The out-of-control well owned by French company Total in the central North Sea's Elgin field is still spewing natural gas into the air.  The good news is a crew was able to visit the rig yesterday, raising hopes that a top-kill can be conducted by pumping mud into the well from the rig itself, which would stop this blowout a lot faster than Plan B - drilling a relief well to perform a bottom-kill.  Also encouraging: the rate of gas flow seems to be decreasing.

We noted a small slick at this site on a radar satellite image taken March 27.  Another image, taken on April 4, also shows a somewhat smaller slick (see image below).  This is probably caused by natural-gas condensate, a volatile and toxic hydrocarbon liquid that evaporates relatively quickly.  We don't see any reason to expect this incident to morph into a significant oil spill. 

But this is yet another close call for the global oil industry since the disastrous Gulf blowout in 2010.  If this well had been tapping a high-pressure oil reservoir, like most of the new deepwater wells being drilled around the world, the outcome could have been a BP / Deepwater Horizon repeat. Ugh.  We're not ready to see that mess again any time soon.

Radar satellite image showing small slick at North Sea blowout site, taken on April 4, 2012 at 9:29 pm local time. Envisat ASAR image courtesy European Space Agency. (When are we going to launch a radar satellite here in the US?)

The big semisubmersible drill rig, built in China and now drilling a deepwater oil well for the Spanish company Repsol in the Florida Straits off Cuba (hey, it is a global industry), has finally made an appearance on a radar satellite image.

This Envisat ASAR image, shot at 11:43 pm local time on March 30, shows a trio of very bright spots about 17 miles north-northwest of Havana.  We think the largest of these spots, with an interesting cross-shaped "ringing" pattern often seen on radar images of big, boxy metal objects, is the Scarabeo-9 rig.  The other two spots may be crew vessels or workboats:

Detail from Envisat AASAR satellite radar image of Florida Straits, taken on March 30. 2012. We infer the large bright spot is the Scarabeo-9 semisubmersible drill rig.  Image courtesy European Space Agency.

The location marked in orange is a report we just got through the SkyTruth Alerts that a small possible oil slick was sighted nearby during a US Coast Guard overflight yesterday morning. We don't think this is anything alarming; it's probably just some of the typical oily crud you'll get from an active drilling operation at sea, that we observe on a regular basis in the Gulf of Mexico with our Gulf Monitoring Consortium partners. 

For those who want to know, here is our analysis of the location of the Scarabeo-9 drill rig based on this radar image.  If anyone can confirm this is indeed the location of the rig, please let us know:



Here's a zoomed-out look, showing the coastline of Cuba and the city of Havana:

Envisat ASAR radar satellite image courtesy European Space Agency.

   And here's the big picture, showing Cuba, Key West and the rig location:


We'll keep watching this area.  Many people are concerned about the potential of a major spill from this site affecting the east coast of Florida and the southeastern US, and the lack of oil spill response coordination and cooperation between Cuba and the United Sates. 

On March 26, Total reported a gas leak that forced them to evacuate more than 200 workers from a production platform in the Elgin field of the central North Sea, about 150 miles east of Aberdeen, Scotland.  It soon became clear they had an uncontrolled blowout of natural gas and liquid gas condensate, a potentially explosive situation that has caused other companies to evacuate and shut down operations at neighboring facilities miles away from Totals' Elgin platform.  The Oil Drum has compiled excellent information about this serious ongoing incident.  Hopefully the failed well will collapse on itself ("bridge over") and shut off the high-temperature, high-pressure flow of gas from this deep reservoir.  Otherwise, it may continue to flow and pose an extreme fire and explosion hazard until a relief well can be drilled, which could take a couple of months.

Map showing location of Elgin platform in North Sea, site of ongoing gas well blowout.

 This leak is mostly natural gas escaping into the atmosphere at sea level -- something we can't see on satellite imagery -- but a small slick of liquid gas condensate has also been reported at the site.  This Envisat ASAR radar satellite image, taken yesterday at about 9:23 pm local time, shows a patchy slick covering about 89 square kilometers (34 square miles).  The platform itself appears as a very bright spot on the radar image but it's covered up by our yellow rig icon marking the location:

Detail from satellite radar image taken March 27, 2012, showing small slick (probably natural gas condensate) apparently originating from gas well blowout at Total's Elgin platform.  Envisat ASAR image courtesy European Space Agency.