Igor Mezic, a scientist at the University of California Santa Barbara devised a method that calculates the movement oil predictively as in the case of the Deepwater Horizon debacle.
"We predicted where the oil was going to go," says Mezic, who studies fluid dynamics. "We were able to do 3-day predictions pretty accurately."
Associates from the software development company, Aimdyn Inc. and NASA's Stennis Space Center described how they predicted the movement of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico after the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig on April 20.
The theory was accurately proved as the predictions Mezic and his colleagues made were manifested when oil washed ashore in the Mississippi River Delta and later, on the white-sand beaches of Pensacola, Florida, and they forecast that the spill would then move east toward Panama City Beach. Their predictions were accurate to within a couple of miles of the actual extent of the spill which was later assessed by aerial surveys.
Mezic's new approach to the problem bases itself on computations describing how slicks of oil tend to be stretched into filaments by motion at the sea surface. To produce predictions of oil movement after the Deepwater Horizon accident, the researchers incorporated forecasts of sea surface conditions from a U.S. Navy model.
The approach, says Mezic: "could be applied to many different kinds of situations where a contaminant or heat is moved around by a liquid or gas." Further refinements of this new methodology could be done in order to predict the spread of many other contaminants such as ash spewed out of an erupting volcano or warm air seeping into a climate-controlled building. [1]
The bill for cleaning up the oil spill has reached the largest amount in American history, a figure no less than $8bn and is still approximately two weeks from being sealed up for good.
Because of the oil rig explosion on April 20th and the environmental disaster it has triggered BP has been forced to abandon hopes of drilling in the Arctic. [2]
BP's targets for expanded production have become tougher to achieve following the oil spill, and its financial performance has suffered from higher costs such as fines.
The major challenge that has faced BP in the wake of the spill has been the diversion of vessels from other fields thus dislocating its drilling plans and knocking them off schedule.
The moratorium imposed by Barack Obama on new deepwater drilling has also slowed development plans at BP and across the entire industry. Even when the oil spill has been dealt with and the drilling moratorium can be lifted BP's damaged reputation is likely to mean more scrutiny from regulators than other companies, analysts have said. This means it will likely take longer than it would have expected in the past to bring fields to production. [3]
[1] http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-09/uoc--nms082710.php
[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/sep/03/oil-well-sealed-bp
[3] http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65267920100603
Image Source: http://climatelab.org/Deepwater_Horizon_Oil_Spill
