BP's Deepwater Oil Spill: A Statistical Analysis of How Many Relief Wells Are Needed
Posted by JoulesBurn on June 14, 2010 - 10:25am
The planned permanent solution for the BP Macondo spill in the Gulf of Mexico is the killing of the well by drilling a relief well to intersect the blowout wellbore, enabling the placement of high density mud and eventually cement. Currently, two relief wells are being drilled, one started on May 2 and the second on May 14 (although the latter was delayed a few days later on). On The Oil Drum and elsewhere, many have been questioning why only two relief wells have been sunk, given the risky and uncertain nature of the kill process and the long time lag in getting more wells drilled if the first two are unsuccessful. There are many technical, political, and economic arguments that can be used to justify the need for more wells. What I will do herein is develop a statistical model which can be used to weigh the potential benefits of additional wells added this late in the crisis. One of the more critical factors is time -- the time it takes before the blowout wells is killed. Does drilling more relief wells change the expected time before the kill?
There is some recent news and concern about the relief wells and the delays in getting started:
But BP didn't begin drilling the relief well until 12 days after the start of the disaster as the company and government rushed through environmental reviews, permits and other plans. The government does not require oil companies to have relief well plans in place ahead of time, and the lack of planning cost the company valuable time to get the spill under control.
The drilling seems to be on schedule,
BP says the relief well has been a success and ahead of schedule, representing a welcome change for engineers who have been attempting one risky, untested maneuver after another. Relief wells are a more proven method in the industry, and engineers are comfortable and confident in the process.
but it still will be a while.
Kent Wells, BP's senior vice president of exploration and production, said this week that more details would be released when the process nears completion in early August.
Should more have been drilled, based on the difficulties of the task and the chances for success? How do these chances affect the time frame we are looking at to get the well plugged? Here is one way of looking at the problem, starting with a game of chance.
Roll the Dice
Consider the following game which consists of the rolling of a single die. A single play consists of rolling it again and again until you get a six, counting the number of rolls it takes. Play the game many times, and keep score like this:
 |
|
After many, many plays, the statistics get rather good and you can make a bar chart showing the frequency of each roll count divided by the total number of plays:
To be more exact, you would need to go higher than ten (infinitely high, actually), but you get the idea. This shows the statistics of how many rolls it takes to have a six come up. One is the most likely number of rolls, although it is of course more likely to take more than one.
Now, let's change the game a little. We secretly replace the die with one that explodes occasionally, ending that particular play. So you grab another (similarly loaded) die and play again -- but making sure to count the play that went awry as an attempt. The same probability profile would appear, except that the overall probability for getting a six would be less.
Now let's change the game a bit more. Instead of the number of rolls it takes, we are interested in the amount of time it takes to get a six. There is an average amount of time it takes to pick up the die and roll it again. If it took five rolls on one particular play, it would take something like five times the average for one roll. There would be some variability in the time, of course, and the spread would increase with the particular roll count we are interested in since there is a contribution from the spread of previous rolls. Before I get more specific on how this is done, or what happens if we roll more than one die, let us leave the analogy behind. But not before I add one more twist: the first roll seems to take forever.
Rolling Relief: The Assumptions
Let us consider the time probability for killing the blowout well with a relief well in the same way. There is an initial drilling period (rather long) to reach near the blowout wellbore, and then a certain probability that it will be successfully intersected, called Ps. If the try fails, the drillbit is backed up some, the hole is plugged, and a new attempt to find the wellbore is made. While not necessary, it will be assumed in this model that the probability for success remains the same for each retry. Also included is a probability that, during each additional attempt to intersect the wellbore, that the relief well becomes useless, perhaps due to a hopelessly stuck drillstring. I will call this the probability of "utter failure", or Pu.
The time needed to drill to the vicinity of the blowout wellbore will vary, as a number of things will affect the rate at which the drill bit moves. If one were to attempt the same task many times independently with the same starting conditions (obviously not possible), the set of the times required would take the form of some kind of statistical distribution. I will assume the normal (Gaussian) distribution, as shown below (e.g. mean time of 70 days and a standard deviation of 5 days).
Let us assume a 20% probability for success (Ps=.20), which could include both hitting the wellbore and successfully filling it with mud and cement. Thus, the Gaussian above would be multiplied by that factor. This gives us the probability at any point in time. What we are more interested in, though, is how this probability is manifested in time; that is, how long do we wait for success. Instead of the probability distribution, we can look at the cumulative probability distribution, again scaled by the success probability:
This is arrived at by calculating a running sum of the probabilities from left to right. With the values assumed in this example, it takes about 80 days for the full effect. However, since we only have a 20% success rate, this is not likely to be a successful resolution of the problem, and many wells would be required to insure a kill. For a given relief well, however, we get more than one crack at it. The drill bit is backed up, the hole is plugged, and a sidetrack is drilled for another attempt. This retry consumes additional time, and we can also describe this time delay with a Gaussian distribution with a separate mean and standard deviation.
The effect of the additional delay is as follows: if we consider the distribution as a large set of kill attempts in identical circumstances, 20% of these would be successful within about 80 days. Aside from a small fraction that will have failed completely, the remainder of the set will continue on with a retry. There will be a time delay, but we also have an additional spreading of the time distribution. This can be mathematically described as the convolution of the initial time distribution with a second distribution corresponding to the retry. Visually, one can describe various small segments (or discreet points) of the original distribution each giving rise to its own new distribution. The sum of all such distributions comprises the overall distribution of arrival times for the second attempt. This will be another Gaussian; conveniently, the convolution of two Gaussians is another Gaussian with the standard deviation equal to the sum of the variances of the two and with a mean equal to the sum of the two means. Defining the following parameters:
| Mean Time for Initial Drill | t1 |
|---|---|
| Spread for Initial Drill Time | SD1 |
| Mean Time for Redrill | t2 |
| Spread for Redrill Time | SD2 |
the successes from the initial attempt will be characterized by:
G1 = Ps . Gaussian(t1,SD1)
where G() is a normalized Gaussian distribution with the given mean time and SD. Those failed attempts that remain for each retry will give rise to a new Gaussian, displaced in time by that needed for the additional drilling etc., and this will have the form has the form:
Gi = Gaussian(t2,SD2) * Gaussian(ti-1,SDi-1)
Because of the convolution properties of Gaussians, this can be arrived at by constructing a new Gaussian displaced from the previous by the mean time for a retry and with a standard deviation somewhat larger:
SDi = SQRT(SDi-1^2 + SD2^2)
and a scaling factor Pi which can be calculated for each retry recursively as:
Alternately, one could for each retry perform a discreet convolution of the retry broadening/delay function with the previous result (if something besides Gaussians were used, for example). The back-up-and-redrill process can in principle be repeated infinitely many times, although there is probably a practical limit to how many side holes can be drilled in the single relief well.
Here is an example showing success probability distributions for a single relief well with multiple retries, with each retry contributing its own Gaussian:
The following values are assumed:
| Mean time to drill well (days) | 70 |
|---|---|
| Mean time for each re-attempt (days) | 10 |
| Standard deviaton for initial drill time | 5 |
| Standard deviaton for each re-attempt | 2 |
| Probability for intersecting well per try | 0.2 |
| Probability for loss of well per try | 0.05 |
The overall probability distribution for success will be the sum of the individual Gaussians. To see how this impacts the anticipated time to kill the well, we look again instead at the cumulative distribution for all successes:
This illustrates the effect of the delay time for each retry, and why a single number, the overall success probability for a relief well (even if one can arrive at such a number) does not fully describe the situation. That the probability converges on a number less than unity is due to the small probability of "utter failure" with each attempt, meaning that the relief well is abandoned, and also because a finite number of retries were included. As it is, the overall success rate with the chosen parameters is higher than that occasionally mentioned for a single relief well (~75%). To get better odds -- and to decrease the amount of time before the blowout is killed, and hence the amount of oil potentially spilled -- more relief wells are needed.
More Wells = More Relief?
To summarize where we have come thus far, I started with one relief well with a modest (20%) probability of killing the well in one try. Because of the time needed to drill it, and some variability in the amount of time, this probability shows up within a small window of time (~70 days from the start of drilling). Next, I added the possibility of more than one try with this well (to back up a bit for another attempt takes some time). Because we take more swings, the eventual probability gets much higher (over 80%), but there is a time lag in getting there. So now we add more relief wells, identical to the first except perhaps with regards to the start time.
If we assume that additional relief wells have the same probability for success that the first had, it follows that each well will have the same cumulative probability distributions as the first. But how do these act in concert? A simplistic assumption is that they just get summed together. However, it is easy to see how this is not correct. For example, flipping two coins does not give 100% probability of one of them landing with heads showing. The solution is to consider what is required for the oil to be still flowing at a specific time: none of the relief wells will have worked by then. The probability of that being the case at a specific time, for each well, is 1 minus the cumulative probability distributions (CDP) at that time. Furthermore, the combined probability that no wells have succeeded is the product of these calculated values as follows:
Let us consider the cases of 1-4 relief wells started at the same time (increasing number of wells towards the upper left):
One effect is to increase the ultimate success probability, primarily after the addition of a second well. Another effect, though, is to decrease the time elapsed before a certain probability of success is reached. For example, it takes about 178 days to reach 80% probability with one well, 115 days with two wells, 96 days with three, and 87 days with four. With thousands of barrels of oil flowing into the sea per day, this is a lot of pollution potentially mitigated by a couple more relief wells.
Unfortunately, we no longer have the luxury of starting relief wells at time=0. The second relief well is perhaps 18 days behind the first, and no others are scheduled. Does adding more now make a difference? Here is the effect of adding wells 3 and 4, at +50 days, to the two currently being drilled at (wells 1 and 2 at 0 days and +18 days).
Although the increase in the ultimate success probability is the same, the benefit at the 80% probability level is minimal. Is it worth it, then, to drill more wells now? Certainly, it is logical to conclude that the benefit of additional wells at this point is much less than if they were started right away.
Should More Be Drilled Now?
Even if this model is a good one, the probabilities for relief well success are not known with any degree of confidence. I have chosen parameters which are consistent with predictions of when the well could be killed (August), the approximate probability of success, and time needed to regroup and try again after a swing and a miss. But the results suggest that, barring the loss of one or more of the current wells, additional wells will not significantly affect the time before the blowout is quenched. Readers are invited to download the spreadsheet used for this analysis, change the assumptions to those which you find more defensible, and offer up the results for further discussion.
In spite of that, Many will argue for at least one more well anyway, and I would probably fall into that camp. Wells are drilled all the time based on the chance for a big payout, and then never go into production. Hopefully another won't be needed, but the risk of not capping the well as soon as possible should be obvious to BP, and waiting until circumstances force the issue of another well will not go over well. In retrospect, they should have looked at the calendar (with the upcoming stormy season approaching), considered yet another unthinkable scenario regarding relief well success, and planned accordingly. In lieu of that happening several weeks ago, the time is now for BP to go above and beyond what they think is required. And with the deepwater drilling moratorium in place, many rigs are looking for something to do.
The spreadsheet which was used for these calculations can be downloaded here.
BP's Deepwater Oil Spill: A Statistical Analysis of How Many Relief Wells Are Needed
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BP's Deepwater Oil Spill: A Statistical Analysis of How Many Relief Wells Are Needed
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178 comments
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As a foremost proponent of more relief wells, I contemplated a somewhat similar analysis, but with several different assumptions (assumptions that reflect reality better).
We have a single data point. The original well exceeded schedule by 1.5 months.
This single data point suggests (>>99% confidence) that either the distribution is not Gaussian (i.e. normal) or the standard deviation is not 5 days.
Comments by Rockman support a one tailed distribution of days to completion. Wells almost never finish ahead of schedule, it is just a matter of delays.
A better model would be scheduled days (say 70) plus a perhaps Gaussian distribution of delays.
-----------
Another issue is cost. A reasonable assumption is that each incomplete well (only one will be completed) will have a cost of $100 million and a salvage value as a later production well of $50 million.
I put the economic damage and ecosystem damage (transposed into $) at $400 million/day. Obama's escrow amount of $20 billion tends to support $250 million/day. In either case, a single day's delay is multiples of the cost of a relief well. This feeds into the cost benefit of additional relief wells.
Alan
Alan ..
If garyr's analysis is even half right ..
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6593#comment-648967
Why no go all out and just produce this reservoir as
fast as possible ??
Forget extra RWs ..
Start multiple production wells and drain this sucker !!
Triff ..
Tiff -- Because it would take 2 to 3 years AT A MINIMUM to drill the devlopment wells and build the production infrastructure. And that would be exceptionally fast. Typical DW GOM fields take 4 - 5 years to get to the producing phase.
Thanks RM ..
Let's hope that the RWs are the answer then ..
Too painful to contemplate the alternative should
they be unsuccessful with the bottom kill ..
Triff ..
Rockman,
I'm looking at the http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6593#comment-648967
which is referenced by Triffin in the post immediately above yours here.
I am confused by dougr's choice of words. The word "behind", with the quotes is used repeatedly. What does it mean in this context. Is "behind" above or below? Or what is in front of the stuff that is "behind"? For me, the description is totally confusing. Can you provide a some clues, please? For perhaps you know he is talking about and provide an alternative explanation that doesn't use the work "behind"?
I think I also need an explanation of this statement:
I've heard of a woman being compromised, but what is involved in a "well bore structure" being compromised? Sort of the same thing? I think not.
"Behind", in quotes, would make sense if changed to "below".
Compromised, in this sense, would mean damaged/leaking.
HTH
NAOM
Thanks for chiming in, Alan.
Wells that are started now as contingencies will obviously cost less if they are halted due to success earlier. But on the other side, how do you arrive at a figure of $400MM/day? Or any number, other than "something huge"?
A SWAG.
Figure another year lost on fishing for every 10-15 days oil spilled.
Figure 2011 & 2012 (2013 ?) tourist damage as more oil is spilled. Property values decline the thicker the tar balls.
Ecosystem damage (how much for a dolphin dying a slow death from inhaling oil into it's lungs ? How much for losing 95% of this years bluefin tuna spawn ? How much for coral reef damage ? ...) Probably the largest damage.
Psychological wear and tear on Gulf Coast residents (millions would pay $1,000 out of their own pocket for BP to have drilled right). Last night, watching Treme at local bar# person next to me broke out in tears and said that she could not talk about BP any more. How much is one more day of that worth ?
Since $$$ and lots of time (decade plus) can rebuild marshland, we can value the marshland that will disappear after oil kills the grass. The lost decade plus means less fisheries and less hurricane protection for that time.
An active hurricane season is just about a given, decent chance of 2005 redux. This will drive oil deep into the marshes (storm surge) killing massive swathes, making us more vulnerable to hurricanes 2011-202x (*IF* BP pays to rebuild them).
New oil is deadlier to marsh grass than old oil. So oil leaked on August 10th does more damage on August 11th hurricane surge than June 14th oil. The odds of hurricanes mount week by week from now.
A smaller amount for direct clean-up costs (almost trivial).
Alan
# Memorable line from Treme, one woman talking to another, after her boy friend kicked her out because she wanted to stop playing in his band. "Fu*king is fu*king, but music is personal !"
BP is not really on the hook for these damages because they are limited to $75 million. Their public announcements to the contrary are meaningless. BP LLC. is one bankruptcy away from absolving BP of legal responsibility for the remainder. Even the fine of $4,300 / day of leaked oil will likely be grossly underestimated because no one is monitoring the rate of the leak. In choosing to drill a minimum number of relief wells, BP is acting like it knows the deck is stacked in its favor.
My feelings is that we may begin to see the first of many massive eco-mogrations right here in the US before anywhere else.
First there was Katrina and the flooding of N.O., but now if many of these people become economically displaced because of the spill
along the entire panhandle coast, they will have to move to places along the east or west coasts to try and find work they are skilled in.
You could have a lot of boats and captains clammering for work in South Florida and up the coast next year.
I can't imagine BP will keep many of these people on their payroll longer than necessary.
That is of course presuming the leak doesn't work its way around to the gulf stream. But my feeling
is that those who can tear up their roots and move will move.
JVP
Reality is better modeled with drilling take a fixed/scheduled # of days plus delays.
Delays are a cumulative total of perhaps a dozen poisson probabilities (each of the dozen has an expected value <1, but overall, at least one delay has an 80% (?) chance of happening). But three independent delays have a significant probability for a given well.
Once a delay is hit, the delay in days likely has a Gaussian distribution. A separate one for each type of delay.
And add one fairly low probability distribution where the well could be 1 to 5 days early.
Result is weird looking distribution for # of days till "last foot" attempt. We observed a roughly 45 day delay in drilling the wild well, so 45 days delay should not be an extreme delay.
Ixtoc spilled for 9.5 months with two relief wells (no info on how many days drilling). First Ixtoc RW apparently failed (mentioned pumping seawater down to dilute pollution with it) and five intercept attempts were made in total. I infer that Ixtoc RW #2 was 6 months over schedule.
Older technology (1979) but not THAT different. I think there is a realistic chance of any RW encountering 6 months delay. The 5 day SD is unrealistic (does not match reality).
Alan
It's surprising that BP didn't start more relief wells just from a cost/fine avoidance perspective.
If a relief well costs $100 million and fines will range between $4,000 and $4,500 (plus extraction royalties to MMS) per barrel, then it makes sense to drill an additional well if ~20,000 to 25,000 barrels of spilled oil can be avoided. Even the unrealistically low flow rates from a few weeks ago make more relief wells a lower cost option.
Good point Bill (and great analysis Joules). IIRC, the $4300/bbl fine only applies if negligence is proven. Maybe BP is cocky enough to think that won't happen; or maybe they don't want to admit/imply that that might happen (and drive down their shares further); or maybe they've done the math and know they'll be bankrupt before the fines will be levied. In any case, your calculus stands: the cost of another well is small change compared to the cost of another day.
Or maybe it is just their corporate mindset. I once worked as the accountant for a small nature science center. Our treasurer on the board was the treasurer of RJ Reynolds. I felt it was my responsibility to provide the board with all the information necessary to make decisions concerning the center. He would always tell me give them as little as possible. Don't give them more unless they ask. There was nothing he wanted to hide. It was just the way he operated and I assume the way he operated at RJ Reynolds. This was shortly before the hostile takeover of RJ Reynolds. He lost his job in the re-shuffle. As far as I could tell he just wanted me to operate like he did because that was the mindset where he worked. He was unable to shift gears when functioning on our board. Perhaps BP is stuck in their own corporate mindset that won't allow them to act in a responsible manner for any of the interested parties including themselves. That in no way absolves them from their actions, but might explain them.
Thanks Joules, excellent post, it certainly helps me to get a better grasp of how the odds might actually work out and reinforces my gut feeling that we should have had at least on more relief well started weeks ago.
Perhaps this is where The US government should exercise it's authority and do some ass kicking, by telling BP to start another relief well immediately and not allow BP the luxury of doing the thinking anymore. It seems obvious to me that their cost benefits analysis isn't taking the interests of the American people in shutting this well down into consideration and placing that interest above that of their own bottom line. They haven't quite grasped the consequences of being penny wise and pound foolish. It's past time to kick their ass!
On a related note I've been wondering why Secretary Chu a Nobel prize winning physicist has not done the math on this himself. Or if he has, what his conclusions are...
Wow, are you an American? Doesn't sound like it from your last post. I don't know how it works in Europe, but over here, the banking cartels, insurance companies and M.I.C. basically *are* the government, regardless of which bought-n-paid for party is technically "in power". "The interests of the American people", (meaning the taxpaying hoi polloi) hasn't played any significant role in public policy since Carter at least, and really never played much of a role even before that --see The Gilded Age, Pinkerton thugs, Triangle Shirtwaist, Sinclair's "The Jungle", Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath", etc. The attitude of our Richistani Overlords can basically be summed up as, "What's good for Goldman Sachs and BP is good for America."
LOL! Well, I guess that might depend on what the definition of American is...
I've been a US citizen for over 45 years and usually live full time in the US. I was born in Brazil which I believe is part of South America so I guess I could actually claim I'm more American than most.
Don't worry I'm well aware of what reality is in these United States...
In case you're wondering my comment was a bit tongue in cheek with an added dollop or two of sarcasm, not to mention a modicum of condescension towards both BP and our fearless ass kicking leader :^)
Having said all that I also have a foot in Europe via Hungary so sometimes saying I'm one nationality or another really doesn't seem to fit all that well. I guess I could call myself one of those misfit world citizens... I can curse quite fluently in a number of languages too!
Ahh... missed the sarcasm on first reading. As Emily Litella would say, "Never mind."
HARM, that is probably one of the more sobering and well thought out admissions of reality that I've seen anywhere.
Contrary to popular sentiment, I am actually relieved to know I am not alone in this belief, as the more people recognize reality, the more realistic our behavior may become, and the better our chances of survival.
Wonderful long statistical analysis. It's been a long time since I took any statistics so I won't dare to comment on that, except to say that it looks like you've covered all the bases.
I've been on record (a couple weeks back) advocating for at least one more well.
Here's my current concern, however. a question I asked initially, but one that may have a different answer at this point in time.
Is there "room" for the rig of another relief well, given all the vessels out there now, sucking up the oil and gas, supplying everything that's out there, etc.?
So mine is a logistical question. Even given that one more well would provide us with two back-up relief wells (and I like that scenario) - is there now room for one more drilling rig out there, together with the increased supply traffic that would generate (given more ships for containment, etc)?
Let me be clear: If there's room for another back-up relief rig, let's have it!
I believe the relief well rigs are quite far away from the other activity. As for rigs, a lot more should come available if the moratorium continues, but I don't know the earliest one could be made available.
Thera -- there's room for another rig or two. Hard to get the perspective from the pics but it's a good size area. The rigs also have another advantage...they are in a fixed location more or less. Boat traffic can be dicey with all the activity going on. Easier for two moving vessles to collide. Not as easy for a boat to accidentally run into a fixed 20 story building lite up like a football stadium.
Thank you for that extra reassurance, Rockman.
I'm on board then in believing that we should take no chances here with just having only one back-up relief well.
Let's have at least one more back-up relief well then!
Very nice analysis, and a good way to get an important discussion moving. Naturally, the models and assumptions can be refined, but very enjoyable presentation with all the major issues considered. Thanks!
Now, if in addition we assume that the probalistic spill/leak rate declines with time...
This could make sense if either/or:
(1) Flow rates are decreasing because of reservoir depletion.
(2) We get better at capturing the flow with time, i.e. a smaller of the flow fraction is released into the gulf.
Then you could come up with a probability distribution for USO (Ultimately Spilled Oil) volume. Because we assuming a decreasing spill rate the later time portions of the killtime distribution will be weighted lower than the earlier time portions.
Of course I suspect that probaility of success per well is not uncorrelated. It probably depends upon the detailed geology through which the relief wells are drilled. If the first well hits a geologically difficult layer, the second is highly likely to as well.
Given that the probability of running into the same problems encountered with the first well is very high, then, to me (a total non-expert) having more back-up relief wells sounds like almost a necessary safety precaution here. From everything I read they encountered many problems drilling the first well (and even needing to do a diversion because of them, if that's the right word), so if you have only one back-up and the first relief well has to be killed, that leaves you on a limb, so to speak with the second one having no back-up.
I'm a cautious person. So I'd rather see the extra money being spent, assuming there's "room" for the extra back-up rig (as mentioned above), just to be on the safe side.
There's a lot to weigh here. It's a complicated decision tree.
Thera -- Sidetrack...not "diversion", grasshopper. "Perversion" is a different topic we'll cover another day. And the RW could run into a serious problem but it wouldn't be at all like the original blow out problem. That situation was almost a borderline Black Swan.
Crap Rock, you say stuff like that and you'll just encourage the "North Koreans did it!" brigades, like they need any more ammunition to make up fairy tales.
Thanks for your patience with my ignorance, Rockman! (Your corrections are much appreciated.) And I understand they will do everything to avoid a similar blow-out though they face many challenges in trying to kill this.
Should this sort of analysis not also include the probability of the relief or production well(s) also blowing out or failing in some other way that results in leakage of oil to the sea?
I've included a probability that the drilling of a single relief well cannot continue, but a blowout or some other dire scenario requires more dice with more dots.
3rd hole, even if it is only drilled to 10k-15k. Reduce the delay if something goes pear shaped which it could well do given the history.
NAOM
Hi Joules, In your analysis have you factored in the probabilities associated with getting more than one crack of the whip from a single well? Assuming both wells are drilled to target, then the question comes down to interception of blow out well and successfully containing it. If a well misses the target then they can pull back a few hundred feet and sidetrack giving them second and third bites at the apple without having to drill a whole new well.
Yes, Euan. See the figure titled "Single Relief Well Probabilities"-- each Gaussian is another try with the same well. But I am assuming that each crack has the same chance of success, and we really don't have a good estimate for what that is.
Something else that isn't addressed is the possible need for more than one at a time, but I can't envision how that could be coordinated -- or if they would wait for a second intersection before proceeding. Of course, none of those involved could envision what is currently happening.
Hi Joules,
I can't speak for other folks who have been calling for more relief wells, but I had no idea that the drill bit in a well could be "re-tracked" for a second try without having to start again at the surface. I'm constantly amazed at the sophistication of modern drilling techniques.
Knowing that a single relief well provides for multiple attempts at intersecting the blown-out well is all I needed for the rest of your analysis to follow naturally.
Thanks!
And a separate open question.....
A few weeks back someone posted a block diagram from BP showing the progress of the 2 wells - any chance of having that posted again?
I'm pretty sure it showed interception of blow out well a few thousand feet above reservoir. In other words, the relief wells need to hit this target that is about 1 foot across, bang on.
However, talking to some BP engineers at the Aberdeen real ale festival a few weeks back, they said the relief wells would be drilled to target the point where the blow out well penetrates the reservoir, so if they miss by a bit they can still pump mud into reservoir and it will find its way to blow out and will eventually build a pressure head in the well.
Anyone able to clarify which of these options are true / most likely.
Bye the way, killing blow outs with relief wells appears to be tried and tested - it will work (I hope).
Nice pic. First thing that strikes me, surely discussed here before, is that it's a long way down to 18,000', where they're aiming. I assume this is based on the column height (weight) of mud that is needed to overcome the reservoir pressure? Otherwise, could they not intercept it at 13,000', or even 10,000'?
Is that right, or is there some other reason why we have to wait until August?
Given that they are at 14000 ft on the way to 18000 ft (although I don't know the true distances), I am curious as to when they actually be able to take the first stab at it.
And yes, they do need as tall a column of mud as possible.
Thanks Joules. Clearly shows they are aiming for above the reservoir and require a dead hit, and need to drill through steel casing.
When is this dated? Seems they made really rapid progress to begin with and then much slower - I guess its always like that as trip times increase (length of pipe that needs to be withdrawn from well).
They last update the page it is linked from on June 13.
http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=9033657&contentId=7061734
Euan,
I understand that the relief wells will be as deep as possible, i.e. where the blow out well penetrates the reservoir. They will then have about 13,000 feet of mud to overcome and stop the oil. I guess afterwards the relief well could be re-worked as a producing well.
About 4,000 feet to go - got everything crossed.
I was under the impression that BP is no longer allowed to produce from this lease.
BP may be able to sell the well bore to someone else.
Someone mentioned that one of the RWs was spudded on another oil companies lease.
AFAIK, the one completed RW will be P&A but the incomplete ones may be repurposed for production with changes.
Alan
I thought they could not produce from this well but would still be able to produce from this lease - obviously I could have this wrong!!
It seems they are aiming for a dead hit - if they do this, then little / no doubt they can kill this. 4000 ft - so near and yet so far.
The above 'calculation' assumes that drilling relief wells is no big deal.
This is totally unproven.
There are many fractures in the ocean floor and multiple leaks the amount and size of which are not being disclosed.
The DOE has warned about destablizing beds of gas hydrate.
Ocean boiling with methane
http://solveclimate.com/blog/20100519/did-deepwater-methane-hydrates-cau...
The above "comment" makes some unsubstantiated claims. First, beds of hydrates lie just under the surface, and both relief wells have drilled through this zone without incident. Second, there is no evidence that gas hydrates are implicated in the current blowout, but rather just typical gas and oil pressures from formations that deep. Third, I am not saying it is not a big deal, but am just trying to posit one way of analyzing how the probabilities affect the time required.
Yes, and I assume that drilling (two attempts failed, so far) is a big deal at that location.
1.) Did they learn anything from mistakes 1 & 2?
2.) Do we know more wells does not mean more trouble, without an understanding why they're 0 for 2?
The following doesn't engender confidence:
The AP reported yesterday, "BP officials put together relief well plans on the fly in the days after the explosion. BP submitted a relief well plan six days after the blowout. It began drilling the well on May 2 — 12 days after the explosion. The British oil giant also started drilling a second relief well on May 16 under pressure from the White House.
To get permits for the relief wells, the company used similar wording from earlier papers and submitted them to the federal Minerals Management Service. The plans lacked specifics about how it planned to drill the wells or how long it would take.
But the company underscored the danger of such hasty planning when it noted that a mishap could lead to another blowout that could leak more oil into the ocean. The permits also discuss a worst-case scenario that would involve inadvertently puncturing the reservoir."
Relief wells are completely proven.
Then how did you find out about them? Personal ROV? Snorkeling at 5000' in the Gulf lately? All of the "leaking seafloor" 5 miles away claptrap I've seen to date have been utter nonsense, Simmons being the primary perpetrator. Do you have independent information available to no one else?
Your representation of the DOE worrying about hydrates was inaccurate, the hydrate nonsense came from some eco site. How many wells do you think they have drilled, to have experience with this destabilization of hydrates concept? The DOE worry was just about risks and consequences of blowouts, a quite reasonable concern for half a century now. But nobody has destabilized beds of methane hydrates in the history of the world. Not with deep wells in the GOM or shallow ones penetrating hydrate beds in Alaska or anywhere else. Is there a reason right now to worry over events which has never happened before? Maybe asteroids will hit both relief wells at once! The moon might shift orbit and cause higher tides! Maybe someone will substitute spaghetti for casing on the relief wells and they won't work! Maybe a gamma burst will boil the GOM and the semi-submersibles will all sink! We can dream up silly scenario's all day long (a common enough event at other peaker sites) but around here it seems more reasonable to work the real problem and not make them up as we go along.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/12/nation/la-na-oil-spill-cause-201...
Gas hydrates have already caused one attempt to fail.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill
Amazingly, not everyone agrees with your assessment, rgrulz2.
What a shock!
No mention of the isotopic analysis indicating that it was methane from hydrates versus just any regular methane contained within the mud column which could have been generated from any one of the undoubtedly many potential reservoirs they drilled through. No mention or indication how these shallow beds BEHIND casing might have worked there way DOWN past other cemented strings and wiggled back into the open hole down below? In volumes never before seen before in the history of mankind, even when several rsearch projects have been dedicated to creating just that kind of effect...on purpose.
This charterization of "destablizing gas hydrate beds" is just sensationalism I might add, and wasn't apparent in the story you referenced. Normally I would blast a college professor for not applying his critical thinking cap for making such a statement, but he never said "destabilizing hydrate beds", did he? He said "contaminants" which could mean something else altogether.
Your other example wasn't destabilizing gas hydrate beds either, just the run of the mill hydrates which I have thawed out before when they gummed up some valves...in summer....in Ohio. Not a hydrate bed in sight there either.
Lets try and leave the sensationalism behind, shall we? Otherwise it comes across as "gee, they had these normal operational problems but I want to pretend it was someting else".
No.
You pretend that the experts, such as yourself, know exactly what they are doing.
There are DOE articles I've posted before at TOD that say drilling in gas hydrate beds destabilizes the seafloor, when hot oil melts them.
The question is whether drilling relief wells at Macondo will fix the leak.
You say the technology is 'proven', it's just the odds of hitting oil.
Baloney.
And attacking 'college professors' and 'environmentalists' in the light of the failure to date of the experts just makes your industry look worse.
Let's hope Macondo is the end of ultradeep water drilling in the US.
Yes, I have always known exactly what I was doing, but I also know that the consequences from what I do have uncertain results. There is a difference. This isn't cosmotology we're talking about here.
Accidents have happened before. They will happen again. Your DOE reference made those points quite clear. And I don't have to attack college professors, they aren't the ones confusing cement cotamination with the destabilization of hydrate beds.
And it isn't "my" industry anymore, so go pin that tail on another donkey.
I hope you really meant cosmology.
Nope, but I spelled it wrong.
Cosmetology.
I wanted to pick something where those who can't stand the idea of uncertainty in the world might reside. Nice, safe, predictable, nothing of consequence can ever go wrong, and by extension, nothing can ever really be accomplished.
Not meant as an insult to cosmetologists of course. More of a, "if you can't stand the heat, get the hell out of the kitchen" angle.
Reserve, Robert Bea is not just any ordinary college professor
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/06/06/MNH61DQ275.DTL
Cool. I wasn't bashing him, I was noticing that the destabilized hydrate beds aren't what he was claiming, but just contaminated cement. I've contaminated cement all by myself before, it isn't like the inside of the tubing used to place it is hand washed prior to use. We're talking oilfield here, not a sanitary surgical room.
I'm all for specialized folks figuring out what went wrong down to the last second and bad decision. Those guys don't make stuff up about steel eating moon mice being the cause, destabilized hydrate beds or whatever the conspiracy theory dejour happens to be. Makes it easier to rewrite the regs to make sure it doesn't happen next time.
Methane hydrates can be melted by drilling operations, even energy released by letting the casing cement set.
http://blog.accelrys.com/2010/05/undersea-hydrates/
The thought may not have occured to rgrulz2 but it occured to Haliburton.
http://www.aade.org/houston/study/Fluids/11182009/F%20Tahmourpour%20Deep...
Having dealt with them before, I believe you. Certainly that has nothing to do with destabilizing entire beds of the things.
And your AADE reference is perfectly nice...and doesn't say anything about destabilizing beds of these things either.
Certainly it would seem reasonable, much like constructing a building on permafrost, that consideration for the type of formation you cement your casing into is important. Knowing that doesn't require confusing contaminated cement with destabilized methane hydrates either, and has been common knowledge since....I dunno....people first started cementing their casing into place?
So do you actually have any information showing how warm casing destabilizes an entire bed of these things, or not?
I think "completely proven" so far or "completely proven up until now might be more appropriate.
At least it is my understanding BP got into this fix by "proven" this and "proven" that.
The the relief wells? Maybe not so certain:
"The plan on file mirrors what they were likely asked to do by MMS to get the approval — it's a pretty voluminous document that doesn't have a lot of meat on it," said Eric Smith, associate director of the Entergy-Tulane Energy Institute. "It's a bunch of people pushed for time, but then they've got pages of material about possible Co2 emissions, animals and archaeology. There's really no details about the relief wells."
And if wells #3 and #4 are following the same plan as the first and second try there is a reason to anticipate a blowout in the relief wells, just like what happened in April.
Okay, I can live with that modification. Using drilling technology advanced through a century and experience gained drilling 3 or 4 million wells in America, we plan on drilling two more and our expectation is....that they will work okay.
The big improvement being targetting of course, although have worked with some old directional drillers from the whipstocking days, I wouldn't put it past them to do damn near as well as an Inteq tool.
I've never drilled a relief well, but plenty of directional and horizontals, and I've been down 20K subsea in the GOM with BP before. It strikes me that the drilling of one is actually easier than the original (except for the final landing if you are doing a direct interception). You've got the pressure gradients from the previous wells, you aren't worried about stopping along the way to test anything, you can overbalance when in doubt because you don't care about investigating the reservoirs, you can set pipe particular to the problem areas rather than a the initial plans which hadn't located those areas for you yet, and the main goal is simply to arrive in the vicinity of the original zone with a solid shoe to work out from under. None of this being guarenteed in this depth of water, but this is the oil business, nothing is ever guarenteed. I perhaps am generalizing a bit much, and making this sound easier than it is by distilling out the basics, but 2 relief wells sounds reasonable to me. The second one is there primarily only for catastrophic failure of the 1st, but considering the depths and past events, you could make a valid argument for #3.
And if there are multiple casing failures, perhaps one at some depth ?
Pretty much a given now that there is one casing failure at about 1,000' below the BOP. Sand erosion from extended high volume flow combined with a cheapa$$ casing plan can create some unique problems.
I think the highest weight mud is 33 ppg (lead ore based). What if dilution of mud with production plus casing failures make even 33 ppg "not enough" ?
Some innovative two RW strategies, working in tandem, may just be required.
Best Hopes for a quick, first try kill by RW #1 !!
Alan
Depends on the failure. I can't be the only one here who has fixed those before.
Realize, lots of the things which can become accidents are handled on drilling rigs all the time. Bad cement, malfunctioning BOPS, failed casing, LIH, differential sticking leading to LIH, rig stabilization systems not working, blowouts of all sizes and shapes, kicks, the works. Nothing with Deepwater Horizon was new, it was just a wonderful combination of everything arriving at the same time and place.
And the one real rare part of all this was a new discovery. If this had happened in some partially depleted reservoir, it wouldn't have any overpressuring and we all wouldn't even have heard about it except as some oozing wellhead somewhere mentioned in a journal rag.
Once you LOSE the well, you LOSE the well. I haven't seen anyone claiming that cheap casing was used or that the plan did not pass all the requirements for a casing plan in advance of the job. One mans cheap is another mans maximally cost effective. Petroleum engineers are paid lots of money to walk that line as close as they can. What, you don't think they paid us so much because of our good looks did you?
this comment....
"Yes, I have always known exactly what I was doing, but I also know that the consequences from what I do have uncertain results. There is a difference. This isn't cosmotology we're talking about here."
is just plain stupid!
and this one, especially the next to last to sentences?
"Once you LOSE the well, you LOSE the well. I haven't seen anyone claiming that cheap casing was used or that the plan did not pass all the requirements for a casing plan in advance of the job. One mans cheap is another mans maximally cost effective. Petroleum engineers are paid lots of money to walk that line as close as they can. What, you don't think they paid us so much because of our good looks did you?"
Are you related to BP Tony in any manner or fashion?
edit: next to last two sentences.
Nope. Don't own any of their stock either.
Not to interfer in this dog fight but there is no such thing as cheap csg offshore IMHO. There is expensive csg and damn expensive csg.
Carry on gentlemen.
Can't argue with that Rock.
Actually, I said casing plan. See excerpt below from Washington Post.
Alab
Yeah, you did, but that doesn't necessarily work either. One mans cheap, another mans maximally cost effective.
maximally cost effective
About $20 billion over budget and counting.
Reminds me of the "value engineering" done by the US Army Corpse of Engineers on the New Orleans levees. Just the death toll was a hundred times greater for that "maximally cost effective" design.
Best Hopes for Engineers with some integrity !
Alan
P.S. What you advocate as "acceptable" practice is NOT ACCEPTABLE. May you never get a job offshore, or onshore, again.
My only comment is that low probability, high impact events can be wonderful learning experiences. Of course, that doesn't mean you learn something you WANT to learn (how to clean up delicate marshland, fix wells a mile under water, bankrupt the company, etc etc).
But it sure does learn those who survive the experience I suppose.
I advocate nothing. Trying to provide perspective to those who haven't seen or done these things before is it. Obviously you have misinterpreted what I have written.
And I'm with you, I took a heck of a pay cut to stop being an expert in the field. Anytime I ever worked a landjob and asked those roustabouts why they were willing to accept less money for the same work, the answer was always the same. "When it all goes bad, we are allowed to run." Smart words from wise men.
Dam dude, I was trying to drink some nice Rioja when I read that, now my screen has gone a strange red colour!!!!! :-)
I though employees were paid based on knowledge and experience. It seems the tight line you are referring to falls into the category of ethics. Walking a fine line and staying tight lipped brings a higher salary even when lives are lost. It's always good to have someone bring clarity to this disaster.
Reserve you wrote: I haven't seen anyone claiming that cheap casing was used or that the plan did not pass all the requirements for a casing plan in advance of the job.
per Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/14/AR201006...
Please reference a single thing that BP did which hasn't happened elsewhere, say, 50 times, in the GOM.
They chose a different casing program? They were allowed. They didn't want to run a bond log? They weren't required. Not enough centralizers? I've done cement jobs with NO centralizers. They didn't circulate mud? Have you ever seen a law which requires them to? What surprises some people about the oil and gas business is that nearly all of the best practices and procedures are open to alteration by the man in charge. It isn't a LAW that things have to be done a certain way, its best practices, and under certain circumstances, the man in charge gets to determine what those are.
Its real easy to notice, after the fact, that gee, the plan was changed, things didn't work out the way they were supposed to, and on and on. I got news...it happens all the time. I don't necessarily LIKE any of it, and the loosey goosey nature of some of the particulars may go through a pretty nasty transition in the future, but thats just the way it works.
Wow!
I was a saturation rig diver at one time, there is this thing that is created before every dive, its called a plan. If things are not working out, you are not allowed to change the plan mid dive. What you do is abort the dive. Then you make a new plan and dive that...
In general, fewer people get killed that way. In other words that's exactly the way it doesn't work.
FMagyar,
My 6:34 post wasn't to you.
Okay, a diver, how about this for a scenario:
You have this widget you need to fix underwater. It is expected to take 1 hour to fix it. Each dive you make costs $1,000,000 dollars. You plan everything to perfection. You carry 3 hours of air.
You dive down and begin fixing the widget. 30 minutes into the job, you realize because of unforeseen circumstances (you stopped to scratch 3 too many times, dropped a tool, etc etc ) it will now take 1 hour and 5 minutes.
Do you change the plan on the fly, work the extra 5 minutes, breaking what sounds like a pretty severe rule you have in place, or do you immediately abort the dive, debate what to do on the surface, write another plan, and double the cost of the job because now you are on Dive #2?
I realize this is bit of an extreme example, but its analogous to the types of issues which come up in the oilfield all the time.
At what point does the diver say, "screw it, I can change the plan THIS much without any problem at all".
You have an incomplete plan
I made up the diving plan to highlight a particular issue of this "only follow the plan" concept. I'm an engineer, I build, and follow, plans really good. But I also finish the job when the plan goes into the crapper, assuming in my professional judgment I can get it done with burning down or blowing up a rig, or killing somebody.
I specialized in this kind of professional silliness....jobs for which no one could design a plan...because no one knew anything. Wells didn't even have API numbers. Basically, its you, and a hole in the ground. On an island. (I'm not kidding)
Oh yeah, and don't spend too much.
How would a diver design a plan for this scenario? Here's your diving rig. There is the boat. We don't know where you are going, how deep you are going, the weather when you get there, or what you are supposed to do when you get there. Knock yourself out a plan for that one.
Setting aside for a moment the fact that saturation divers don't come to the surface between dives, they remain compressed and their tissues are saturated with gas at working depth for days on end and there is only one long decompression at the end of the dive... One does account for contingencies as part of any plan worth the time to create it.
Having said that, the number one rule is safety for the divers. I still dive to this day and even for a shallow 30 ft recreational dive, I make a plan and I dive that plan, that's my personal rule that I refuse to break, it is a deeply ingrained habit. I was a scuba instructor as well at one time and have been diving safely since 1975.
Every emergency I have ever seen happened because of people breaking basic safety rules and either not making an adequate plan, not following their plan or not knowing their own limits and trying to push beyond their level of experience.
No, I don't change my plan, I abort the dive. BTW I did that on more than one occasion on operational dives on a rig. If management didn't like it,tough!
To be clear, I was a saturation diver working on offshore drilling rigs, I was trained by SubSea Oil and worked for a contractor hired by Petrobras. At the time if I told my supervisor that I wanted to abort a dive he would not have batted an eyelash, the company man or the pusher wouldn't have dared second guess him. That despite the fact that we knew exactly what the cost of aborting would be.
We generally got the job done and were well respected enough that if we said abort that was the end of it, no questions asked.
BTW this was in the late 70's, maybe people have become more disposable nowadays...
I don't know how many people out there think like you (company kiss-ass) but I may need to rethink why it may not take six months to evaluate the gulf situation. In your critical thinking classes did they spoon feed you or you just didn't show up?
I'll take back the K-a comment because in about six months you can get on at BP because their culture hasn't changed. If you choose to look at the fine line the "man in charge" at BP has taken on many of their projects then you can compare their safety record kill rate to your fallacy.
You are solid reinforcement for Rockman Inc. start-ups.
Rock sounds like he is on the up and up, and I liked his plan for inspectors on the rigs.
Reserve..
Everything you say you have done......I believe you.
Cool. Usually people are so irritated with what I am saying and my perspective that all they can do is assume I'm making it up as I go along, then they call me names.
While the occasional hyperbole I employ is undoubtedly irritating to some, I do so enjoy it, and am deprived of it when writing for publication. Such dry writing, no fun to it at all.
Reservegrowthrulz2:
I'm following your drift through the mean-spirited personal attacks. I thought theoildrum discouraged this.
I've modified "plans" on the run a couple times, and been paid well for what they called "improvising under pressure."
I hardly think you're advocating killing people through shortcuts, but you're being assaulted personally about risks that the carpers aren't, I suspect, even capable o evaluating, under pressure or otherwise.
And the pressures come from the folk who are using massive amounts of oil to make themselves comfortable.
As they chat with the wife on the SUV trip to Yosemite, men are being bloodied on oil rigs for their benefit.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. SO righteous. I hope you'll enjoy yourself to pieces writing here. I'm enjoying reading it.
Carry on!
Good thing I haven't attacked anybody then. You should have seen me back in my intemperate days!
Hey, I'm witch ya. If crack hoe consumers weren't demanding it, people wouldn't be drilling for it, and I would probably be out of a job. But I bet alot of money, and time, decades ago, on the idea that while we Americans might reduce our habit, we wouldn't be getting rid of it during my career. Worked out pretty well so far.
As one of the "attackers", I dispute several of your characterizations.
On an issue involving safety, I told my boss (at the time Chairman of the industry association) that he needed to either correct it or I would blow the whistle. He did not, I did and had to change careers.
I called for more processing capacity top-side and more relief wells five or six weeks ago. No "hindsight" there.
I start from best practices and then look for better, more innovative ways. I triple/quadruple check myself and ask other professionals. AND I DO NOT CUT CORNERS ON SAFETY !!
On a personal level, I reduce my oil use significantly (perhaps 10% of US average) and I am pushing plans to reduce US oil use significantly. My main claim on TOD.
A paper of mine
pdf warning
http://www.millenniuminstitute.net/resources/elibrary/papers/Transportat...
Best Hopes,
Alan
Well ... there's Ixtoc, otherwise ... blowing up a drilling platform, killing 11 workers, releasing several million barrels of crude into the Northern Gulf and devastating the sea- side economies of several states, smashing the ecology of the region and sending oil in the water ... where, exactly? Ireland? Spain? Yucatan?
Not to mention bankrupting one of the world's largest companies ... ruining investors ... perhaps triggering another liquidity crisis ... I bet all that could reference a single thing that hasn't happened elsewhere.
As for things that BP has done that other companies have made happen elsewhere ... that would mean business malpractice; same as Goldman- Sachs', AIG's, JP Morgan- Chase's, Countrywide, Citi, Deutch Bank, CIT, GMAC, Chrysler, Bernie Madoff, etc. etc. etc. BP is just as incompetent as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac .. or Enron or LTCM.
Industry has been killing people since it began, you feel worse for the most recent 11? There will be others. Its the price the world pays for its transport fuel.
The accident appears to be the end result of a bunch of little, regular booboo's all lining up at the same time. And then of course the failsafe wasn't. The point I was trying to make was that all of those little things aren't law breaking events, they aren't qualified by the ridiculous words used, like "risky" or "unsafe", "cheap casing plan", they aren't any of those things, they are just the way things get done because thems the rules, but those rules aren't cast into stone somewhere, "best industry practice" is a law, but the particulars aren't.
Reserve you know it is interesting when you post something that proves someone wrong how they resort to misdirection. Once again Reserve you wrote: I haven't seen anyone claiming that cheap casing was used or that the plan did not pass all the requirements for a casing plan in advance of the job. You may not have seen it, but when I showed you that there was such information you go off on another tack. Hard to have a discussion when the revaluation of information is not acknowledged. However apparently this well was difficult to manage from the get go and therefore taking longer. But that should have trigger best practices not cutting corners. Suppose you are in surgery and the doctor is finding more problems than he expected. Do you want him to hurry up and use get by type of surgery or do you want him to work harder and use best practices to fix you up even if it takes more time? Given that the well was giving them difficulties they should have done everything in the MOST careful way. It doesn't matter whether it is the LAW or not. Cutting corners has ended up costing BP far more than they saved. Even excluding the 11 lives lost and the jobs lost and the wildlife killed, BP hurt themselves. I hope every industry from Nuclear Power to Chemical Factories, to Gas and Oil take note, it may not be just other people they hurt, they may hurt themselves.
Well, after RockDocs comments on how no casing is cheap, and the only proof of what passes for a "cheap" casing plan being the claim of someone who provided zero information to back up said claim...well...what reevaluation is required? Was perhaps the casing plan cheaper than an alternative? Of course, thats the entire POINT of a well designed casing plan. Are some people unhappy with the plan that was used? I have no doubt...but they aren't recommending cementing everything all the way back to surface either, are they? Anything other than that is by definition more risky, and cheaper.
A problem which appears to be happening here is everyone defining best industry practice in a completely haphazard fashion. I haven't seen a single person reference what laws were broken, any definition of best industry practice which the appropriate individual can't modify as conditions warrant, or any other evidence to move this accident from "sloppy well handling gone bad" into "they did it on purpose because everyone on the rig wanted to kill pelicans".
You are exactly correct. And considering that the people who are in the most danger (everyone on the rig) are the ones who should have been watching the hardest....it is surprising that so many could have missed what appear to be some obvious signs of unaddressed issues. While many of my arguments center on what BP was required to do, versus what is obviously Monday morning quarterbacking, I consider properly trained people who's lives are at stake to be the best line of defense against the cumulative effect of all these things going wrong at the same time.
You call it cutting corners....a bit of a preemptive conclusion at this point, and relative to boot. Design a perfectly safe well sometime. Don't forget to protect it from terrorists attacks, a nuke accidentally going off nearby, or climate change creating icebergs in the Gulf which might overrun the location! Even that can be considered "cutting corners", good god man, what about meteor strikes!
Where we draw the line between ridiculously safe and "safe enough" is nebulous in nature, and unfortunately those who step over it on occasion pay the ultimate price to give the rest of us a better idea as to where exactly it might be.
Such is the nature of risk and what constitutes "cutting corners".
Reserve, I have read reports of many people on the rig being unhappy with how things were done. I am not going to re-find them as it seems that finding information has no impact on your beliefs. I have read that Transocean people had an argument with BP people and BP won but again I am not going to re-find them for the reason stated above.. I read the whole report by Waxman and Stupak posted here on this site http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6604#more which well documents cutting corners despite advice that some of their decisions were not wise by other professionals.
The ultimate price is NOT being paid by those who set the corporate culture at BP, it is being paid by the 11 who died, their families, the other oil workers who cannot work during the moratorium, the fishermen of the Gulf, their communities, the clean up workers (who have been told NOT to wear respirators even if they buy them themselves). When the risks are that big perhaps we should just admit that we are truly at the end of the age of oil and powerdown. But at the very least do more than is required to make things safe. If the investigation had shown that BP always did the most cautious thing, had more safety controls than required, had more than enough boom etc to contain a possible spill etc then they would not be in quite as big a pickle eh?
You go work offshore for 90 continuous days sometime, see how happy you are with anything. While whatever reports you have read are undoubtedly interesting, I'll wait till the experts tell us what constituted reasonable industry practice and how they would have reacted in the same situation before I worry about what the cooks assistant thought about the quality of the cement job or well design. Drilling these things isn't two guys putting up a garage Oxi.
And before you talk "cutting corners" you had better be able to answer my question related to how to build a safe well, particularly from those nasty asteroid strikes. We can't be too safe, now can we?
While you might quantify the risks as "that big", I might beg to differ, particularly based on residual damage from the Ixtoc well. You do remember what a Gulf Killer that one was, don't you? I'm not saying that spills are good mind you, just that the hysteria attached to this strikes me as a bit much.
And none of that has anything to do with the trillions of barrels still in the ground left to produce, or any ridiculous concepts put forth by, say, random violin players.
Of course they would. Because for some eco-types, a single dead pelican is too much of a price to pay, and when it feeds right into their agenda, it doesn't matter how safe everyone thought BP might have been, its there job to represent energy extraction, mining, distribution or use as a bad thing. They make these claims while using a 6000# SUV to take a single child to soccer practice of course, but no one has ever claimed they aren't hypocritical weasels most of the time.
Reserve you wrote "I'll wait till the experts tell us what constituted reasonable industry practice and how they would have reacted in the same situation before I worry about what the cooks assistant thought about the quality of the cement job or well design.
Funny not a single report I read about the dangerous way BP was handling this well was from a cook's assistant. In fact one was reported after the fact by the family of one of the men who died. BP from what I read highly discouraged workers from complaining about safety issues thus many of these things were not heard until after the fact.
I think that speaks for itself. Not a eco-type, not a cook's assistant but a veteran oil well worker.
And a hero
The father by the way is familiar with the industry
all quotes above from http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601127&sid=aypoT70AgFfM
You imply that you are an offshore worker. If so I hope you work for a company that has a better safety record and more concern for workers than BP. If you don't care about the fishermen who are unable to ply their trade perhaps you can at least care about your fellow oil rig workers.
Me: I think "completely proven" so far or "completely proven up until now might be more appropriate.
Fair enough. And that's my concern, but I'll be back...
OK, since this project can only be judged against its own record it isn't clear to me why "experience" or "expectation" (and "3 or 4 million wells) can warrant optimism until the failures are explained.
It isn't that I'm claiming the historical record is based on good fortune. But I doubt the industry believes this well is haunted or cursed. And drilling 2, 3 or 5 wells is the best option, or they may all be fraught with the same danger we is not yet "proved".
How do we know that the relief wells will follow previous successes rather than the anomalies at Macondo Prospect oil field? I should think the more experience one has, the more shaken they would be by what has failed to meet expectations.
Is it not possible for one to be an expert and still ponder, "Is there something at Macondo that we've not encountered before?".
I implied no optimism. Just noted that the industry in question has been doing this thing (drilling wells) for a long, long time. The failure of the Deepwater Horizon looks perfectly obvious...there was a blowout. They have happened before, they will happen again, if they haven't already. The exact combination of events which led to the blowout might be uncertain, but the results were predictable and went pretty much according to spec. BP burned down the rig. Happens regularly. Not as often as it used to of course, but thats where the century of time and millions of wells of experience part comes in. This one happened at the worst possible moment, and in the worst possible place.
What anomalies? I haven't seen a single thing mentioned or written about the DeepWater Horizon which doesn't fall under the "been there, done that, have the t-shirt" category. Circulating kicks are not a new thing, screwups are not a new thing, cement being contaminated (sometimes on purpose) is not a new thing, equipment failures are not a new thing, overpressured formations are dime a dozen, none of this is new stuff. The combination of them all at once while sitting top of a new discovery, that might be new, but that is just probability theory doing what its supposed to. Given enough time, and a high enough number of samples, nearly any combination of these industry standard things can line up and presto....huge oil leak. Not a single anomaly required. Just the right combination of things not working quite the way they are supposed to.
The well didn't fail expectations, it completed them exactly as intended and landed a new, nice sized discovery. That was its job. Just like the Lucas gusher at Spindletop. Everything since then has just been a tangential screwup.
I'm not being flippant. Oil wells blowing out haven't always been the harbinger of doom, but a Eureka moment that the well had done exactly what it was supposed to do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spindletop
Anomaly: Deviation from the common rule; an irregularity
It depends on what one considers a common rule or an irregularity? A "been there, done that" for an ER Doc is still a trauma, not a common rule.
But Brown, the rig's mechanic hardly describes something common:
"I've seen a lot of gas coming up from muds on different wells, and the highest I've ever seen in my 11 years was 1,500 units. And this well gave us 3,000," Brown said. "I've never been on a well with that high of gas coming out of the mud. That was kind of letting me know this well was something to be reckoned with."
In 1901? I guess that beats having the Hindenburg or Titanic as a benchmark for expectations. But I wouldn't want to make my next sale using Macondo as the common rule...
Well...with that definition I could make nearly any deviation from the wellplan an anomaly, and then I would be forced to admit that anomalies happen 30 times per well, and its been going on a long, long time. Well few wells go exactly as expected. Things break. Equipment doesn't arrive when it is supposed to. Things get stuck. Things take longer than expected. You lose the BHA. You can't get the fish back. The MWD hand measures the toolface wrong. You start to lose circulation, you fix it. You have to circulate out a kick. Lots of items aren't planned for, so they become anomalies the instant they happen...except....they happen so often, they aren't anomalies anymore.
So...when the ER doc is stitching up a cut in some patients neck and nicks the carotid artery because its closer to the surface than it is in most people, he kicks into high gear and fixs that as well. Is that an anomaly of the patient? The doctor had no way of knowing in advance it was going to happen, but he's been trained to deal with things like this, and he does. So if this happens to the doctor 50 times, and on the 50th time the patient dies because the doctor can't fix it in time, is that the true anomaly? And is it predicated on the failure rather than the actual anomaly, which is these patients with an artery too close to their skin? Strikes me as a near definitional problem here.
Well, it wasn't common to him. I've never drilled a vertical well in my life....if I were drilling one for the first time, I could also claim how uncommon this was...TO ME. For other people who only drill vertical wells, they would think I was daft. 3000 units of gas is more than 1500, and if the company man had been working on a real humdinger where the readings were 5000 the week before, that reading might not have bothered him in the least. To answer the anomaly question, you nearly have to pin down everyones experience from every angle and for everything they've ever done to determine what actually WAS the anomaly. I'm not denying that there may have been plenty of clues that things weren't right on this well, only that I haven't seen a real "anomaly" yet, just lots of the usual crap which individually is just another problem to be handled....but line them all up over a new discovery, in deep water where any fix it solution can be a longterm thing, and presto....
"I'm not being flippant. Oil wells blowing out haven't always been the harbinger of doom, but a Eureka moment that the well had done exactly what it was supposed to do."
OK you have no direct connection to BP. So it must be Transocean or Halliburton. Maybe you're just PO'd because you're unemployed. If you have so much education and experience then present it in a different manner.
The well did what it was suppose to do; a blowout and eleven people died because people chose to ignore standard practices. At this point in the disaster there's a lot of tight lips due to liability. Your position is this is a common and regular occurrence; Ah no big deal. I'm a layperson in this field but all professions have standards especially when there's high risk. When leaders choose to place personnel in harms way tolerance has limits. The results are usually reported as; friendly fire. In your case people may choose to no longer work with you, you're no longer employable.
A) No indirect connections either.
B) Nope. Das ist verboten.
C) Nope. 13 years as a scientist now.
D) BS in petroleum engineering. 2 years general field operations, 4 years drilling, 2 years production management, recompletion projects, workovers, expert witnessing in practical applications, 3 years as company wide troubleshooter in 2 states, science teams manager.
E) I must decline. I express, and publish, appropriate scientific thought in the appropriate places. This place.....it ain't that place.
I've never burned down a drilling rig in my life. Whatever are you talking about?
Reservegrowthrulz2,
I think I understand your points. And I'm not trying to pick a fight. You're not responsible, right? But you seem to be too forgiving in the following:
See? You're brighter than me but someone or several people should have done more than recognize 1,2,3:
1.) "...plenty of clues that things weren't right on this well"
2.) "...individually is just another problem to be handled"
3.) "...any fix it solution can be a longterm thing"
Yeah, "...line them all up over a new discovery." should probably be a job with a title, "Chief of 1 + 2+ 3".
You've convinced me you would have picked up the clues, perceived them as problems to be handled (you've been there, done that). But that means the the "line them all up" person(s) failed.
They were in deep water, for the long term and someone wasn't screaming to someone who placed them in the context of deep water-long term?
To digress, in the BP war room there was candor that each fix was untested and the confidence level of success was not high. When the oil hit the fan, those folks knew they were screwed. You could see they were stricken, engineer or scientist was stuck with a problem they were only prepared to prevent.
So, "line them all up" (the "thing weren't right clues") because that was the only time to solve them. Not, *if* it blows, because *when* it blows they can't pick up the phone for Twenty Four Hour Repair Service.
For me, the better your explanation the less able I am to excuse.
I do not make the assumption that I would have picked up all the clues. I do make an assumption that the total number of people who were supposed to have been watching the clues, and could have done something about it, was a number greater than 1. Like everyone else, I am going to seriously read the postmortem to see what the real disaster reconstructionists, with the appropriate well control experts (I've been around the drilling rig block, but I am not the guy you ask about every single piece of equipment on a drilling rig, its history and function), say happened. A guy like me will be handed that report, and another containing recommendations on how to prevent it from happening, and I will be asked, "Is this reasonable?".
Why should anyone ask? We all know why. Ever since oil got hard to acquire early in the last century, requiring steel casing, wire rope, and they did away with the cable tool rig, its all been because we like the stuff. Crack hoes we be.
At the depths the relief wells are at - there are no hydrates - too hot.
(unless a slug of cool cement/water comes down).
About relief wells - lots of experience,
BP has one of the most experienced relief well planners around:
John Wright, now part of Boots & Coots.
http://www.jwco.com/
Case histories:
http://www.jwco.com/casehistoryframe.htm
Technical info - the particular page about relief wells:
http://www.jwco.com/technical-litterature/p11.htm
Those pressed for time can go direct to Evolution of Technology:
http://www.jwco.com/technical-litterature/p11.htm#Evolution
From that section:
Some more case histories were at Vector Magnetics, but they picked a most inopportune moment to start changing their website.
Video from BP about relief wells, with John Wright doing some of the talking:
http://bp.concerts.com/gom/reliefwell060210.htm
Has an animation of Vector Magnetics system in use.
Can anybody document a relief well since about 1990 that did NOT eventually work?
FYI - the Montara commission report is due no later than 18th June, 2010.
http://www.montarainquiry.gov.au/
Not that I've noticed. Which is why I said they were pretty proven stuff. Nobody believed me though. I think its all that heuristics them oilfield folks have, but who would ever believe that? :)
Nice discussion, however it does not include the probability that BP will have the well contained by other means over the time frame the wells are being drilled.
Given the gradual progress that is being made towards this goal it is not a negligible factor. Even if we neglect the costs of the relief wells there are risks that accompany any drilling activity that are a downside to drilling relief wells.
I agree that the need for speed is lessened if most of the oil is collected, but there are other reasons for haste, including hurricanes -- which make both relief well drilling and oil collection more difficult. From a PR standpoint, it would seem that getting past the first phase of the crisis as fast as possible would be in BP's best interest.
Of course speed is of the essence. But risk is still there and drilling more holes increases that risk, possibly needlessly. So the likelihood of recovery should influence how many relief wells are undertaken.
Hurricanes I think are a neutral factor since they can be assumed to affect both recovery and drilling by extending the timeline.
Here is a thought - would you continue drilling multiple relief wells if BP starts recovering let's say 99% of the oil?
I would STA. For one thing we might wake up one morning a week after BP started recovering 99% of the flow and see fresh videos of the processing ship blowing up and dumping 150,000 bo into the GOM over night with the loss of 60 hands. Just my opinion but I would feel safer of the rig drilling the RW then on the processing ship. There is a huge amount of chemical energy flowing thru that vessel continuously with a giant flame roaring off the side of it.
It makes my days running a chemical pilot plant sound sane and secure. At least the stuff we had in storage (liquid chlorine) wasn't explosive. If it got loose you could smell it and had a fair chance of running away before it got you.
Yours, Mr Rock, is an excellent point. Discover- er Enterprise is Deepwater Horizon 2.0.
There is no doubt that monitoring gas/water/oil flows is being done redundantly and by crews at two or more areas of the ship.
I also expect that the culture of safety is a lot more stringent on DE than it was on DH. More management supervision and more questions, more support and more interaction between staff and management.
I get a read from the DH that there was a strong 'Upstairs/Downstairs' divide on that platform. Big jobs are like that. When things don't go well the pressure on staff increases, there are divisions and second- guessing. It doesn't sound like DH was a happy ship. There are challenges that people rise to out of professionalism or pride or the sense of accomplishing something extraordinarily difficult. There are also challenges that grind people down to the point where they simply don't care any more.
There was a reason why nobody bothered to check the mud return. The rig captain was nowhere, the Schlumberger crew was 'Gone the Hell out of Dodge', the Company Man was arguing with hands, the BP Mega- managers were getting smashed and don't tell me they weren't! BP was trying to put pressure on the oil in the ground and was putting it on the crew and staff, instead.
I would suspect the real lesson of this (outside of the simple math of diminishing returns on increases in risk) is the key to any DW completion is superb crew morale and a team approach where all contribute to a culture of 'Safety First'.
I personally think the biggest mistake BP made was to not allow Schlumberger to perform downhole tests. BP had nothing to lose and the results would have been positive either way the tests turned out. It wasn't Schlumberger's well, they had no axe to grind one way or the other; it would have been a validation of 'the BP way' for them to have made the test; the 'BP Way' being, 'check, then check again.' Having Schlumberger perform downhole logging would have put them 'on the team' and a test that demonstrated pressure rising downhole or imperfect grout sealing would have been the part of 'self- regulation' that BP and all other modern conglomerates claim as an integral process of 'free market capitalism'.
As it was, the 'BP way' was no way at all. BP's negligence will be determined by others with more information than I have here and now, but BP is certainly guilty of egotism. Reservegrowthrules2' suggests that 'blowouts happen' that it's part of the business. This is certainly true, you play with fire you will get burned therefor you do the things that keep you from getting burned when the costs of doing so are ruinous. BP had 'victory disease', somebody in charge on that rig felt that because the Gulf of Mexico could not be destroyed by that well within a reasonable time frame, that running 'ordinary risks' as would be the case with a land well was the 'BP way'.
An argument that BP had done everything by the book: the highest- test casings, 'Show Me' tested and approved BOP, proper casing hangers and seals, replacement of the damaged annular, highest grade cement in the proper quantity, positive pressure tests on both the bottom plug and liners along with downhole logging ... had BP done everything AND DESPITE HAVING DONE SO the well blew out, the company could be absolved from mis- management. Nobody can make that argument. Stating that there is a traditional. 'wild cowboy' industry- wide disregard for proper trade practices is not making an argument, it's not even making a bad excuse.
It's an indentical fraud to that perpertrated by the finance 'industry' that has cavalierly destroyed the retirements of millions, the solvency of businesses, towns, cities and now- countries. It's a fraud that suggests that incompetent and thieving practices are a long- part of finance and should be ignored; 'Murder happens, get over it' is the cynical lowest common denominator that not worth risking anything for.
This rationalizing mindset is the 'BP way' along with the way of its apologists. It's intellectually dishonest, corruption disguised as honesty or rather, frankness.
As for the added costs, BP was sitting on a billion dollar property! What's another million - or ten?
BP is certainly cut down to size and the fact their factory ship isn't blowing up right this minute suggests that BP acknowledges the lesson even if they are completely clueless as to context.
RGR2's remarks about the pitfals of drilling make BP's nonchalence abundantly clear. Cultures don't exist in a vacuum. There is nothing inherent to oil production that suggests a safety culture is out of reach. Oil drilling is a dangerous industry; so are airlines.
The auto industry thinks nothing of massacring 43,000 of its customers and maiming another half- million every single year. 'The cost of doing business'; the airlines having a similar attitude would result in nobody ever getting on an airplane! What do the airlines do right that BP did wrong? The blow- out preventer is the single most important piece of equipment on the rig, the 'failsafe'. Would an airliner be cleared to load passengers if the brakes were questionable, altered, damaged in use or untested?
Right now the comedy is BP's management attempting without end to escape accountability; no flow figures no geology no names of managers who may or may not have signed off on various 'questionable' decisions, no transparency - no additional relief wells - no sense that they have any greater responsibility to anyone other than the top managers of the company. It is hard to imagine any airline escaping the scrutiny of FAA or being able to function by acting as BP has acted and is continuing to act!
Of course BP has a different customer base, that will always line up to purchse BP products regardless of how corrupt that company is. It's customers are coopted, just as corrupt as BP, as corrupt as its apologists. Our wonderful culture has forgotten how to manage risk properly but learned how to coopt just about everyone.
I am reminded about the line from The Great Gatsby: "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy–they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made." Tom and Daisy, BP and the US, joined at the hip, kicking the ass of the Gulf of Mexico and hoping that some other people will clean up the mess.
In reality, you have to add the probability of hurricanes and their strength (windspeed etc.) which could interrupt the drilling. New relief wells started now would most probably be completed when the hurricane season is at its maximum.
The next to last graph makes it obvious why BP chose one backup well, rather than more. One backup is more than twice as effective in increasing the probability of success as subsequent wells. So the optimum cost/benefit balance favors the two wells now being drilled, no more.
More wells bring the probability closer to 1 much faster, so the rest of us might well favor additional wells. And so might BP if they factor in the oil and concomitant financial damages that additional time to success would bring. But the lines are pretty close to 1, so it's possible that when they do their probabilistic calculations, the risk is small.
It wasn't BP's choice to drill one additional RW - they originally intended to drill only one relief well.
They were pressured/instructed to add a second by the gov't... the circumstances surrounding that decision have been discussed a number of times in earlier stories on TOD.
Ug. Dice roll North, Dice roll South East, Dice roll up higher?
This is an insult to drilling engineers who know with precision where the Macondo hole is, the path of relief wells, formation pressure, etc. The purpose of having a second has nothing to do with "missing" the target, but rather a back-up in case they lose the first relief hole in circumstances similar to Deepwater Horizon with lost circulation at reservoir.
Instrumentation in the drill string gives positive information in the event of a "near miss," which improves the probability of sidetrack success.
There are lots of details like this left out in the calculation. However, you can see that adding them in complicates the analysis without meaningfully affecting the outcome.
Yes, and lots of uncertainty in how long each particular stage in the sequence of steps will take. Even having the responsible analysts do a calculation like JB has done will take time, subtracting from getting the solution fielded.
So the uncertainty builds up and you need to analyze it in a different way. My rule of thumb is that the more uncertain things are, the more you can lean on people that aren't necessarily as knowledgeable in the problem domain that you may be. That turns out true for a lot of things.
JB did everything perfectly correctly given the premises. Another way to look at it is that you need to accomplish a sequence of steps, each with a probability rate of entering into the next state. This would simulate the construction of the relief well itself (a sequence of steps). Then you would have a rate into a state where you start testing the well for success. This goes into a state that results in either a success, retry, or failure (the utter failure in JB lingo). The convenient thing is that you can draw the retry as a feedback loop, so the result looks like the following for a single well:
I picked some of the numbers from intuition, but the results have the general shape that JB showed. When you look at a rate like 0.1, inverting it gives a mean transition of 10 days.
This is a state diagram simulation like that used in the Oil Shock model, which I use to project worldwide oil production. I find it interesting to see how well accepted the failure rate approach is for failure analysis, but few seem to accept it for oil depletion analysis. I presume oil depletion is not as mission critical a problem as the Gulf spill is :)
A related issue that calls for wells to relieve reservoir pressure: read dougr's comment and add it to the stew:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6593#comment-648967
I'm sure most people here have read this comment. Some will dispute it but the mechanics are simple. The time allowed to shut down this well is not limited by PR but by downhole dynamics.
What we are talking about is the sequence of steps integral to completing the interception well, with increasing chances for success by adding more interception wells.
This is added to the 'back up' sequence of steps required to complete wells to relieve pressure on the blown out well.
In that dynamic, there would be 3 or more interception wells and as many pressure- relief wells as can be drilled in the Macondo formation in the immediate vicinity of the blown out well.
Also, infrastructure to produce product from the relief wells (and the blown out well, too) should be 'fast tracked'.
So ... I'm looking at 7 or 8 wells plus pipeline material and connections, permitting and hiring of rigs. Is any of this happening (outside of the bare minimum)?
I don't theenk so, Cisco!
Oh yeah, one more thing ...
There is the drill string down in the hole. It's being held by the BOP rams and annular. It goes down the hole about 3,000 feet.
It's an expressway to the bottom of the well.
If the contractors can get expose enough drill pipe above the BOP to gain control and make a good connection, then the drill string can be driven to the bottom of the well and a kill pill injected from the top, straight down.
The only equipment needed is a reducing tee: 21" x 21" x 6" (for the drill pipe). The 6" arm of the tee would have a simple flapper on it to keep oil blowing out and would point straight up.
Also, a check valve in the drill string from the drill ship, above the 'fish'.
Also, control over the BOP to relieve pressure on the drill pipe in the hole, to allow the drill ship to pull up the pipe and remove any damaged part and make a good connection ... AND
Also, wrenches that would allow the ROV's to uncouple drill sections underwater. (Coupling would be easy.)
That's it, the check valve in the drill string would keep oil and gas from flowing up to the drill floor but would allow mud and concrete to flow down the drill pipe. The reducing tee would allow crude to flow toward recovery devices while the drill pipe connections were made and little if any drilling would be required. Add tee, fish to old drill pipe, reduce BOP ram pressure. withdraw old drill string enough to remove kinked and cut secion, make a good conventional connection, push down drill string and pump in mud/concrete and kill the well.
As for the chances of success hitting the wellbore, we have the example of the Montara leak:
One well, but it took them five tries. Sure thing?
I do agree, though, that the chance for success should improve with each try. But my apologies for insulting drilling engineers everywhere nonetheless.
I don't think you need to apologise for bumping the pedestal.
This follows the discussion a few days ago in regard to my comments re; applied science and engineers. I used the example of earthquakes and it was pointed out that I had chosen a bad example because look at Haiti and the last earth occuring in Argentina. I thought that was a poor choice to compare no engineering at all to something that has been engineered.
I'm not against the engineer I'm for them. I am against the infallible attitude. Thousands of people have died in earthquake related deaths, collapsed structures based on applied science. Oooops, well we'll try again, sorry folks.
Sometimes it takes five or more tries and sometimes you get it right in one but the next five fail.
A different take on relief wells ?
http://www.opednews.com/a/113334?show=votes#allcomments
interviewed on Thom Hartman's radio show this morning geologist, Chris Landau who is advocating 8 new wells immediately to relieve the background oil and gas pressure
whats your folks take on this position and his other post
B.P. SHOW US THE MUDLOGS!
http://www.opednews.com/articles/B-P-SHOW-US-THE-MUDLOGS--by-Chris-Landa...
When does Bruce Willis arrive?
Chris Landau believes the oil is abiotic, and being created in real time faster than it is flowing.
Maybe there should be "Best Used By MM/YY" dates on gas pumps. The 100 yo stuff is bad for your engine.
tow - I don't no why but whenever abiotic oil comes up I first think of the question from the Ferris Beuler movie: teacher: "Who first proposed asexual reproduction?" Ferris: "You're wife?" So who first proposed inorganic oil? Some organic creature?. I know that makes no sense but I still smile.
I have always thought the abiotic oil theory by Thomas Gold was incorrect (mainly trusting Richard Heinberg's debunking as I am not a geologist). However Landau's theory seems to be quite different from what I can tell (he indicates that oil could be forming currently).
Per wiki the Gold/Russion theory is as follows "The abiogenic hypothesis argues that petroleum was formed from deep carbon deposits, perhaps dating to the formation of the Earth. " Landau however says of the currently leaking oil deposit in the Gulf "The oil is either old oil, say almost as old as the formation, or they have drilled into a massive active fault zone that is reducing carbon dioxide to methane. If it is high inhydrogen sulfide, it is reducing calcareous sediments to oil and more natural gas in the presence of salt solutions" http://www.opednews.com/articles/B-P-Halliburton-and-Trans-by-Chris-Land...
He has two published studies - one abstract shown below. I would be interested if anyone can comment on his theory from a chemical/geological basis rather than just throwing it out the window with Thomas Gold and the Russians.
Association of Engineering and Environmental Geologists in 2008 (AEG). See http://www.aegweb.org/files/public/abstracts.pdf , page 17.
The other was to The American Institute of Professional Geologists (AIPG) in October 2009. See http://www.aipg.org/Meetings/2009%20Annual%20Meeting/2009proceedings.pdf , page 94.
From the second Landau reference:
" The main synthesis is:
CaCO3(limestone) + 4H2S(hydrogen sulfide) + 2Fe(iron) = Ca(OH)2 (hydrated lime) + CH4(methane) +H2O(water) + 2FeS2(pyrite) Delta G = -90 kJ/mole "
Nice work. An exothermic(!) inorganic reaction.
Many of these professional societies allow anything to be written as an abstract as long as you are a member.
I recall the American Physical Society had the odd geologists that would fill up the 2" by 2" abstract boxes with incredibly detailed diagrams of some new theory of plate tectonics. We used to get a kick looking through the APS meeting programs in grad school to find these things. They also never showed up at the meetings.
Landau is no different than those guys, although he has a famous last name in science circles.
Ahh fun with reactions ...
Right all the reaction pathways for Sulfur, Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen.
You left out formation of elemental sulfur for example.
And consider relative quantities of reactants temperature pressure etc.
In general you get goop otherwise known as oil or carbon otherwise known as coal.
Not that thousands of other reactions don't occur depending on circumstance they do.
Even gasp some "abiogenic" hydrocarbons probably do form. My guess for most of these
reactions is around volcanic vents not exactly a place where you will have capture.
And probably degraded as they form.
However "life" happens to have and isotopic preference so a fingerprint is left in the
reactions.
Heck you can do stuff like this.
http://eg.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/10/3/107
Its good to dig into all of these basic reactions and get a feel for them.
Indeed it seems that many of these reactions have conditions where they occur naturally to
levels that make them significant. However I seriously doubt the reaction chain you outlined
is the most important one for conversion of organic matter to NG, oil, and coal. Plenty of other
ones make far more sense and indeed can readily be replicated. Not that they are not interesting.
My best guess as to why the paper was accepted is that the reactions are not unreasonable.
I'd argue that the complex chemistry around hot spots of all types needs further research.
However although perhaps valid and worth of consideration in and of itself that does not mean his conclusions
about the scale and importance is correct.
I think the boundary zones between volcanic and sedimentary zones probably do have rich chemistries that are worthy
of exploration. Indeed volcanic intrusion into deep coal and oil deposits may do all kinds of interesting stuff.
All kinds of good stuff on this can be found googling look for hydrothermal and coal.
I've spent a fair amount of time on Fischer-Tropsch synthesis and wrote a classic paper in the field. FT is one of the processes proposed for abiotic petroleum synthesis, so I have looked into the chemistry of abiotic petroleum to some degree. Landau's scheme is new to me.
Just because you can write a chemical equation doesn't mean that it will occur under the conditions you've got. I read another of Landau's abstracts the other day (linked from another thread in TOD), and he claims to have done the thermodynamics, but he doesn't present the delta G's for his reactions. I would very much like to see them, but no, I don't intend to calculate them myself.
There are a number of problems in his abstract, one of which is his spelling of "sulphide." That says to me that his chemistry is either really old or not his primary study. Not a fair criticism, perhaps, so let's look at some of his equations.
Where does he get the elemental iron?
Very hard to believe this will go thermodynamically, but I don't know his pressure and temperature conditions, which, incidentally, will need to be the same for all his equations. Not fair positing different conditions if this is all happening in the same place.
The reason for interest in FT as the origin of abiogenic petroleum is its production of hydrocarbon chains longer than methane. In the other Landau abstract I read, he posits the Wurtz synthesis as the means to higher hydrocarbons. Good luck with that! Where do the organic chlorides come from? Again, with thermodynamics, please!
Thanks to all for the comments. I just wanted to know that this theory by Landau had been looked at and not just assumed to be the Thomas Gold theory. Sounds like it doesn't do any better than Gold's theory. Not having any background in chemistry past high school I had nothing to go by.
Whenever I see the phrase "theory by Landau" my ears perk up.
Lev Landau was a pioneer in superconducting and phase transition theory.
This is Chris Landau.
Thus my disappointment. If you hadn't noticed, I said a few comments up that he has a famous LAST name.
The difference between Chris Landau and Lev Landau is immense.
Lev Landau was named "the man they wouldn't let die" because he had such a brilliant mind, and the scientific world didn't want to lose hime after he got into an auto accident.
Sorry I missed that. Very interesting about Lev Landau - I had never heard of him. Apparently saving him didn't help much - per wiki "On January 7, 1962, Landau's car collided with an oncoming truck. He was severely injured and spent two months in a coma. Although Landau recovered in many ways, his scientific creativity was destroyed, and he never returned fully to scientific work. His injuries prevented him from accepting the 1962 Nobel Prize for physics in person.[1]"
Thanks I learned something new :)
Chris Landau has not yet merited a wiki article - sounds like he won't.
Cheryl:
"Just because you can write a chemical equation doesn't mean that it will occur under the conditions you've got. I read another of Landau's abstracts the other day (linked from another thread in TOD), and he claims to have done the thermodynamics, but he doesn't present the delta G's for his reactions. I would very much like to see them, but no, I don't intend to calculate them myself."
Read the
secondthird reference in oxidatedgem's post. Page 93. You will find Landau's delta G's."Where does he get the elemental iron?"
Good question. Maybe from siderite: FeCO3, which is supposed to be a fairly common mineral.
Delta G of reaction for siderite is
Fe(2+) + CO3(2-) -> FeCO3 delta G = -60.5 kJ/mole
If I replace Fe in Landau's reaction with FeCO3, there is still -30 kJ/mole for the synthesis of CH4,
along with an extra CO3 radical. It is still thermodynamically favorable.
Cheers.
The point is that you do not really know the thermodynamics. This is all supposed to be happening under what conditions? What pressures and temperatures? Makes a difference, you know.
Have CRC Handbook will travel? Chemistry isn't a cookbook where you just open up a text with minerals in it, balance a few equations, and proclaim success. The biogenic origin of oil was ascertained over a century ago. There was all kinds of supporting evidence, from the types of molecules present, to the 12C/13C isotopic ratios, to the preponderance for even carbon numbers, to the chirality (optical activity) that can't be accounted for otherwise.
Abiotic idiocy is sort of like an infectious disease, which re-emanates from a once dormant spore into a world that no longer has enough immunity to fend it off quickly enough to prevent a small epidemic, this time within a sect that sees it as the ultimate refutation of Malthusian party-pooperism, or as a goose that lays the energy equivalent of a golden egg. For some reason, Libertarians love it, as does right wing radio. Funny thing is, geologists have never found any pools of oil that are regenerated faster than we can extract it (or regenerate at all). How it is/was formed doesn't matter if we can't find it, and certainly not if it doesn't form faster than we can extract it.
But, as Aerosmith sang, "Dream On".
Joules there are plenty of hydrocarbons around that obviously where not created by life. Titan, Jupiter etc etc.
Plenty around when the earth was formed.
Probably hydrocarbon chemistry around vents and other volcanic spots.
However almost certainly not enough to amount to our deposits which we use for oil/ng.
Heck there are probably detectable amounts of methane in any reducing environment.
I think one of the reason abiogenic oil keeps coming back around is its totally dismissed.
The problem is its probably reasonable that the reactions occur but that they are not the source of our large deposits
and indeed probably don't result in any appreciable accumulation simply because the reaction conditions if they do exist naturally
probably are not in areas where accumulation makes sense.
In a sense its like getting gold or any other metal for that matter out of sea water. Sure you can but the concentrations are low enough it does not make sense.
Traces of all kinds of stuff exist in all kinds of surprising reasons for all kinds of interesting reactions.
On a regular basis I read about some chemical or some form of some element that was not thought to occur naturally
to find out someone found it.
Meteorites are famous as sources of all kinds of compounds that are otherwise not naturally occurring.
Although rare iron/nickel meteorites probably played a big role in our metallurgical advancement.
I think its far more important to focus on the conditions needed for such reactions and the realistic chance they result in accumulations.
The fact that you don't get large methane emissions out of volcanoes or active vents in general should be a clue.
Heck if abiogenic hydrocarbons where important at all once would expect that some sort of hot spring would be lousy with the stuff somewhere.
Of course even here life seems to jump into the game.
http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/02_02/Methane_microbes.shtml
Indeed the real issue is finding some place that life has not managed to colonize.
Certainly, but its not just a case of finding a few small hydrocarbons. You need to account for the whole schmere, in all its chiral, isotopically biased strangeness, because that is what has been found. If you want to posit that the generic brand exists on earth, that is fine. But the "gold in seawater" analogy seems to be the case, if even that. The problem is the mantra "there's plenty of oil, because the earth is always making more" that keeps getting rebroadcast.
[edit]
Case in point is this article found on DrumBeat:
There's your oil spewing volcano that you've always dreamed of. It's not exactly MSM, but its stories have apparently been picked up by Glenn Beck (someone has to feed him that stuff, I suppose). Funny site, though. Tag line:
Canada Free Press...Because without America there is no Free World
but then there is their "Social Network Editor":
ROFLMAO! Perhaps what we have here is a Black Hole...
Where's Yoda when you need him?!
I have heard many unofficial estimates of the magnitude of oil in this formation... 2nd largest in America, 2nd largest in the world...
Does anyone have a credible estimate on the formation reserves?
Initial guesses (some background data access apparently) were 100 million barrels oil in place with 50 being recoverable. Later ranges went to 150 million barrels recoverable.
Province of estimates questionable, but geologists outside BP have looked at seismic data. BP is a fountain of useful information :-P
In any case, a good find, but not a giant or super-giant field.
Alan
Some historical data available from the MMS.
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/PDFs/2009/2009-064.pdf
On the basis of proved oil, for 8,014 proved undersaturated oil reservoirs, the median is 0.3 MMbbl, the mean is 1.8 MMbbl.
Peak Oil theory says the cumulative size distribution of reservoirs (ranked small to large) goes as P(Size)=1/(1+0.3/Size) if we assume a median of 0.3. It doesn't quite follow this exactly because infinite sized reservoirs can not exist.
If you want the raw data it is here:
file:///G:/RE/Shared/EOGR%20Report/2008-034%20Estimated%20Oil%20and%20Ga...
Sorry, that was a joke, the MMS puts the information on a public web server, and the data is retrieved as a local filesystem URL?
see for yourself:
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/pubinfo/freeasci/geologic/estimated2006.html
Theory according to entropic dispersive aggregation versus data
Full spreadsheet here:
http://mobjectivist.blogspot.com/2010/06/gom-reservoir-size-distribution...
A Windows share so VERY poor security. Just asking for some cracker to change it. Take its data with a pinch of salt.
NAOM
Thanks for the advice, I transcribed the data off the graphic. Smaller chance that the graph would get hacked.
If you want the raw data it is here:
file:///G:/RE/Shared/EOGR%20Report/2008-034%20Estimated%20Oil%20and%20Ga...
Now that's pretty damned funny.
About this funny:
meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 6.0"
I'd like to think that BP did this sort of analysis when they decided to drill 2 relief wells. I believe that was also when they were stating that the leak was 5000 bbl/day. I wonder if they have rerun the numbers now that we know those initial estimates were way off.
I know that some folks here think BP probably knew the 5000 bbl/day was way low from the beginning, but I'm assuming that the statistician that ran the numbers was using official estimates.
They knew what the pressure was down there, but they assumed that the flow was blocked more than it was to arrive at the 5000 b/d number. The mud weight needed would be determined by the pressure.
I'd like to think that BP did this sort of analysis when they decided to drill 2 relief wells. I believe that was also when they were stating that the leak was 5000 bbl/day. I wonder if they have rerun the numbers now that we know those initial estimates were way off.
Please check your fact.. BP want to drill only one relieved well. Coast guard asked for a second one per Adm Chad Allen.. The 5000 bbl number was Coast guard number which is also confirmed by Adm. Chad Allen in Face the Nation interview the past Sunday.. Get angry at BP for things that they have not done (e.g. the claim process. The size of the emergency response).. But getting the fact straight will help...
Since now there appears to be a general admission that the blowout is subsurface, with oil leaking from the seabed,
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/06/evidence-points-to-destruction-be...
Does this substantially alter the probability of relief wells killing the rogue well?
Are there technologies that would allow BP to determine how deep the fracture in the wellbore/substrate
has occurred, in order for the relief well to intersect the wellbore beneath said fracture?
If the mud/cement kill doesn't work when the relief well reaches its target, are we out of options?
(or is it time for a nuke?).
This is looking more and more like a complete ocean-killing event.
I skipped the reference to a nuke solution but my lifetime training as a skeptic means I must quell hysteria across the spectrum.
If only not to raise expectations, we don't want BP to get off the hook by claiming, "See, we didn't kill the ocean! Leave us alone...".
But if you want to be eating glow in the dark shrimp, fire off that nuke...
Joules, thanks for a very good keypost, well done. And I appreciate the fact that in light of your analysis, you still favor adding an additional relief well.
Personally, my comfort level with plugging in particular average-probability values and relying upon them in a disaster-relief effort is not high. I think Alan's points are quite credible. Ixtoc took about 10 months to stop using two relief wells, and it was in 160 feet of water. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixtoc_I_oil_spill
Humans have a hard time making good decisions about situations with extreme downsides in the future. Moreover, things like the effects of ecosystems to perturbation are nonlinear.
And while I'm a big believer in aggregate probability - it's a good "first pass" filter through which most technocopian dreamscapes cannot percolate - it becomes a little more complex in real-world situations. For instance, the rough odds of a primary parachute failure are 1 in 1000. The rough odds of a relief parachute failure are 1 in 2000. So the odds of dying from a chute malfunction are one in 2 million. Except that they aren't; it's more like 1 in 80,000. Why the "order of magnitude" disparity? Because in the real world, once things start going wrong it can skew the odds of other things going wrong.
Relief wells aren't parachutes, of course. And in the foregoing example, I note that the marginal utility of a reserve chute is probabilistically reduced. Yet it's considered foolish to jump without one, even with only a .1% chance of main chute failure per jump. Why improve on a 99.9% success rate? Because smacking the ground at high speed is considered a very-negative outcome. Likewise, the loss of species and fisheries is a very-negative possible outcome.
And there seems reason to think that there could be some complexity downhole. There has been speculation on this website by experts, some of whom think this may be quite a tricky well to kill.
If it requires two relief wells working in tandem, that's a whole new set of probabilities.... and it could.
But there's also a human element to risk decisions; which is arguably the only reason we're doing deep-sea oil drilling in the first place. Our American way of life is non-negotiable, after all. Driving to the mall in a 5000-lb vehicle instead of a 2000-lb vehicle is more important than some vague risk to an ocean somewhere. Duh.
We tend to base our risk decisions on what has happened in the past, rather than what logically could happen. That's not a bad way to go, mostly, but it isn't exactly a foolproof way of dealing with what the world has in store either. For instance, we all take off our shoes and hop around before boarding a jetliner because a fellow once made a pair of shoes with explosive soles. Yet any laptop computer which will bring up an image is waved onto the same plane; despite the fact that pretty much any idiot could put semtex into its spare battery compartment. We cultivate an illusion of adequacy when it comes to risk. And that political "illusion of adequacy" is treated as the salient standard, because as social monkeys, that makes sense to us.
Quick, without looking, does anyone know the homeland security color-code du jour for risk level? How much danger are we in?
Wait... I'll google it... ok, it's yellow. We are at a yellow risk of terrorism today.
Whew, that's a relief, it felt kind of orangey.
Anyone think they'll live to see it green? Not likely, because it's largely an ass-covering index, and it will never be politically expedient to have it green for even a day. This may be an off-topic digression, or it may not be. Because political expedience is a large part of the calculus in real-world decisions by humans.
For instance, if we entirely set aside the value of an intact Gulf of Mexico ecosystem to the earth and human race - (which has been pretty much the default assumption; the invisible hand of the market can always make us something better) - there are other considerations for social apes such as us. For instance, if the Macondo blowout lasts as long as the Ixtoc blowout did, will it result in Obama being a one-term president?
Clearly, Ixtoc shows that it can be hard to cap a blowout. The tech is somewhat better now - but let's note that this blowout is under a mile of ocean instead of 160 feet, and call that a wash. What if this spill lasts ten months like Ixtoc did? Any chance that the Obama administration won't be blamed if both relief rigs suffer delays? You can bet that IF that happens, every cabdriver will know in retrospect that it was boneheaded pennypinching to only have two relief wells. Obama's opponents in both parties will almost certainly call for more relief wells soon once they think of it - because there is utterly no political downside to doing so. (I realize I'm getting far afield from the keypost subject here, but not unreasonably far I think).
So another consideration is "regime change", and all that's downstream from that. Of course, that means half the nation would kinda like that aspect of it.
A 1% chance of cutting the spill by a month is worth a lot to me - even if we assume BP will duck out of payments like Exxon did, I'd be happier with my tax bucks going to two more relief wells than doled out to dicey banks. And hey, it'll stimulate the economy! Isn't that the all-purpose American justification for doing anything these days?
I'd strongly recommend an immediate additional relief well be announced by Obama at his press conference which is scheduled for the next few days, and not to let BP be his Backup Parachute.
And my thoughts are with the dolphins of the gulf. Our screwup, their tragedy.
I'd like to compliment you on this great comment, which addresses the psychological aspects of decision-making. If there's one thing that went wrong with how BP made decisions for this well that blew out, it was a failure of redundancy. You've powerfully argued here for redundancy. And I concur!
Water depth is not a major issue here in drilling relief wells - 5000 ft less rock to drill through. And Ixtoc was 1979. Drilling technology has improved by orders of magnitude since then - ability to steer drill bit in 3D. The blow out well is vertical so should not have any major well survey issues - i.e. they should know quite precisely where it is at depth, and will be able to sense it with down well sensors in the relief well.
OK. So - with respect - what date to you figure it'll be stopped by, and what odds are you giving on side bets? Sounds like only a sucker would think it'll take long.
best
Great Article, but I sense there is still something missing. I am not aware of any other relief wells being drilled under these conditions. There is still a major issue which I don't understand which I have eluded to before. Please consider this back of the envelop calculation:
A column of sea water of about 8.5 ppg gives a pressure of about 14.7 psi per every 33'. So if the current well was drilled with 14.5 ppg mug, that would yeild about 25 psi per 33'. If the current well TD was about 18,500' with a column of 14.5 ppg, the bottom hole pressure would have been roughly 14050 psi, statically. I have heard there were problems with lost circulation and controlling the mud weight, but can't prove that. One of the reasons for the nitrogen mix in the cement was to lighten the weight because of pressure control problems.
Now to kill the well we have effectively 2 hydrostatic columns which need to be considered. One is of water, 5000' tall which gives about 2227 psi to the killing of the well. The other will be a column of mud 13,500 feet tall and that needs to be increased in weight to make up the difference in order to bring the total pressure up to the 14050 psi. If my math is correct they will need to have roughly a 16.7 psi mud, in order to kill the well. Increasing the mud weight by over 2 ppg will have a huge impact of the drilling of the relief wells. If there is any openhole section between the last casing point on the relief well and the current well, they have a grave chance of fracing the formation and losing returns. They would need to simultaneously control the relief well and kill the flowing well. Unless they can case/cement right up to the current well, I don't see how they will do it. When you throw in the fact the current well is flowing, it's flow would likely tear apart any streams of heavy kill slugs they could pump.
Given that, it mat take substantially more than a single well to solve this mess.
Respectfully,
ej
Good looking numbers ej. There's an easier way to do your calc: Fluid weight in ppg*0.052*colume height = psi. And I agree...exceeding the frac gradient could be a serious risk.
thanks Rockman. I knew there was a formula, but didn't take time to look it up. Good to know my math and logic are still reasonably correct. I just reverted back to my basic physics and a little bit of submarine math. I guess once a bubble head, always a bubble head.
Cheers,
ej
Pretty much what I figured using the simple result that they needed all the mud in the riser to keep the well from blowing out.
My best guess is that they won't actually be able to kill the well but probably cause the hole to collapse as they fracture the formation. If they are lucky not in the relief well. Sort of a man made natural seep.
The issue is of course how big. If its small enough then given the debt its ok not great but ok.
So I think thats a reasonable sort of end situation either they kill the well or collapse the hole hopefully resulting in something less than we have now perhaps significantly less. So getting a much smaller leak to happen by collapsing the original well bore seems doable.
I just wanted to congratulate JB on the finest piece of analysis that I have yet to see on TOD.
I don't think people appreciate how much time goes into this, both creatively and in its thoroughness.
I would like to second that and I thought the best way to say thank you today was meander over to the donate button this a.m.
I would do it again if it would guarantee no more links to CNN or FOX.
Greetings Oil Drummers.
I'm new to this blog. My name is Tom and Gas Hydrates are my game.
I hope I'm not violating any protocols by jumping into the middle of your discussion with a question on an unrelated matter. If this is the case, I apologize in advance. Mostly I work in a lab with my good buddies the gas hydrates and I don't usually venture out into the world of offshore oil and gas but I'm looking at BP's various attempts to collect effluent from its blown well from the viewpoint of how those attempts deal with the hydrate formation problem (or not). However, there's not a lot of hard data and what does exist uses terms that I'm not too familiar with.
Case in point: a while back someone posted a link to the following DOE web site: www.energy.gov/open/oilspilldata.htm
where there's a section on "Data on Collection To Surface" and the Excel file: "Oil and Gas Flow Data". If you click on the "xls" link you'll go to a a BP spreadsheet of oil and gas flow data. Under the title "Choke Manifold" there are the following terms: "WHPres", "WHTemp", "WHDCP" and "WHDCTemp". Does anyone know what these terms mean (especially "DC")? I would've thought "WH" meant "well head" but the data seem to be temperature and pressure readings from the oil as its pumped aboard the drill ship, so references to "well head" don't seem to make any sense.
Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me understand this.
Welcome, Tom!
This is a super place, very welcoming of those who want to chime in and have contributions to make. I say that as a non-technical person who arrived here just a couple weeks ahead of you.
I can't answer your question, but there's a place to search up above and you might put your acronyms in the search box (top left, says "google search") and maybe you can find the meanings on your own. Alternatively, you might try the "open thread" - it's usually at the top of the site.
Hello TH and a question.
What is the estimated pressure at the bottom of the well (not at the waterlevel- at the oil level)?
Mat - Around 13,200 psi
I am not sure where to ask this question. I've been following fairly closely, have heard to tommyrot about additional leaks miles from the BP site by Matt Simmons and all, but I do not recall seeing any comments about Chris Landau's theory. Here is a link
http://www.opednews.com/articles/B-P-Halliburton-and-Trans-by-Chris-Land...
Does anyone have anything constructive or destructive to say. It sounds sort of like a wierd take off on abiotic oil, and I have never heard about it before. Landau claims to have presented in peer reviewed mags and to industry groups. Does anyone know anything about him, or about this?
Craig
Look upthread.
Thanks. I hopped on and only had a few minutes, so posted at the end. Did not have time to read 100+ posts.
Strange stuff anyway. If it was correct, the question is why they don't just open the wells up to salt water had have cornucopia from every formation!!! In fact, they do pump in a lot of salt water, come to think of it. Do you suppose that is how the OPEC reserves doubled and stayed there for so long? H m m m ... v e r y i n t e r e s t i n g...
Craig
Is there room in the area for 4 rigs with everything else that's going on?
Also, I am curious what the odds are that one of the relief wells could also blow out. I have to assume they made a better check of the BOPs this time but hey.
That's been asked and answered twice in the affirmative. (The twice includes last week and this.) Once upthread. I asked. Rockman answered. (My hunch is if we're persistent, and lucky, we'll get a third one.) But I'm no expert here.
Not to be a pita but I think TOD could be putting more discussion/insistence on the status of the Dutch North Sea skimming ships. TOD is clearly the information leader for the BP Blowout.
Insistence here translates into MSM picking up on the importance of getting them into service as quickly as possible.
Which in turn translates into political pressure to get whatever bureaucratic/legal/financial obstacles in the way resolved.
Which in turn results in less oil in marshes/estuarie/beaches.
Which translates into less gloomy news, which after DougR's post the country could really use.
Extra RW's, Trust Funds, etc, are all downstream events. Important, yes but we have oil leaking today and that needs even more attention. Hopefully OB will address the skimmer ships tonight but I have doubts. My guess it's going to be more political in nature (support for carbon tax legislation, placing/shifting blame, ...) than substantive (declaring a national emergency, ordering more cleanup effort, suspending any regulations/laws that inhibit cleanup (environmental reviews, necessary studies, excludes foriegn vesselsm ...).
We need those skimmer ships right now. more than we need Trust Funds, or extra RW's. Not instead of, but in addition to.
My first time on The Oil Drum. A friend of mine has been an expert in lateral drilling for many years in various parts of the world for different companies. He's much in demand in the industry(at least up until April). He tells me that drilling relief wells will be more difficult in this case due to the hardened casings in the main well. I have 0 technical knowledge of any of this and I may have misunderstood him (we communicated via email). Can anyone comment on this?