 | Gulf Oil Spill: With so many oil resources, can't we just drill somewhere else? | The Oil Drum | The BP Deepwater Oil Spill - LMRP Attempt Continued and Sunday's Open Thread |  |
Deepwater Oil Spill - The LMRP Attempt, the "Press Conference," and a Live Open Thread
Posted by Gail the Actuary on May 29, 2010 - 7:30pm
New thread, please redirect to http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6538.
BP is now saying that its Top Kill approach has failed, and it is moving on to LMRP. A few comments from the press:
Top Kill Fails To Plug Oil Spill, BP Now To Try LMRP Cap
BP said preparations have been made for the possible deployment of the lower marine riser package (LMRP) cap containment system, which would be complex because of the depth of the oil leak.
Deployment would first involve removing the damaged riser from the top of the failed BOP to leave a cleanly-cut pipe at the top of the BOP's LMRP.
The cap, a containment device with a sealing grommet, will be connected to a riser from the Discoverer Enterprise drillship, 5,000 feet above on the surface, and placed over the LMRP with the intention of capturing most of the oil and gas flowing from the well.
Mr Suttles said it should capture "most of the oil" and was expected to last at least four days but "we cannot guarantee success at this time."
Under the fold (click "there's more"), I talk a bit about the Lower Marine Riser Package (LMRP) and what we know at this point. Please elaborate other facts in the comments.
(PG here, and following Gail's post below are HO's thoughts on the press conference...)
This is a diagram that Heading Out posted a few days ago, of the LMRP.
According to Upstream Online:
If the top kill does not work, the UK supermajor plans to cut off the riser from the lower marine riser package (LMRP) and attach another to collect the flow.
The device would be coupled to a flex joint above the LMRP with a sealing grommet to keep water out of the flow and control gas hydrate formation.
The cap also has valves to inject methanol or hot water into the production stream.
BP has already lowered the LMRP cap to the seafloor so it could be deployed immediately after a failed top kill.
Installing the cap would take about four days, Suttles said, and it could be in place early next week.
The LMRP cap would allow BP to capture as much of the flow from the well as possible while it works on other options to kill the well, he said.
He announced Wednesday that BP preferred option in that instance would be to add a second BOP on top of the first.
Heading Out's Thoughts on the Press Conference
BP and Admiral Landry just held a Press Conference in which they said that, based on a decision 90 minutes ago, by the “best and brightest minds” that it was time to move on the next option, the Lower Marine Riser Package (LMRP). BP was unable to block sufficient flow out of the well to make the injection of cement possible, and thus to kill the well. They had made, I believe he said, three attempts to inject material (the junk shots) without being able to get that material to block the passages through the Blow-Out Preventer (BOP). (Unfortunately I missed a large part of his opening remarks, and thus have only the question response to go on at present.) The volume of mud used did not appear to have changed from earlier reports at some 30,000 barrels.
Mr Suttles said that they had given the technique every chance, but could not get it to start to provide an effective seal. They had, however, determined that the majority of the pressure restrictions to the flow of oil was coming from some resistance within the well itself, and from the BOP. Since the riser above the BOP was not contributing much to the resistance, and thus to control of the oil flow, the next plan is to remove it, using a band saw device (of which pictures will be available) and then to lower the LMRP onto the existing BOP. They intend to cut the surface flat that the LMRP will sit on, so that it will give a good, but not perfect, seal. Thus there will be some leakage around the joint, and they will monitor that and use dispersant as appropriate.
The new change should take somewhere between 4 and 7 days to implement. The assembly, which has been constructed, is not the Top Hat assembly built earlier, to fit on the bottom of a riser. Flow of oil from the LMRP will rise up a 6 7/8 inch drill pipe within the riser (the same size as the one currently fitted to the RIT). The riser will also carry hot water down to the LMRP to protect against the formation of hydrates.
He noted that their inability to stop the well “scares everybody” but is reasonably confident (no success percentage estimates) that this will collect the majority of the oil and gas. Because they do not know the flow path of the oil below the seabed, it is difficult to estimate what is actually going on in terms of oil path below the BOP. Thus they are, again, trying something that has never been done before, but expect, based on the RIT, that it will work.
On being asked about the cleanup of the dispersed oil – he pointed out that the reason that the dispersant was used was to break the oil into small droplets. These are small enough to be consumed by the microbes in the sea, and thus there is no plan to do other than let nature take its course. For the oil on the surface, they are getting better at spotting oil pools and sending skimmers to deal with them.
The Admiral drew attention to the article on Hurricanes and the Oil Spill which is available at the Unified Command Web site.
The relief well is about half-way through the rock it must drill (about 6,000 ft below sea level) but progress will slow as the well deepens. A diagram of the LMRP is as shown above by Gail, from one of my previous posts.
Deepwater Oil Spill - The LMRP Attempt, the "Press Conference," and a Live Open Thread
PDF version
367 comments
Deepwater Oil Spill - The LMRP Attempt, the "Press Conference," and a Live Open Thread
PDF version
367 comments
Contact
- Content: editors at theoildrum dot com
- Tech support: support at theoildrum dot com
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
1. The Oil Drum is a pretty special place. We strive to maintain a high signal to noise ratio in our comment threads. Short, unengaging comments, or comments that are off topic, are likely to be deleted without notice. (to be clear--on point humor and levity, more than welcome.)
We are trying to perform a service to the public here to coordinate smart people who know their stuff with other people who want to learn about what's going on. Promotion of that ideal will be the criteria by which we make our decisions about what stays and what goes.
2. If you see a problematic comment USE THE COMMENT MODERATION SYSTEM--see the "Flag as inappropriate" and (?) beside it? Learn more there. If you see comments that are questionable after you've done that (that aren't being removed), let us know at the eds email address.
It is up to this community to enforce the norms we have established here (a high signal to noise ratio), keep. it. up.
Our guide to commenting at TOD can be found here: http://www.theoildrum.com/special/guidelines . Please check it out if you are unfamiliar with it, but it is essentially 1) citations welcome, 2) be kind to others, and 3) be nice to the furniture.
3. We have gotten a lot of queries whether this bump in traffic is adding costs to keep the site functioning. Truth is, we are incurring added expenses from these events. It is also true that we try not to beg from you very often as we are not the types to bother you with constant queries.
That being said, if you are inclined to help out, your support is always welcome and very much appreciated. To those who have already given, thank you very much.
You can find the donate button in the top left hand corner of the main page.
4. If you have come here to vet your plan to kill the well, understand that you will be queried on whether or not you have read the other 10 previous comment threads and all the myriad plans that have already been run by the kind folks in this room; if you have actually read all 10 comment threads and still think your plan has legs, well, then maybe yours really is the one that will save the Gulf of Mexico.
This is not to say that well considered questions about current attempts and modifications to those attempts are not welcome; they are. But try to place them in context and in what's actually going on, as opposed to your MacGyver dream solution where you have a 10 megaton bomb, an ice pick, and Commander Spock at your side.
5. Also, if you're looking for live chat and are IRC capable, go to freenode, the channel is #theoildrum
(google MIRC and download it; Hit the lightening bolt and fill in your info; select the server as "freenode" (it is in the server list), hit connect; when connected type /join #theoildrum)
PG - Appreciate your years of dedicated service. As many have noted, the lower signal/noise ratio is largely due to people who joined TOD post the DWH disaster. Don't know if it is possible with the blog software, but it would be nice to have a thread where comments are limited to posters who were members before 20 April 2010.
As a noob who is here for the signal, I'd gladly give up my ability to comment if it would help reduce the noise (and because everything else out there seems to pointed 180* from the signal;-)
But...wait...if that rule were in effect now, I wouldn't be able to post a comment supporting that rule...wait...Whoa! I think I just blew my own mind!
(with a nod to Keanu Reeves, who could solve this in a jiffy.)
The noisiest and loudest posters like Cargill are what the references made to signal to noise are about. I don't think you would ever be able to generate as much static as that one does. No one would.
Hi, I wanted to let you know that this is a great discussion thread and I appreciate the varied knowledge base of the people who have contributed to the discussion, especially at the bottom of the thread. I am not not a trained petroleum industry professional, but I do have an engineering background, and I must agree that the LMRP does not not look like the most feasible solution. I think the whole challenge with this crisis is one of pressure and fluid dynamics, and I don't think a riser that is that the same size as the RIT can hold the seal on the LMRP for a 21 inch well pipe that is flowing at 13,000 psi. I may be naive but I think at the least they need to use riser with a bigger dia if they want to release some pressure from the seal. Alternatively I think the BOP on BOP may have more promise than this solution. thanks Arshad
It's done... My worst case was a mil gallons of oil in the GoM for 90 days. I thought that was a really wild pessimistic conclusion but it’s looking real.
Any EXPERTS want to dispute that?
Profgoose -
With some trepidation I'm writing to gently point out that the experts, and the professionals too, seem somewhat at a loss as to what to do for the best about this rogue well, with its unique wreckage and exceptional outflows, sea depth, dispersant downflows, negligence, mendacity, financial stakes, ecology, fisheries, hurricane prospects, political sensitivity, and media coverage, all in the mix. Added to which, Peak Oil is looming up.
Such are the connotations of this thoroughly oiled sort of swan that at least one prominent figure (a former Bush advisor whom it might be crass to name) appears to have gone clean out of his mind with the additional stress.
Given that no visible consensus as to engineering solutions has arisen in over a month, perhaps it is time to look at what might attract agreement and then fashion it into a practical proposal ?
To this end, I'd suggest that it would be imprudent to alter the chaotic wreckage for any connection-based control option without first having deployed a containment-based control option for immediate positioning in the event of any failure that risked increasing the outflow.
The likelyhood of incompetence yielding such a failure is perhaps best illustrated by NASA's problems when someone confused miles and kilometres. The probe reached mars ok, but rather than settling gently into position to start its work, it went splat into the planet. Way to go!
Given that the business plans of even the world's most powerful corporations are grossly unsustainable, which is but incompetence on a grand scale, the probability of further failure, arising somewhere between Haywood and his working minions on site, looks rather nearer to one than zero.
Whether the idea of a containment option may find agreement here on TOD depends on our confidence in the best form of containment that we as a fraternity could devise. Having looked at the parameters for a month there seem to be various distinct requirements that must be met, any one of which may be insuperable.
- Given that oil extraction isn't my field, it is for others to explain and if possible resolve any problems they see.
1/. Ballast must be delivered by chute around the wellhead to provide a stable foundation for the container, (perhaps after the removal of soft silt ?).
2/. The container must be made double skinned and topped with an ample outflow pipe and stopcock, and be large enough to easily accomodate the BOP. Within its heavy framing its inner skin needs to help sweep out any hydrates and so should be conical. Its heavy duty outer skin of marine s/steel must be domed to withstand the delivery of stabilization ballast by wide chute from 5,000 feet. While the two skins are joined onto framing round the outflow pipe, there is no floor between their bottom edges. Connections for hoses for liquid concrete delivery are set around the outflow pipe.
3/. Sufficient barges to deliver say 250,000 Ts of ballast to the site need to be commandeered, emptied, loaded with ballast and sailed to nearby harbours to await orders. Custom-rigged barges able to provide say 10,000Ts of concrete need to be similarly positioned.
4/. Prior to any connection-based option being attempted, the barge fleet and the container's barge are anchored on site, and the container is positioned near the wellhead, with its stopcock fully open and concrete hoses attached.
5/. On the order to deploy the container, the ROVs are used to set cutting charges on all pipework from the BOP and around the site. Once cut away, the wreckage is towed clear and further ballast laid as required. The container is lowered over the BOP to rest on its pad of ballast.
6/. The double skin is immediately filled with concrete which flows onto the pad providing a seal at the container's edges. Ballast is chuted down to bury it to around 3/4ths height, before building a base to that height over a wide radius. The concrete hoses are removed and a concrete pad is laid around the outflow.
7/. Once the concrete has begun to cure, the stopcock is closed, very slowly. It and the outflow pipe are then deeply buried under concrete, before the many remaining barge-loads of ballast are delivered to form a very large mound. An ROV is permanently stationed to patrol the mound on a daily basis, for at least the next decade.
8/. Send the bill to BP.
___________________________________________
Starting with seabed issues, I've both unknowns and uncertainties about the design and deployment sequence sketched above. What seems certain is that neither waiting for the secondary wells nor altering the wreckage to make connections without a plan B seem remotely viable options.
Thus it seems there are now two prime questions to address:
- What is the best containment option that could be deployed ?
- What are the prospects of deploying a reliable containment not as the 'backstop' capacity, but as a distinctly preferable option to attempting an engineered connection to a malfunctioning BOP ?
Hoping these may at least be regarded as fair questions from a layman,
regards,
Backstop
For unknown reasons, BP doesn't appear to be entertaining any ideas that decouple the containment from the extraction. We tried to get them to use containment vessels made from retrofitted barges:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbUAAHuJUHs
This is gobbledegook oogoo-boogoo - can you please communicate in reasonably understood English? Sheesh ...
Perhaps you mean "reasonably understandable English" ?
As a British commoner I'd observe that your inability to read English written at more than high school level, along with your aggressive response to anything you have difficulty comprehending, occurs on US websites to the extent of reflecting rather badly on the American education system.
I'd suggest perseverance.
Regards,
Backstop
Hey Cargill
Read elsewhere on this thread about the difference between professional levels and non pro being segregated. I'm fighting that move but the likes of your post's are cutting the ground from under my computer keyboard. Might I speculate and suggest that you were perhaps stymied by words such as imprudent.
You really should learn about online dictionaries--http://onelook.com/ and look that one up. But to make my point, perhaps the writer likes that word because it encompasses a lot of concepts and ideas in one roll-up.
adjective: imprudent, lacking wise,self-restraint So, the writer could have said, 'It would not be a good idea to alter the chaotic wreckage' but that fails to convey the idea of the lack of self restraint that is a known hallmark of BP management types who are still living out the fantasies of the wildcatter days. 'not be a good idea' is also rather pedestrian, every day lingo and fails to give an understanding of what the word wisdom implies.
wise, ▸ adjective: carefully considered, also adjective: marked by the exercise of good judgment or common sense in practical matters
So, my dear Cargill, imprudent was really a very good word to use because it really says a lot in just three syllables.
Sincere thanks to everyone sharing their knowledge and providing insight. It's been amazing to follow the development of events here for the past two weeks or so.
For what it's worth, there's some fascinating activity transpiring at the http://interactive.foxnews.com/livestream/live.html?chanId=2 link posted earlier by "JoesBarAndGrill".
While the CNN feed (and most others) are down at the moment, this feed shows multiple views of the LMRP being prepped (Heading Out's diagram makes it very easy to identify different aspects of the LMRP). The ROV capabilities are downright impressive operating under such extreme force.
Good luck to all working on this at the moment. And for my colleagues still awake, check out the feed... it's really remarkable stuff. Take care!
google MIRC and download it
Just a data point: when I did this, my anti-virus program (AVG Internet Security) flagged it as malicious software. I don't know whether or not this was a false positive, but to be safe I didn't install it.
As another option, I discovered that if you use Firefox you can install the ChatZilla extension. If I remember correctly from the other day, it will launch itself the first time upon restarting Firefox, but then after that you can launch it by going to Tools > ChatZilla in Firefox to use it.
Tnx Prof. Goose, HO, Rockman, alii, rube, and all. I’m new to TOD, found you after Deepwater Horizon burned and sank. I know one of the young men killed that day, in the mud crew, and I’ve also put in some time in the GOM oil fields offshore LA and TX. Now I’ve retired to a camp 10 mi inland from the coast, so feel at least partially qualified to add my 2 cents now and then to your one-of-a-kind discussion forum.
But thought and emotion is ramping, no? There are extra voices in the meeting room. Some of you think too many; others work toward fitting them in. Underwater oil gushers beget online yak gushers, pure and simple. Is there a way to persuade comment makers that space and time--be they online, in the human mind, or under or above the waves in the GOM--is a limited resource (I didn’t say peak) and might not want to be wasted.
TOD is not the hot spot for self-expression and narcissism. They pollute it. They compete with TOD information, which includes reports, news, ideas, expertise, experience, wisdom, awareness, and of course opinions (which we all know are as numerous as rear ends, but at least give warm bodies a place to rest upon). Is there a polite way to ask: Please don’t wax here.
I don’t know how to address you “conspiracy heads” and other doomsayers? We should listen to the best of Peak Oil argument, pro and con. We should open up to alternative energy suggestions. We should hear about mitigating corruption--at corporate, government, and personal levels. We should entertain ideas to clean up all our actions. But TOD is not the hot spot to grind an ax. And neither is it a “Keep Your Big Fat Flapping Mouth Shut” site.
Can TOD continue to recommend and strive for balance? Easy does it, as always (especially in crisis mode)? Isn’t TOD looking for the truth? What’s that, you say? It’s wiley. It’s not comfort, not pain, not a swell heaven or hell on earth--but what’s happening now. I know, what’s happening now is debatable. But isn’t that why we come flocking to TOD? Don't we come looking for the truth, in any size, as soon as it becomes available, as soon as any of us notice it trying to escape? Don't we come to pay attention and learn, together, or not?
Conspiracies happen (1. An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act.) Any time two or more people get together to plan an illegal act a conspiracy has occurred. Only spontaneous acts of crime or crimes preformed by one person are not conspiracies. To not suspect conspiracies is naive as Julius Caesar found out (et tu Brute?). Doom has happened before it will happen again. Civilizations fall (unless you think the Mesopotanium, Mayan, Roman empires still stand and the Soviet Union is still that rather than the Former Soviet Union). Tsunami's kill thousands or hundreds of thousands, Chernobyl happened. Several hundred thousand were killed in the Haitian Earthquake. Several thousand were killed in the Dow Chemical accident at Bhophal.
Conspiracies happen and sometimes doomy predictions come true. Your "truth" might just be wrong you know. Who should be the arbiter of truth on TOD - you? Environmentalists said such a disaster as Deep Horizon could happen. BP said No and also said therefore exempt us from some precautions so we can make more money. The one's predicting such an event were not listened to and lo and behold they were right and and BP wrong. In fact is certainly appeared that people at BP conspired to hide the difficulty of what they were doing and hide the fact that they were just cutting costs from MSM who was more than willing to be Wink Wink duped into granting exemptions. All the while the lobbyists were conspiring to feed lies and money to Congress. The only other explanation is that the decisions makers at BP are idiots, the decision makers at MSM are idiots, the lobbyists are idiots, and our congressmen are idiots. It is true that the mass idiocy theory seems at time plausible, but come on we all know a whole bunch of conspiring was going on.
Following on from westexas's posting on the thread that just got closed, I'd suggest that 'conspiracy heads' are the biggest issue; at least BP are trying to solve the problem.
As a viewpoint relating immediate discussion back to the main purpose of ToD, I'd suggest that this is a useful experiment to see how the general populous and politicians react to oil related issues outside their understanding. Rather than trust, what we see are wild accusations and loony ideas that run far ahead of any evidence. We also saw something similar with the first oil price spike where conspiracy heads ignored supply constraints to blame 'speculators'.
Now map that across to Peak Oil setting in. What do you think will happen when you start getting supply constrictions at any price? Ones that don't end and hit the pumps?
I'd suggest the evidence from this is a massive blame game based on wild suppositions, together with impractical ideas of how to solve it. Not only will we have 'drill baby drill' on any potential reserve pocket, we'll have attacks on the oil companies for imagined or real deficiencies, political interference, and a sizeable call to "go take back our oil". All of those are serious, but I'd suggest the middle one has not been recognised to date.
Far from allowing the oil companies free reign to get more oil, it seems likely they will get hamstrung by outside forces. We can expect senators playing political pork games to get drilling in their region, even if the chances of success are low. We can expect ration allocation games based on regional politics. We can expect 'commissions of enquiry' poking into oil company processes and history. Frankly, given the age of many in the industry, we can see the possibility of the old hands getting out to avoid the hassle, and because they know the practical situation.
As much as the cyclic nature of price spikes, I's suggest this would seem to be an identifiable stage of a post peak world. Call it the "March of the Idiots" stage in our oil decline.
Oil co's already getting hamstrung all over the world...just gonna get worse, especially if domestic drilling gets regulated to the point where it is unaffordable (and having said that - it obviously needs SOME more oversight). MOST of the oil, and MOST of the production in the world is owned by national oil co's in other countries. And they aren't necessarily all that interested in playing nicely. Russia (one of the largest potential non-Opec suppliers) is getting the reputation of being a mafia-type government, and I have seen talk about 'energy cold war'.
Personally, at retirement I'm gonna move to a moderate climate and try to get as 'off the grid' as reasonably possible w/o going survivalist.
I'm also making myself a hole that I can crawl in and pull in after me.
:>)
The implication seems to be that now the oil companies will be too restricted to go get us the oil we need. Perhaps you've heard of Peak Oil? This thread is all about what happens when oil companies are free to operate with the most minimal of oversight (regulatory capture), and all the easy to get oil has been had. The other thing that happens when oil companies are free to use their best technologies with little restriction in a post peak environment is that oil production rates continue to decline - as Jeffery Brown has so often pointed out concerning Texas in the 70's. It really makes very little difference if a few regions are delayed or off limits in terms of the effects of peak oil. As awful as this spill is given the massive quantities of oil that are leaking, this field is but a tiny thing compared to our appetites.
As far as other countries and companies not playing fair - well, did you expect them to, and do you really believe that the "civilized" industrial west plays fair? On the way from 7billion people to something far less, there will be very few volunteers. The "Great Game" is just a name, it's anything but.
Nice? nah - everybody strong arms everybody else.
Effects of peak oil? No everybody cooperating doesn't change the effect - but it could change the timing, and allow more time for better alternatives being found.
OTOH...did you miss the part where I indicate I'm planning on crawling in a hole and pulling it in after me?
There's no need - we all and up in the hole eventually. Until then, we may be able to do something helpful during the beginning of transition that will make up the rest of our lives.
I know we will use whatever oil we can get to, because we spent a long time building a society and infrastructure that requires it and there is so little time left. But the effect of doing that may have a net negative impact on the survival of those who come after us.
Exactly right! Even if this entire leaking reservoir ends up flowing into the gulf, that would mean an amount of roughly 100 million barrels will have been spilled (based on estimates I've read). A massive amount of oil, until you realize that humans currently use almost that much oil every day of the year (roughly 85 millions barrels per day on a world-wide basis; counting all petroleum-based liquids). So the total output from that entire oil field could have kept the current world economy running for about 30 hours, tops. And that 85 million barrels a day is looking more and more like the high water mark for world oil production.
Gasp!!! Are you trying to say it wasn't all part of the big plan to bring on Cap and Trade? More Globalization? I am sure Alan from big easy will be delighted with that turn of events. He is dreaming of an oil transport free future. We are all going to get government rebates from our new government bicycle program.
Look at Westexas's Export Land Model (ELM) and you will see that oil supply is going to get shorter faster than most imagine, even those that believe world oil production has already peaked.
Basically, oil consumption in oil exporters grows. Saudi Arabia and Russia and everyone else takes care of the home folk first. Since both nations are past peak, production declines a little, but oil exports decline a lot.
Now can the USA outbid China, the EU, Japan for what is left ? All those listed except the USA export a lot of stuff. We don't.
May be a good idea to get a good bicycle before the rush.
Alan
The only offsetting thing would be food. China, EU, and Japan will be importing food. The USA can export food (calorie-wise, if not dollar-wise). Food may be the only thing a country would be willing to trade oil for.
Part of the point of posting the above note is that I don't think its going to end up being down to 'outbid'.
With the level of distrust and hyperbole we've seen over something as commonplace as an oil spill, I'd suggest we as a society aren't going to take the rational route. Its going to be recrimination and military force. Not only are we going to scrap over access to oil, we'll blame any and everyone (probably with an unhealthy dose of "why don't they do this"). The very groups that could potentially alleviate the downslope will get attacked.
Expect a massive built out of coal mining and liquification, and at least a few lynchings. Oh, and expect to see tankers that are going across the Atlantic and Pacific to transport oil to the US to be blown out of the water. Battle of the Atlantic in reverse.
I don't disagree...masses of humans and 'rational' frequently don't belong in the same sentence.
However - just to stir the pot a bit (altho this should probably be on a different thread)...when I started in geology in 1974 (DAMN I'm getting up there!!!) the mantra was "all the easy oil has been found and we only have 30 years of oil left". It's getting harder and harder, and arguably messier, to find and extract...but I still hear 'we only have a few decades of oil left' 30 years later.
But that was true. The production curve lags the discovery curve by 40 years, even though individual oil wells can be brought in faster than that. World discovery peaked in the 1960s, so it was true that the easy oil had been found before 1974. No supergiant oil fields found in last couple of decades except "Cash-all-gone" in Kazakhstan, which will take years, if ever, to produce 1 million BPD of heavy sour at great expense.
PS - I gotta say that one thing that is scaring crap out of me right now is the really deep plumes the scientists have been finding. One is apparently at 10K feet down.
Very bad just in the GOM..but at those depths, I worry about it getting entrained in some of the colder currents and traveling farther than even the loop current goes.
Anybody got a good reference on deep currents and their directions of travel?
You can see the direction and speed of currents down to 3200 feet in the area by viewing the data from Shell's Ram Powell PLatform ( scroll down to "Ocean Current Data") http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=42364
Discussion including deep warter flow:
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/02mexico/background/currents/...
Relief map:
http://www.gulfbase.org/facts.php
Confined basin walled off by Florida Strait with a deeper connection to the Caribbean Basin. Poorly studied - as are many such things. Now we have a nice experiment going.
There is a pdf here:
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/PI/PDFImages/ESPIS/4/4306.pdf
describing another study.
good articles! thx!
At the risk of being slightly non PC, it seems to me that our policies towards Iran are somewhat short sighted. We encouraged them to develop a nuclear capacity years ago, so as to minimize ELM impact. Now, two successive presidents have decided that nuclear engineering to, according to the wingnut who runs Iran today, produce electricity, is a subtrafuge for THE BOMB. Of course we cannot be certain that religious zealotry would not in fact use that nuclear capacity for such purposes, after all, we did the bomb first, and electricity after.
Still, I can't help but feel that we are a bit flighty and inconsistent, and maybe even justifiably paranoid since we support Israel, and Ahmajinidad has a stated goal to eliminate that State from the roles of sovereign nations. I am still of the opinion that most of our posturing and bluster in the Middle East has to do with oil, not Faith. And, more with money than with mankind.
The end may be at hand, but until then there is a buck to be made, eh?
Courage!
Craig
Your statement is incorrect Ahmajinidad did not say anything like destruction of Israel. Never once did he say that, what he did say was the destruction of the Zionists. The Zionists have the same policy towards Iran. Two very different meanings and distorted by both parties. Israel has never claimed to be a Zionist state that I know of.
I was hoping they will start one of those government rebate programs for one. Kind of like the cash for clunkers thing. Well I guess I will be going to the gun show this afternoon before we run out of ammo too. Prices are going up you know.
From the sound of the doom and gloomers in here on the drilling industry and the oil industry in particular, Future Shock is arriving. Best be stocking up.
Transport will be substantially oil-free in the uncomfortably near future, whether we like it or not. The question is whether we will have a superior alternative to bicycles.
EDIT: The question is whether we will successfully use our dwindling resource base to transition to a superior alternative.
I heard the President actually talking about using oil as a bridge to a non-fossil fuel future in his press conference the other day. Too bad we didn't hear Nixon say it, there was still enough time back then.
The trouble is that the world is using all the oil that the world can produce and the amount it can produce is starting to decline. In order to use oil as a bridge to non-fossil fuel we have to ration its use now. ie in order to build high speed electric rail, lots of solar panels, lots of windmills we need oil as we are not currently geared to do that kind of manufacturing and attendant mining with nothing but electric. So to use our declining energy to bridge we need to reduce the use for other purposes - driving, manufacturing, heating and cooling etc. The question is how do you sell that to the public. First you have to convince them of the reality of Peak Oil.
Per the Hirsch report we need 20 years to prepare BEFORE we peak. Since we have peaked we are 20 years too late
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirsch_report#Conclusions
I think that future is one that I'll be long gone for, unfortunately...
I'll do the bicycle when I move to a climate where I don't either die of heat stroke, or get my nice work clothes all gross from sweating on the way to work! Actually, for short jaunts, I might try pony instead.
> 'conspiracy heads' are the biggest issue; at least BP are trying to solve the problem <
What the heck? TOD becoming a public relations channel?
I've followed these discussions, gCaptain, Drillers Club, Congressional testimony, and Coast Guard hearings as carefully as anyone else, and I am convinced BP should be indicted for manslaughter, GoM assets seized as surety for civil damages, and thrown off the lease block immediately. Farm out well control to bid or form a consortium of Exxon, Shell, etc, and have US military clean up the spill.
BP cheerleaders really disgust me, especially here. I signed up to say that. Regards to regulars and editors.
Alan von Altendorf
Hi Alan,
The comment from WestTexas that I believe Gary was referring to at the start of his comment is: "Don't know who is worse--BP apologists or conspiracy heads."
I think if you look at Gary's comment again, with this in mind, it might be you misconstrued what he meant.
On Westexas' question as to which is worse:
Conspiracy heads can be used to shake up the system, perhaps to the point that something breaks and allows some movement. OTOH, BP apologists push towards BAU NOW! More of the same, until collapse!
BP's only redeeming social value, IMHO, is that it pays the wages of a large number of wage slaves --- until it lays them off and transitions into a hedge fund. Could BP purchase Goldman as a way to escape from the oil business?
The ones who really scare me are the conspiracy heads who blame in all on Obama and are also BP apologists. The two positions are not mutually exclusive.
Let me tell you something, I have been following this crisis from day one and I would like to say THANK YOU to TOD!!! This site has really made me OPEN my eyes!
I have a simple question..dont laugh Im a simple man.:)
I have been reading up on the LOOP (Louisiana Offshore Oil Port)...
How much more oil will need to gush into the gulf before it is closed down? Will it close? What are the chances of it closing for a long period of time? Everything Ive read tells me if it does shut down WE are all in for a world of hurt..
Again much thanks to TOD:)
There was discussion about that in the May 7 Drumbeat.
Do you think "breaking" the oil companies is going to improve the circumstances of peak oil any?
I'd suggest BP et al have a major redeeming social value, they keep the fuel flowing on which we depend. Oh, and in BPs case they create their yearly statistical survey that gets used here again and again.
Its easy to make knee-jerk reactions, here's hoping that cooler heads will prevail (although Obama hasn't exactly covered himself in glory, and he's the sanest US president in a long time).
About time the "idiots" marched!
It is extremely shortsighted to defend oil company's. Deepwater is so visible because it is off the coast of America. As you clearly are a long time Drummer and commentator, surely you are aware of Big Oil's messes in lesser known or reported places like the Niger Delta? Massive pollution, use of paid and supported dictatorships to violently quell local opposition?
The absolute plight of East Timor, of course the blight of Oil money on the middle east. The list is extensive and undefendable in any way, morally, conveniently or otherwise.
While you vehemently claim otherwise, your views are those of an apologist for the world's dirtiest industry, driving the worst experiment in "civil"ization.
Strange. Very strange.
If you take the time to go through to multitude of articles on this site, you will rapidly realise that the potential threats faced dwarf any failings of corporate governance in BP you may like to point to.
Really, as these things go, its a whole other order of magnitude.
Focusing on throwing blame around misses the big picture. Saints or sinners, accident rates in complex projects will result in spills, and in themselves they don't change much (I'm going to catch flack for that, but it true). Its how we deal with it that informs the 'peak oil' scale of problem.
Honest, give an afternoon over to reading through the back catalogue of articles - you don't have to apologise for any oil companies to say that corporate malfeasance or otherwise isn't the elephant in the room.
Gary, while I really appreciate the Oil Drum as a resource, this is not the only place in the world to understand peak oil. I'm new here but old enough at life and well read enough and informed to know what I am talking about.
Seeing the thread of your responses down the line, I see that you use circuitous reasoning to drive home the same point, that BP is ultimately doing us a favour.
And then you say things like "At least they are trying" and "trust them" or words to that effect.
Hmmmmmm..... clearly BP is more concerned about legal ramifications and the size of the compensation than keeping the public really informed, as they have every right to be. There are visible lies and obfuscation at every level of this.
I am more convinced than ever of your apologist nature now.
And I do not need to read the back articles here to support that view.
If peak oil is the wall this ugly "uncivil"ization needs to hit, especially the American way of waste filled life, then I say hit it and take it like a man, like a people. You way has been the absolute ruin of most culture and many many people. And of your own people too. I've lived in the US for many years and know it first hand. It is a classic pattern of fall: first Moral, then physical then fiscal then war then bigger war then bust with bloodlust.
I suggest you check out Extreme Fighting or WWF or whatever it is called nowadays to see what I mean.
It's about time it's impact dwindled or died away.
"If peak oil is the wall this ugly "uncivil"ization needs to hit, ... then I say hit it and take it like a man..."
You mean just take it out on somebody else? ;P Seriously though, thank you for your post, couldn't have said it better. The longer this culture keeps on solving problems, the deeper a mess all life will be in, and it's way too big a mess already. Thanks. And a big hat tip to TOD for the coverage of the spill so far.
Hmm, well OK. From the B&W way you write I guess there is no way to convince you I'm apologising for no-one. I'll live.
However, I would suggest that throwing away civilisation as "it's about time it's impact dwindled or died away" rather ignores what that means in both the small and big picture - so I'll leave you with a quote:
"Do not go gentle into that good night."
Gary, A truly in-formed individual knows full well what it means. And I'll say it again for emphasis, it is high time industrialization as we know it disappears and it will not go gently into the night. It has hung on kicking and screaming in the face of all the havoc it has caused and is causing.
Do not want to take up too much space here but maybe it's time for individuals to look into themselves and really really see what in most of their god-forsaken lives is worth saving, to justify that oil must flow? That their life-"style" is too precious and that a jarring interruption of freebasing at the expense of 90 percent of the world's population is just not worth the price?
And yes, it is time for black and white in case you had not noticed. We are at a tipping point not in just oil, but everything. The fabric of everything that this facade is built on is stretched thin, to the point of breaking.
Look around you.... you will see confused OLDers, very few Elders (most are kept away in retirement homes anyways), disenchanted and mostly vapid youth, children (yes, even 30 year old children) having children, a money system spinning out of control, Sportsmen (so many felons, frightening) paid 1000X teachers.... the list is long.
And in a fractal world, it all matters.
So if the Oil spill is what broke the Oily Camels back then I say so be it. Such a weak edifice, it just might crumple with a sigh not a storm and give those of us with ideas for a brave new world some place to breathe, experiment.
And I am not speaking as some air-headed utopian here. There are much better ways and EVERYONE who says it will take too long or cost too much is still caught in this paradigm.
Try living without TV (at all, zero) for 10 years and develop a genuine media free mind-flex, then make philosophical statements that belong to you, not a filterate of other peoples noodling, howsoever wise it may sound or be.
Okay garyp. Here is the first load of flack.
I think this mess in the GOM is not just a BP thing. It is an announcement that maybe, just maybe, we should stop drilling in risky places because we cannot afford the damage that a mistake will bring. How long do you think it will take for the cleanup? What is the ultimate cost here, in terms of lost fisheries, wildlife, and sustainability? It appears more and more that the Gulf Cost of the United States has been devastated. It may be decades before any real restoration can be expected.
Is driving a big damned car or truck really worth that? Hell, No!
We gotta change the way we do things. BAU is dead --- it has drowned in the Gulf of Mexico.
So, I guess I agree that corporate malfeasance isn't the only elephant in the room. It is still a pretty big one, though, and corporate greed that leads to corporate errors in judgment and mistakes is no longer acceptable!
Other than that, it's all good.
Courage.
Craig
Well no, but there are many bigger reasons why that's to be avoided.
Put it like this, oil has spilled into the Gulf before (Ixtoc being the pre-run), and marine life has taken a hit, but recovered. Compare that with the slow, steady, acidification of the oceans and the millennia long impact and mass species die off that results - globally.
Its a failing of our species that we find it easy to get worked up about the local and close to home, and ignore the big elephants. My contention is that focusing on BP and its market-led shaving of safety rules for profit similarly misses the big elephant that its these companies that will be the shock troops of a post peak world - and like it or not they will determine the severity of the downslope. The cultural behaviour that shoots the messenger and at the same time buys the 'big damned truck' is not one that going to play rationally with the consequences of decline. That's the take home that I was highlighting, the same scapegoating that makes it easy for people to cast stones at BP is going to ensure that those shock troops of the oil downturn are going to suffer a "Life of Brian" result.
The problem with scapegoating is that it's a release of anger and frustration which has then disspiated. What worries me is that, rather than taking away the message that there are some tricky trade-offs coming in energy where the populace needs to decide which risks are and aren't justified and over the long haul force governments and corporations to follow these assessments rather than their own, we'll have the populace at large a couple of weeks of ranting about BP and ostentatiously boycotting them and then go back to normal.
In response to Gayrp
Perhaps you did not mean to rationalize the negligently criminal behavior of British Petroleum, but that is precisely what you have done. Using the sophisticated analysis of 'down slope technology' and 'post peak world' to describe British Petroleum will not excuse the fact that BP has destroyed the Gulf of Mexico-I invite you to read the blog http://gulfblog.uga.edu/ to see and understand the extent of the damage done. Or look at all of the pictures and weep, if you may.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2010/05/12/GA201005...
I will not stand by while alibis are delivered and a spokesperson (voluntary or otherwise) condones with excuses made for whatever reason, that draw a picture of the rest of society as the culprits who were the enablers motivating BP to engage in the destruction of a whole ecosystem. BP did not HAVE to destroy the Gulf of Mexico in supplying oil to the consumer. They chose to do that. They ignored for weeks, serious 'belching' of the sleeping dragon that was to emerge beneath Deep Water Horizon. They willfully and knowingly (consciously) ignored all of the Government guidelines on safety
http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/bp-internal-investigation-memo#...
Yes, the Government screwed up big time and more on that later. For now let me just summarize, as I see from reading the rest of the posts here that there is talk about this 'conspiracy' theory or that 'conspiracy' theory.
Conspiracy, noun: a secret agreement between two or more people to perform an unlawful act
http://onelook.com/?w=conspiracy&ls=a And yes, more than one person can be in on a secret.
secret, noun: something that should remain hidden from others (especially information that is not to be passed on)adjective: not open or public; kept private or not revealed ("A secret formula")
Putting it all together, by operating in secret (how many folks knew before the dragon blew his nose that BP was running their feathers across it?) BP conspired to destroy the Gulf of Mexico in pursuit of what appeared to be at least 50 million barrels of oil. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601072&sid=aawwCXDN1UsM
About those Big Trucks-what if everyone was driving a Prius, or a similar vehilce? Would we as consumers still be playing the 'blame game' when we asked BP to behave as rational adults in supply products, services and have some concern for everyone's safety and well being? You mention market-led shaving of safety rules. Am I to understand that because it was market led, BP's behavior can be given a wash?
To summarize, BP is not in any instance to be cut any slack whatsoever. They made decisions that have changed the world for the worst in a big way. By, the way when you say 'marine life has taken a hit, but recovered' were you assuming that would apply to the present scenario and the ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico will eventually recover? Even after some animal and plant life is driven to extinction by the foolish acts of a money grubbing, nefarious group of sleezy, rotters who don't give a rat's ass about you or anyone but are only looking to take as many cookies out of the jar as possible even if the rest of us get deathly sick when they puke their guts out from overindulgence?
I have some news you may wish to read.
http://www.usaliberalism.com
I will gladly and courteously respond to all comments made to this post as far as I am able to.
ohregionalindian
There is a good article in the Guardian
about the far greater plight then the
Gulf of Mexico in the Niger delta
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-del...
Hi Nick,
Thanks for the link, and it is a terrible situation there, has been for a long long time.
And this is the attitude of all big industry in the developing world. Big Pharma, a cozy twin of big oil is equally ruthless. India has been a favourite, rule flouting clinical trial ground for them as have many smaller nations.
Not to forget Union carbide, still fighting in courts not to pay victims for the Bhopal episode.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster
So what I am ranting against is not just big oil, but big everything.
Big is not beautiful we have reached the limit of "size" that we can control.
But ingrained bad habits are hard to let go of.
When I think of big industry, I am most reminded of Gollum from Lord of the Rings.
Preciousssssssss......
Interesting, so when did you give up driving, and your computer and anything else that you use or touch made from plastic? Interesting since almost everything you use or touch used energy to bring it to you. I know it is hard to fully visualize until you don't have it, but alas it is true. Are you fully ready to give up all of your toys? If you are then I suppose we won't be seeing you online much anymore.
Good luck been interesting knowing you and your viewpoints. I have heard there are religious groups like the Amish around the country that try to live without using modern conveniences of any kind, although they do still use a little kerosene for their lamps. Kerosene does still come from oil also however, so even they can't claim to be completely oil free.
Hey wireline,
You seem to be saying: because we all buy products wherein BP may be the original source of materials they were therefor given license or we as the consumers are the enablers for them to go out and commit ecocide.
?
Scoobie Doo moment here; "Mmmm?"
Not sure I follow the logic but again, we as consumers choose to make choices about plastic and purchase that item, (let's pause and think of how many building projects, how many electronics in hospitals, police stations, health clinics, how many airplanes, how many. . . would all shut down while we boycott BP's products that end up in a plastic item) we are then enablers to BP's criminal actions. Actions that now include bringing in the police to make sure we don't see the extent of the destruction of the Gulf of Mexico. http://motherjones.com/environment/2010/05/oil-spill-bp-grand-isle-beach
BP could have chosen to NOT destroy the Gulf of Mexico but they did not make that choice, rather, they deliberately, with chosen speed of their own making, with clear foresight about what they were doing, decided to expose us all to 150,000,000 gallons of toxic sludge and allow it to spread around the world's oceans.
search www.nakedcapitalism.com for May 9, 2010 posts for that link.
BP sent the Schulmberger folks home who were going to run a definitive test showing the drill was flawed, so there would be no evidence of the flaws after-wards.
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/costly_time-consuming_test_of.html
Schlumberger's isolation scanner testing to evaluate wellbore integrity is described at their website.
http://www.slb.com
WE all need to change our lifestyles and we as a society should get control of harmful practices inside of the consumerism behaviors and mind set. Meanwhile Tony Hayward should be preparing to have an excess of free time to sit in the yard and practice his guitar all day long.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Federal_Correctional_Institution_Herlo...
How will they apply pressure to the seal? Is the device goign to fit around the flange and then use that as leverage?
...very carefully. I would imagine that the weight of the unit itself will probably be enough to seal it.
But installing it is a job I don't envy!
The renderings shows latches. This device clamps onto the flange.
I appreciate the work that goes into TOD and the unique information and outlook it has always provided.
I would like to make a suggestion. How about starting a separate thread for the solution suggestions? To minimize bandwidth, perhaps require that all drawings be hosted at one of the internet's many free picture sites? That would provide an outlet for the creative solutions ("Let's stuff all the jelly donuts we can find into the hole! That will help put the entire US on a diet, too!), while maybe allowing the discussions to stick to items related to the current events.
It might be worthwhile to separate out the discussions on local littoral effects into a separate thread, too.
Respectfully submitted,
YAR, will definitely consider that. Honestly, we've just been trying to get through the weekend. :)
But yes, we're going to need a local component to this coverage, as well as solutions throughout. I hope folks aren't too pissy about the tack we've taken, but it was the best way we saw through this.
Christ, I sound like a BP PR guy there. Apologies.
nah, yr doin good
btw, i watch the feed on bp's site and pause yours (when there) to save your bandwidth ...
Seriously, it is not TOD's bandwidth. We just have the video embedded (HTML code). If TOD was actually streaming the video, Goose would be even more excitable. Honking, even.
LOL! (I have to clean off my keyboard now)
Prof. Goose: Self awareness is an adult trait. Thanks for your work and tolerance. As I said in an earlier post, this site is what the Internet is supposed to be. Bye the bye, you're never going to have your 501c (3) status yanked for failing to provide an education to the pubic. Boy, oh boy!
I'll second that. I have some experience blogging on public health emergencies, where we have the same problem of sudden increase in traffic when an outbreak is happening, with many new posters unfamiliar both with the science and with lots of speculation, and we run the risk of overwhelming noise, as stated by others.
While this is precisely the time when sites like TOD is performing a great public service (donation on the way, much appreciate all your hard work!!), I also think the 'hive mind' works best when new posters and non-experts have a place to share their ideas
May I suggest keeping 2 open threads, one for speculations (ie any ideas, rumors, speculations, that are not referenced or linked), and one for asking questions, with a heavy caveat to please make a good faith effort to find the answer first.
Many many thanks again. I have some idea of how much work this is, been there, done that...
What Hiver said. I am one of the medical people with just enough math and science to make me dangerous in a place devoted to engineering and geology, so I will just express my appreciation for what you are doing here and say a hearty thank you.
"May I suggest keeping 2 open threads, one for speculations ..."
I doubt that would work. The newbie speculations tend to be as ignorant of the realities as I was a short time ago, and I can't imagine who would read them, if the alternative of reading Rockman's speculations were available on the other thread. Other old timers would also draw audience to the non-speculative thread. The whole point of trying to post here is to, maybe, have your ideas read and criticized by intelligent experts. (Yes, there are also stupid experts, who tend to populate the news media.)
My two cents on the censorship issue:
The primary problem is not that some wag posted something assinine on the internet.
The difficulty is that TOD's format is not able to smoothly handle a discussion of this character.
TOD is set up in an article & comments format - someone posts an article, then all of us post comments until we lose interest. In this case, however, there is an ongoing crisis and media circus, and the commentary isn't losing momentum in the first hundred posts, or event the first four hundred. New threads cannot be created for these comments because new threads on TOD require an article. So, there is nowhere to put unrelated but otherwise legitimate comments.
The solution really is censorship - Self Censorship. My suggestion: Keep comments on side issues as replies to previous related comments without replying in a new window (the closest thing to a separate thread that TOD's format allows), and follow basic netiquette. If you think your side issue is important enough, consider creating an article. And don't waste a lot of time griping about how people should be posting in alternate threads that do not exist.
A separate article is a good idea, because a separate thread is a good idea, and that's the only way you get a separate thread around here.
Y'all are doing an outstanding job. Nobody with half a brain would think ill of you for tightening up a bit.
If there is an award for Blog Journalism, the TOD staff should receive it!!
If nothing else, this disaster has exposed more people to what TOD has been about for 5+ years now. Perhaps, ultimately, this is the silver lining....broader awareness of our current global energy situation.
I dunno - I'm not sure all the new visitors really appreciate the issue of peak oil and that peak oil is what TOD is about. Which is why I've been trying to re-introduce that subject here and there.
I have been here a long time and this is the first time I am hearing
CENSORSHIP! This I will not be part of. If this continues I am done after several years here. Who cares if the newbies feelings are hurt. Grow up the world is about to get very hard and you will be lucky if you have time for feelings.
This is rather contradictory, let alone confusing ... do you want to run it past us again?
We've lost TOD ...it's become something else. It's pretty sad - but maybe we'll bounce back.
We'll be alright mate, at least Hrothgar is gone
True .. and I hope you're right, cobber!
Blogs go through phases. There's sort of a natural life cycle. No worries, this is perhaps TODs finest hour, and if not, it will 'bounce back'.
Cheers.
I think the LMRP has the most merit of any attempts to quell the leak from the riser/BOP. My main concern is that after removing the restriction of the bent riser with drill string inside, the flow will increase dramatically until the sealing grommet makes and remains in contact. Since the "package" will sit on the cut off and possibly slightly deformed riser stub, nothing will secure it to the BOP except weight, IMO. To prevent the force of flowing fluid from acting to push the LMRP upward the pipe to the surface better be large and held steady at the top.
If I had designed this device I would put about 100 tons of weight around the bottom ring of the LMRP to help hold it down on the BOP. That weight would also act against the pressure fluctuations in the riser. I have had experience designing components for aircraft hydraulic systems that have high pressure, but nothing with this kind of flow and force on components.
I wonder if 100 tons will be enough, assuming that you are using garden variety avoirdupois tons. Once installed, I would imagine that the weight of the unit itself will be enough to stabilize it. But if the opening is 18-7/8", that's just under 280 square inches. If one of the gas kicks arrives during the placement operation...I'm glad it's just expensive equipment that will be around.
(Yes, I know the flow is constrained, and that it's less than 18-7/8" at its narrowest point. This is just for instance.)
If I read things correctly, they aren't trying to plug the top of the BOP with this thing - they are merely trying to attach an contraption that would allow them to capture the oil and bring it to the surface.
I wonder if 100 tons will be enough,
I don't think you need to add any weight at all. It is very similar to the RIT tool in that they are going to provide a path for the oil and gas to flow. So long as they don't block the path, there will be minimum upward pressure that will push the LMRP upward. I think the tricky part is when they try to reduce the flow on the surface.. But since the RIT can stick to the riser without problem, I would think that we won't have problem here.. The more issue is whether the ship on the surface can flare all the gas given that they are trying to capture most of the spill not just part of the spill with RIT. We already see how much gas can come up...
Until BP provides pressures and dimensions no one can really offer well-considered suggestions.
With respect to thst "top kill" solution, a simple topside simulation (or a mental exercise) would show that even with all flow stopped, the amount of mud they could have pumped through those two adapter pipes would just have drizzled down the side of the downside tube. What a waste of time!
Keep in mind that, once the pipe to the surface is full of oil, there's not going to be any pressure gradient blowing oil out into the water at the junction. In fact, there'll be a huge *suction*.
The situation's much like a chimney. Once you fill a chimney with hot air, it creates a natural draft that sucks up more hot air. Now, there is of course high pressure below the BOP, but the flow restriction on the way out means that's not controlling the pressure at the top of the BOP: all that matters is the pressure at the top of the pipe and the buoyancy difference between 5000 feet of oil vs 5000 feet of water.
Anyway, point is, some weight is probably going to be useful to make a solid enough seal to convince the oil to start going up the pipe in the first place, but once the pipe is full of buoyant oil the LMRP grommet is going to suck itself onto the top of the BOP. It'll be like french kissing a vacuum cleaner.
The idea of the pipe having any suction effect inside, relative to the seawater at 5000 ft depth, can't be correct. The density of the fluid flowing up the pipe is less than the surrounding water and that will have a bouyant force to move the pipe upward. However, the fact that the expanding gases, both separated and dissolved will tend to "shoot" the oil up the pipe with increasing velocity as they expand, creating frictional forces against the inside wall and want to lift the LMRP off the BOP.
The interior pressure of the LMRP at the seal will be less than pressure of the reservoir due to the oil flow not being restricted by the bent riser. As pressure in the reservoir (8000psi relative to the sea bed pressure), which is potential energy, turns into flow which is kinetic energy in the form of velocity, the pressure of the oil will drop, but still be far in excess of the surrounding sea bed pressure (2250psi).
As an example of this:
Turn on your garden hose full open at the faucet. Now try attaching a second hose to the one spewing water. You will have a hard time getting the fitting screwed on due to the pressure that is created by the restriction of the second hose. And you will have water squirting out as you join the two hoses.
goodmanj is correct
With the estimated flow, the pipe friction (which is distributed along the length) will be much less than the weight of the to be attached straw.
There could be "suction", or not, depending on the sizes of the pipes,the various numbers of vents, the size of each of the vents, the quantity of oil and gas, and the amount of oil/gas mixture that escapes at the junction;in order for there to be "suction", the pressure of the oil and gas column at the bottom of the pipe must be less than the water pressure at the sea floor.
This is obviously going to be the case IF (once) the pipe is filled with the oil and gas mix, and there is an opening allowing water to ENTER THE PIPES.This necessarily also implies an opening that will also allow a good portion of the oil gas mix to escape into the surrounding water.
If an insufficient amount of oil/gas is not allowed to escape into the surrounding water probably at level somewhat below the level where the water is supposed to enter, the well will pressurize the LMRP to well above the ambient water pressure more or less instantly, and the oil and gas will begin exiting through the holes where the water should be coming in.
Suction is a term that is subject to serious misinterpretation by laymen and trades people.We should really be talking about pressure differences due to differing circumstances.Since the oil/gas coming from the well is lighter or less dense than water, if the pipe to the surface is once full of oil and gas, and the bottom of the pipe is open to the water at the sea floor, the sea water will enter the pipe due to the weight of the five thousand foot water column being greater than the five thousand foot column of oil/gas in the pipe and PUSH THE OIL UP THE PIPE.
You cannot "suck" water up a straw but you can use your lungs to LOWER the air pressure in the straw by expanding your lungs so that some of the air in the straw flows into your lungs.This LOWERS THE PRESSURE in the straw, which was previously exactly the same as the ambient air pressure.Since the air pressure outside the straw remains the same, the pressure difference PUSHES the water up the straw.
The word "suction" should be probably outlawed in any technically accurate discussion.
But the more water that enters the pipe, the less the pressure difference becomes, and at some point the flow oil oil , water, and gas will begin to slow down.
It seems obvious to me that the IDEAL solution would be to clamp the new riser pipe as tightly as possible to the existing BOP , and utilize the pressure of the well itself to force the oil /gas mixture up the riser to the surface.It might be necessary to vent some oil the oil/ gas at the BOP to keep the pressure at a manageable level,meaning below some critical level, which might possibly be done through the existing fittings that were used in the attempted junk shot.
If this could be accomplished, the hydrate problem would be solved, as there would be no water in the riser.
My guess is that this possible solution has been considered and ruled out because the flow up the riser would be so great as to be unmanageable if the entire flow of the well is directed into it.The riser would probably start doing weird things like whipping around; it might actually break; or the irregular pulses of expanding gas might be too much to handle at the surface.
It may also possible that the folks in charge think the BOP and/or the existing pipes just below it are in such poor condition that allowing the oil to continue to continue to flow through them under high pressure will cause them to fail soon, and that a leak proof connection is therefore ruled out.This would not have been a problem in the junk shot scenario if it had worked, as there would have been no further abrasive erosion of the pipes once the flow stopped.
I can't see that it would be all that difficult to securely fasten the new plumbing to the old although doing so would obviously take some extra time.
If it were possible to make the riser pipe big enough, and to keep it from freezing up, it would be possible to capture the entire flow through it using the pressure difference due to the difference in the density of the water and the oil.
This leads me to wonder why it would not be possible to use a y type connection , or connections, and use two or three or even more risers to carry the oil to the surface and so capture nearly all of it.This presumes of course that the hydrate problem can be licked by either heating the pipes or injecting antifreeze, or both.
Sorry, I posted in nontechnical language to try to keep this thread readable. Not trying to show off here, but I have a PhD in climate physics: I know how the hydrostatic equation works. When I said "all that matters is the pressure at the top of the pipe and the buoyancy difference between 5000 feet of oil vs 5000 feet of water", what I meant was:
Above the BOP, the flow velocity is weak enough, and the pipe diameter large enough, that the friction force is small compared to the weight of the fluid. If friction is negligible, pressure and gravity forces are the only terms in the vertical Navier Stokes equation, and we have the hydrostatic relation:
dP/dz = - rho g
This is true for both the oil in the pipe and the water outside:
dPoil/dz = - rhooil g
dPwater/dz = - rhowater g
So the pressure *difference* can be found by subtracting these:
d(Poil-Pwater)/dz = - (rhooil - rhowater) g
For demonstration purposes, let's assume rhooil is constant. It doesn't have to be.
Poil - Pwater = (rhowater - rhooil) g z + C
The constant of integration is the pressure difference at the surface. Unless BP deliberately provides backpressure to prevent the oil from escaping out the top of the pipe, this will be zero.
Poil - Pwater = (rhowater - rhooil) g z
Plugging in some numbers (g = 9.8, rhowater = 1024, rhooil = 870, z = - 1524) we find the oil pressure is lower than water pressure by 2.3 MPa, or 23 atmospheres. So that's 23 atmospheres of "suction". And that's a minimum: if the pipe has some gas in it, and it will, the pressure will be higher. In fact, so high that BP may want to add some surface backpressure to control it.
This calculation is true no matter what the geometry at the BOP is: all that matters is the forces in that 5000 feet of riser.
The one caveat is, this calculation assumes that there's enough of a constriction in the BOP or in the formation that the flow velocity through the pipe is slow enough to render friction negligible. By my calculations, which I won't bore you with, that's true up to a flow rate of around 100,000 barrels a day.
How much extra work would it be to cap the newly cut pipe stub with what amounts to an upper riser flange piece that slides over (caps)the existing pibe with very little difference between the outside diameter of the cut old pipe( I think it is 21inch)and the inside diameter of the "cap" piece. The lower edge of the "cap" could be welded to old pipe , or one of the ROV with an attached hydraulic arm could apply circumferential pressure to the junction of the old pipe and new (think hose clamp for a visual) but with obviously enough PSI to hold the junction.
If the new pipe piece has a flange head, that flange could be bolted/welded by the robot submarine to a matching flange head on the LMRP...securing it indefinitely. Any takers on that idea?
I think that might work but for the fact that the riser is bent right at the BOP and it is deformed immediatly above the top ring of the BOP. Not much round pipe to work with. Good idea to use annular crimp connection, but if flow is constrained the force on the connection may be over 1000 tons, which is a lot for a crimped slip joint even if welded. Force on the weld would be 34,000 lbs per linear inch, so a thick pipe (3/4 inch minimum) and full fillet weld would be required (maybe use type 10011 weld steel).
In the future, maybe they will make the first 20 feet or so of riser extremely strong, so if the riser bends or breaks, it bends or breaks 20 feet above the BOP and not right above the BOP. Then you have some undamaged pipe to work with.
I am quite surprised they hadn't learned this lesson some time ago.
I hope deep sea drilling will be permanently banned. It is obvious we don't have the technical maturity to quickly address any problems.
Ofcource, once the effects of peak oil become apparent, the drilling will resume ...
From another angle, I am not sure that there will be enough demand if the credit crisis and peak oil cause economic collapse. I think you may get your wish regarding offshore drilling -- be careful what you wish for :)
Sadly you are correct. In a sane world, when the effects of peak oil became apparent, oil use would be curtailed and sustainable sources of energy invoked.
Of course, as you said, we are lacking sufficient 'technical maturity' to do that, aren't we. We will, in all likelihood, go merrily along, espousing growth and BAU even as we plunge blindly over the precipice of Hubbert's Curve.
Craig
Yair...I had always assumed the riser/production pipe would have passed through a structure on the seafloor...think a platform supported by a tripod or tankstand like structure.
I had imagined a main control valve and connect/disconnect mechanism would have been at the elevated position with the BOP below on the seafloor.
It seems to me I must have seen that situation maybe in a picture of a North Sea well...it would have been useful here.
Very good question nbnewtrain-
I have asked BP for the proposed length of the remaining stub and it's expected condition. No response.
I have some reservations about the 1,000 ton force number. How did you calculate that number?
None of us have enough information to accurately compute the force from the riser after it is cut. However, if the inside diameter is 18-7/8", that's about 280 square inches. 1,000 tons (US) would be over 7000+ PSI applied evenly across the entire opening.
I have seen many pressure numbers discussed in TOD since this blowout started. I would not suggest that the pressure will exceed 7000 PSI, and don't have the numbers available to really make any assertions.
But if an expanding gas kick came through while they were working over the remaining stub following the cut, it could set back the operation days or longer.
IMHO I would have retrofitted the old top hat with heating lines first, even only as a backup to this plan. But none of us have enough information to do anything but guess.
BP should have grasped the clathrate problem before deploying the tophat. The 'tophat' may have been constructed to contain the amount of oil BPs own PR stated was escaping; so it doesn't have the capacity to handle the flow...but it could...they could have pulled it up, installed heating lines and enlarged the pipe in a matter of a couple of days and dropped it on the well. Instead, they spent days threading a small line into one of the leaks in order to try to save the oil but that technique makes no sense to me. Why would the government let them do that and keep doing it for days while the plume continued?
In my opinion, their entire effort has been and continues to be committed primarily to limiting their liability and saving the well...or simply wasting time until the relief well is completed. They said the 'next' plan was ready to go if topkill failed, but apparently it isn't. Now they are talking about another week to get it in place. In the mean time we aren't allowed to see the other thirteen or so video feeds because watching might create confusion or even precipitate another failure? Is that what I heard? That can't be right.
First off this well is history, period, it cannot be saved and never will be. They will tie into the bottom pump the mud to kill it, cement will then be pumped and it is a done deal. They probably will attempt to clean off the top of the well as well, and that will require a little more cementing. Put a plaque on it mark do not disturb.
As far as the time goes...well, while I think I can sympathize with your impatience in these things, reality is, it takes time to tighten a bolt, turn a wrench, lower a pipe, etc. I am trying to be simplistic here about mechanical operations, but that is basically how it goes. Have you watched any of the videos? I know you carping about not being able to see all 13, or whatever, but I have watched the ROV's at work, cutting splicing, reconnecting etc. My hat goes off to those guys running them. While I know I have the capability to do it, I don't have the patience, they are doing that stuff hour after hour to get the job done. Sadly my friend it just takes time to do the physical aspects of any job.
But I suppose venting your frustrations about the situaion must make you feel better somehow. It is always harder for those who have never done it to understand the time factor of any job, where there are many mechanical operations involved. I do see a lot of monday morning quarterbacking going on in here and I suppose that is to be expected. We all like to think we can do it better, faster, you know the drill, I think.
BP thinks that cutting and putting collar on cut end is best option yet for stopping flow. This begs the question why they did not try this first instead of pissing around trying to put chewing gum in high pressure leaks.
The answer of course is the new option (no. 7, if I am keeping count correctly) risks greatly increasing spill flow rate if it were to fail.
God help the world for this one more example of man's folly.
I agree totally - if using the "diamond wire saw" to cut the riser off clean and square leads to a dramatically increased flow-rate downstream of the BOP, then what happens then?
The BP brains trust seem to think that everything downstream of the BOP is fairly loose anyway (the riser kink near the BOP, plus the riser kink where they tried the dome ages ago, are not stopping flow very much), so chopping it off will not lead to a rapidly increased open gate for the current well flow.
I guess we'll see when they lop the riser. Good luck putting the grommet seal on, on top of the bubbling, roiling oil&gas, coming out at what - 8,000 - 13,000 psi?
hoping that this can grab more O&G than the riser insertion tube could....
if they can't get it stopped prior to a relief well, grabbing as much as possible before it gets out is the next best.
Agreed - this option is the best way to go now.
I don't like the 2nd BOP on top idea. Challenge to install, and the existing kit has taken a hell of a kicking with all the erosion, mud pumping, etc. If they tried to shut in the well now I'd be extremely worried that something below the "new" BOP would let go under full well pressure.
The BOP top connector should be in good shape - no reason why not. You do not have to shut the well in after installing the 2nd BOP. Just allow the well to continue to flow via the rig/tanker/test spread/flare booms. So long as the well is allowed to flow the pressure on the BOP would be minimal - it could even be less than zero due to hydrostatic head of the external seawater. Also, this would not allow any seawater in to potential create hydrates. Much better idea than the cap over the cut riser idea. Hard to cut (don't forget you have to cut the drillpipe as well) and seawater would continue to be a problem.
This is not easy, but most certainly doable. Just need a few good engineers to get it done and put all the politicians, academics, and scientists in another room.
Well, just intuitively it seems like a large riser mated around the outside of the riser flange or stub, has to work a lot better than a 4" line stabbed into a much larger riser pipe (not to mention the riser pipe leaks that won't be inline any more).
At least, let's hope...
It's gonna be a long haul to the LMRP, so a couple of quick things from a total newbie here.
Thing one;
You guys running this site are the best.
Note to other newbies like me. Read and learn, and leave the battleships and liquid nitrogen at home.
Thing two;
A question. Well more than one.
The second relief well is offline so they have the BOP from it available. Is that correct?
Installing that BOP, if they go down that road, is something they do after the LMRP? What I mean is, the spare BOP is a backup plan in the event the LMRP just won't fly?
I'm trying to picture where we're headed.....
They cut off the riser and then all the O&G will be flying straight up out of the top of the busted BOP - no more multiple leak points, right? Then they lower the LMRP onto that fountain?
If the LMRP doesn't fly, do they remove it and try to install the new BOP on top of the old one?
Then what? Do they then plan to close the new BOP and go back to pumping mud as in the topkill strategy?
Finally, it seems that quite a few folks here with way more smarts about this stuff than me (I'm a logger for crissakes) have been saying that two relief wells was not too many, and maybe not enough given how tricky an operation that is, and now we're down to one. Is that likely to bite us in the ass down the road do y'all think?
Thanks ...it's pretty obvious that I didn't even know what half the words I just used even meant just a couple of weeks ago. :)
It can't be just the weight of this device to provide a seal.
As a software engineer, I feel confident in identifying this as a kluge.
Who would design this device without making it easier to anchor in place, with chains, tie downs, ropes, or one time initialization code marking it as a special case?
It's OK - they'll tie it down with a few lines of code. :-)
Spaghetti code might work! ;-)
Yeah, but how is that any different from anything else they have tried so far? I suppose that you could argue that on the back of the envelope any one of these things could have worked. But unfortunately none of them have so far.
I have no doubt that in the days ahead someone from BP is going to come out and give some percentage odds for this latest scheme to work. I am inclined to say that whatever number they come up with, we should divide by two.
The beauty of throwing out odds is that unless you said 0% or 100%, nobody can prove your odds were wrong, whatever happens.
Just because it's a kluge doesn't mean it won't work.
And I must say I'm much happier with a solution space that doesn't test the system's ability to withstand the shut-in-pressure that would have been seen if they had succeeded with the top kill approach. Granted, I'm not privy to any of the data that BP has regarding what the failure point of the casing is, but that has been a point of concern for me for a while.
Additionally, if the major flow restrictions are being seen in down in the well and within the BOP, there really isn't much downside risk to chopping off the riser and putting the LMRP in place (there are some significant implied caveats in that sentence!)...
At any rate, the baseline expectation should continue to be that the blowout will release oil into the GOM as it has done for the last 5 weeks, until the kill well stops the flow. And we should all reflect upon the fact that the amount released to date (assuming 15,000 bpd * 40 days = 600,000 barrels) is only 3% of the US current DAILY crude oil use...this is something that we need to stop using as fast as we can.
I never quite understood this. Suppose the BOP had functioned properly in the first place. After a short while there would have been a steady state where the pressure just below the BOP equals the reservoir pressure minus the weight-per-unit-area of the column of fluids in the well. Much of this column would have been supercritical methane, meaning the wellhead pressure would be not all that much lower than the formation pressure.
Do you doubt that the well head has been designed to take that pressure? That would take their irresponsibility to a whole new level, would it not? I mean, closing the BOP is perhaps not everyday on every platform, but I thought it happens several times a year in the GoM. I'm not in this trade, so I may be completely mistaken. But perhaps this level of irresponsibility is the reason they operate with a BOP that is not even designed to cut through the joints. Together with the other failures of the BOP it was like a circus artist having a safety net that only covers half the likely area.
Assuming the well head was designed to take that pressure, I cannot understand why the top kill procedure would have to use much higher pressure. The oil flows when the pressure differential exceeds gravity, not? As soon as the pressure differntial is only a little less than the gravity, some mud should begin to flow down. Each barrel of mud down the well helps reduce the pressure at the well head making it easier to add more. (Correct me if this is wrong, please.)
I therefore interpreted the failure as meaning that they never managed to raise the pressure to that point, either because too much went out through the leaks, or because they saw they would run out of mud before the well got to the equilibrium point. Either way, it indicates that the leak is bigger than their engineers thought. (BTW, why did they even try to pump mud before the first junk shot? Were they really ignorant about the size of the leak? Is a BOP not equipped with a lot of sensors? I could have understood it if they hoped enough junk would stick to reduce the leak below the critical value.)
Am I missing something?
They can just bloat it with enough easter eggs, unwanted features, and random legacy code that it won't go anywhere. Alternately, they can install enough malware on it that it will be frozen in place forever.
At any rate, if this works, there will be some ROV operators who will never have to worry about looking for work again.
Main point is they are now prepared to consolidate to a single source O&G leak. A big decision has been taken here, a point of no return will be crossed one the mangle riser and drill pipe have been cut away. I really hope they have a very good handle on what the pressures will be coming out of the top of the incumbent LMRP once the kinked riser is gone. If they are lucky and the pressure is not too high, and it proves easy to land the new sealing unit over the top of it, I can see the next step being to remove the incumbent LMRP followed by an attempt made to stab a second BOP. If BP don't know what the approximate pressure will be once they cut away the kinked riser, then going with this option is a huge gamble.
I'll gladly say I don't mind if you take posting privileges away from those of us who registered after this disaster. I for one, am MUCH more interested in reading the professional views of the experts, than I am of posting myself. So I hope we can retain those privileges. I think there are many of us along the gulfcoast that have found this site to be absolutely amazing in providing information we need to know and we appreciate every bit of information that is provided by Prof..HO..Rockman..and others, Thank you
Yeah What She Said!
Seriously Awesome site.
and I'm wondering how this will be handled above, How will the flow be throttled if it can at all? I envision an old steam train, at the station filling its water tank (Supertanker) and pulling off as another (Tanker) scoots under the spigot. Any back pressure could blow the LMRP "gravity?" connection off.
TOD right now is kind of like a "Good Samaritan" doc that stops beside an accident. These folks have been up and running and formed a tight enough culture to weather this crisis - as well as deal with us newbies - and they have simply dropped whatever they were on the way to doing and are providing this public service, which is like putting some of us on "life-support" in terms of info and honest speculation.
I am really blown away by the good fortune that you TOD folks exist! Because I am convinced that we are on the cusp, not only of a calamity of monumental proportions (from the Gulf to the oceans - "wide and blue" as they used to be!) but of a monumental opportunity to wake people up. And I'm counting on TOD's 5 years of past experience and expertise to use all the 2 by 4's you've got in the "arsenal" to assist in that waking up followed by guidance.
I can foresee a huge role for TOD in fostering better use of resources and a more simplified lifestyle that has got to rise from these ashes. Once this crisis gathers itself into the worst that's ahead and people are forced to rethink every aspect of how we live on this planet.
So thank you again - before the lights go out - if I've wasted bandwidth on this comment.
Those are quite kind words and I think you've hit the nail on the head. TOD is a hugely mixed bag of folks that have learned to tolerate each other fairly well. There are leftists, centrists, and right-leaning folk that post here regularly, but from what I've seen TOD remains fairly apolitical. We've come to realize things are not black and white, grey swans find their roost here at TOD on occasion.
Right now, the engineers have the stage and that is OK because they are front and center right now in GOM. But, TOD has learned that we need the humor and the campfires and the ramblings of occasional whackos (myself included) and armchair psychologists to keep going. It's somehow evolved into an effective community model for coping with all this.
What I hope comes out of all the DH experience are discussions of the following:
1 - The idea that technology will always find an answer to our energy needs. What if it does not?
2 - What effect do politics play on #1. They can have a huge and unanticipated impact that cannot easily be modelled.
3 - Given what can happen is "risky" oil production, should the global 2P oil reserves be re-evaluated more realistically.
I don't think we need to take the posting Priv's away from folks that are new to the site. This thread is not the only one you might want to post too. We have daily drumbeats, and the bi-weekly campfires which range in topics. Lots of things go on at TOD, lots of things to think about besides the current issues of this Oil Spill.
So I hope you all hang around after the dust and flurry settles from this event. As some of you might be guessing, the show won't be over with, when the BP spill is in the past, it is just one of the opening acts in a long long play showing on a World near you.
When you have time, get in and edit your profiles, and look at other folk's profiles. To see someone's click on their name, You'll find mom's, dad's, Oil folks, mining folks, divers, beach bums, farmers, sustainable living folk, and just about every walk of life on this site, along with the great folks that have lots of information in their heads about the world of Fossil Fuels.
Don't be shy, we'd love to have you join in other discussions, we can't get through the coming years without trying to live better than we have in the past.
So Welcome all you newbies, because we were all newbies at one point or another.
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future.
Ps, Thanks to the staff, your hours are long and hard, Us old timers love you too.
This comment was from the most recent topic by Interested Public:
The issue in question is the condition of the drill pipe which is within and hidden by the riser. Oil was flowing from the end of the drill pipe at the end of the riser string on the ocean floor. This flow was capped.
Is there another break in the drill pipe where the riser bends over at the top of the BOP?
The drill pipe is hardened tool steel, more likely to break or crack than simply bend or kink.
Cutting free the riser would clarify to some degree where the actual oil leak is coming from. If from the drill pipe, a flange and open valve could be welded and bolted onto the drill pipe securely and then the valve can be closed. Or, mud can be pumped through the valve along with 'Top Kill 2.0' on the kill and choke lines.
Prof G and TOD staff,
I think you need to think about dual channels. One for the insiders and one for the rest of us. How you sort us is up to you but I think you know who the oil insiders are already since you all set the site up from a very small group and pulled others in.
As a long time but infrequent poster I am having a hard time finding the technical information I am used to on the site. Too many non technical people posting unscientific ideas, concepts and conjecture. I know traffic is up but not all posts are equally valid and new eyes need to know which are real technical discussions vs just corrections of wrong statements.
This from a scientist in another discipline. I try not to post about things I don't know about when others are working the problem.
I come here to learn and it has gotten much harder to do that the past week. I understand the big tent approach and value many of the posters here, but sometimes only the experienced oil drillers/engineers have the knowledge to advance threads and they get drowned out by off topic conjecture.
Still love the site after 5+ years but it needs to stay very technical to keep its value. Thanks for letting me post now and in the past.
I strongly agree: parallel threads would help. Possible names:
I’d be excluded from posting in the first, and read it avidly.
(Note that it's easier to say "Please post over there" than it is to say "Just shut up." Having a second thread would embolden moderators.)
I dislike this idea. I am not a scientist by training but I read the scientific journals and understand them better than most people. (comes from drinking lots of Gray Goose-beefs up the gray matter)
Whatever . . .
If professional journals are freely available to all then the same should apply here. We all have to struggle at some level with those around us; and friction and fractures abound in professional circles for some of the same reasons just voiced above- intellectual segregation negates the spirit of what a democracy should be all about and intellectual freedom has made the Internet the greatest tool ever. How else can we all learn unless we freely share ideas? Closing off a thread because some of the participants are intellectually lite just makes no sense. In fact the more I think of it the idea smacks of a kind of . . uh.
well I' just say it. . .
fascism.
To be honest though, I think the real problem is all of those lite beers out there. Makes no sense to me to take a fine beer and dumb it down.
Total horse-feathers - TOD has been a wonderful site for years ... now it is full of first-timers shooting their mouths off - or getting their rocks off. No problem having lots of readers - that's fine - but lots of ludicrous posts does not make a great technical forum. It is not Fascism to try and control the noise (how ridiculous - in fact, a really pathetic comment).
I really don't like this idea that non-oil industry insiders are not allowed to add to the main discussion. Sure, we might not have the technical detail on a range of issues, but in others we can contribute (I've read more than one interesting post from nuclear/other engineers, who have openly admitted their backgrounds) - furthermore, we might need additional details to bring us up to scratch.
Surely the best solution would be a reddit-style voting system, where the most highly upvoted posts are the dominant?
I do find it a little boring with this recent surge in "jokes" posted, I have to admit. I didn't come here for comedy hour.
Agreed, Eric. I've been reading a learning, posting some quesitons and a few comments. Being an attorney, my field is more the liabilities arising from this, though I have had many questions. Specialists will have their own comments and questions, but are best suited to laying out the detail in a way that makes sense. I wouldn't be much help on that thread (and would read it, like Eric); for the open thread, comments on PO and energy related matters germain to the ongoing crises of course would be the order of the day.
Craig
Until a new person lets the rest of us know what they do for a living, or have done for a living, none of us knows what other people are. What drew people to this site in the first place was the Peak Oil discussion, and the tech details of some of the posters. But with each day, lurkers who read and are in the business of Fossil Fuels or related areas show up and let us the general population of TOD know who they are and what they know.
While it seems now after all these years that it was all planned this way, it was just a bunch of dice throwing and the numbers and people showed up.
Gail, had a thread a while back that was a list of topics on the subject and links, (no comment type of info page).
But why they changed to the live feeds and the massive open threads, I don't know, but it seems logical to have done so.
It just overwhelms the new posters, who haven't been here long enough to know who posts what sort of info. I could start a list, but I'd miss hundreds of people.
Basically, you don't know what a comment will be like till you open it up and see what is inside.
You might use the little tabs [+] and [-] they open and close post threads. They are in the upper lefthand part of each poster's post. If I have had several posts, I close everything up and hunt for any answers to my comment, then go back and read the new posts afterward.
The only insiders I have a steady list of is the personnel, everyone else is fair game. I mean, in my profile I don't list that my dad grew up in the oil feilds of southern Ill, and his first car was a 1.5 ton dump truck, so you don't know what I know and don't know, just by looking at me.
Cheers, It'll all work itself out in the end, sooner or later, we'll have a TOD gathering and BBQ, and get to meet everyone.
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future.
.
How about a miracle - assuming that the flow increases once the kinked riser has been removed, is there any possibility that the increased flow will encourage bridging in the formation?
I know that there have been previous comments about this being less likely as the well was tubed out to be a producer, but if the flow is all via a casing shoe does this change the possibility of it plugging?
I think we've got a bunch of slow learners on our hands. Check this out.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/37368260#37368377
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/lower-marine-riser-package-timeline-2010-...
PG, Gail, et al - Wanted to get this EXCELLENT suggestion up to the surface, so to say. I don't have the right MIME type for BP's feed (facists ;-), so I'll go straight to the feed on PBS.Struck per above.Don't know much about what resources you have at hand, but I think you're doing great keeping up with demand and dealing with the influx.
One thought - not about liquid nitrogen, but about pushing more FAQ type info further up. How about a "consensus understanding of what the hell is going on" blurb on the homepage. It also might take some pressure off your bandwidth. Honestly, I've been checking in with the comment thread every few hours to keep up to speed. (It was noted elsewhere that chatter here predicts MSM announcements by 24-hours. True dat.)
FTR, as I went through the password reset, I saw I've had this account almost a year. Never used it for obvious reasons.
So hang in there, folks. As the world's #1 source of actual information about this ****, you're doing the patch, the public, and pretty much the whole world a serious solid.
But, please, remember the old rule from the dot com days: 18-hour days MAX! (And eat something. For your mother.)
kthnxbai.
PS, that way I can lurk in one window and use bp's bandwidth in the other
Apologies if this has been addressed already, but I have a question about the relief wells (just well, now, I guess) being drilled and the prospect of hurricanes in the GoM before the flow of oil would be successfully ended by a relief well. Is the process of drilling a relief well such that it can be halted and restarted if the surface ships supporting the drilling operation need to be moved out of the path of a hurricane? Thanks.
Yep - they watch the weather window and can safely suspend drilling operations as necessary. Let's hope they don't have to....
What I see as the biggest danger in cutting off the LMRP is that when the cut gets over half way across, the force of the flowing oil might cause the LMRP to flop over before the cut is finished, rendering it difficult/impossible to put any kind of cap over. Kind of like when you sawa piece of wood without supporting the end. At some point the wood bends/breaks before the cut is finished. Follow what I'm trying to say here?
That's a big chunk of steel that you're talking about. Given that it's collapsed and twisted, when cutting it off I'd be more worried about where it's natural COG is rather than the forces imposed by the fluid flow.
That's a good point, I think what they'll try to accomplish is an even cut all the way around the circumference of the pipe.
Per the nuclear theory??? Is he actually talking about dropping a nuke on the BOP or down the existing well?? The later is absolutely crazy because of the amount of pressure coming up from the well.
Because BP didn't drill a well next to the leaking one this option is basically off the table since the relief well should be completed by that time so why bother with a risky operation?
Problem is, that unless someone knows of a sawing technique that I don't, there is no way that the cut will be completed around the entire circumference at precisely the same instant. Then it flops even more easily toward the side that is only partially cut through.
I presume they will have to support the riser from a surface winch, both to support the weight while cutting, and to manoeuvre the severed riser section away from the BOP area.
I think they should intentionally open up a hole in the LMRP and cut away as much of the superstructure of the LMRP as possible before attempting to saw the pipe that attaches it, in order to lessen the possibility that this problem occurs.
They will use a diamond wire saw (as per the figure above). Think of the technique that they used to saw the Kursk in half before they tried to bring it to the surface. The details will be different, but the basic technique isn't new at all.
Think of a loop wire that is encrusted with small diamonds. The wire is strung along a set of pulleys (one of which is motorized) - this allows you to circulate the wire. You push the wire up against whatever it is that you want to cut, and the diamonds in the wire do the cutting.
I'm guessing it'll be an ROV that will do the cut? If so, will the diamond wire make the cut on the same side of the riser as the ROV is on? If that is also the case...when the ROV penetrates the riser, will it not encounter an extreme force blowing it away from the riser, along with a reduction in visibility to basically nothing? Is the wire that the diamonds are on going to be strong enough to withstand the forces it will encounter when it gets through the riser?
These seem like viable potential problems.
A loop of wire encrusted with small diamonds? I'm hoping this is kept out of the news or it's gonna give my wife ideas.
In other fields this is handled by not simply cutting from one side but scoring all the way around, deeper and deeper.
Looking at the bend one would assume there is not enough room for that cutting method. The wire requires minimal all-around clearance.
Maybe this, in prep for the LMRP attempt?
1. Sink four counterweights around the pipe.
2. Run steel cables between them
3. Pull the cables into the stream one at a time
you can't construct a section of pipe out of steel cable segments, but you could probably obstruct the flow gradually. You slow the flow. Then swap the valve in. With enough leverage it could be done. Then kill it with the relief well.
we've decided to take down the video and provide links to other sources.
I am a fan of VLC video player, especially to play MMS files.
VLC video player can be downloaded free here: www.videolan.org/vlc/ (all formats)
I have been watching at this link (which after you install VLC, you just put in your browser):
mms://a261.l9789246260.c97892.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/261/97892/v0001/reflector:46260
Other feeds:
http://www.cnn.com/video/flashLive/live.html?stream=stream2&hpt=T1
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/livenow?id=7115549
http://globalwarming.house.gov/spillcam
The PBS widget: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/05/newshour-oil-widget-2-includ...
http://mfile.akamai.com/97892/live/reflector:46245.asx?bkup=46260
Most of those feeds, perhaps all, now show the ROV back on its tender ship, apparently for maintainence. The rest of the feeds have been shut off, except for this new one at (where else?) fox news:
http://interactive.foxnews.com/livestream/live.html?chanId=2
Here we see the ongoing action around the BOP, among other feeds.
Thanks so much for finding and posting this multiple feed link. I've been trying to find one for at least 24 hrs.
To the industry and otherwise experts posting comments: thanks so much. Basically, you are getting out of ahead of BP not only chronologically, in many instances, but also in candor, and I appreciate that. Please check the multiple feed link above and provide interpretation & analysis as appropriate. I think most of your lurkers will find this to be your most useful contribution. Also, as regards separate channels, posting embargoes, and the like, welcome to the internet. Put your floaties on and deal. It's a big pool.
Just so you know, I maintain a comprehensive list of BP live spill feeds here.
http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2010/05/20/live-video-feed-webcam-gulf-...
Page has three different players embedded, links to multi-screen video feeds and different URLs for access via Windows Media Player.
If you are ever having a problem getting a feed visit that page.
Exactly how will they deal with kicks with a hookup like this?Is there not a large amount of gas that will come out of solution as it goes up the new riser?I can see the collection vessel exploding in a fireball already.And how will the damaged/eroded BOP fare in this scenario?
It looks risky to say the least.
THAT is exactly my question.
Will wait patiently for some knowledgeable person's answer... ;)
Hiver et al -- the flow will have to be run thru an oil/NG seperator. The oil will be easy to deal with at that point: send it to a tank. The NG, as you assume, is the dangerous component. It will likely be flared off of a long boom from the processing ship. Just venting it wuld allow a very dnagerous explosive cloud to build around the ship. The trickiest part may be dealing with potentially variable pressures.
Thanks RM. Can you elaborate a bit more on the potential consequences of 'variable pressures'?
Much appreciate.
Just a guess Hiver. I try to imagine what the flow of oil/NG will be like as it rises to the surface. Difficult to see it being very uniform. Flowing out of the well eradicly the NG will contine to come out of solution as it rises. It would seem to come in surges and with different pressures. But I can't imagine to what degree the pressures will vary: 500 psi to 800 psi? 500 psi to 2500 psi? Just don't have any experience with such a situation.
I guess my biggest concern is another blowout. I'm flying by the seat of my pants so correct me if I'm wrong. I'm thinking this it a mile long riser of uniform diameter and with oil/NG coming up in spurts of varying pressure. Maybe too much imagination (or caffeine) but I'm thinking of a garden hose lying on the ground with the water running, and how it can whip around if the water pressure suddenly changes.
Could the same thing happen to the riser pipe? If so, what kind of force are we talking about? Seeing as the BOP is sort of being 'supported' on a very long well that's (someone said) like a long straw stuck in pudding, I'm worried about another blowout that may break open the well head. Is that possible or is that too much imagination?
Again, many thanks for all your and everyone's patient explanations. I'm just trying to get a ballpark idea of the most serious risks with this latest attempt.
In multi-phase flow we sometimes get liquid "slugs" separated from each other by a gas-filled length of pipe, maybe several hundreds of metres long. This might perhaps happen in the new riser pipe, and if so the main implication is that the collection vessel would need a sizable slug catcher. Hopefully someone at BP has done a PIPESIM run to investigate this.
Slug flow does cause dynamic pressure variations, as you suspect, but in my experience they're not usually much of a problem. Steel pipe doesn't whip around the same way as a garden hose.
OK, so help me out here. If steel pipes don't whip around, then whatever surges in pressure that would have whipped around a flexible pipe, would have to be absorbed by the more rigid riser pipe OR they will be transferred to whatever is attached to it: LMRP, BOP, well, surface vessel, whatever, am I right?
It's a real question, btw, not rhetorical. ;) Thanks.
The whole contraption is as always only as strong/safe as the weakest link. If the weakest link is at the joint on top of the BOP, it may break open in which case we'll 'just' get the same gusher as what we'd have when they cut open the riser, assuming NO further damage to structures, or 'just' a worse gusher if there's further damage.
But what if the joint holds, but the pressures are transferred further down, to BELOW the BOP, at the well head? Some have commented that after >1 month the well head and/or casings near the top may have become significantly weakened. If a break happens there, then it could break open the well head seal and we'd have free flowing oil/gas from the seafloor itself, no?
Again I have no expertise, just worried. I'd appreciate some knowledgeable person(s) explaining to me where I'm wrong in that 'logic'. Thanks!!
Thank you Rockman.
Bravo ROCKMAN.... u really were on target last week when you stated that the top kill was not working, that the drilling mud was simply being ejected back out of the pipe. Your posts are always great, going straight to the pith of the matter.
Looking at the simplified drawings of the LMRP, it looks like they are depending on the steel wings, pointing downward to wrap around the wide circular rim that is part of the remaining riser assembly, to be the initial mechanical guides that will keep the LMRP positioned above its target, the riser "nipple". They left the effluent plume out of the drawing.
Can they get it that close before the effluent starts pushing it around?
Couldn't they pull it down with winches anchored on the BOP?
Yair...see my previous post. A series of tapping saddles relieving flow and pressure BELOW the BOP would surely have to help?
Forgive the (almost)double post lower down, I posted before I saw this.
How about bolting a split flange with long bolts extending upward, around the pipe stub on top of the BOP? The other half of the flange would be attached to the bottom of the cap they are planning to place over the stub. The bolts would then be used to force the cap onto the stub and cinch it down. screwing the nuts onto the bolts would apply all the force needed, easily overcoming the force of the flow, and resulting in a solid mechanical seal with no leakage whatsoever. Why wouldn't such a conventional way of connecting two pipe sections work here?
You stab the BOP with flow open to the rig - no differential pressure trying to push it up. This is a common technique for shutting in surface blowouts. After the BOP is on and secured then you can think about restricting the flowrate and increasing the back pressure. The trick will be to be set up to produce to the rig while stabbing the BOP. You could simply divert or be rigged up to a well test spread to safely handle the gas. All oil and gas would then be sent to a flare and burned off until a tanker could be positioned to take the oil.
Let's see. 100 ton device weighs 200,000 pounds. Device about 100 sq inches where it attaches to damaged BOP, resulting in about 2000 psi. Fluid coming out around 10-15,000 psi. Good Luck. And I mean it.
Pressure in reservoir: 13,000 psi to 13,500 psi.
Restriction in well reducing pressure by unknown amount.
Pressure of oil and natural gas in ~13,000 feet long well (from reservoir to sea floor) assuming density of .8 g/cm3 reducing pressure by ~4,500 psi.
Pressure at base of BOP was reported between 8,000 psi and 9,000 psi about a month ago.
A significant but unstated pressure drop exists across the BOP.
Pressure of sea water at a depth of 1,500 m: ~2,150 psi.
Based on the above data, the pressure relative to the pressure of the sea water of the oil and gas exiting the top of the BOP is between 0 psi and 6,850 psi.
sounds reasonable. unfortunately, you are still about 5,000 psi short.
It's not coming out around 10-15,000 psi. The pressure just below the BOP is 8-9,000. The pressure just above the BOP has been estimated to 2600 psi, about 400 psi above the sea pressure.
However, the pressure drop in the BOP will vary with the flow. When the riser is removed, the flow will increase by a few percent, and the pressure just above the BOP will be 2200 psi, sea pressure. On the other hand, the flow will have a velocity reflecting the pressure drop from 8000 psi, reduced by whatever friction there is.
where is campfire?
just read the last three posts and i don't recognize the commenters. seriously, been interesting the past few weeks. TSHTF and everyone, well those who usually play here started expressing their concern. As the predicament evolved more and more folks began to join in. Now, based on my reading the comments of the last several posts things have degenerated into a series of comments that have little real relevance. We are just watching a video on a loop and trying to figure out what we should do. Spin. Spin, Spin.
I am sitting on a farm 25 miles north of the GOM. Born and raised here. I am drunk and sad. (The first is not unusual for Sat evening) But it has just started raining and the Gods are speaking in the voices of the lighting and thunder.
I was warned several days ago that i should not express my indignation. so i won't. But when i step back and reflect on how this has unfolded it makes me very sad. No, i am not a oil patch person with any experience in how to stop this hemorrhage, I have spent many hours thinking about it however and offered a few of my novice ideas. They were ignored. But I tried. but, in reflection, it is out of all our hands. We have done it. Trust me. In this part of the world, this is not going to end well. We are about to take a big step down.
I am a retired fish biologist. While I have not commented on the impact i believe this will have on the things I know about, I will just say i cry for my fellow creatures tonight . And I know everything is connected. so I will pour one more drink, go to bed and dream about what it might have been if we had just .... somebody will think of something.
t
Rube, I hear you. Campfire will return, not to worry. Nate had planned to do something tonight, but I told him to save it until Weds. I figured we might as well flesh out this LMRP crap. :(
Rube:
For being drunk, your writing is still pretty good. I respect your thoughts and sincere emotional bond with nature. Aldo Leopold said there were two kinds of people in the world: those who need the wild places and the others who don't. I share your anger, frustration and thirst for strong drink, but have to believe somebody's going to get a handle on this thing soon.
I put up a Campfire post just now, which is a talk by Nate Hagens (both video and transcript). I call it Changing Society's Behavior to Use Less Oil and Other Resources. Nate calls it, "What can we learn from hedge fund investors?"
We talked about putting it up earlier, but the feeling was that people would be more interested in talking about LMRP this evening.
a life long friend just sent me the following.
Oil rolls gently in the sea merely 20 miles from the Florida Keys. The Louisiana coastline is now a garish reminder of the greed of a corporate mindset with only one goal: Do it now and do it cheap. Your unborn children and grandchildren will not know the joys of coastal fishing villages. You will never again enjoy the sea bounty of the Gulf of Mexico. But, wait and listen and on the wind you will the mindless platter of idiots singing on the wind, “drill baby drill.”
If you do not feel a sense of frustration at this moment of the short-sightness of the milling humanity of the greatest nation on earth and their inability to comprehend that the wrong set of rules is governing the process by which we consume resources, then you are dead—or will be soon.
Not only do the Gulf’s oil resources serve as the ultimate reservoir for the fossil fuel required by the military of PAX Americana, the latest world empire, that same Gulf coast houses fellow countrymen of our great nation who saw their livelihood totally collapse and, today, their hopes for resurrection of that way of life vanish.
Why we live this way is no longer a question. The race for energy at all costs to fuel our desire for more consumption of things we do not need has a rationale. It is implanted in the minds of all who salute a way of life has no regard for the ultimate cost of satisfying every whim. That rationale is called stupidity. It is also disguised as “liberty” and “freedom” on this holy day of memorial for those who have given the ultimate in our country’s wars over the years. It is a way of life that must change. Many regarded Timothy McVeigh as a terrorist of the first order, particularly when he referred to the deaths of innocent children and others in the Oklahoma City bombing as “collateral damage”.
There is little difference between the McVeighs of this world and leaders of a societal system that create a corporate structure that simply views the death of the Gulf of Mexico as “collateral damage” in the ever elusive pursuit of profits. Make no mistake about it; such is the view of those corporations that seek to continue to provide fossil fuel energy regardless of the impossible to total cost in lives and life styles for the folks and environmental resources that are sacrificed.
The answer is, per the popular song, my friend is “blowing on the wind.” The question remains: “When will they ever learn?”
Reply
Forward
Our only hope is that the loop current picks up half of it and takes it up the east coast. then the rubes in tex., la. (and I'm from what they used to call the Pelican State :( and miss., okl, alk...will be outvoted...i hope.
Nah we just need more of that quicksetting >concrete< you were talking about
Not just quicksetting, but high density concrete http://www.astm.org/DIGITAL_LIBRARY/JOURNALS/TESTEVAL/PAGES/JTE11901J.html. they use the stuff to protect nuclear power plants. The only objection I have seen to using it is that the ocean floor can't support it. All you have to do is spread it out and then increase the height. Although, I suppose it could sink through to China.
rube, this really hit home with me. I feel like the time is approaching when we may be starting mourning the death of the GOM (TEOTGOMAWKI)
I went to college (1960s) in Sarasota Fla and have fond memories of surf fishing with friends and cooking our catch on the beach at night. Sailing the school's sunfish across the bay and other enjoyable stuff. Experiencing the GOM like it may never be experienced again after this. I'm sure others who have lived on the coastal GOM could chime in with memories like this, especially the poor folks of N'awlins who are getting a double-whammy now.
It is just so f***ing sad.
One question I haven't seen any discussion on
How much, if any, danger is there of losing control of the LMRP and smashing the BOP with it? Is it possible this could dislodge the BOP completely . Is the act of cutting away the riser itself dangerous. I imagine once it is cut way it will shift, it is still supporting some length of riser pipe up off the sea floor, but the drill pipe will still be in it and connected to the BOP could this alone cause significant damage to the BOP.
Worst case if the BOP was completely destroyed or dislodged would this pose a danger to the ultimate plan of killing it with the relief wells?
Yair...As I understand it the pipework BELOW the BOP consists of a twenty one inch riser (to which the BOP is attached)and a production casing within which is the drill string. The production casing and drill string have been partialy crimped/severed by the rams in the BOP.
I assume then that the twenty one inch riser is at well preasure below the BOP? If this is not the case I'll deal with that eventuality on a little further.
Could not an excavation be made below the BOP and a series of specialy fabricated tapping saddles be clamped to the riser. The said tapping saddles could be furnished with valving and off takes (to take wellflow to the surface) and an inbuilt sealed drive shaft and (say) two inch slug cutter to penetrate the pipe.
Difficult I know but seeing what has been done with the ROVs already it should be possible. Incidently the integrity of the seal against the outside of the pipe can easily be tested to working preasure before the penetration is attempted.
I'll now sit back and cop the flack
scrub -- The riser is attached to the TOP of the BOP and extended upwards to the drillling rig before the blow out. The BOP sits on top of the well head (a complex series of valves). The well head is attached to a series of concentric casing tops that extend downwards into the earth. There is still a section of drill pipe rising up the middile of the csg string. The wild flow is coming up the csg/drill pipe thru the well head and then up thru the BOP and then some of the flow continues to pass thru the riser.
rockman - would you mind commenting on this? (sorry to dual post)
first: simmons has now said 3 times (ratigan, bloomberg, puplava) that the riser we are seeing is attached to the rigfloor and not to the wellhead.
a theory: deepwater blows up, but it doesn't sink for 2 days. while it's on fire, it's slowly filling with oil. maybe the weight of the oil actually causes it to tip over/lose buoyancy? in any case, now it's on the bottom, full of oil, and leaking it back thru the riser we see on cnn.
does deepwater have on board storage sufficient to account for the flow from the riser? many thanks.
kimyo -- If they riser they've been showing is the portion attached to the drilling rig then we are watching one of the greatest frauds of all time. A conspiracy that includes dozens, if not hundreds, of BP employees and subcontractors, the Coast Guard and the MMS. They are all coordinating this effort to make us look at the wrong end of the riser. My guess would be probably not.
The drilling rig floated via two large pontoons filled with air. If you some how managed to fill them with oil it would have become less buoyant. I do seem to recall an early report that the drill rig carried 700,000 gallons of diesel fuel. But that fuel wouldn't look anything like crude oil.
mmm, not sure I understand why so many people at BP would be involved in 'covering up' the connected riser theory. How many people on this planet have actually been to the Gulf floor to SEE in person what's there around the remains of DeepWater Horizon?
A long pause while we count to about twenty or at most twenty-five (can anyone offer a realistic number that is much greater?) Those few report what they see to a superior and then shut the f-- up, if they wish to keep a job. If someone at BP is a potential whistleblower they would probably first be strangled by a fellow worker before they could utter a word. Also, remember, the murky conditions under water makes viewing things problematical in the greatest degree. If the riser is still connected no one outside of a few supervisory personnel at BP would necessarily know and they certainly would not tell anyone else. Has the Coast Guard placed personnel on the Gulf Floor? I've not heard of any nor of any MMS folks going down there either.
BP is like so many corporations, it seems to me, where only 'good news' or a diminished 'bad news' (they call that below the line statements where I work) report is allowed. The culture of lying to make things look good is pernicious and widespread in the corporate culture of 21st century Earth. Promotions are given rarely on anything other than on the basis of perceived ability to hew to the top brasses interpretation of the real world. BP is a very tight lipped organization and they have proven they are fully capable of promoting some whoppers out for public view. In fact almost everything they've said about the whole catastrophe is eventually seen as a big lie. BP runs a military like operation from all I can tell and the CEO, Tony Hayward seems perfectly capable of running an operation that would not tolerate the least sign of 'disloyalty'. Sometimes the grim reality of corporate life in the 21st century would make Mao Zedong or Joseph Stalin envious.
1) Diverter was closed. (evidenced by witness testimony, analysis of 2hr well logging chart, and one photo showing flare (blooie line) gas burning as the rig burned) Therefore there were no returns to the rig after 2110 hrs. Also evidenced by the oil in the water on fire around the rig.
2) Even if there were returns, they would go to the open top mud pits - no more than 5000 bbls capacity. More returns would overflow out on the deck and into the sea.
3)Even if the riser was still connected after it sank, the path from the mud pits back to the bell nipple on top of the riser is an open flow line, so oil would not follow the return path.
that said, it's a nice conspiracy theory and given BP's stubborn refusal to be transparent I believe they would try it if they could.
thanks, both of you, so much for helping me understand and rule out that theory.
would either of you respond to simmons' assertion that the oil we're seeing wash up on the beaches is not coming from the riser? he's saying 1) there's too much of it and 2) it is a different type of oil than we see.
thanks again. i'll wear a 'probably not' from rockman with great pride. kinda like feynman not immediately dismissing a first year's cockamamie theory.
You can see for yourself that the oil plume coming out of the 21" riser contains a great deal of gas under pressure. Any oil in the rig's tanks would have had that gas flared off before storage. Therefore the leaking oil cannot be coming from the sunken rig.
The riser section and LMRP with new sealing attachment will be lowered by winch (drawworks) from a surface drilling rig. The riser at the surface is connected to a telescopic joint which is hung from heave compensators. Compensators will cancel out vessel vertical movement, which will keep the riser and subsea package level relative to the seabed. Compensation technology tried and tested, in fact you can't drill from a floater without compensators. The rigs thrusters will move the package over the target before the driller can try to stab onto the target (by lowering the winch). I don't think there is much risk of smashing into the BOP. Hard part will be fighting through the flow of O&G.
my 2 cents worth of thought on this trick and pony show.
might not be the most popular ideas floated ...but the industry folks will get my drift here
1- BP always knew Top Kill would not work but they went along to get pressure communications established with the well for later operations. All this time BP has been pumping the well has been communicating and they have been able to form some baseline conclusions with the pressure response received from the well mainly that the flow restriction is downhole in the wellbore and not the kink of the riser amongst others but this is the main assumption. (it also makes sense why BP pumped ...stopped ...allowed the mud to come out....pumped again ....let the mud come out again.....two words pressure response) BP could not have even contemplated cutting off the riser without this assumption. . Here is why i think this is important
there is definitely DP string in the riser (you can bet the trick pony BP knows how much)...the question is is there a break in the DP string at the point where the riser bends at the top of the BOP stack...now DP is hardened tooled steel more and not malleable meaning it is prone to breaking or snapping more than bending and kinking
the riser needs to be cut to find this out....when cut.. if the flow is form the DP a hybrid top kill can be attempted where the kill and choke line as well as the DP ( flange and valve ) can be used to pump in kill mud .....if not the LMRP cap will be attempted ....
bad oil spill agreed but from a wild well control point of view whoever is running shop at BP on this is running a very logical operation considering risk-reward has to be balanced at this point at every step ....
Aliiilaali;
You have some really great stuff to say; and many thanks.
Read your posts over though and use the edit button after you do post if need be-you used the word form when I'm certain you meant from
'if the flow is form the DP a hybrid top kill can be attempted where the kill and choke line as well as the DP'
I had to read the post three times to figure out what the H--- you meant.
keep it up though, your contributions are like diamonds in the rough -any chance next post will have some of the rough edges smoothed down?
thanks again.
ahahaha
i was never in any danger of winning the spelling bee contest at any stage :) and that's why i decided to be an engineer.....
Ray ....man no chance....my posts will be full of random abstractions like form for from ..ya'll just gotta bear with me
appreciate the kind words though
I have a question that I hope the experts can answer. What if BP before they ever started drilling had done a risk analysis and one of their highly possible scenarios is exactly what has happened. Since in my hypothetical this is a highly possible scenario presumably they would have taken steps to avoid it or mitigate it. How would their actions have been different if they had been totally forewarned? I guess what I am trying to wrap my head around is this a problem of lack of foresight or are we just at the edge of technology?
crazy -- There was noting hypothetical about the cmt failing and the well coming in when they took the mud column off of it. Such accidents have happen exactly like that for many decades. There are two big differences from those other cases. The water depth is obvious. The second is that the well came in with production csg set. That’s rather uncommon. A big factor making the situation must worse than it probably would have been if the well came in before they ran csg.
Bad cmt jobs are rather common. That’s why we have standard procedures to test and then fix the problems when they happen. There was nothing hypothetical about the well coming in when the cmt failed as they were displacing the riser. It was an absolute certain response following very basic physical laws. Fluids flow from areas of high pressure to low pressure. When they displaced the mud from the csg/riser the established a pressure gradient from high at the bottom of the well to low at the top. I know this sounds too simplistic but this is exactly what happened: you blow up a balloon and pinch it closed with your fingers. Your finger represents the cmt in the bottom of the well. Loosen our fingers and the air flows out. That’s exactly what happened when the cmt failed. To make the situation worse: as the oil/NG began flowing up the well it caused the effective weight of the fluid in the csg to become even less and thus increasing the ability of the oil/NG in the reservoir to flow upwards.
Ahh, refreshing the voices of sound reasoning
it would be nice to see more of that instead of so much of the doom and gloomers, the end of the age and all of that stuff
thank you
BP did a risk analysis in their BP GOM Regional Oil Spill Response Plan see Apppendix-H Worst-Case Discharge pg 479-523 (Warning: large pdf 60M).
Regarding your last question, the answer is Yes.
I note the word redacted in the document name.
Is there any way to find out what was redacted (blacked out) in this document?
And who exactly did the redacting?
And why did they redact it twice? (v2 implies twice to me)
http://www.mms.gov/DeepwaterHorizon/BP_Regional_OSRP_Redactedv2.pdf
If they did it right - no.
If they did it wrong you will hear about it in the next few hours.
Whoever owns the source document - so assume BP.
Because they missed something the first time.
I would not go looking for yet more conspiracy theories here. We have more than enough already. You may reasonably assume that redacted material is material that is commercially sensitive. Which is material that would be of commercial interest to competitors.
Something I learnt on the exploration side. (And some of this was in work in the GOM.) There is an almost unimaginable value in knowing what competitors are doing, and have found out. We simply see a lot of oil companies drilling for oil. But what decides who drills where? In general the oil companies bid for the right to drill. However they do this in a multi-stage process. They have to bid for the right to explore, the bid to explore even more, and bid for the right to drill. Everything is more expensive than we can imagine, and there are limited resources to do the work. (Most of which is subject to the availability of subcontractors as well.) Anything at all that allows you to gain an advantage over your competition in bidding for the best area is (liquid) gold. It could easily translate into hundreds of millions gained or lost. When a single well costs $100m it becomes desperate to gain any edge to get a lease on the best prospect. Any oil company (not just BP) will be extraordinarily careful to limit the leaking of sensitive operational data.
Remember, the GOM is a big place, and new areas are still being released over time for exploration and production. BP (and any other company) really will not want to reveal to their competition the best place to bid against them when the next round comes up. And despite our reality TV fueled desire to see the most intimate workings of everything, we don't, and should not, have the right to force them to reveal that sort of information.
Hi Francis
Sorry. Those questions were rhetorical. My last gig was 12 yrs in telecom development engineering for a major manufacturer - there isn't a more competitive, proprietary business. Last system I worked on had 5 nines reliability - 53 minutes/year allowed for unscheduled downtime. The UD fine was only $14,000/hr., nothing like rig/crew downtime costs, but still pretty expensive when it's down over a weekend.
The problem I have is that to the best of my knowledge no software/hardware problem in my team's work ever killed anyone, nor put tens of thousands out of work for an extended time.
I've been digging into MMS well plans and reports for exploration/production and am finding document after document that is virtually blank - only listing the lease/well identification and contact. This is especially true for BP. What is the point in having a WAR (form 133) if it contains essentially no technical information? Why should a spill remediation document contain secret information? I would expect prevention/cleanup information should be shared by all.
I can understand that information regarding _what_ is being found and at what depth is private for an exploratory well. However, WAR info for simple depth and casing, BOP test dates and results, etc. are public safety issues - as we surely know now - and should be public. Do you disagree?
Offshore drilling requires not so much decisions to be made as judgement calls. A judgement call requires compromising between several competing factors, and there is often no 100% right answer. Yes, BP would have done a risk analysis on this very situation, but somewhere along the line somebody - and it looks to be the BP rep. - made a bad judgement call. I wrote about this at length here. The BP man has made a serious error, especially in not taking the advice of his specialist contractors, but don't ever think his job was an easy one.
I cannot judge about the decisions that immediately led to this disaster. I am concerned about the decisions when the well was planned, and e.g. the BOP was procured.
It appears that the BOP was not designed to be able to cut through the joints of the drill string, meaning it would fail to close the well in ten percent of all cases.
I have little knowledge about metals, and I read that the drill string is made of hardened steel. My source (I have forgotten which it was, likely some new media reporting from hearings) said BOPs used to be able to cut the string anywhere, but as materials science improved the joints became harder. Supposing it is hard to make shear rams that cut through the joints, I imagine it is possible to make a BOP with two sets of shear rams, spaced a little more apart than the length of a joint. Then at no time would there be joints in the path of both sets. I therefore believe that the design of the BOP meant a deliberate choice to let ten percent of the emergencies evolve into a disaster. I have the understanding that adding another set of shear rams would cost little.
Other posters here at TOD have worried that the casing of the well might not be strong enough to take the pressures involved in a top kill. Again I don't really have the background to speak about this, but I have wonder if that is another failure: the failure to build the well head and casing strong enough to enable one of the procedures on the list of what to do in case of the well running wild. But I am not completely satisfied that the well was not strong enough.
The BOP has a dead man switch, which is activated if all three lines connected to the rig are severed. I cannot remember now what the third line was, but the electric line appears to have survived the explosion and so the dead man switch did not activate, or so was thought. I am not satisfied that I have seen the full truth about this part. I have the impression that the shear rams have been activated somehow, but has not been able to close completely. It would not surprise me much if the dead man switch was actually better designed than we have heard; for instance, it could have been activated in spite of the electrical line being intact, if the electrical line was signaling that the shear rams should close. But otherwise, it looks like the dead man switch was a half-baked invention. So half-baked that I actually expect to find we have been misled about it. (As you understand, I don't think all communication failures from BP are necessarily part of an evil plan.)
Then we have heard about a row of other circumstances that indicate that safety may not have had first priority during operations. A hydraulic line connected to a non-effective test ram rather than the real thing. A dead battery in the control pod. A system must be designed to account for human failure and human tendency to dodge safety regulations. It is easy to suspect that this BP operation had little of that kind of security.
In a sensible system, a dead battery should automatically generate an alarm. Many half-baked systems generate way too many alarms, and insufficient resources are allocated to handle them. You get the idea. A system is not complete before all the processes surrounding alarms have been properly designed too.
News media report that MMS bureaucrats threw out warning reports from scientists if they felt they were too alarmist. It appears to me that many US administrative bodies lack a proper process for handling input from scientists. It is true that a label of "scientific" is no guarantee against exaggerated alarm, but a bureaucrats gut feeling is not the answer. Really.
Per my limited understanding, the test ram may have been located where the "offset" ram was supposed to be. Offset so that at least one ram would avoid the joint.
Alan
Thank you Cacadril. Yours is the first mention I've seen on TOD or elsewhere of a failsafe mechanism in the BOP. So what is the deal? All else I've seen so far is stuff about how people had to be alive and decide and think in intact control centers with intact mile-long hydraulic lines in order for the last backup safety mechanism to function. Sounds crazy. Lots of folks on here defend the oil industry safety practices, and I do believe the logic that safe, smooth operations are profitable ones, so there is motivation in that direction. But to not have some sort of automatically-activated safety mechanism in the BOP that does not depend on mile-long hydraulic connections, electricity, or human decision-making is incomprehensible.
How about bolting a split flange with long bolts extending upward, around the pipe stub on top of the BOP. The other half of the flange would be attached to the botttom of the cap they are planning to place over the stub. The bolts can be used to force the cap onto the stub and cinch it down, resulting in a complete mechanical seal with no leakage whatsoever. Problem solved.
I don't know anything about this subject but feel the need to learn, so thanks to the community here for your contributions. I donated $25 to help defray bandwidth costs, and would urge other fellow know-nothings to do likewise.
Best regards to all.
- P
IXTOC oil spill in 1979 took nine months to CAP and it was in only 160 ft of water approx. eventually it took two relif wells to shut it down. Guess who the diller was- SEDCO - who became Transocean. They attempted allt he same fixes, including multiple Caps and none worked. i suspect two relif wells may not be enough because of depth and accuracy problems. they ahd better start on another 2-4 relief wells concurrently and to hell what it costs to do that. And they also need to start coming clean on the leak 6 miles away.
from Deepwater Horizon at
http://gcaptain.com/forum/offshore/4805-deepwater-horizon-transocean-oil...
by bigmoose:
I'm continuing to analyize the BP report. Current point: They decided to pipe the displaced drilling fluid directly to the support boat instead of displacing to the DWH mud pits/tanks. I guess this would save, what 4 or 5 hours pumping the mud off board? To save this time they lost the ability to monitor mud returns by bypassing the mud return flow meters on the DWH. Seems a critical piece of data to loose for 4 or 5 hours of work considering the history of this well.
So my current question that I am pondering, I wonder if there was an "Early Completion" bonus structure for the Company Man and key personnel... perhaps for all personnel? Anyone willing to share their remuneration contract structure? Haven't heard any poking around the low level financial motivators to "speed up the work."
Comment:
Stunning if true! Deliberate neglect to monitor for mud volumes...despite established data that indicated marginal well control in a WellOfMassDestruction? Who made that decision...and forwarded it to company-rep Vidrine for implementation? Were all principals tested for drugs post incident? Alcohol consumed aboard rig during "celebration"?
It is a given that all rig and service hands get tested, but I don't remember ever hearing of any company personnel getting tested.
I think they should though.
I've been reading TOD for several years and learned a great deal. Now, I feel like I'm getting advanced degrees in fluid dynamics and many other subjects. I hope everyone who is reading this post will
STOP READING NOW AND GO TO THE TOP OF THE PAGE AND DONATE SOMETHING TO TOD.
It's easy. Because so many well informed people are involved, TOD has real value. If you read carefully, you will see that TOD members are about 24 to 48 hours ahead of MSM. There are real costs to putting this information up on line. Thanks to all the volunteers.
Awhile back someone described the seabed as being soft mud perhaps hundreds of feet deep. How is the BOP supported on that sort of 'surface' ?
It is my understanding that the BOP is supported by the well casings.
I have serious concerns about the quality of the cementing job.
By their actions I believe BP has the same concerns. If they had no concerns they would proceed directly to install a second BOP.
Has there ever been concrete failure on casings close enough to the wellhead to allow such a failure? I find that somewhat hard to believe.
son -- I'm not sure I completely understand your question. cmt jobs happen all the time. You usually find that out when you test the cmt job and then pump more cmt in to fix it. Then you test again to make sure it's holding properly. What's rare about this situation is that the hole was cased and they didn't see the well coming in as the cmt failed.
Rockman, let's go the other way. Do you think BP is reluctant to install a 2nd BOP because of their concern of a bad cement job in the total length of casing installed and cemented before the first BOP was installed? If yes, I withdraw my question. If no, why?
son -- Probably not as much reluctant as concerned. They have few options. If they can succeed to some degree with the new BOP plan it will raise the pressure in the well. There are a number of other csg shoes that could fail from the increased pressure. The result would be an underground blow out. But if much of the flow started going into another reservoir it won't be the worse outcome but will comlicate the overall situation
See: An Introduction to Drilling Offshore Oil Wells
http://www.treesfullofmoney.com/?p=1610
They pile drive down an outer casing (typically 24" to 36" I have been told) several hundred feet. There can still be soft muck at the bottom of the casing, but time and weight have compressed it a bit.
Alan
I did, peteromalley and baldfish. I'm monitoring the IRC too, but the TOD maintains a certain gravitas that inspires confidence although the chat channel is NEVER boring.
I truly believe if TOD hadn't opened up to non-techs and tolerated our naivete/ignorance, other scientists would have been denied the opportunity to call their own discipline(s) into play. TOD has made more of a contribution than you can imagine. Thank you very, very much.
Example:
http://gulfblog.uga.edu/ (if you'll remember, the PTB gave these people a hard time a couple of weeks ago about these possibly non-existent plumes):
"Someone asked if the plume reported by the University of South Florida (USF) researchers is the same one we found. No, the plume we found is to the W of the spill site while the USF plume is to the NE. From the description the USF researchers provided, the NE plume has two similarities to the plume we discovered: a CDOM signature and invisible – to the eye at least – oil. But, the USF plume is moving the opposite direction (NE vs. SW) and the USF plume appears to be larger (22 miles long and 6 miles wide) and it spans a broader depth range (from just below the surface to 1100m water depth) than the plume we are presently tracking.
The USF researchers fear the plume will reach De Soto canyon, where it could be upwelled onto the shelf and negatively impact fisheries. While this is an obvious concern, I think it’s too early to predict where the USF plume might end up. The plumes we are studying seem to be very dynamic, that is, they are moving around. The USF plume may be similarly dynamic so the key is to keep track of where it’s going, to understand it’s chemistry, and to understand how it’s behaving."
OK I just sent in my $50.00 This site is doing a great job. I don't have a big problem with some of the nutty ideas. I've had a few of my own. The comments I have the most problem with are the politics and the put downs. But that's life in cyberspace.
BTW of the 7800+ ideas submitted using the DWH web site for both spill and leak mitigation I have not heard of one idea the BP or USCG has said that they used. That seems pretty weird to me. Initially the ideas were e-mailed to a company in Houston that seemed to be a consulting CO that specialized in taking lots of stuff in and consolidating it. I thought it was odd that my idea was submitted to a private Co. when the form was on what I thought was a government website. I think if all of the ideas were put into a public database and categorized then others could read through and who knows there may have been some ideas that when refined would work out good for spill or leak control. I think the fact that all of the 7800 ideas are being hidden from the public really is poor. If it's a manpower thing you would think with all the folks out of work they could find qualified IT folks to at least do the database part.
Thanks again and stay safe. Dave
Assuming this latest plan works, for which I don't hold out much hope, it should result in a partial seal and a stable riser 5000 feet tall. What would stop them from adding mud from the surface and accomplishing a top kill that way? Other than the leaky seal, wouldn't that be just the same as adding mud to any other flowing well?
The sealing surface between the new LMRP and the old BOP is going to be a diamond wire cut surface on the BOP. Cutting this acceptably flat will be difficult, and trying to grind out imperfections under these conditions even more so. The seal is recognized to be a weak point in the design and they are therefore going to monitor leaks, and use dispersant if needed to break up the amount that doesn't go up the DP. (The riser is circulating hot water around it to stop hydrate formation). Putting any additional pressure on the line would likely just increase the leakage out of the joint.
If they filled the column with mud there would be a significant differential pressure across the seal surface that might lead to unacceptable losses. But if they get a good seal, and have enough mechanical grippers between the two pieces, it might be something that they could look into trying. But I don't think that they have circulation potential between the riser and the DP that will take the oil away, and that may preclude the idea.
I would have a hard time believing that they would start injecting anything down the LMRP. It's simply a stopgap similar to the RITT, is it not?
The seal between the LMRP and the BOP is not a pressure seal. If you attempted to pump mud down the LMRP connection you would end up in a pressure contest around the weak point - the LMRP seal. All that pressure would want to come out at the LMRP and BOP connection. Potentially you would blow the LMRP off the BOP.
What information do you have that the LMRP will be fitted with insufficient seal capacity?
Pretty much the LMRP descriptions in first post of this thread. The LMRP seal will be good but not perfect and it is expected to leak. If it is expected to leak I felt that adding additional pressure in the form of a top kill would likely make the leak much worse, as it would be leaking at a lower pressure normally. Accomplishing a good pressure seal on top of the blowing BOP is likely the hardest challenge in stopping this well prior to the relief wells.
I could, of course, be wrong.
Simply the fact that BP says it will contain "most of the flow". They expect it will be leaking against the minimal pressure of the outflow from the riser. This is just a stop gap to reduce the leak until a better solution is implemented. Which now, looks like the new well is the only thing they are planning on for a complete kill of the flow.
I had been wondering about that too..
It sounds like they have determined that the biggest restrictions to the flow are in the BOP, which is why they don't mind cutting the old riser off now. But it's those restrictions that were stopping them getting mud down (combined with the leaks out of the riser which they couldn't shut off with the junk shots).
If the LMRP seal is good then perhaps they will be able to try top kill again. But if the seal is not so great, then the extra pressure to push mud back down may just end up pushing more mud out above the BOP and not achieving much, with a risk that they will make things worse (degrade the seal, break something else etc). if the new riser can suck up most of the oil and gas, then they may be better to bide their time doing that until the new intervention wells are finished. trying top kill again could send them backwards?
Sounds like the answer is "top kill would require a better seal than we can reasonably expect to achieve".
I was thinking about the issue of storms. This gizmo doesn't seem like it would turn on and off very well if the surface ship needed to flee from the path of a storm, so I was sort of hoping that it could lead to plugging the well rather than simply being an improved version of the sippy-straw they had working before.
Maybe they can incorporate enough flotation around the riser to keep it in place (and blowing uncontrolled oil and gas) during a storm and then the ship returns and hooks up again. Although without a surface ship adding methanol to control hydrates formation, this thing might just seize up.
To cut the riser and place the Lower Marine Riser Package (LMRP), is beginning to get into the same territory as fighting surface fires / blowouts. The disadvantage is extreme ocean depth; using ROVs or unorthodox cabling methods to position the kill device over a blowing hole, rather than crane techniques familiar to Boots & Coots et al. The feel of it will be different. The advantage is, it's not on fire. I'd wish a Boots & Coots veteran were in the ROV control room advising what he or she could. That flow will kick your steel around before it's done, and I'm glad I'm not assigned to do it.
I am somewhat happier in familiar territory now. Hope for success.
In this light the screw method is not so crazy either assuming a cleanly cut riser. Since the positioning difficulties are similar, I'd say go with the LMRP which will provide tested control. ;<]
How is a BOP initially installed in the first place? Surely not while the oil is gushing?
The BOP is installed during the drilling process, before the oil reservoir is reached.
If I'm reading it correctly, the diagram of the problem well plus the two relief wells linked below indicates that the BOP was tested and running after the third set of casing was set and cemented.
http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/in...
The only disadvantage is that I don't know of any subsea well that this has been done successfully on. Can anyone else point to a success story?
Hey, Jump. That comment bout the 'feel of it will be different' could be a HUGE understatement. Decades back, I was involved in placing several items - including two stacks - in position on seabed, lakebed, riverbed bottoms. Picture standing atop a ten story building, holding a long rope with a heavy bowling bowl attached at the bottom, dangling a few feet above a 5 gal. bucket. Strong breeze is blowing - with the occasional forceful gust. All the while you are rocking up and down on the balls of your feet. The forces of inertia, momentum, lag time, water current and swell are all present. Now get the ball in the bucket. To up the pucker factor a skosh, make the bucket thick glass so's if we drop that last few feet somewhat swiftly - to overcome all the extraneous forcess - we MAY only get one chance to successfully emplace. I sincerely wish all these good men and women involved in these efforts godspeed.
Hello,
I wondered about the worse case scenario for the Mocando oil reservoir, assuming that BP's efforts for a top kill, and a bottom kill with relief wells, are ultimately unsuccessful.
If the well contains 50-100 million barrels of oil, and is at 9000 psi pressure at the wellhead, and is leaking 20,000 barrels a day, when will the well head pressure come to equilibrium with the sea water? I assume this would halt the oil leak, and some amount of oil, perhaps 50%, would remain within the reservoir.
There must be a decay model for the pressure in the reservoir, perhaps an exponential function, so that pressure drops as oil and gas are released, and the spill stops of its own accord.....
In the trivial case where BP is successful with the relief well in about 60 days, and assuming 1 million barrels of oil spill every 40 days, the ultimate spill will be about 2.5 million barrels, which seems quite manageable.
Jim
General Turgidson: Mr. President, we have one scenario where we have 10 million people killed and another scenario where we have 40 million killed. Regrettably, both bad scenarios. Nevertheless, we have two distinct possibilities.
The President: General, I will not go down in history as a mass murderer.
Gen. Turgidson: Mr. President, maybe you should be less worried about your place in history and more about the American people.
We have now entered Dr. Stangelove territory.
Hi olddog,
I see you have been a member for 13 hours and 58 minutes. Why don't you post your name, as long as you're posting insulting messages?
Why hide your ID?
Jim
Check the facts on Gulf of Mexico.
http://epa.gov/reg4gmpo/about/facts.html
It contains 6.43 exponent 17 gallons of water.
There are 100 million barrels of oil in Moncando reservoir.
The reservoir is 40 miles from the shoreline.
One barrel = 44 gallons.
If the entire reservoir spills into the Gulf, there will be about one part of oil per 140 million parts of water.
6.43 exp 17 /(4.4 exp 1 x 1 exp 8)=1.4xexp8
That's assuming that current doesn't carry the oil into the Atlantic Ocean.
Fairly dilute, as BP CEO explained earlier. Since the oil is 40 miles from the coastline, its effect will be small, unless it all sits on the surface of the water.
Jim
I am so relieved! Until now, I really thought that this spill was a serious problem. Since it's not, let's all agree that BP's loss of the Macondo oil is punishment enough. They should be allowed to stop all containment and cleanup efforts to save money, and quickly reinvest the saved funds in more offshore wells to recoup their losses from this unfortunate affair.
jimkline: Member for 7 hours 38 min
LOL!
I could not figure out why they were not using the DP as part of Top Kill. You seem to know why. But I'm trying to figure out what exactly you are driving at.
Relevant or irrelevant:
If I get your gist, they would have to severe the riser without severing the DP.
Well, presumably BP's imaging might tell whether the DP is intact through the BOP. If a lack of hydraulic pressure stopped the rams from working, it is probably neither crimped nor sheared. Why wouldn't they have shared this information? Still, we don't know if it is cracked or broken at the riser bend. If it was intact, flow through the DP alone wouldn't explain leaks at the bend.
When the DP is severed at the BOP/riser connection, will it stay in position or is there enough pressure to eject it out of the well? If severed, total cross sectional area will increase, increasing the flow, right? Neither scenario sounds good.
all i can put out are scenarios that I think are happening....top kill never was to work because of two factors... (1) top kill assumes the BOP stack is able to contain pressure (2) this situation we have here means when you presure the top side the casing hangers on the 9 5/8" and 16" csg reseat essentially forming an inline check valve ...so pumping from here till the day the sun dont set no more will not help ....then again if it were me I would have run a pump and dump loop and get better understanding of the wellbore condition and go from there.....which is what BP seems to have done here....and with good reason...you have to understand the enemy before you can defeat it...the problem here is 80% of decisions you make in DW drill ops are judgement calls....and the only way to make judgement calls is if you have the daily drill reports ...I cannot personally agree that engineers at BP were negligent....any DW engg understands life's are at stake on every call...it has to be managment that pushed ..
going forward ....it makes engineering sense to explore mud delivery access points and worth the time to see if the DP can be part of this ....the problem is that the casing design for this well is demonstrably not the best option ( someone posted the wellbore schematic on this website somewhere)....and i am sure it will surface once the right ppl get to investigating this....the csg used was weak for this job especially since this was an exploratory well...combine that with a bad cement job....this suggest to me the casing seats are have got to be a major major concern and puts a big big big question mark if any top kill can work .....infact my 5 bucks say it wont but that doesnt mean it is not a legitimate line of inquiry esp if the DP string extends below the 9 5/8" csg seat
LMRP is no solution but a mitigating approach ...collect 20 barrels and thats 20 bbl of HC's not in the ocean type deal.....it is a shot in the dark and makes no sense except for PR...hurricane season is round the corner....and an LMRP needs a surface vessel to produce ....soon as there is a sniff of a hurricane the surface vessel has to run for cover.....
the only thing to work is a bottom kill.....and only relief wells provide that option
aliilaali, I've been reading your stuff, and you are one of the few who actually gets whats going on, below and above the water. I have pretty good instincts when it comes to knowing when someone is bullshitting me. And someone like this Doug Suttles character, well, everytime he opens his mouth, my stomach gets knotted up. He's a professional liar. But something about how you word things, and the bluntness of how you put it, makes me think you are onto something. So I hope you don't mind if I stalk you on here...i like reading your stuff. Thanks
mainer212....man I'm just out here out of my love for the ppl of LA....i started off in LA as an DW engineer and will always love LA for its unique lifestyle and spirit ( my first offshore job was out of port fourchon, LA)...and if two ppl out of LA can read my post and get ready for what's about to come ...i think that's time well spent on this website....i understand what the bayous and the wetlands mean to the ppl in LA or atleast i have an idea...it is more than money out of fishing ....it is a way of life and its life itself for those folks...
and its just plain tough for those guys right now ....every family in LA has a brother, a sister who is either associated some way with the fishing industry and also with the offshore oil and gas industry ....dammed if you do dammed if you dont ..i pray for those kind folks everyday since this happened cuz i knew the moment it happened that this was going to a while before it got fixed ....god bless everyone in the Gulf...we can all pray for them and hope they heal from this ...although i cant see how but then prayer has power beyond our understanding ..amen
Question for all you experts: Why diamond cut the riser pipe 2 or 4 feet above the flange at top of BOP? Why not unbolt the riser from BOP at the flange and install new BOP on top of old one and have a pressurized seal and block this bitch in? I don't get this whole LMRP rubber grommet non-pressurized seal. Is it an issue with landing the new BOP on top of existing one? If that's the case get some wire cable, feed it through the flange hole on existing BOP, down to a snatch block connected to a huge concrete block (deadman) pull er and land it. Get some torquing gear on that flange and be done with it.
GET ER DONE
Another question for the experts:
Is it possible to implode the casing deep within the oil field rock/shale layers with a series of explosives?
My uneducated guess is this thing has benn blown up, twisted and eroded, doubt they can get the bolts off.
If the studs are bugger up, saw them off, shape charge them off. All I know is if I was a BP engineer right now I would give my left nut to be able to hook up to the top BOP flange and have a pressurized connection.
Even the best work-class ROV isn't designed to change out flange studbolts. How would you take out all the studbolts and replace them, using just a single remotely-operated hydraulic claw?
Stolt did develop the MATIS system for ROV flange-bolting in the Girassol field, but it's very specialised, took ages to develop, and didn't always work properly.
pipeliner - my sentiments exactly. What I like about having a BOP on top is the flexibility it offers for future operations. Put this LMRP thing on top of that BOP and do their thing with that but with an operating BOP under that is allows them to play with backpressures and future mud kills and cementing.
I do have a question for the engineers: What is the emergency disconnect method for the riser? Hydraulic, mechanical, or ????? If it could be triggerd from the sea floor it would eliminate this sawing operation and leave a quick clean BOP top to deal with. (with the exception of the DP)
For those that wonder about the kinked DP. I have personally seen DP kinked at almost 90 degrees when the driller hit the slips with the elevators. Damn string of DP and collars just hanging. The tool pusher could not wait 20 minutes for me to make a phone call to see if our RBOP could stand the string weight with slips set on our bearings below the floor. When he eased up on it trying to get just enough room for slips in the bowl the DP kink snapped. Down to the bottom she went, 23,000 foot fishing job. Took months. If he would have just waited another 5 minutes for me to get back to the location he could have avoided this whole situation. Deep well in west Texas in the early 70's.
I think I understand why topkill won't work, and I am pretty sure the lmrp won't work.
1) The blowout is around the casing hanger. Suttles intimated this, so it is a fact that BP knows. Liner is cemented below 17186' (if at all) which leaves ~12000 ft of unsupported casing (9-5/8 and 7" tapered). BHP is ~13000psi I think, so if we assume an open hole, this is the pressure at the wellhead. Less hydrostatic of 5000' SW gives you more than 10,000 psi effective at the wellhead. I'm working on the math, but I think the casing hanger has lifted off it's seat under pressure from below. (12,000 ft of pipe should stretch several inches.) When you pressure up the topside, the casing hanger re-seats and closes off the annulus between the 9-5/8 and 16" just like an inline check valve. They can pump forever and nothing will go down. Comments invited please.
2) RE: LMRP Cap: Last year I used the diamond cutter ROV BP intends to use. We cut a damaged leg chord off a jackup rig. Events were so that we actually used the ROV at the water's surface. The cutter belt cut about 3/4 of the chord which was roughly the same diameter and thickness as the riser. Then the leg chord twisted and the cutter belt jammed in the cut and broke. Pull the ROV, change the belt, and latched back on. Since the cut geometry had changed, the belt jammed again, much like what happens when a hand saw gets pinched in a 2x4. In the end I taped a cutting torch to the end of a 20' piece of angle iron, taped the oxy handle open and with the help of two filipino welders at 4 in the morning finished the cut. We were working at surface, and we were lucky.(BP has neither one of these things going for them) If the ROV/cutter belt is BP's only plan for cutting the riser it is a desperate attempt. Considering the DP in the middle of the riser only compounds the complication.
Regarding the previous comment on drill pipe, the pipe is not hardened tool steel. it is high strength steel, but hardness is carefully controlled to reduce hydrogen embrittlement and improve fatigue life. Would have to check but I think NACE limits hardness to under 200 Brinell, just like the BOP's. It is not inclined to crack, but will certainly tear. One of the problems with shear rams is that they also need to be soft enough to not become hydrogen embrittled, but hard enough to cut high strength DP, so it is a fine balancing act.
Regards to all the pros here. I am wondering why no journalists are bothering to educate themselves enough to ask BP the pertinent questions.. like "what is the BOP internal pressure while the well is flowing?" I would encourage any journalist to enroll in a 3 day well control course complete with simulator to get a very good grasp of well control fundamentals. They are offered any day of the week, in many places between Houston and New Orleans. Since we don't have access to BP, and BP is not forthcoming, we have to rely on journalists, and if they aren't knowledgeable they can't be effective.
Thanks 2ndGen. Excellent analysis and good facts. I fear for all of us that you're correct. I'm only aware of WWC's well control classes. If there are any others I'd appreciate it if you would let me know by return reply. Thanks in advance.
a google should turn them up.. don't have their names anymore, but they are everywhere there are oilfields. Everyone from assistant driller on up attends.
I meant 2 sets of wire cable, snatch blocks, deadmans and set rigging up at 3 and 9 o'clock on BOP. And run wire through stud hole on flange
Hey Pipe. I dunno all the factors involved with landing one stack atop another, but I long ago was involved with successfully stabbing in stacks in a couple of cases where conditions were a hundred times more manageable than those now known. Can be surprisingly hairy ... nearly a million pound structure buffeted by currents, swell, inertia, lag time and momentum when that sucker is moving even an inch. And, as is said over and over again, the bad boy is being held up by a mile long "rope". Tough, tough circumstances all the way around.
Could you bring the new BOP down on a marine riser pipe? Cable rigging would be then tensioned for alignment onto existing BOP.
Don't know how all the deep water operations are carried out now, so, sorry I can't answer. However a post just a little above ours indicated a technical inability of the ROVs to remove the mounting bolts mating the riser and BOP. Gotta hope/pray that the people involved are the best in the world doing anything and everything possible to shut this monster down asap.
Well, the DP and others inside the riser have to be dealt with, so the band/belt cut handles them as well.
The top kill attempt gave them some pressure information about the well. Possibly that information tells them to be careful on pressurizing the well due to casing concerns ( blown out casing between the DP and the riser piper perhaps?)
Game over. The New York Times has the smoking gun. BP internal documents show they knew the risk of using thin casing in high pressure, lied to MMS.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/us/30rig.html?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2...
Trying to wrap my head around this.
BP:
1. Used thin casing knowing risks
2. Had trouble with gas kicks in the well
3. BOP tests postponed, then done at lower pressure after lobbying MMS
4. Damage to the BOP when pipe moved during tests, rubber comes up to rig-- ignored by management
5. Initial test of cement come up bad, tests are redone although BOP is damaged, with better results
6. Fina definitive wire Schlumberger test is not done
7. Drill mud removed
8. Blowout
While BP undoubtedly have the overall responsibility for this situation, I am very suprised by the lack of censor of Transocean. As the rig owners they had responsibility for the type of BOP used, for its maintenance, for the training of the rig personnel. The onboard rig personnel have the reponsibility to carry out operations in a safe manner - even if this means overruling the company man. In my experience, company reps can vary from very knowledgeable and experienced with many many years "hands on" time offshore, to kids fresh out of college who just about need to be shown the way to the drillfloor, and simply relay instructions from the shore personnel. (Slight exageration !)
That the senior toolpusher / OIM agreed to displacing the well to seawater under these circumstances, particularly in a manner which gave no effective volume control, leaves me with serious questions about the way the entire operation was being run. Put brutally, if they did not have the knowledge, the balls and the back-up to say no, they should not have been in that position.
Think - you hire a taxi, tell the driver you need to be at the airport in hurry, tell him to ignore all speed limits and to run all the red lights - who is responsible for resulting accident ?
Having the VIP party may have been the last straw. Listening to the testimony it didn't seem to be inexperience - overconfidence maybe...
What's your beef with haggis?
this is probably the best way to describe it
I think you are hitting the nail on the head
A brief roundup of links for those of you thinking forward, to risk of more catastrophic environmental scenarios. My quick take is that Ixtoc released 3 mb over 270 days, thus at an average rate of 11.1 kbpd. We still don't know what Macondo is producing, but based on my research and observation of the event now for several weeks from myriad sources, I would think 20 kbpd is starting to look reasonable, if not conservative. Thus, Macondo will only take half the time on average, to release what Ixtoc released. Again, roughly speaking. I conclude that Macondo, given current timelines to success of relief wells (the only mitigation with a high chance of success) will likely release at least as much oil as Ixtoc.
Some links that I have collected today, via conversations with friends:
Lake Nyos
On August 21, 1986, possibly triggered by a landslide, Lake Nyos suddenly emitted a large cloud of CO2, which suffocated 1,700 people and 3,500 livestock in nearby villages.
Thresholds of hypoxia for marine biodiversity
Hypoxia is a mounting problem affecting the world's coastal waters, with severe consequences for marine life, including death and catastrophic changes.
Expanding Oxygen-Minimum Zones in the Tropical Oceans
Oxygen-poor waters occupy large volumes of the intermediate-depth eastern tropical oceans. Oxygen-poor conditions have far-reaching impacts on ecosystems because important mobile macroorganisms avoid or cannot survive in hypoxic zones.
Hypoxia.net - Northern Gulf of Mexico
The largest hypoxic zone currently affecting the United States, and the second largest hypoxic zone worldwide, is the northern Gulf of Mexico adjacent to the Mississippi River.
G
oh gosh heres a good one. was just on BP.com clicked on response in pictures then command center at the bottom. Look at this clearly photoshopped pic of the "command center"
http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/in...
//zoom in on the heads of the 2 guys in the back of the room, you can see the image on the large projection screen was manipulated.
Looks like they were doing a quick and dirty contrast/brightness adjust on the screen image - nothing nefarious. Did a nice hair job on those guys though! The papers on the table refer to "top kill operation".
Wonder who the two faces belong to....and was this done to show the public that these two people are indeed in the same room with everyone else? You get what I'm asking? Not trying to be a conspiracy head. Just can't figure out why take the time to photoshop an image of people in a room; that is making key decisions in the gulf oil disaster? (And do such a lousy job too.)
deleted
I used photoshop professionally for half a decade. The screen was masked and the contrast and values were lowered, probably because the screen was washed out. It was a sloppy job and nothing to get paranoid over. It was manipulated but only to make the details on the screen more visible. Nothing to see here...
Isn't a lot of the "response" to a spill largely cultural? During the Ixtoc spill, the results did not effect the US in any important way. We did not eat the seafood harvested from effected waters, we did not suffer the loss of tourist business. So the Ixtoc is largely erases from the US collective memory, like so many other things, I would add.
A MAJOR concern of mine is a combination of our annual dead zone (thanks corn ethanol !) with widely dispersed oil plumes. The aerobic oil eating bacteria are already reducing oxygen in the water column. Combine the two and wide swaths of the GoM, especially along the Mississippi and Atchafalaya deltas, will be dead.
Alan
Amazingly, life manages to thrive in many recesses of the deep sea, including the Gulf of Mexico. The creatures tend to be specially adapted to conditions that would rapidly kill any unprotected human. Scientists have discovered, for example, that the gulf seabed is dotted with oil seeps that support tube worms — strange beasts that live off food chains rooted in the oil and gas, creating dark ecosystems. An area of the gulf seabed nicknamed Bush Hill is covered with thousands of the creatures, which can grow to six feet and live hundreds of years.
Charles R. Fisher, a professor of biology at Pennsylvania State University, has studied the alien communities and says some are now in the path of the undersea oil plume.
Is that bad? “It’s a very complicated question,” he replied. “Certainly, they are used to some exposure to oil. We have no idea what the response would be to concentrated oil or the dispersants.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/weekinreview/30broad.html?ref=weekinre...
I was interested to see the fish swimming near the riser leak in the video stream some days back. There is some interesting stuff down there:
http://www.physorg.com/news185001953.html
Here is what these things look like:
http://attachments.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=846...
Goodbye popcorn shrimp, hello popcorn tube worm..?
And the point of this post ... is what? That the current blowout might be an interesting real-world experiment about oil-eating worms, for some university biology geeks. Terrific - I trust you all have a lovely intellectual wank in the staff room ...
Chill Cargill, his masturbation habits don't change the situation. It's just one of a many points of interest and I found his thread interesting. Furhtermore if you can't see any direct implications of these observation then just move along...nothing to see here.
Marco.
Question to drilling experts:
What underwater welding is/could be done at these depths?
Could spin friction welding be used?
What are the issues involved in welding a valve to the top of the BOP after diamond wire cutting off what's above?
I recognize one challenge is the extreme oil source pressures involved. Another is the unknown state of the BOP after all the strains from the Deepwater Horizon attached to the drilling pipe.
Well, there is no welding below —maybe 900 −1000 feet. They are limited by the tools that are designed as parts of the ROV. You cant just outfit the ROVs with a new tool without a lot of design work integrating with the hydraulic drive system that the ROV has on board.
Thanks perks
"they are limited by the tools that are designed as parts of the ROV."
I gather there are no intrinsic limitations, just "a bit of engineering" to work out the details! Have to account for the higher thermal loss from colder water.
So I presume an electrical / friction welding system could be built to weld a "valve" onto the top of the BOP and then to close it etc.
My apologies in advance if this wrenching, vivid description of the DWH blowout, explosion, and evacuation was already posted:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870411350457526472110198502...
Captain Kuchta reprimanded Ms. Fleytas after she issues the MAYDAY in lieu of anyone else doing so...
This and other information given in the article seem more than enough justification for the Captain and some others to stand in court for incompetence.
A month ago, I sent BP, via the official channels, my strong suggestion that they needed to remove the LMRP and install either a set of valves or another BOP to control the flow and maybe even shut it in (depending on resultant pressures/flowrates). I gave some specific suggestions that would assure success and safety in the process. After I heard about the top kill I sent another note expressing my concerns about the top kill and again recommending the LMRP option. Last night I sent another note when it became clear that unfortunately, the top kill was not going to work. I have yet to hear a peep from them. It seems they do not respond to experts suggestions. I am a degreed Petroleum Engineer and have been in the business for 35 years mostly drilling subsea wells and am presently working for one of BPs competitors rewriting thier in-house well control standards ( work that started nearly 1 year ago). I work as a consultant and could easily be made available to assist in such an crucial need. It has been very discouraging, especially knowing that BP should have been a lot farther along than they are. I think they have far too many experts and outside influence to be able to make rational decisions. Does anyone know how to contact the right BP person directly?
Possibly your second to last sentence answered the question?
I would expect that BP has not the SLIGHTEST interest in reading outside emails, let alone engaging with outside intelligence. From my experience with working with a few national organisations, as soon as the pressure is on, border security becomes total ... no outside influence allowed. I expect BP is the same.
Cargill
Lay off the ad hominem attacks. Only raise such issues if you have concrete evidence to post. BP probably has $5,000,000,000 interest in reading outside emails for every good reason to fix the well. There are thousands of engineers working flat out to fix this. Don't denigrate them.
See:
# TECH/SUGGESTIONS (281) 366-5511
In which department? drilling the relief well or trying to control the flow of the blowout? or both?
That makes my stomach hurt. :/
This was the first time I saw anything about those killed. Five Louisianians, four Mississippians and two Texans. We can't catch a break down here.
Alluvial,
Tragically, there are more dangers for the valiant locals out on the ocean laying boom etc. to face:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/29/oil.spill.workers.ill/index.html?hpt=T1
I was sprayed pretty good (several times) with Malathion from a low-flying plane at Fenwick Island, DE a long time ago, while completing a 70-mile bicycle ride up & down the coast...that wasn't pleasant...I hope those volunteers get the right PPE immediately and those that ingested this dispersant get the best medical attention...
I had originally thought the Captain should be responsible (www.usaliberalism.com is my own blog site) but I do think in a chain of command situation, the next person up takes on some or even a greater responsibility than that of the person on the front line. In this case our dear Captain was apparently supervised by fly-in execs who were under a great deal of company pressure to cut costs. BP is taking a very callous attitude even as we speak about training the people they are rehiring to do the dirty work of boating out into a now toxic Gulf. BP cruelly ripped a lifeline away by destroying the Gulf and then sends them ill prepared into the toxic mists. The links to that are on my blog. You can bet that Tony Hayward does not give a rat's ass about anybody. Watch the disdainful view he takes of those around him during news conferences where I have seen him almost step on reporters; he's been seen looking at the soles of his shoes while touring the Gulf Coast. Wonder what he saw.
I see BP as taking every opportunity for NOT giving the people they employ the correct tools and training to do their job.
I know the Captain was probably incompetent but then so is the upper management level who hired him in the first place.
Can some of the experts comment on why this attempt will take 4-7 days? With the containment dome and the RIT, a lot of time was spent fabricating the devices. The actual attempts to install them did not seem to take much time (maybe a half-a-day).
In this case, much of the equipment is ready now: the LMRP itself, the methanol line, the new riser to the rig. So, can someone explain why this attempt is so much more time consuming than the RIT or containment dome attempts given that the equipment is already there?
It will take some time to cut the riser and drillpipe and clear the debris from the top. My preference would be to unlatch the LMRP from the BOP and only have the drillpipe to deal with.
Also, I presume they have to position the TO Enterprise rig over the top of the well to deploy thier BOP on a riser. I think 5-7 days is reasonable. Never had to do a subsea cut on a riser before, but have been around to land plenty of subsea BOPs.
I've read several suggestions about attempting another "Top Kill" after the LMRP is installed by pumping drilling mud down the new riser; while this would clearly fail due to the pressure on the weak seal between the LMRP and the BOP; I can somewhat...in my alcohol induced geniousness, wrap my mind around a kill attempt using the kill and choke valving on the BOP. If the LMRP were well anchored to the BOP with hydraulic clamps, cables, etc, and mud with the correct gel properties was used, potentially the pressure on the seal could be substancially lessoned by pumping mud below the seal into the BOP. Yes pressure would push mud up the new riser exerting normal dynamic pressure on the seal just as attempting to cap would. Eventually, however, once static pressure equilibrium wads established, the mud at the seal would stop moving. Gravity holding the mud column in the riser would equalize with the pressure from the pumps. This static mud, depending on the static gel properties of it's composition would exert much less pressure on the seal diverting the pressure lower into the BOP. Once this equalibrium were acheived, further pumping pressure should push the mud down the bore aided by the weight of the mud in the riser.
Having said all this, it would be very risky since failure would at best cause failure at the LMRP seal...you don't want to consider the worst. The viability if this assumes a lot of things we and even perhaps even BP does not know. If the casing has failed as someone described above it is acting as a sliding valve to block the mud from even driving down the bore. Plus if the LMRP is capturing much of the escaping fluid, why would you even risk this just in an attempt to control the well ahead of the relief wells.
I think this idea has some merit. Top Kill by pumping via c&k lines as before. Mud that doesn't go downhole will fill the riser (instead of the sea) which will generate a steadiliy increasing head pressure. At some point equilibrium would be reached. Big question is could the new seal connection take the pressure that a mud filled riser will generate?
I don't think it will take that long. I believe that's a conservative estimate to manage expectations.
With some trepidation I'm writing to gently point out that the experts, and the professionals too, seem somewhat at a loss as to what to do for the best about this rogue well, with its unique wreckage and exceptional outflows, sea depth, dispersant downflows, negligence, mendacity, financial stakes, ecology, fisheries, hurricane prospects, political sensitivity, and media coverage, all in the mix. Added to which, Peak Oil is looming up.
Such are the connotations of this thoroughly oiled sort of swan that at least one prominent figure (a former Bush advisor whom it might be crass to name) appears to have gone clean out of his mind with the additional stress.
Given that no visible consensus as to engineering solutions has arisen in over a month, perhaps it is time to look at what might attract agreement and then fashion it into a practical proposal ?
To this end, I'd suggest that it would be imprudent to alter the chaotic wreckage for any connection-based control option without first having deployed a containment-based control option for immediate positioning in the event of any failure that risked increasing the outflow.
The likelyhood of incompetence yielding such a failure is perhaps best illustrated by NASA's problems when someone confused miles and kilometres. The probe reached mars ok, but rather than settling gently into position to start its work, it went splat into the planet. Way to go!
Given that the business plans of even the world's most powerful corporations are grossly unsustainable, which is but incompetence on a grand scale, the probability of further failure, arising somewhere between Haywood and his working minions on site, looks rather nearer to one than zero.
Whether the idea of a containment option may find agreement here on TOD depends on our confidence in the best form of containment that we as a fraternity could devise. Having looked at the parameters for a month there seem to be various distinct requirements that must be met, any one of which may be insuperable.
- Given that oil extraction isn't my field, it is for others to explain and if possible resolve any problems they see.
1/. Ballast must be delivered by chute around the wellhead to provide a stable foundation for the container, (perhaps after the removal of soft silt ?).
2/. The container must be made double skinned and topped with an ample outflow pipe and stopcock, and be large enough to easily accomodate the BOP. Within its heavy framing its inner skin needs to help sweep out any hydrates and so should be conical. Its heavy duty outer skin of marine s/steel must be domed to withstand the delivery of stabilization ballast by wide chute from 5,000 feet. While the two skins are joined onto framing round the outflow pipe, there is no floor between their bottom edges. Connections for hoses for liquid concrete delivery are set around the outflow pipe.
3/. Sufficient barges to deliver say 250,000 Ts of ballast to the site need to be commandeered, emptied, loaded with ballast and sailed to nearby harbours to await orders. Custom-rigged barges able to provide say 10,000Ts of concrete need to be similarly positioned.
4/. Prior to any connection-based option being attempted, the barge fleet and the container's barge are anchored on site, and the container is positioned near the wellhead, with its stopcock fully open and concrete hoses attached.
5/. On the order to deploy the container, the ROVs are used to set cutting charges on all pipework from the BOP and around the site. Once cut away, the wreckage is towed clear and further ballast laid as required. The container is lowered over the BOP to rest on its pad of ballast.
6/. The double skin is immediately filled with concrete which flows onto the pad providing a seal at the container's edges. Ballast is chuted down to bury it to around 3/4ths height, before building a base to that height over a wide radius. The concrete hoses are removed and a concrete pad is laid around the outflow.
7/. Once the concrete has begun to cure, the stopcock is closed, very slowly. It and the outflow pipe are then deeply buried under concrete, before the many remaining barge-loads of ballast are delivered to form a very large mound. An ROV is permanently stationed to patrol the mound on a daily basis, for at least the next decade.
8/. Send the bill to BP.
___________________________________________
Starting with seabed issues, I've both unknowns and uncertainties about the design and deployment sequence sketched above. What seems certain is that neither waiting for the secondary wells nor altering the wreckage to make connections without a plan B seem remotely viable options.
Thus it seems there are now two prime questions to address:
- What is the best containment option that could be deployed ?
- What are the prospects of deploying a reliable containment not as the 'backstop' capacity, but as a distinctly preferable option to attempting an engineered connection to a malfunctioning BOP ?
Hoping these may at least be regarded as fair questions from a layman,
regards,
Backstop
1) Can't transport enough ballast to deal with ~1,000' of muck - any such proposal must have a 'floating' base.
General comment - planning and logistics for such an effort at 5,000' likely a few months. Relief well completion - with in a few months.
A sorry answer, but sometimes that just the way life is - it's broken and rather difficult to fix. The current effort may be effective in mitigating the flow - lets hope it has some success.
Two comments on the sea floor. Is there any real geological evidence,, statistics, etc. on what the floor actually is made up of? All I hear are vague comments on mud and silt. If the floor is all silt the collapsed part of the riser would have sunk into rather than lay on it.
If you need ballast there is enough sand on Ala and Fla beaches to put a layer a foot deep over a square mile.
The riser is doing exactly that - sinking into the muck. You can see that the end of the riser has sunk into it a couple of meters.
I have not seen this approach to plugging suggest... so i will briefly describe it as follows.
Use the pressure of the oil field against it self.
Inject carbon steel crystals (multi faceted aggregate) into the cylinder to be blocked. As the field pressure exerts the dominate pressure the crystals compress and also bite into the cylinder walls.
Again...the more force the better the ultimate seal.
I think I understand why topkill won't work, and I am pretty sure the lmrp won't work.
1) The blowout is around the casing hanger. Suttles intimated this, so it is a fact that BP knows. Liner is cemented below 17186' (if at all) which leaves ~12000 ft of unsupported casing (9-5/8 and 7" tapered). BHP is ~13000psi I think, so if we assume an open hole, this is the pressure at the wellhead. Less hydrostatic of 5000' SW gives you more than 10,000 psi effective at the wellhead. I'm working on the math, but I think the casing hanger has lifted off it's seat under pressure from below. (12,000 ft of pipe should stretch several inches.) When you pressure up the topside, the casing hanger re-seats and closes off the annulus between the 9-5/8 and 16" just like an inline check valve. They can pump forever and nothing will go down. Comments invited please.
2) RE: LMRP Cap: Last year I used the diamond cutter/ROV that BP intends to use. We cut a damaged leg chord off a jackup rig. Events were so that we actually used the ROV at the water's surface. The cutter belt cut about 3/4 of the chord which was roughly the same diameter and thickness as the riser. Then the leg chord twisted and the cutter belt jammed in the cut and broke. Pull the ROV, change the belt, and latched back on. Since the cut geometry had changed, the belt jammed again, much like what happens when a hand saw gets pinched in a 2x4. In the end I taped a cutting torch to the end of a 20' piece of angle iron, taped the oxy handle open and with the help of two filipino welders at 4 in the morning finished the cut. We were working at surface, and we were lucky.(BP has neither one of these things going for them) If the ROV/cutter belt is BP's only plan for cutting the riser it is a desperate attempt. Considering the DP in the middle of the riser only compounds the complication.
Regarding the previous comment on drill pipe, the pipe is not hardened tool steel. it is high strength steel, but hardness is carefully controlled to reduce hydrogen embrittlement and improve fatigue life. Would have to check but I think NACE limits hardness to under 200 Brinell, just like the BOP's. It is not inclined to crack, but will certainly tear. One of the problems with shear rams is that they also need to be soft enough to not become hydrogen embrittled, but hard enough to cut high strength DP, so it is a fine balancing act.
Regards to all the pros here. I am wondering why no journalists are bothering to educate themselves enough to ask BP the pertinent questions.. like "what is the BOP internal pressure while the well is flowing?" I would encourage any journalist to enroll in a 3 day well control course complete with simulator to get a very good grasp of well control fundamentals. They are offered any day of the week, in many places between Houston and New Orleans. Since we don't have access to BP, and BP is not forthcoming, we have to rely on journalists, and if they aren't knowledgeable they can't be effective.
I think trying to cut the riser would be a nightmare. Much easier to unlatch the LMRP connector. I understand the Yellow pod is functional but not sure if it can control the connector unlatch function.
Agree, you might be able to pull the drillpipe in two but there would be no control on where it parts. Better maybe to try and cut it or pull it from the well.
It is the considered opinion of a number of experts I know that the casing hanger was lifted due to annulus pressure. There is a recess in the Drilquip wellhead where the seal would immediately lose it's sealing ability just a few cm above where the seal is landed. Pressure of migrated gas/oil would be sufficient to lift the hanger. MMS now require all casing hangers be locked down (report issued yesterday).
I think it is a great idea to send journalists to well control school - but then they might actually start saying they are qualified while still relaying the same junk.
i gotta agree here....the csg hanger has to have moved due to annular pressure....and the wellhead seal has to be a major cause for concern and rightly so...
although I dont think the DP should be cut just right now....BP knows what the length of the string is....if the string extends beyond the 9 5/8" csg it would in my opinion be hasty to cut it just now without a pause to think .....and if the DP has top go ..no point even attempting pulling it ...just cut it
It is a known fact (from a knowledgable Drilquip rep) that BP did not install the lockdown ring. It is actually not uncommon to leave out the lockdown ring as it makes seal assembly or hanger removal difficult when abandoning. We have to reconsider our priorities from now on.
We all know the length of the DP string (about 8500 feet). Hopefully it would fall down the hole if cut (it may already have parted and fallen). I doubt the rams have ever functioned to support the DP - but hard to really tell.
Doesn't that 8,500' include the portion within the riser leaving ~3,500 down the well? Is it known if any portion was thrust up the well with the gas surge when the well blew?
You are right - 3500' would have been below the seabed/wellhead. I do not think anyone knows if any DP was ejected from the wellbore. Could only happen if the annular BOP was shut. I have read that one of the annulars was closed and there was positive confirmation of that (readback signal). But haven't heard any witness info about drillpipe flying around.
I think one would have to assume drillpipe is still inside the riser and BOP. One of the oil leaks BP closed off was from drillpipe. I think that means it is pretty likely it is still more or less intact.
Absolutely - only question is how far down the well. I haven't reviewed the last operations job list, but weren't they going to set a cement plug at 3,000' as the last task? What tool would have been on the end of the DP for that operation? I read elsewhere that the last portion was only 3.5" with some device on the end. I also understood that mud was expected to remain in the well below 3,000', but of course that all ended up topside. Is that correct?
I think unlatching the lmrp would be the first choice so that you get a clean connector looking up, so I'm assuming that they can't do it or at least want to cut the riser off anyway so they don't drag 3000' of DP out of the hole... It might part, but it might also dislodge any favorable obstruction present in the stack ie mangled ram body etc.
2ndGen
Good description of a real potential pitfall of cutting off the pipe riser. To keep the pipe(s) from pinching the wire would it be possible to attach a line to the pipe downstream of the cut and put some tension (from above?) on it to keep it from wanting to collapse? It seems that some form of support of the downstream pipe will be needed to prevent the inevitable pinching as the weight of the pipe(s) will pull it down otherwise.
Just a thought..
I can't imagine being able to stabilize the riser enough to keep it from pinching the cutter. You would need to know an accurate center of gravity for that mangled wreck, and half a millimeter of movement would be enough to do it. The thing about working subsea is that any solution must be simple. It just isn't possible to control all of the variables from the surface, so you have to eliminate variables in the solution.
Now that would be like a breath of fresh air,
but don't hold your breath waiting for it.
I've been looking around for an explanation of the role of the spare BOP from the now offline second relief well.
I get the LMRP strategy; with luck it goes on top of the busted BOP and channels the oil up to the surface. I get that, though don't know how they'll rig it to drop in onto the fountain of oil coming up from the cut off riser. I'll wait to see. It's the second BOP waiting in the wings I don't get.
What I've read in the MSM is that the second BOP is being staged to go on top of the busted one.
Is that a plan for if the LMRP fails to function as hoped?
What is the notion for the second BOP if they do end up going that far? What would be its function in that setting?
If this is explained anywhere I'd appreciate anyone pointing me to it.
The LMRP is connected to the top of the BOP with a hydraulic connector. LMRP connector and the BOP connector are identical (usually). The second BOP would easily latch onto the top of the Horizon BOP once the old LMRP and drillpipe are cleared. This would effectively give a complete system with pressure retaining capabilities of the original BOP or the new BOP. For all practical purposes the new BOP could be closed and shut the well in.
There are concerns about the pressure retaining capabilitie of the old BOP (I saw mud or oil coming out of a choke or kill valve the other day on one of the ROV feeds during the top kill attempt). I have major concerns about the casing integrity. If the 9-5/8 casing is damaged or wellhead seal gone ( which it almost certainly is)all the pressure resulting from closing in the well would be imposed on the 22" surface casing which is not capable of holding that kind of pressure. Blow that and all options to close the well in or divert the flow are gone. It might cause a crater though which close stop the flow - maybe??
To keep the pressure low, they can continue to flow the well and not shut it in. The revenue could start paying some bills. A hurricane would not be too cool though.
Yeah they do want to salvage some oil, that seems clear. Still, they're only spending 22/million day, while profits were 44M at last count, so they're not hurting yet.
Better to salvage than flow into the sea - as long as such efforts don't interfere with getting the d*mn thing shut down.
One problem is that the top of the DWH BOP has a 10k connector to join with the 10k annulars on the lmrp. The bottom of the new BOP will have a 15k connector for the wellhead so they won't mate without building a crossover.
Agree it is too late to shut it in without a kill.
Good point on the WP. A crossover is probably available somewhere. 10K is enough. Based on mud weights and assumed oil/gas gradieint the max surface pressure (shut-in) is very roughly 8500 psi. No problem for a 10,000psi WP connector if need be. Still big concern about the strength and integrity of the 22" surface casing. BP has not released, to my knowledge, the weight and grade of the 22" to fully evaluate it.
If this well was shut in, wouldn't a gas cap slowly form in the well, lowering the head on the formation, increasing shut-in surface pressure well beyond 8500 psi?
Ii is a supercritical oil-gas fluid in the reservoir. No where near enough production to alter that.
Alan
That's helpful, thanks...
So the bottom of a BOP is designed (usually) with the same linkage setup as a LMRP, kinda like lego or something ..I get that. Didn't know that.
O, so the new BOP could couple to the busted one in place of the present LMRP, that is to say the present one will have to be removed so that could happen.
There must be some catch do doing that I take it, since the plan now is to bring the new LMRP down on top of the existing one without removing it ...they just plan to cut the riser off as I understand it.
What's the catch in removing the present LMRP and coupling the new one in its place ...you'd get a seal that way I'm supposing, and there's discussion here about how good the seal might be doing it the way they plan to. Someone upthread said they would prefer to unlatch the old one rather than juggle cutting the riser.
(I cut trees for a living as a timber faller, an I'll tell ya, if that riser was a tree it would give me pause that's for sure. We have a word for banged up trees that are leaning over and split but I better not say it here)
The LMRP contains the annular preventers (the rubber doughnut valves that close around the drill pipe to close off the annulus). Theoretically the lower one is still closed around the drill pipe and removing the LMRP would open the wellhead to the sea.... well, depending on the state of the lower rams, but there is a good chance they are open. Thus removing the LMRP would mean dealing with a possibly (probably) open well and higher leak rate. If they are uncertain about the ability to rather quickly install the new BOP on a flowing well it is a risky proposition. Cutting away the riser (necessary for the proposed capture tube to be attached) is also a requirement for removing the LMRP - so, that describes the situation as I see it.
There may be additional preparation required to ready and attempt to install a BOP, so if the new capture tube is ready then trying it out to mitigate the flow is reasonable even if they want to try the BOP. Status quo means watching more and more of the leak exit at the riser kink anyway, so just cutting it away now makes sense. Apparent inactivity will mean bad press, so doing something is preferable to just waiting for the relief well to complete and kill it from below.
Got it ... many thanks.
Now I just want to see how they rig the LMRP to lower it in place. I want to see what the fountain of discharge looks like with the riser cut off too. (well, no I don't, not at all, but you know what I mean).
I would think they'll have to have some kinda guide lines to constrain any dancing around in the turbulence from below when they lower that thing, but what you tie them off to I have no clue. I'm used to having a handy tree to throw a snatch block around when things start getting frisky.
Thanks again - that helped a lot.
I think you got it right. They have to look like they are doing something so better to do something that is only a partal solution than wait around while they are getting the plans ready to unlatch the LMRP and stab the BOP on. It certainly is not a simple operation and may require fabrication of some crossovers and other contraptions to deal with oil/gas flow when it gets to the rig. Don't want another Horizon. Cutting the riser may not be simple or sure-fire but at least it does not jeopardize moving to the next step. You never want to do something to eliminate your options if you can help it. That is why I was a little relieved the top kill did not work as it could have burst the 22" casing and eliminated any future options. In fact that may have been part of thier criteria for quitting as the pressures may have inicated this as a possibility. But we may have great ROV videos but little else is coming out of BP.
Energy related acronym guide for anyone who needs it.
http://gomcontractors.bp.com/html/common/acronyms.html
Our acronym guide:
http://www.theoildrum.com/special/acronyms
MMS: Oil Spill Containment, Remote Sensing and Tracking For Deepwater Blowouts: Status of Existing and Emerging Technologies
http://www.mms.gov/tarprojects/311/311AA.pdf
(note p. 9 in text, p. 15 in PDF)
Is FUSCA on there? It's a GoM diver thing.
Sincere thanks to everyone sharing their knowledge and providing insight. It's been amazing to follow the development of events here for the past two weeks or so.
For what it's worth, there's some fascinating activity transpiring at the http://interactive.foxnews.com/livestream/live.html?chanId=2 link posted earlier by "JoesBarAndGrill".
While the CNN feed (and most others) are down at the moment, this feed shows multiple views of the LMRP being prepped (Heading Out's diagram makes it very easy to identify different aspects of the LMRP). The ROV capabilities are downright impressive operating under such extreme force.
Good luck to all working on this at the moment. And for my colleagues still awake, check out the feed... it's really remarkable stuff. Take care!
Like many, I'm new here (use the donate button up top folks, you're getting far and away better information here than anywhere else! I'm in for 10 bucks, it's not much but 10 bucks is 10 bucks).
I don't have any industry background, but hydrostatic pressure is familiar enough for me.
Here's what I'm scratching my head over. Since a 34' column of water exerts 14.7 PSI of pressure, then for every foot of water column we get 0.43 PSI (14.7/34). If the mud filled the well bore and riser 18,000' + 5,000', and had twice the density of water, then it could overcome 0.43*2*23,000 or around 20,000 PSI of pressure from the oil deposit. As I understand it, replacing the mud in the riser section with water reduced the hydrostatic down pressure by 0.86/2 * 5,000 or 2,150 PSI and the reduction of the down pressure from ~20,000 to <18,000 PSI was all it took to allow insanely compressed methane to flow upward and lights out.
This is probably all obvious to the pro's, and I'm sure I've missed something.. but here's the question... how could BP believe for a second that they could force enough mud down the well bore (while leaking out the top) to overcome the pressure of the oil when a couple thousand PSI less down pressure was all it took to blow the thing out in the first place?
I suspect the experts will tell us that BP couldn't have believed it for a second.
I'm no Einstein. I'm not an engineer either. My thinking on the topkill operation is that BP wanted to hook onto that BOP and let the well talk to them, collect data. I don't think they ever had any intention of killing this well with that operation. They wanted numbers and now they have them.
If, they are cutting the top of the riser off, then, we have a somewhat clean access to the top of the bop.
They have good and precise access to the design of the bop. I would think that a new lmrp is a stopgap, especially if hurricane should turn up!
With the above in mind, a simple split , negative casting (shroud) can be cast off the top of the bop(and incorperate the new lmrp connection) . The casting will have an integral valve or restriction device and this can be operated once the casting is a top the bop.
If nothing else, it can maybe throttle the flow enough to get another top kill
Hello. Wanted to share some screen caps of the late Saturday/ early Sunday activity I was watching on the live feed. Shots of the damage at the top of the BOP and some super ugly images of the size of the gusher a few feet above the exit wound between #112-120.
http://tiny.cc/wrlov
With the riser cut off, would it then be possible to recycle the shear rams? With the riser gone, and the shears open, would the dp move so that the tool joint would no longer be in the way and the close the shears?
Just a thought like...
You want to drop 3000 ft of drillpipe down the hole?
Or blow 3000' of drillpipe out of the hole? That's what I've been worrying about.
Failed top kill
Well many posters here, including myself, were skeptical that top kill could ever work and this has proved to be the case.
The cap
And so now BP move to install a cap on top of the damaged BOP 5000 ft below the sea surface using robots. You just gotta admire their tenacity, but do they really believe this can work?
Amongst other things, when they start to cut through the damaged riser, the minute they cut through to the gushing oil, the ROVs will be enveloped in the gusher! How on Earth do they propose to work in this environment?
And we have been watching video for days now of oil leaking out of the damaged BOP - I believe - the view with flaky paint and several cracks - does this damaged bit get removed by this operation or does it continue to spew forth?
Hot water and ethanol
The oil coming out of the reservoir will be at about 150 deg C. Whilst the sea temperature is about 2 deg C. Its hard to see how pumping hot water into this will do anything. Ethanol I'm guessing may help keep the pipes clear - but with no water in production stream hydrate formation should not be a problem.
Relief well
Heading Out says the releif well is to be drilled to 6000 ft (11,000 ft sub sea) which is still about 6000 ft above the reservoir. So they are going to try and intersect blow out well with relief well, drill through casing and fill well with heavy mud.
I see this is fraught with risk too. Does anyone know if this has ever been successfully done before? They have to hit a 12 inch target from 11,000 ft away.
Relief well II
Personally I think the most certain way of killing this is to get a couple of relief wells into the reservoir close to existing and draw the reservoir pressure down as fast as they can and reduce the flow rate that way. I'm pretty disappointed to hear that drilling of second relief has been suspended.
BP need to be seen to be doing something and I fear that much of the top down activity amounts to nothing more than a PR exercise.
The drilling of second relief has been suspended so that a BOP is available if needed. Make of that what you will.
That seems to be very short sighted to me. It means no redundancy at all.
I understood that all deep water drilling had been suspended (apart from the reliefs of course). I would think that there would be BOP stacks lying about all over the place.
Are there no other BOP's in the world than the one associated with the second relief well?
Relief wells have been drilled before in order to intersect the original well bore. The last one at sea that I know of was of the coast off Western Australia in 2009. The depth of the relief well is not very relevant with respect to the accuracy of the intersect because the relief bore direction is adjusted as it approaches the original well bore. However, it will require a few stabs.
A more pressing problem is, I think, that many of the problems encountered during the drilling of the original bore will occur with the relief wells. There is a certain probability that at least one of the reliefs may have to be abandoned. This is probably why the administration insisted that two reliefs be drilled. If I were BP then I think I would be starting on a third relief at this time.
Thanks, I know well navigation and steer has improved enormously, was not aware they could hit such small tagrtes though.
With second releif suspended to make BOP available, there is no contingency.
I agree that starting a third well seems to be a good idea.
Euan
I expect the diamond-wire cutter will be supported off an ROV-installed clamp below the cut level. Whilst the cut is in progress, all ROVs will probably be pulled back to a safe distance, except perhaps for a small eyeball ROV: if you lose this it doesn't matter too much, as it's basically just an underwater camera on a string.
The reservoir flow will lose heat very quickly to the surrounding cold sea water, as I don't think BP is using any insulation. Remember that steel conducts heat pretty well! I can't believe they'll get a good seal, so some water will be entrained, and thus hydrate formation is all too possible. In the circumstances, I'd say that it's a sensible precaution to provide methanol injection.
I'm a bit puzzled by the mention of hot water injection, though. It's hard to provide significant quantities of really hot water down at -1500m. On-site electrical heating is perhaps the best bet, but then why not incorporate the electrical heater within the LMRP cap?
The clamp, ROV, and cutter will all be one thing.
I'm thinking plumber sawing into hot water pipe with hack saw - he gets scalded and kitchen floods when job is 20% done. I'm pretty skeptical they can pull off this heavy, high precision engineering with robots in such a hostile environment - but I guess they gotta try.
"...capture most of the oil and Gas..."
They better not let any leak from the sel, erosion will murder any soft seal . In fact,I don't think a soft seal is possible
I've been following the discussions here at The Oild Drum, it's fascinating and impressive to see so many sharp minds come together around this problem.
I have a question regarding the proposed use of supertankers to scoop up the oil (http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/gulf-oil-spill-supertankers-051310). The Esquire has been very vocal about this since early May, here being the latest post: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/john-hofmeister-saudi-arabia-oil-s...
Is this just a pipe-dream or are people actually ignoring a feasible method of containing the problem? Or is Esquire over-hyping?
The Persian Gulf has a maximum depth of 90 meters, and an average depth of 50. They can't have done any "at depth" siphoning of any relevance to the GOM there. DWH is at the drop-off, with 1500 meters to the seabed under the site.The deepest regions of the Gulf are at 3000 meters.
If BP stops using dispersants, you can reckon that a lot more of the oil will make it up to the surface, where it could theoretically be siphoned off. But it will move through many layers of current on its way up from a depth of 1500 meters, and the distribution on the surface will vary a lot.
In the Persian Gulf, off Saudi Arabia, you have no habitation or vegetation to speak of, and you need to go to Iraq to find marshes.
The oil in Saudi Arabia was blown into natural bays, against beaches that are just endless lengths of sand, and could "easily" be siphoned off, compared to what happened in the GOM.
Anyone telling you they have hose and pumps that can work where there are reported deep plumes is lying, and you do need to get the oil much higher up to be able to work it effectively. Which means that BP would have to stop using dispersants, which could be catastrophic for the marshes. But then we're in "difference between catastrophe and disaster" mode now ...
Thank you - an excellent answer, many thanks for taking the time to explain. It pains me there are no easy solutions.
Simmonds: new huge second leak from fissure, "we need a nuke to stop it" http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0529/energy-expert-nuke-oil-leak/
I can't believe there is so little discussion of this huge news development, "an oil plume the size of several states"
this has gone from nightmare to horrific "Churn-oil-bel" I bp focusing media onthe junkshot side story while the real horrorstory is postponed?
Simmons is keeping the bar open after hours, and should go home to sleep it off now.
The Russians call it the "Fist of God" approach. You deliver a punch to the surface of Planet Earth, sufficiently strong to create a seismic event, the shock wave moves through the strata, compacting what is underneath the well to the point where you hope it will close off the gusher.
Chances of that succeeding are greater when the pipe isn't still in place, of course ...
However, spend a little time considering what releasing forces like this would do, fifty miles out from the shoreline of Louisiana. Consider possible Tsunamis, the effect on other oil installations and what the release of radioactivity will do to fishing in the region.
If you want to go conventional, you would need something that packs at least the punch of the fourth Pepcon explosion, during that fire, and that registered 3.5 on the Richter scale.
Here are a few nuclear explosions of the "Fist of God" variety. The Soviets did some landscaping with nukes, until the sideeffects told them to belay that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1f6vbiuUt0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcljKh6eVHA
There were no surface detonations to stop oil and gas well failures in the USSR. All five attempts of which four were successful involved the drilling of a relief well. The low yield nuclear bomb crushes the original well horizontally deep below the surface. Detonating a nuclear bomb at the seabed of the Gulf would be *totally* useless, especially as there are hundreds of feet of soft sediments there (previous posters have compared it to pudding).
Right now only one relief well is being drilled since BP is too cheap and the government minions who oversee it are too stupid to get a clue. If the LMRP was a viable solution it would have been tried several weeks ago.
yep like I said earlier scores and scores of monday morning quarterbacks.
This has been going on for over 34 years over 2.5 million barrels so far.
http://www.platformlondon.org/carbonweb/showitem.asp?article=73&parent=7...
What LogPile, don't you know that spills that affect other people so we can have oil are not important. What is important is spills that affect us, the brightest, most God favored people on the face of the planet. We just don't want to know how our lifestyle affects other people. We don't want to know how short a lifespan copper miners in South America have, or how awful life is for diamond miners in Africa.
Seriously thanks for posting this. It makes clear that the oil companies only try to do things safely when they think they can't get away with doing it unsafely. This time they miscalculated big time.
Where is all the junk? News reports say several thousand pounds of junk were inject into the BOP. The seabed around the leaks should be littered with the stuff but I don't see any.
Could I ask this, as soft of citizen query that someone can deal with so other people don't need to ask:
To me, it's incredible that these wells are required to be built with literally some kind of turn-off value, inserted wedge, whatever - somewhat below where actual connections to pumps etc. could break off etc and cause these kinds of problems. It seems intuitively plausible, but I wouldn't know. My main question is, if such easier (?) flow stoppage isn't done for economic reasons (less sympathy) or for logistical reasons? IOW, how much would it have cost to put a choke further down? tx
The BOP is the turn-off valve. It is a redundant system that failed. Why it failed will be an ongoing investigation...
i have NO oil industry experience... and not to detract from all of the well intentioned and competent solutions being tried...
but... this again... will not work...
using another's analogy to that of stopping a full flowing fire hydrant... greater by an exponential magnitude... 1 mile deep in the ocean... not of water... but oil and gas... if i remember another fact... at about 4500 degrees F...
assuming a clean cut of a 90+ degree kinked pipe can be made... and based on numerous reports of not knowing FOR SURE... the condition of the internals of the BOP mechanisms...
knowing the difficulties encountered with similar solutions attempted now twice... lowering a "containment" "mechanism" over an active flow...
this new device... will have to be seated over an active flow of intense pressure... and all of the upstream apparatus designed to capture and divert the flow to the surface will have to function as expected based on observation based judgments to date...
folks... we have a disaster... and it's time to begin to accept the fact that a) either the new wells MAY accomplish stopping the flow... or b)the resovoir will continue gushing until emptied or has run out of pressure to release...
should the new mechanism not be attempted... no... it should... of course... but i think this is a demonstration as to the limits of gung ho consumption based capitalism... that has been written about for decades... and many of those writings could never predict accurately what the specifics of the turning point would look like... IMHO... this is what the beginning of the end of uncontrolled consumptive behavior looks like... this is a turning point in the "overshoot and collapse" scenarios...
i'm just sayin'...
Just a couple of thoughts regarding "squidd's" post.
Several contributors to this site have discussed the volume and pressures coming from the well, in other threads(very well I might add). "Exponential magnitude" isn't one of the phrases that comes to mind. Every driller in the world would like to be sitting on a well with that kind of potential.
If the oil and gas leaking from the well was in the neighborhood of 4500 degrees F(steel, melts at about 2750 degrees F), I would wonder why the inside of the very first attempt to capture the leaking oil(the 80 to 100 ton structure), iced up......."just sayin". The water temps at that depth is about 37 degrees F.
Lastly. The BOP has essentially become a very expensive piece of pipe, without a shutoff. Lopping of the riser at the top and placing the LMRP on it at that location, localizes all of the oil leaking to just the one spot where the LMRP can be used to collect it.
Not as good as a "shutoff", but far better then sitting on ones thumbs and wringing ones hands while waiting for another month for a relief well to come in.
Just a curious question(s) for those with hands on experience.
BP determined yesterday that the "Top Kill" wasn't going to work, and started shifting gears to the LMRP. Is the down time we are going through right now, simply the rearranging of surface vessels and collecting all of the "Top Kill" parapha.....stuff? I would certainly hope that the Gulf isn't waiting for a room full of bureaucrats(in Washington) with nothing on the line but their sanctimonious posteri...butt's, to give the "Okay".
By the way, as others have said, thanks to those with field experience, who have contributed their knowledge to this discussion(forum).
I'll take rational over hysterical, any day of the week. After all, hysterical is why the screaming women in cowboy movies always run out in the street and get killed. Let's have none of that.
"just sayin"
I have seen several posts saying that we can't do this, that or the other because of the 'hundreds of feet of silt on the floor of the gulf'.
OK, so does that mean we have hundreds of feet of accessible well pipe BELOW the BOP?
According to diagrams I have seen the BOP is in fact sitting a few feet above ROCK ... and yet it is visible from ROVs ... so NO deep silt there!
Unless I have missed something blindingly obvious, silt is NOT an issue at the site of the BOP.
General note: if you want a 'techie' view of how all the bits fit together check out the BP site and also some oil industry sites. I don't want to be negative, but I suspect you might get a clearer view than from some of the posts here.
You are missing a lot. There are hundreds of feet of silt and yes the BOP is at the surface. Hundreds, maybe a thousand feet of large diameter pipe was washed into the silt and gumbo then the BOP was set on that pipe. The BOP is not supported at the surface. So anything set on the surounding area will try to settle.
Even if that is true, you could distribute the weight over a large enough area to keep it from settling.
I see talk of ships siphoning off oil from the capping structures if this new strategy works. Not "stopping the flow." What are they going to do with that oil? Yes, I'm aware it's a compromised product but IMHO we still should keep a sharp eye on what happens to those ships.
delver23, is there some reason that the oil and gas collected couldn't be salvaged? What could "happen", that we should all "keep an eye on"?
Would it be a sin if BP was able to salvage some product from this well. to offset the close to 1 billion dollars they've spent so far?
"Stopping the flow" would be a great deal, but would require a lot more work, and a far better fit then the LMRP
Per http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/30/business/la-fi-oxy-20100430 But it was London-based BP, with quarterly profits that rose to $6.1 billion from $2.6 billion a year earlier, that was the lightning rod for ire over huge earnings in the midst of a deadly and growing disaster.
They can use the $6.1 billion to pay their costs and liabilities. If they would donate all the money from any they siphon off say to the 11 families of those who died or the fishermen losing their livelihood, or the environmental groups that will try to restore some of the gulf life, well that would make good PR. But you know the store signs that say "you broke it you own it". This is their fault and their responsibility. Anything they are spending now they are spending because of their own actions and no tears should be shed for the over that to date 1/6 loss of first quarter profits.
Would that be "pre-tax profit(6.1 billion)?
I would wager, that the monies/compensation the families will receive will amount to way more, then what the oil is worth that gets siphoned off this leaking BOP.
Were these employees working for BP, or Transocean? If the BOP had been damaged by the drilling operation prior to the blow out, wouldn't Transocean share some(all?)blame here? Might explain why the BOP failed to operate properly. While we're all busy guessing about what's happened, that'd be another option. Wouldn't be the first time something happened on a job, and nobody wanted to bring it up for fear of being reprimanded(or forced to pay for it, if it was a subcontractor).
What's a BOP worth, before the lives of 11 people are added to the mix?
When you hire subcontractors, it doesn't negate any responsibility the Sub has in a situation like this. That's why subs are required to have insurance, for this sort of thing.
Maybe if the folks who died had been astronauts or soldiers, it would of been different? Since it was just a nasty old money grubbing company though.............
I've been tracking peak oil since about 2001-02 ever since I was made aware through the Daily Reckoning. I started at the bottom reading Hubbert's work. I remember being told in 7th grade (1959 or so!!!) that we had about 11 years of oil discovered and cataloged. Although reading TOD occasionally I didn't join TOD until recently because I didn't feel compelled to post anything.
I've been trying to get real data and technical analysis about the spill since 23 April; and, being recently unemployed/semi-retired ;-( I've been researching about a third of my time 24-8x7. TOD is the only comprehensive and consistent resource that I've found.
I too have been frustrated lately by so many newcomers without oil experience and/or engineering education flooding the threads with posts. And I will admit in the past few days I've been seriously thinking about the idea of limiting the ability to post to older members, even if it meant that as a new member I could not. I have the feeling that some of our experienced oil patch folks aren't posting as much simply because of the volume of posts. The S/N ratio is much worse.
But it struck me this morning that perhaps the ability for all to post is a good thing. Folks that haven't done so before are starting to THINK. People with no engineering exposure are learning just how complex and resource-bound are all engineering activities. Hopefully they are also learning the differences between passing paper legislation/regulation (word processing is unlimited) and actually accomplishing hands-on physical work (which is resource limited). TOD gives them a forum and encourages them to think and hopefully CONTINUE THINKING. And I think that that's what we're trying to accomplish here - getting folks to think about the bigger picture and our future.
Many, many thanks to all the oil patch folks that have and continue to give us real facts - you know who you are and you are irreplaceable.
My apologies for the rant and bandwidth/storage use, but I had to express my thanks and opinion regarding limiting posting.
Oh, and I don't think the LMRP is going to provide much of a resolution to the spill. At best it may literally bring the problem to the surface and allow measurement and capture of some of the crude. That's based on 42 years of experience as a electronic/electro-mechanical/hydraulic/optical control system designer who has also done hands-on work as a machinist, tool maker, welder, etc.
Best of luck to us all.
I keep getting an "Oil Drum is down for maintenance check back later" message when I try to bring up the site.
Could the new topics be hyperlinked so I could at least read them off Google in their catched form? It is a cruel act indeed to block Oil Drum and its treasure of information for someone interested in quality inside information during this crisis. :(
Could anyone explain the rather jerky movements of the ROV arm / joints.
Are they electrically or hydraulically operated? The movement appear 'on/off' rather than progressive. Might it be the seals having to withstand 2000 psi? It's just, by now, I'd have thought arm & wrist movement could have been more accurately controlled?
OK so how are they going to position this grommet assembly precisely over the BOP? Maneuvering on the surface, 5000 feet above? I don't think it looks anything like the illustration on BP's site. It is bigger.
Right now (link below), it looks to me like they're building a giant rigging apparatus with buoys, anchors and ballast tanks. Are they trying to make it neutrally buoyant, and get the ROVs to push it in place?
http://interactive.foxnews.com/livestream/live.html?chanId=2