"Study Wild-Well intervention techniques and capabilities (immediately)"

I guess this is as close to Figure out what else we're missing which might cause the next disaster as we're likely to get...

Nice list BUT they forgot the main one ....

Develop a CONTAINMENT strategy that's ready to
deploy the moment there is a BOP failure resulting
in a sub-sea blowout !!!

First priority following a sub-sea blowout will be
CONTAINMENT rather than wasting time on sure to
fail "kill" procedures ..

Triff ..

Well Design and Construction?
Where is the requirement to drill a relief well at the same time as the new one?

Two observations:

1) They should not even be thinking about new BOP regulations until they examine the failed BOP. I can see them coming up with a whole bunch of new design requirements - then discovering that none of them address what went wrong with this BOP.

2) Notice that there is no comment whatsoever on establishing research programs for mitigation of deepwater oil leaks?

3) I would establish an FAA-style reporting and formal investigation process for 'near-accidents.' I suspect that there have been several occasions where accidents like things like this accident 'almost happened' - but the lessons learned remained inside the heads of the people involved.

I wish we could get some top-side information on what if anything is coming to surface.

Not to worry, most of it is being dispersed in deep sea hydrocarbon plumes that will only slowly kill off marine plankton at the bottom of the food chain. The large pelagic fish, dolphins and turtles will die off slowly over the next few years and will hardly be noticed. Very little of it will wash up on those nice snow white beaches where the plump little tourists drink their margaritas and the local sea food restaurants will import oysters and shrimp from New Zealand...

Oh, never mind, Tony Hayward said on TV that there were no plumes so it must be true!

Don't worry be happy!

BTW He deserves every penny of his compensation:

Salary £1,045,000.00
Bonus £2,090,000.00
Restricted stock awards £0.00
All other compensation £23,000.00
Option awards $ £0.00
Non-equity incentive plan compensation £0.00
Change in pension value and nonqualified deferred compensation earnings £0.00
Total Compensation £3,158,000.00

The ROV's sway in the current. It is much more likely you're watching a camera on the ROV that is undulating in the current and you're thinking it's the BOP infrastructure swaying because of the relative perspective. (I've seen this comment many, many times on the IRC channel).

Glenmore -

Both the oil and gas are less dense than sea water and thus will tend to rise due to their natural buoyancy. The problem though is that there is a pressure differential between the fluid inside the device and the surrounding water. So if the seal is insufficiently tight, oil will still escape, and that appears to be what we are currently seeing.

If the seal were totally secure, then there should be a rather high velocity of oil/gas going up that riser, so much so that it probably have to be throttled back to prevent a violent eruption out the top.

just for the record for those who have faith in the top hat, a weight of about 650 tons is needed just to get the top hat to hover on the escaping oil if the seal is good and oil is not flowing up the pipe. The top hat might weigh a couple of tons. The other weight comes from a flexible pipe one mile long moving around in a current suspended from a ship. Meanwhile you have a turbulent large flow of gaseous oil that becomes more gaseous and wants to expand all the way to the surface that has to travel up a narrow pipe one mile to the ships low pressure pumps to have a hope that the weight required on the top hat can be reduced. Has anything like this been done before?

On Friday morning, the success of the effort remained unclear, but BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles said he was optimistic.

The oil that is still surging into the gulf from around the new cap is coming from vents that will be successively closed during the course of the day Friday, Suttles said on ABC's "Good Morning America."

"I'm actually pretty confident this is going to work. It probably won't capture all the flow, but it should capture the vast majority," Suttles said.

This from a WAshington Post story this morning - Hope springs eternal

Isn't the operative question 90% of what. If some of the recent estimates of 12,000-19,000 bd are right that would mean that there is still 1,200-1,900 bd - greater than the initial estimate of the leak.

You don't need to go to the bother of removing those bolts. All they need to is create a hinged collar that fits around the lower riser mount, using the flange to lock on to.
The collar could be shaped to fit around the stub of the riser pipe, and engineered to provide a properly locking mount for the containment cap.

Would probably take a day do construct, and would do wonders for the process. I have a bet going that we'll be seeing one soon.

You don't need to go to the bother of removing those bolts. All they need to is create a hinged collar that fits around the lower riser mount, using the flange to lock on to.
The collar could be shaped to fit around the stub of the riser pipe, and engineered to provide a properly locking mount for the containment cap.

Would probably take a day do construct, and would do wonders for the process. I have a bet going that we'll be seeing one soon.

I thought about this too watching the videos. Bolting something to the top of the existing LMRP flange (of whatever we are looking at below the cut) seems like a better option than hovering something on top of it. Alternatively, it seems possible to create a device that closes around/below the bolt connectors or wide spot just below the cut. Then again, it doesn't seem like capturing the flow is the main problem ... hydrates are. I'm not sure what this adds to the equation?

you would expect some flow. The question though is how much flow can you reasonablý expect over a distance of one mile if the pipe is not able to transport oil by its own mechanism? if the cap forms a reasonable seal there is no transport mechanism to take the lighter oil to the surface since the water and oil are now independant. So you need a pressure of one miles worth of oil at the seal plus a large posative pumping pressure to move that large flow rate along a narrow one mile long pipe. The seal has to be more or less perfect. Can a rubber seal even survive that 3500 pressure before the seal is made good?

"flow" - but flow of what? If it's mostly flow of gas, with the oil being pushed out around the poor seal, then what does that accomplish?

That's what I thought at first, but the view actually shows the leak enveloping the whole cap as it flows out the bottom. You can see the "fins" of the cap protruding from the billowing oil. You can see the level on the top of the BOP in Skandi ROV 1. In Enterprise ROV 2 you can see a view that is level with the bottom of the cap. It's hard for me to believe that any significant capture is occurring from these shots.

Scandi is looking from above. The feed from Enterprise ROV1 shows gas/oil leaks from below the cap.

With a 6" pipe, a flow of .5m/s would carry 200,000gpd. The more gas you have, the greater the differential pressure drive, and the higher the flow.

For each 1% of the column volume that is displace by expanding gas, the resulting differential pressure will increase about 5%. For each 10ft of water you have about 5psi (actually about 2250psi at 5000ft, IIRC).

Replace that water with oil at density of .8 of water and you get about 4psi per 10ft, for a differential of about 500psi at 500ft.

Replace 50ft of water (1%) with gas (really low fraction of water weight) and you pick up about 40psi of differential.

With no choke on the top you get a screaming gas flume (like on the rig). Add a choke and dial down the flow until you reach a gas/oil flow equilibrium roughly equal to the leak, and you're set. Unchoke a bit and you get too much flow and suck in water from the bottom. Choke too much and you leak oil out the bottom.

Since the base 500psi is plenty of drive to get the requisite .5m/s of flow, there should be a wide "sweet spot" of gas/oil ratios that will capture the full leak flow in a 6" pipe.

It's not intuitive, but math doesn't lie.......

According to Thad Allen, they have about 5 possible caps they can use in storage on the sea floor. We may yet see the one used in your graphic.

I agree with you. The top hat BP installed yesterday was yellow on the sides, white on the top, had fins that projected outward and had "4" written on it. Thus, I named it Top Hat 4. Here are some images within a few minutes of it being put in place:

Geez that June 4 projection looks like the spill is anthropomorphically recognizing state boundaries and has it in for Alabama.

Amateur question again:

If this cap can't get a sufficient seal to allow oil capture, can more work be done to the sheared pipe? In other words, can the saw(s) get back in there to finish the edges better before attempting another cap off?
Was the flat, circular plate visible in earlier camera angles supposed to be a mating surface?
note: no oil experience but participated in many repairs and procedures in my industry, although none come remotely close in magnitude to what's going on here.

And since cutting what they did enabled perhaps 20% more oil to flow... then they may not be much better off than they were before!

Going forward, it would be worth considering a new req to have some "survival" buoyancy as part of the basic design. Two big air bladders with plumbing is not very robust, compared to maybe 20 sealed tanks. Of course you still need bladders for controllable buoyancy, but surely there is a middle ground where the rig would at least float low in the water but maintain the feed?

It also seems like multiple break-aways in the riser string with hydraulic collets should be added. You'd think it would be possible to re-stab a collet to collect oil in such an emergency.

Is most of the oil leaking from the drill string? Or around it? If the drill pipe maintained integrity (questionable in the BOP, I'm sure), could that be "reacquired" to cap or to pump mud back down?

ROCKMAN - we'd have to look at the vessel drawings to know for sure, but it's quite likely that pathways existed from the deck box down into the columns. Unless all of the watertight doors and hatches are closed water on the decks of the rig COULD run down through the columns and into the pontoons. If you remember, on the BP Thunder Horse inclining test a few years ago there was communication from the deck box down into the low pontoon. I think something similar could have happened to the DWH. It's quite as likely though that some piece of gear falling off the drill floor hit the pontoon on the way down and put a crack in it which over a day and a half admitted enough water to sink the rig. But I guess my point is, that I doubt very much that after the explosions, abandonment and fire that there was watertigth integrity between the deck box and the columns and that would have allowed a path for water to run down into the pontoons. Not sure how much "water" would have survuved being sprayed into that fire. Seems like most of it would have turned into steam before it ahd a chance to collect and run downhill.

Something else I was going to ask about.... what's the well design review process like at MMS? Do they have enough skilled people there who can actually look at a well plan on the permit application and say whether it's a sound design or not? How would industry set up some sort of peer review process to make sure well designs going forward are based on best practices before a permit gets issued? Because unless you have the right people looking at things like that you end up with a bureaucracy that slows down legitimate work and doesn't add any safety or integrity to the process, a la OSHA or MSHA.

I've been thinking about that too; last night I watched the Nat Geo special on the disaster and it had some pretty good footage of the rig fire. At the time of the sinking I kind of thought the fire fighting efforts might have flooded the DWH--after seeing the footage I don't think that would be the case.

The fire was intense enough to soften the steel the semi was made of and there was clearly some distortion of the ship's structure; also there are many reports (and you could hear some in the video footage) of internal explosions prior to sinking. I think the deformation of the structure changed the water line, and probably pulled open some conduits for flooding down into the pontoons, and who knows what trauma those internal explosions might have inflicted on the vessel's integrity.

Of course, all the fire and smoke made clear observations very difficult.

A report from the CBC and oil industry fire fighter Mike Miller takes this perspective:

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2010/06/02/f-gulf-spill-canadian-oil-indus...

The rig looks pretty burned up at the time of sinking and the water beneath the rig is completely covered in fire. I believe it was just a matter of time before fire consumed the rig. It's also possible the volume of hydrocarbons spilling on the rig floor and spreading throughout the ship exceeded the volume of water reaching the rig from coast guard boats. And the stuff is flammable. Still, it's worth looking at.

Rockman

Everything you say is factual.

As I remember we agreed to disagree about the possible cause of sinking - water streams from fire boats vs holes in the pontoons due to equipment falling from the deck during the explosions.

The ONLY way a semi sinks is by flooding the pontoons, even if it capsizes it will still float. If water tight doors are left open to the pontoons then fire water can sink the vessel and has sunk a few semis and innumerable ships. If the water tight doors to the pontoons were closed then only structural damage will sink it.

Each of these fire monitors is pumping (sorry - "spraying") several tons of water a minute. Just a small percent of that water finding its way to the legs or pontoons from several streams over number of hours will have an effect. And remember that since the semi was in submerged operating mode it is only necessary to overcome the buoyancy in a couple legs to capsize it to where the sea can reach the open doors. The amount of water necessary to capsize a semi in submerged condition is surprisingly small as they have a very small cut water plane - exactly the reason they are so stable.

Once the rig capsizes water will enter the pontoon through any fitting or open door and then its just a matter of time.

There are vessels like ice breakers and rescue boats that can take a 70 degrees or even greater roll and survive (and all submarines) but there is no semi in existence that can come close to 70 degrees roll without capsizing.

I think both theories have legs and the sinking could easily have even been a combination of flooding from damage and fire boats.

Bad as this disaster has been, it certainly would have been worse if the Deepwater Horizon rig had sunk straight down and either covered or obliterated the wellhead and the BOP. And yet it seems the rig came to rest on the sea bottom at some 1400 feet from the well. I guess you have to call that a "lucky break".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/03/gulf-oil-spill-bp-divi...

Pas30 - read previous posts and you will see that there is no incentive for BP to keep this nightmare going. It is all conspiracy BS.

They are spending a $1B a month on this and the faster it is contained and cleanup the faster we all forget about BP. That is BP's goal and all of ours.

BP is on the hook for $4300 in fines per barrel of oil spilled.

15,000 bpd = 64,000,000 per day.

If they can capture 80% of that it goes down to 12 million per day.

And that doesn't include the 30,000 people they are paying for cleanup.

The idea that BP could get anything out of this is so ludicrous as to make one question the sanity of anyone proposing the idea.

In other words it's nuts.

I'm sure any smart executive would also be buying back company stock at this point (companies do this on a regular basis to maintain ownership positions, issue bonuses, and for other reasons). BP company stock lost $58 billion (or 34%) since the start of the accident. They stand to make a lot of money on the upside if their stock recovers … perhaps far more than the cost of clean-up so far. And as Bloomberg indicates , they may also be bolstering their positions to protect against potential take-over attempts.

Completely UNREALISTIC depiction.

Where was the cost cutting, incompetent upper management blaming the dead workers, the subcontractors and complaining that they "wanted their life back" ?

Alan

3D -- Know the movie well. There was one scene that better depicts the BP blow out IMHO. While Big John was recuperating his young hand was called out to a burning blow out. The hand turned the job down because the well had "cratered". IOW the wellhead was destroyed including any flanges that might have been used to attach control valves to shut off the flow even if they could snuff the fire out. Told the operator to get a relief well going because that was their only option. Big John said he was proud of the boy for walking from a no-win situation.

That one scene appears more appropriate to what's going on out in the GOM right now compared to other parts of the movie.

One does wonder what the vibrations of this loose fitting system are going to do to that BOP...

It's the ROV that is moving. Watch the lat/long positioning numbers move in synchronization with the movement.

Attempts after the top hat will be with the Scottish terrier, race car, and iron, in that order.

They have a few LMRP variation caps fabricated already. My guess is that they'll try to weight this cap down in hopes of keeping it in place. When it fails they'll try again with another cap fabricated to solve the problems that came up this time (cap not heavy enough, no seal formed with the riser, larger diameter outflow pipe).

BP's plan I believe, is really quite plain

They've got thing one and thing two

Who'll pop out and just clean up that stain...

.

Top hat definitely dancing.

There is enough "push from below" comming from the formation.

What good would a pump do if you're taking a 20" diameter of oil/gas and forcing it into only 6" of pipe going up - with the gas expanding as it moves higher?

(presuming I have understood what's happening here)

BP will be merged with Shell or someone else by the end of the year. They are not going to recover from this except by the name disappearing.

I will tell you this. What’s going on above the surface makes this underwater fix look like a kid’s video game. Some of the most brilliant, money and blood thirsty financial minds, the same piranhas that brought you CDO’s and CDS’s and synthetic CDSs and mezzanine tranches and the Gaussian cupola are circling BP like a sick guppy. They can smell multi-million $$$ bonuses. BP’s protectors are the British government and the poison pill of untold damages. And every BP suit smells the stink of his own fear right now.

BP should cease it's pay-out. And its CEO should give over his entire salary and bonus! And that's just for starters...

junk shot -- what the heck are you trying to do? Scare folks more than they already are? Actually it's unfortunate that reports like you've posted haven't been in the public eye to a much greater degree. Beyond what you've offered, well kicks that don't cause loss control happen all the time. If the public had been more aware perhaps the fed regulators and operators would have been more focused on prevention. How many of us cruise down the highway over the speed limit and slow down after we see someone getting a ticket? And not just because we may think there's another cop just down the road. Sometimes we slow down just because we realize there wasn't a good reason to speed and thus reason to speed. If the MMS saw the public being repeated alarmed about near catastophies they might have tightened up some just for the sake of public perception about their job performance.

Back of the envelope "we gotta do something" engineering.

When I saw that old-style Westinghouse upright washing machine with the stovepipe mounted, suspended on its way to touchdown, I had to accept that this is an exceptional indictment of an industry which has been thinking no farther than to the "tip of its nose."
BP has delivered contingency planning documents to regulators describing its ability and readiness to tackle what's happening at Block 252 - those statements have no bearing on actuality, and will serve as self-indictment. They're totally at the mercy of the government and those hit by this.

Must be bleak days in the corporate corridors.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Upward view of currently installed cap

My guess is that the oil polluting the Gulf is >> than the ability of the ship to process, so if they grab a decent % of the total (say 1/3rd) good ! Well worth the effort and expense.

Now where are RWs #3 and #4 ?

Alan

Seems there's a fundamental failure of engineering leadership. Anyone who's ever sawed a 2X4 knows they should have sheared off the hanging bent riser BEFORE they deployed the diamond saw. I've been on jobs where panic was the mode, and f-you was the attitude of the hands. Whoever's in charge of this mess should be tied to a drill collar and told to take a deep breath.

... "in this friekin fiasco".

Totally agree. The incompetence of these folks is astounding.

It seems obvious that they need a high pressure seal and a large diameter pipe to deliver this devil of a turbulent flow to the surface.

Their approaches so far seem to lack fundamental understanding of turbulent fluid dynamics. They do not appear to support any of their approaches with rigorous CFD analysis, or any analysis beyond back of the envelope pressure differential calculations.

Expect them to announce "partial success" today and "failure" of this approach over the weekend.

BP is now following the orders of the Engineer In Chief at the Whitehouse. Obama explained that a few days ago. Carol Browner confirmed it in an interview. They have assigned a genius Nobel Prize winner as the top decision maker. BP is now just executing the plan of the US govt.

Actually I saw several ROV tools at OTC that could unbolt those bolts. It's not impossible. http://www.fastorq.com/
The lack of imagination from their engineers is starting to become a bit staggering.

More like 100 to 200 million gallon hat.

From a man that knew wild wells:

If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.

- Red Adair

Try this thought experiment:

Put a high running pressure hose into an open funnel with a much smaller exit hole. Is there a pressure differential? - Yes. Is there a seal between the hose and the funnel? - No. It is the same condition as currently at the wellhead.

How much flow will you get out of the funnel? - Not a lot. Why? - No seal.

Sorry but I am having trouble believing that this better than a completely air-tight/water-tight seal.

I'm not sure I believe that the oil will rise to the surface on its own, at least not because of the "density of the oil being less than the density of the seawater". Here's a simple experiment anyone with a straw and a cup of water can do. Blow air through the straw into the water, and while there is air in the straw, pinch the top. Now, as you release the pinch, the air flows up because the water is pushing it; you can see this because the water column in the straw rises. So the only way that "seawater" is going to help "push" the oil up the pipe is if you allow the seawater to follow the oil up the column, which isn't going to work due to clathrates and because the oil is constantly being renewed. So, the only real way to do this is to place a pump as close to the tophat as possible, and have that pump push oil up the column as hard as it can. Once the oil passes the pump, the pressure in the pipe won't cause it to push back on new oil coming out, causing massive leaks at the bottom. However, they probably DO want a little leakage at the bottom, because of the clathrates problem you mentioned.

BB551

I agree some of my comments were wrong. However to keep the sea water out if there is only 80% bouyancy in the tube and not more due to oil and gas will require about 500psi since that is the static pressure difference? The cap has a diameter of about 30 inches or area of 700 so that gives a required weight of the cap of 170 tons. The more gas in the pipe then the more weight to keep the water out?

Yes, if the chimney idea works I calculate (very rough using chimney effect) 350 gallon/s capacity based on a difference in density of .2 between the stuff in the chimney and the water and a 3" pipe.

First comment, non-technical, and I apologize for that.

Been reading this site for weeks; just amazing the knowledge, expertise & experience. I've been trying to get personal friends and some online folks to read the info here, but most just won't do the work or take the time, they prefer what they "hear"- whatever that means.

Some thoughts: As a former teacher I've had this feeling before, many times, but once again I'm simply appalled and exasperated with the level of basic scientific knowledge possessed by the average American. It's shameful. Over and over again on numerous websites I keep reading the same type of drivel: why don't they blow it up with a nuclear bomb, dump a bunch of rocks on it, stick a balloon in it (I kid you not!) Not even a 5th grade understanding of most of the scientific laws that are universal and invariable facts of the physical world. Not to mention no knowledge or appreciation of logic, the traditional scientific method, the time and effort required to acquire and learn real facts (the name of the contestants on "American Idol" doesn't count), or basic geography and earth science ("Where is the Gulf of Mexico anyway?" and "I thought it was only a hundred feet deep?")

Add to this a frightening and rapidly growing movement of people who equate education and intelligence with power and government; if one distrusts the latter then one must distrust the former.

I'm near the end of my time, but I have children and grandchildren. I worry and weep for them. What a world.

Given the insane estimates of flow that bounce around the public arena, BP would probably save billions if they actually measured the flow.

I also wondered about the actual procedure. Originally it was even planned to grind the cut after sawing. The saw formerly failed, probably because of the heavy riser. Now the riser is nearly away and the saw should be able to work.

I can pretty much guarantee BP has another tophat already being built from spec with regard to the performance or lack of the one in use right now. The one in use now wasn't built with regard of the riser being cut with the claw sheer.

I share the puzzlement of those who are questioning why a new riser cannot be bolted to the existing flange. There is also an obvious design issue for future deep-sea wellheads: their design should include high-pressure connection mating surfaces that can be decoupled in an emergency (e.g., via explosive bolts) and reattached to new riser fittings. This is nothing more than high-pressure piping design, and it is baffling that the BOP designers did not anticipate the need to reattach to existing piping in an emergency.

The design of all of this gear reflects no consideration of worst-case outcomes. We now have received a good lesson in the worst case, and new INTERNATIONAL regulations for deep-sea oil well hardware should be developed and universally enforced. Nobody should be putting a well head on the seabed without the confirmed ability to stop a blowout in a worst-case equipment failure scenario.

Yeah Casey, you would think whomever named that rig would be a little more superstitous!

Atlantis is in production although not at capacity. Its currently producing wells will continue to do so but no new wells will be drilled. Same for Thunder Horse and same for all other deepwater GoM platforms regardless of operator.

PS If you think Atlantis is prophetically named I am still stunned at Chevron actually naming a deepwater GoM field "Blind Faith" (Mississippi Canyon block 650).

Atlantis is NOT a drilling rig, never has been, never will be. Atlantis is strictly a production platform fed via subsea pipelines from remote subsea wells, many of them ten miles or more away. The drill rig for Atlantis is currently spudded in MC252 drilling the second Macondo relief well. It's name is the Development Driller II. There will be no drilling in the Atlantis field at least until the DD2 returns from it's work at Macondo.

bb551

i suspect that inside that cap there is massive mixing of the oil and water rather than simply pure oil with water all forced out - something we cannot know for sure unless we are bp taking the oil out the other end but almost certainly the oil flow is drawing water with it up the pipe rather than their being an ideal water and oil separation. Then there is the turbulent flow along the pipe creating resistance. These problems get reduced if the seal can be improved. even with a good seal creating high pressure oil is still going to be forced out of the cap but water is less likely to go in.

It is said that methanhydrates need at a temperature of 2-4 °C a pressure of around 300 Psi (a depth of 600 feet). But here a mixture with warm methanole will be transported so i think this could spare some additional heating.

One would think that they could have designed some sort or rubber and steel gasket that could be placed over the flange and the bolts that secure it. This would make a very secure surface to mount the top hat to.

An extra set of holes and a larger flange sounds good, how about NASA type explosive bolts? If they were on the flange, we would have avoided much of the connectivity issues.

@BB551: phase diagram info for methane hydrates.

http://woodshole.er.usgs.gov/project-pages/hydrates/what.html

I can only defer to the expertise of the engineers that have hugely more knowledge and experience with these things than me, and guess that they decided a visible leak provides a more immediate empirical feedback for regulating everything. The composition of the flow up the pipe is unknown and subject to continuous change; If this works I'd guess they are going to have to watch the bottom leak like a hawk and make continuous adjustments to the flow rate for many months to come until the relief well is completed and the flow plugged.

I also wonder (just guessing) if they are now terrified of sending a pressure spike down the BOP and into the well for fear of triggering something catastrophic. With a floppy cap this is essentially impossible. With a tight cap, some sudden malfunction or clog could easily send a spike of thousands of PSI down the well and bust something out. My household water supply is pressurized by a ram pump, in with a teeny brass flap valve slamming shut in a 1" PVC pipe with only a few gallons per minute of flow through it creates a pressure spike of about 100 PSI that reverberates through the system (and pumps water to my storage tank). Try to imagine the pressure spikes that could result from sudden unexpected interruptions of flow in this much more massive system, that could be caused by (for instance) a chunk of clathrates becoming dislodged from the walls and suddenly clogging the pipe. Kind of like a vascular embolism, with potential for equally catastrophic results.

I frankly could not believe that they so quickly abandoned going for a careful, clean and square cut. It seems the hasty decision to shear the pipe has made management of a controllable 'leakage' seal more difficult. As originally proposed, one was led to believe that the plan was to cut and then "dress" the cut.

More fundamental: Given that the riser pipe diameter is so much smaller than the leak pipe diameter, why would one expect it to handle but a fraction of the mass flow exiting the well without creating tremendous uncontrollable back pressure i.e. leakage at the so called seal? Suppose that the top-hat was lowered onto the well with only the 15 ft or so of the riser stub and the oil was free to enter the ocean. In this case all the density driven hydraulics would not apply, but a mass balance would simply indicate all the mass would have to go through the smaller riser diameter or 'leak' out the bottom.

It seems obvious that the performance expectation of this design is to recover but a fraction of the oil. I hope the amount at least makes up for the increase in flow created by cutting the riser off.

I am a noob here but I'm an old farmer with 20 years experience in fiberglass plant maintenance. Been reading everything on this site since I found it. Check me out on some thoughts?

Seems to me the pump is already down there, producing roughly 571 atmospheres of pressure on a 70/30 stream of gas/oil, at the sea floor.

With a ??" stand pipe firmly attached and sealed on the Bop top, what would the pressure be at the surface?

Wouldn't the diameter of the stand pipe affect the flow?

Would the velocity be greater top vs bottom?

Would the mile column of the mix produce so much head that the well would blow out?

Wouldn't the weight of that column act as a throttle on the total flow?

I think I've found the mother-lode of reasonable, rational, experienced, troubleshooters here and I feel right at home.

Thanks in advance for any answers

No it is not a start over. They back off a bit and stab again. It's a week or two per try.

There were some good posts on this topic over the past week or so. While a 'hit' on the first try is not likely, they don't have to 'start over'. They just back up the hole a bit and try again after adjusting their calculations. In practice it can take several tries to get the type of connection to the blowing well that they need. Each case is different, so estimating the time needed is just guessing - although the time required to reach the vicinity of the target can be estimated based on the previous experience. That is why the 'August' date has been circulating. Could be sooner, could take longer. The reason to drill more than one well is to offset the chance that any given well will run into problems that will cause delays.

aliilaali (sp?) has made a couple of excellent posts on this. From memory, the technology claims it can hit a 10'-radius ball on the first try 90% of the time. My read on him is he's a bit skeptical about that.

They do not start over. They do sensor readings and arrive at a new targeting solution, reset the drill, which takes a few days (concrete plug and a host of other drilling niceties we don't want to know about), and take another shot at the target.

The relief well in the East Timor Sea took five tries. As understand it, the retry process took a little less than one month, which would mean the retries took about one week each.

From what I have seen the technology to find the target and kill the well is much better in recent years. In multiple wells that I have been involved with the success rate on the first try is 100 percent.

This well should actually be easier than the ones I have worked on, because this well has recent MWD and gyro surveys using the same technology that they are using on the relief wells. This is not like finding a needle in a haystack when you use the most modern and the best technology.

With all of BP's failures I would be suprised to see the first relief well fail to find the target due to poor directional work.

Goodmanj

Your bp graphic shows what a total failure todays operation is compared to that graphic. In your graphic the oil vents always from the vent valves till they are closed and then there is a tiny leak. whereas in reality oil is venting massively from the bottom of the cap from the moment the cap was placed till this time 12 hours later.

while everyone should watch that animation, I am not sure the current leakage is "exactly" what they expected. To the untrained eye, it seem like an awful lot of oil leaking from under the cap. Unless I have missed something, they haven't attempted to close the oil valves on the cap yet (designed vent oil/gas to lower pressure) -- why haven't they done this? The obvious speculation is that if they did so the pressure would be too great and the cap would not stay on.

Based on ROV footage, it doesn't look good, IMO. We have 2 cams doing disperant ops, two more labeled "dispersant hose relocation", one monitoring the cap from a bit of a distance (not gripping it), and then there is Viking Poseidon : ROV 1 that is current manipulating a hook to presumably move another version of the cap. In summary, none of the cams show any efforts to improve the seal or close the valves on the existing cap (of course, I don't even know if such effort may be possible for the ROVs at this juncture). I think they have given up on the first cap and are leaving it there because it is better than leaving it wide open, as they prep another cap to try next....

How about this?

The simple reason for the "bad seal" maybe to fact that they haven't opened the up the flow topside yet.

In former plans BP meant to set another BOP (I think one stage of it would be sufficient) on the old one, alternatively to the "loose cap" as applied now. It was often discussed why not to unbolt and mount a valve or a BOP-stage on it. But the answers to that question given here were not really uniformly.

If you're talking about the liquid from the thin white tube held by one of the ROVs, that's dispersant being injected into the oil/gas/seawater plume.

Now that they have a riser back in place, how about this: 1) Run a seamless production casing with cement shoe and centralizers at each joint (to prevent flexing and kinking under the continued turbulent flow). 2) At the BOP stack, slowly thread the casing into the 9 7/8 that's there now, then run casing to TD. The production casing will increase the flow velocity of the oil for a while, but the centralizers will take care of the casing. 3) Duplex or triplex the Halliburton pumps, run a mix of sand and thixotropic cement into the casing at high enough volume to kill the flow. The seamless casing will stand the pressure of the triplexed pumps, and the volume can displace the production flow by the added density of the sand in the cement. 4) Pump cement until you see the pressure differential go well past the pressure nesessary to halt flow of oil, then pump some more. 5) Run the plug till it bumps. You can't simply fill the casing as well as the annulus, because you're going to need the open casing. 6) Wait for the cement to set, then run in and perforate several hundred feet above the producing horizon. 7) Run cement again, without sand, to seal the annulus and cut off flow around the bad cement job that will still be leaking.

Comments?

The relief well is not the slam dunk deal the media seem to be proposing. Given the problems on the wild well I think you can rest assured that the integrity of the relief well willbe +100A1. That is routine, killing a well flowing at possibly 18,000 b/d is not going to be an over in a day. My limited experience of blowouts (5) was that we invariably put a new BOP on top of the old one or in the case of a production well a new valve (after putting the fire out). On the one bottom kill it took weeks, on the initial attempt we were not even sure we were getting fluid to the right place.

Cutting off the riser is an incredible achievement and I look longingly at that flange on top of the BOP. I appreciate that BP may have concerns about the integrity of the casing if the well is shut in but making a secure seal to the top flange offers the opportunity to kill the well.

The ROV footage shows oil venting above the LMRP and not at the seal, indicating that the flow is being deliberately vented for reasons unknown. The drill collar ID will certainly restrict the flow if we are looking at 18,000 b/d. I can't quantify the rate but having tested wells in 4 continents it looks like a barnburner. I just hope the surface facilities on the vessel can handle 20,000 b/d

Maybe because this isn't Venezuela..... on second thought, not yet.

I've said this before: Tony the Twit has the greatest job security of any BP employee for the moment. If the Board of Directors at BP were to fire him now, they would be admitting they hired an incompetent Twit... which would make them look like incompetent Twits. And who would want to replace him in the middle of this dog's breakfast? Only another incompetent Twit. Carry on bravely, Tony. A knighthood awaits you.

It's a crude oil/seawater mix. I'm sure the water can be separated out, then the crude can be refined, then sold as refined products.

As of 9:33AM PDT I can confirm the cap is not secured on the flange. It is bouncing up and down with the variation in the flow. I just watyched a huge billow emrge which pushed the cap up a good 4 inches. The ROV appears to be perfectly static. With all that oil blowing past the seal it is probably degraded to uselessness by now.

Back to the cut - what is stopping them from cutting the riser base again with the diamond wire? It would not bind sine the rise is gone. Seems there is enough material left to shave off an inch or so.

I am also very worried about the state of those rams. They were never designed to handle this. Clearly since the drill pipe is seen in the cut riser the rams are holding it back from sinking into the well which shows at least some of them worked. Add to that the tremednous flow and I wonder is a complete ram failure could be likely.

It is quite normal to have oil mixed with wather in regular production. Some wells are even paying with an amount of wather of 90 %. So oil industry is quite familiar in separating oil from wather.

BP needs to get serious. If it bought a few miles of those builders rubbish chutes that connect together it could raise the oil to a height where there was no formation of these clathrate nasties and collect it from that point onwards. How about 500 metres of one metre plastic pipe?? Come on guys! you can do it! If we all chip in we could even provide the stuff for them.

BP has been on my "no buy" list for ages, because the current event is just par for the course with them.

Corporate culture has a way of running much deeper and wider than people expect it to, and doing business with a company when you dislike the way they do business is just stupid.

Hey i like that website/blog!

The fact is since BP also distributes petrol boycotting BP franchised station isn't going to work. The only thing we can hope for now is BP coming up with a better designed tophat and containing more of the spill. Not positive but i think GOM is ruined and frankly I wouldn't trust any seafood coming from that region. Since you don't really know where most seafood is EXACTLY coming from the safest thing is avoiding it indefinitely unless you know and trust the source.

so if 20% more flow was created by cutting the pipe and only 1000 barrels are collected out of 20,000 originally flowing, didnt cutting the pipe make things worse?

Which is less than they were capturing with their contraption from a couple weeks ago, which attached to the bent pipe end.

Here is your bolt remover Dimitry:

http://www.fastorq.com/hydraulic_rotating_wrenches.aspx

It really appears to be driven by considerations other than physics and engineering at this point.

Dimtry,

I see your point and I agree that the original top hat was doomed at the outset, not because of hydrates but because of fluid dynamics. There was a simple solution - but that's history for now.

The current situation is more promising IF the well head pressure at the vessel can be kept close to zero, the column and friction losses need to be less (or very slightly greater) than the hydrostatic head of sea water. To this end the string to surface needs to have minimum friction loss and the mention of drill collars in the string with a 2.75 inch id does not sound encouraging. IF the well is producing 5,000 b/d we might be OK if it looks to be 18,000 b/d there will still be signifcant oil going into the ocean.

Personally I would get the flange off/gate valve with matching flange/single bolt/swing the valve through the flow/put the rest of the bolts in. Close in well and bullhead via the kill line.

KB

Go back and read bb551's posts again - he has explained this very very clearly

At midnight last night ... Thad Allen indicated they were receiving 1,000 bbl/day on the surface. But it included the caveat: "I think we need to caution against overoptimism here."

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/06/progress_being...

OK, you got me. I've been an engineer for about 30 years but the last fluids class I took was then maybe 32 years ago. If you're a fluid-flow engineer, I'd love to see a rough calculation of a turbulent mix entering a pipe which should otherwise have laminar flow. I really like seeing at least some math to back up a mental diagram. Where is the error in my rough calcs?

They don't need to use either. The well will be running hotter than hell at these flow rates. There is no chance of hydrates at the well head. I will be very interested after the event to find out what direct evidence they have of hydrates.

There are two of the visible in the photos from fabrication (if I'm remembering the right device) and it looked like the diameter is in the range 2"-4".

Check out nola.com. A post over there was hashing over the phrase "unknown unknowns". Stellar evolution was used as an example; "mass" fell into the category of unknown unknowns until Einstein published. Sheesh. Ya get all types.

GreyGhost; http://www.fastorq.com/hydraulic_nut_splitters.aspx

We also used to have purely mechanical versions of this, I am sure they still exist.

I am by no means an engineer, but a drunken chimpanzee could have seen the current fix would never work. I had hoped those sharp gussets protruding out were some sort of clamping or mating device....but nooooooooooooooooo. This is sort of like putting your hand over the broken valve a beer keg. Looks like you are doing something but still losing all the beer.

Even if you crack the nuts you still have to remove the stem of the bolt. The answer is simply drill them out the question is can those little ROV's apply enough downward pressure and what happens drilling over the top( the oil would kill the visibility) So now you drill on the nut head itself.....I can't see how they would be able generate enough torque.

Man, who engineered this device?

About 40 years ago I spent several summers while in High school and college working for a small city (Galveston) water department. These guys had eighth grade educations but they would have never come up something this dumb. They knew how to pipe and to fix leaks on huge water mains while under pressure.

Here's what I think they would have done after the riser was cut to form a seal if the flange bolts could not be cut.

Get a piece of pipe about an inch in inside diameter larger than the flange. It needs to be about twenty feet long. At one end put a valve and a nipple and open the valve all the way.

At the other end you are going to connect this piece of pipe to the flange and the stub of remaining riser. Cut four slits in the pipe parallel to the length of the pipe about six inches long and this will be the basis for a clamp around the flange and riser. Essentially make a clamp that operates like an automotive hose clamp and put it around the slitted end of the pipe. Flare the four sections created by the slitted pipe. Weld a ninety degree lip on the four sections to grab the bottom side of the riser flange. Make holes in the lip corresponding to where the nuts on the flange are and use the nuts to help secure the lip if at all possible.

Design a soft lead collar about six inches wide to fit around the stubbed up riser pipe. It should be thick enough to extend about 1/2 inch past the diameter of the riser flange, but narrow enough to fit inside the twenty foot piece of pipe. If the lead collar has to be cut because it can't be put on under pressure, cut it once, expand it as little as possible to get it around the riser stub and use the robots to pound it back into shape around the riser stub.

Now slip your the slitted end of the twenty foot pipe with valve and nipple over the riser and flange. Use the clamp to squeeze the slitted pipe around the flange and squeeze the lead till it comes out the slits. It the robots can do it, pound the lead coming out of the slits for a tighter seal. The right angled lip should secure around the bottom of the flange.

Maybe this would seal. Then tie production pipe on to the nipple and begin to produce the oil. Then slowly shut the valve to increase pressure forcing the lip around the bottom of the flange to seal even tighter. This should seal even more. If it really seals well, do another kill shot if you don't want to produce.

I know one thing, this would work a whole lot better than that contraption with the fancy name BP came up with.

Maybe BP needs to start talking to some city water department people who fix leaks for a livelihood.

just get them to fix it all up in post production with a bit of CGI...

Hollywood to the rescue

Good question. Have you seen this one too?

http://www.evtn.com/products_benefits.html

The connect-the-dots question is why haven't we heard anything about getting fish finders on trawlers tweaked for oil plumes and catching oil. If we can't get the big tankers, why not divide and conquer? You can't tell me the appropriate agency doesn't know how it wants seawater remediated. Even if the separation is 97 to 99%, what level of post filtering do we need add to get it to pass muster? It seems like if the EPA, NOAA, USCG and the fishermen teamed up on this, it would serve the nation's interest better. Deferring to BP on this seems like a false choice easily corrected by executive order. Collect evidence for the DOJ, reduce the environmental damage, fulfill Constitutional oaths and show what good governance really means. How can that be bad?

BTW, what kind of respirators does anyone doing recovery need to filter out that they are breathing in?

I think Cameron was talking about "morons". So maybe not an equipment problem as much as something else.

Actually what they should be doing is taking this flow to the surface WITHOUT increasing the pressure in the BOP and below.

First, they need a big pipe. 21" sounds like a good number to me. Small pipes can't be used because they will restrict the flow and increase BOP pressure.

Second, they need a good seal. Turbulent, high pressure, muli-phase flow doesn't like being told what to do. A decent seal, not a very high pressure seal, but something that can reliably hold ~3 ksi or so.

Third, they can't turn this flow off or restrict it significantly (see preamble). So they need a lot of production capacity topside to take all the flow in without throttling it down.

Fourth, they need a flow diverter for emergencies to dump back into the ocean if they have to. And they need a quick disconnect for hurricanes.

They can't accomplish any of the above with the crazy, cartoon system they dragged down to the wellhead. It's been designed by a manager or someone who failed out of engineering school. Perhaps those two go together, in this case.

Those machines could really come in handy in the wetland marshes.

anyway this LMRP l@@KS like a huge FAIL if anything it increased the flow rate by 10% calculating on BP statement that flowrate could increase by 20%

What they need to do is figure out a way of either extracting those bolts, use the stub of the riser pipe still attached, by inserting another bigger pipe over the top with an inflatable gasket and zip bolts, also with an angle valve to direct the flow of oil away from the top where a permanent riser pipe would be hooked up.

If this fails why not use the claw cutter dull the blades so it acts like a crimping tool and simply close it off?

The video is pretty ugly, but when the fin on the left occasionally peeks out through the cloud, it looks relatively even with the fin on the right. Middle one is up a little but I think that's viewing angle. I think the side away from the Enterprise ROV 2 view has more flow, or at least it seemed that way last night; now they don't seem to be showing both sides.

That said, my estimation of the plume is that it's somewhat worse than when they first got the top hat on last night. Hope they can crank up the flow soon, because it's clearly not anywhere near good enough the way it is.

s0nik- This is so embarrassing I can't quite believe it. If BP thinks the clean up will be expensive for the US mainland imagine the bill Barak Obama will get if this damage goes global! This could turn into our Chernobyl.

As far as the additional wells, getting the rigs into position and actually drilling that deep is very time consuming and let's not forget hurricane season is now upon us. If you are going to drill, you might as well commit to the full process. I, for one, am not so confident these relief wells will do what they are claiming. First, you have to hit the exact layer now producing the leak. There is much debate as to that. Second, estimates of the deposit size vary greatly. You could drill quite close to where the current leak is coming from and still not be "in the same deposit". I have learned this from posts by others who seem to know of what they speak, oil exploration is not the exact science one might hope it to be.

Cherio-

True.

It's like toothpase. The flow originated from a small opening in the tube, nice and tidy.

Once it is out, it is very hard work to squeeze it back into a small opening again. The flow coming out of the BOP is established turbuelent flow with specific characteristics. To change is you must contain it, which means VERY good seals. Your best bet is NOT to change it, which is possible with plain decent seals. But you do need a big pipe.

Viscosity, turbulence, momentum.

Yes, it is originally flowing in a smaller diameter but at a higher pressure. As it exits out to the lower pressure regime, the gas expands furiously. The genie is then out of the bottle...

The bottom diameter is less, and the pressure down there is far much more than they can handle. Indeed, even the pressure in the 21" riser is more than they can handle (even that the failed BOP acts as a bottleneck), as we can see. Maybe a pipe of the diameter of the flange would do the job, but that must be over their budget.. Or what else could have forced them to use that small pipe?

How about calculating the pressure drop?

Hint: 6" is plenty big.

I don't think that any form of rigid connection to the structure of the leaking mechanics would be advisable. The delivery of oil/gas to surface must be able to be safely disconnected without causing damage to the ship, the new riser or the already damaged wellhead.

All the momentum of the flow appears to be dissipated soon after exit into the sea. The soft containment from the inventor in Houston might be an attractive contingency to refine for the next spill. Say a mile long tube of parachute nylon, of diameter sufficient to absorb the flow energy. Therefore, designed to work within the buoyant range of forces. Bring it to a floating containment dome where the gas could be separated in close to atmospheric pressure and the oil/water pumped at low pressures near the surface.

If your team consists of piping engineers, you are only going to get piping solutions.

A sealed split case, clamshell design with multiple ports for extraction, called the ‘Octopus’.

Dmitri

Keep them coming please. Eventually somebody will be listening.

Dimitri is correct. Bigger riser + tight clamped/flanged down seal + control / relief valves to maintain pressure within bounds (high enough to keep seawater out, low enough to prevent rupture down-well, et al).

Natural gas and drilling fluids are spewing from an out-of-control well in Clearfield County.

Emergency officials said a mile-wide area has been evacuated after an operation drilling into the Marcellus Shale ruptured on Friday.The FAA has issued a flight restriction in the immediate area.

According to a news release from the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, a well which was in the frack process ruptured in Clearfield, spilling frack water and unignited wet gas.

Frack water is water mixed with other substances used during drilling.According to PEMA, the well is six miles from State Route 153 in the area of Interstate 80 exit 111.

http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/23793198/detail.html

I have all sorts of PDF's from MMS going back 10 years documenting problems with the drilling, I think rockman confused my hatred for MMS for the people who work in the industry. MMS is the real reason we're in this mess, sure let's have a big huge investigation and throw the right people in jail starting with MMS first.

Chimney doesn't work by magic, sir. It works by a pressure differential. The problem is that the flow is grossly restricted by the piping choice they made (which includes apparently even smaller flow restrictors above the cap). The flow inside the cap has to make a choice - go inside the small pipe, which may have smaller pressure that the ambient water due to presence of oil in the column and some motion, or go to the wide open end of the cap into the water. Some will go up the tiny riser, maybe 10%, maybe 20%. The rest will spill right back into the ocean.

If they did the CFD analysis of this flow they may actually find out that a torroidal vortex forms inside the cap, and a near dead zone occurs at the outlet pipe, with most of the flow preferring to leak out the bottom from the momentum/viscosity considerations. Or maybe the flow is so unstable within this small volume that no long term prediction can be made.

I once lived in a house that had fireplace we could not use. The damn chimney produced a downdraft for reasons unknown and filled the house with smoke. In theorey, chimney looked normal.

If they can seal to the BOP with a big pipe and take all the flow to the surface withuot throttling it back, the pressure on the BOP/wellhead will not increase significantly or at all.

Big pipe, low pressure, decent seal. Clean, low friction, hopefully low turbulence path to the surface.

Flow splitter higher up, to dump back into the ocean with a large exit diameter - again don't want to bother the sick BOP, but they need to get rid of excess oil without endangering the topside operation, if production side hiccups.

Quick disconnect a little above the the BOP - when hurricanes come.

Big processing operation topside - they need to take 20 kbd oil/gas mixture and process it without throttling back the flow.

It would freeze up... to big - the tophat is small in hopes that it will not freeze up.

THE BOP IS 5 STORIES HIGH

By the time they build this thing the relief wells should be close

flaring that much gas in the current well site environment will just be another peachy proposition...last thing any1 needs is an over eager management type guy pressuring for higher rates quickly on the top side..

Can't we use a specially designed heating coil built into the next tophat design? I can't figure out why this isn't being thought of instead of methanol??

Just to clarify, would one of the real experts confirm my understanding about the dynamics here.

I believe that the flow of oil & gas up the riser will reduce pressure below. As gas rises, it expands and creates greater speed upward of the column of oil. That would reduce pressure at the BOP, and eventually there would be negative pressure as the vents are closed. Just like, if you take a straw and suck on it, it will stick to your hand, the pressure created by the rising fluids would cause the seal to tighten at the BOP level.

The danger has to be that the flow gets going too fast before the vents are closed, drawing water into the top hat, creating hydrates and plugging the riser. At that point, the pressure from below would blow the top hat off the BOP, and they are back to zero.

Any comments from you mathy types, or PhDs?

Craig

Shelburn,

Thanks for your excellent detailed description of the hydraulics. Any thoughts on how they would best deal with varying gas/oil mixtures in real time?

2. The rig must be able to pull away from the well at any time in an emergency and just raising the top hat off the BOP solves this problem.

Good point. I had thought that maybe they could clamp down the bottom part of the top hat so it wouldn't bounce around so much, but then they couldn't disattach cleanly in an emergency.

wait a sec you don't actually think something of that material would crush at extreme depth, or are you talking about an elevation gravity bleed?

I still think in lieu of all the oil that's been dumped we should be drilling full bore in the GOM and on the deepwater wells just drill a relief well. Once a relief is close enough start drilling again!

WE NEED THAT OIL

unless everyone wants to start walking or ride a bike (and you need oil for the tires anyway)

It makes sense to me, make the "chute" wide and line it with a heating coil to keep the stuff from freezing up. It's a condom on steroids.

Have it dump into an artificial pond at the surface, pump it into tankers from there. 'Til there's a storm of course.....