spill at the source. That should not diminish the efforts to capture the spill as close to the source as possible or to diminish the efforts to keep the oil out of marshes and all else that is going on.

The spill response is now massive, as if the spill, covering 4 states. Most of the wildlife recovered is already dead. They are putting up some nice images of pelicans getting washed and rescued, but for each lucky bird saved, it's a good 9 that are dead behind it (or more). Then there is all that one cannot see, a mammal maybe able to live counted in oil for awhile, but you can bet a host of other life, the minute the oil reaches it, dies and it's just falling to the bottom of the sea, you'll never see it.

While all are looking at the relief wells as the real solution, those too have had problems, so it's not guaranteed.

The good news is engineers are clearly in charge now and making some progress. Frankly the entire globe is dependent upon these cats figuring this out, which is why these oil open threads are so focused on the technical aspects and obviously highly supportive of their efforts.

Dylan Ratigan just had these guy on again. Folks, we'll see but spewing crap on TV claiming there is a 2nd massive leak on the seabed floor, 7 miles away and they should 'blow up the well' and "this will never been stopped" and so on ...

well, frankly, you need to read real engineers, real oil people, real mechanical engineers, real geologists and real scientists to obtain real information.

I'm just not seeing anything to back up these MSNBC rants frankly and each time, this guy's credibility is going further down the pipe.

I mean the entire nuclear bomb thing has been debunked, re-debunked and further debunked. How many debunkings does it take?

My understanding is this guy is an executive, not an engineer, so I'm starting to find this stuff a distraction.

It's bad enough, getting real data, real facts on what's going on and throwing CT rants around just is not helping.

Ratigan would do everybody a great favor to have on his show independent experts, research Professors, engineers to give a better feel for what BP is really hiding as well as commentary on the current efforts.

This is supposedly still with 3 of the 4 vents open. No idea when the production line, topside, will be increased. Supposedly there is another ship coming but ships mooovve sloowwly.

There are also reports of other leaks. The oil drum has a huge post on natural seepage. That said, there are some aerial views on some strange slicks, pointing to another well.

Frankly, I'll wait to see some credible verification what's going on, for that's just above my pay grade to ascertain oil leaks, how the slick forms and how it moves and how one ascertains the source point. We know for sure one puppy that is a massive gusher and that's the blown up well all of the focus is on.

This is getting fairly ridiculous for CNN is reporting the spill rate increased "exponentially". That's ridiculous, that's . I mean come on, these well have limits without any gear on them, just a hole in the ground.

They need to get give measurements out here, BP is playing games with the spill rate and they should just cough up.