The Q4000, left, owned by Helix, is a drilling platform that is being modified to burn oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster. BP hopes to get the Q4000 to receive 5,000 to 10,000 barrels a day once it is fully operation. The primary colllection vessel at the site, the drill ship Discoverer Enteprise, has capacity to process 15,000 to 18,000 barrels daily.
The Q4000 will use Schlumberger's EverGreen burner, right, to flare off the siphoned oil, since the platform cannot process or store it. BP says it will use compressed air to make sure it burns cleanly.
The Evergreen burner turns a flow of oil and gas into a vapor that is pushed out its 12 nozzles.Currently, about 15,000 barrels of oil a day are being siphoned via the cap to the drillship Discoverer Enterprise. The gas is burned, and the oil is eventually off-loaded to a tanker. Both the oil and the gas are being flared at the Q4000 rig.
The decision to burn as much as 10,000 barrels of day of crude has sparked concerns that workers and residents could be exposed to toxic fumes. Such a system has never been used before to dispose of so much oil in a cleanup effort. (The Bellingham Herald, 6/16/2010, Chron, 6/11/2010, Inhabit, 6/9/2010)
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