Not sure where else this should be most appropriately posted — but I would like to give a big thanks to those that participate in this forum with
Deep Water and many other areas of expertise.

With the over-educated curse of being from the biological science as well as mechanical engineering backgrounds, the frustration with information from other sources has been enormous. Having those here patiently answer the dumb questions about this matter close my heart ( I live in the gulf area) , has been fantastic. I can say I would not be so patient with the dummies in my own areas of work, but I am learning a valuable lesson on that, too. Many thanks. My wife thanks you too. She was sick of hearing about it before I discovered theoildrum.com

==But since the BOP is delivering at a constant pressure (maintained just above hydrostatic in the cap) and since a lot of gas has already come out of solution on the way up the wellbore so that the average density in the collection pipe is quite low, the lift characteristics are excellent. The system could in principle flow at much higher rates limited by fluid delivery from the BOP.==

What do you think is the pressure differential inside the cap vs. the two outlet pressures (ambient and pipe)?

There was a neat table published recenty that I think had a few hundred psi differential at the BOP exit relative to ambient.

I wonder why they did not try to put a low pressure drop diffuser to create a more stable "reservoir" inside the cap.

Thanks for the personalized feedback!

How capable is the software? Does it handle a transition to turbulent flow?

I know one graph a few days back included temperature -- can it model temp and pressure to indicate clathrate-forming zones?

If some moderate degree of seawater can be tolerated, then perhaps the cap can indeed get the spill down to "a trickle" once enough surface capacity shows up. I would hate to learn the water-cut threshold be trial-and-error, though.

These curves illustrate the impact of BOP erosion. They'd be collecting all the flow at the earlier pressure levels....it's the decreasing restriction that is probably causing the problems now. I hope they don't have to deal with 50Kbpd rates eventually.

Never mind theory. BP claims to be recovering 15K bpd from the cap now. The plume billowing from the cap overflow still looks to my eyes to still be greater than the flow from the fractures in the kinked riser before it was cut.

I don't see any way that total flow from the cut riser could be less than 30K bpd at a minimum.

As for the bizarre assertions by Matt Simmons of a massive leak from the sea floor miles away - I just hope these are nothing more than mental confusion from the imagination of a senior citizen under stress

Nice job. A jury can understand this.

When you come across a post you like, click on the Permalink,top tool bar, and book mark it in a new Folder. I use "TOD". Then you can send the link to all your friends and neighbors.

Why won't a nuke work? Well, it probably would work, but it is still a bad idea. The idea is to use a carefully controlled blast to crush the well, thus shutting it off. However if it does fail, you could be left with an out of control hole in the ground with no hope of shutting it off. A nuke destroys the well and this closes out all of your options. A relief well is a much better idea.

As far as using a plug to seal the top of the well goes, it could lead to excessively high pressures near the top of the well that could rupture the outer casing(s), leading to a blowout and you are back to having an out of control hole in the ground with a potentially higher than ever flow rate.
At present, the consensus seems to be that at least one of the well casings may be compromised, thus reducing the integrity of the well. Closing off the well at the top is thus a bad idea. The safer route is to kill tyhe well from the bottom up usimg a relief well as a pathway for mud and cement.

Good question. It seems like there's a few obvious questions that many of us have - and I suspect that buried in the miles of threads, there's an answer to everything and a FAQ would help. Of course, Oildrum is a better place for (intelligent) answers instead of the mainstream media.

For example, why can't another BOP be installed on top of the cut riser to completely shut off the flow of oil? I guess I'm picturing the deepsea robot equivalent of Red Adair turning some huge valve to shut off the flow of oil.

Another question, how come the BOP can't be repaired to shut of the flow of oil. Doesn't the BOP have triple redundancy? One would think that our friendly deepsea robots could fix (engage) at least one of the shut off valves (or shears)?

Yet another question, I've seen comments that the pressure is now too high coming out of the cut riser to recover more than a fraction of the oil (with the riser package). Why can't some sort of T - fitting be installed on top of the cut to split the flow (in two). Wouldn't this reduce the pressure in half? I guess you would need two ships to 'suck' up the oil. But isn't that what BP should be doing - sucking up all of the oil instead of trashing our country?

It was an aircraft carrier - the USS Ronald Reagan. The Admiral stole my idea. He'll probably get a whole chapter.

bb -- The relief well will have that extra 5,000' column of mud. But when they start pumping the kill pill into the blow out well it can attain a max column of only 13,000' since the riser is gone. But the water column will add about 2,3000 psi to the 13,000' mud column. One difficulty will be that the oil/NG will continue to flow up as they pump the kill pill. This will dilute the kill pill's effectiveness to some degree.

You can do your own BHP (bottom hole pressure) calc: mud weight (in #/gallon) X 0.052 X mud column height = BHP in psi. If it originally took 14.0 ppg mud to keep the reservoir from flowing when it was drilled then reservoir pressure = 14.0 X 0.052 X 18,000' = 13,104 psi.

Here's a test: if can can only get a 13,000' column of mud into the blow out well what mud weight would you need to generate a 13,104 psi BHP?

delete

delete

It would be nice (from an aesthetic standpoint) to have some audio as background to our video. And before someone writes in to say "they haven't got time for fun and games down there", let me say it could be very informative in an engineering sense: imagine what might be heard if one could apply a "stethoscope" to the well head or BOP (or apply three and get some spatial imaging of sound in the BOP). Likewise to other parts of the containment cap and riser tube, and the general ambient sounds perceived at some distance from the well.

Serious composers of modern classical music might be interested in the samples -- after all, there is already a work based on the sounds of humpback whales, and this could be something similar.

Oh yeah, ring tones -- plenty of commercial potential there.

Right now, it seems to me, vision is the only one of our five senses being used to control the ROVs. Just recently BP has started to deliver some HD video and, yeah, that's a big improvement, now we can see more of what the ROV controllers presumably see. But our other senses remain unused. Okay, nobody really wants to *taste* or *smell* the oil and gas leaking out of the well, but a sense of touch would be a huge asset in controlling an ROV. Just think about that poor guy trying to get the socket wrench aligned over a nut on the BOP a few days ago. With touch sensitivity, it would have been a piece of cake. It would have been something that could have been done in the dark (or in the midst of an opaque cloud of oil). That's the sort of thing that ought to be researched in universities and the like developing undersea technology.

Back in the 1960's there was a lot of interest in undersea colonies ("City Beneath The Sea" by Irwin Allen, etc) and it seemed that the subsea environment would become a new habitat for man, possibly on a massive scale. Well, that hasn't worked out -- so far.

Your description sounds like my neighbor's car.

Again, what confusion and please summarize what was the lack of effective response and the consequences of that lack?
1) Are you saying that his choice could have somehow averted the disaster or the scope of the disaster in some real time, boots on the ground way?

2) That early interventions of the appropriate nature, presumably proposed by this theoretical engineer could have assured what? More booms, faster, more (fill in the box) faster, better, averting x amount of damage? Can you say that -- please support your assertions

3) Secret meetings that we all knew about, right? So much for trying to think out of the box. Should all of us have been invited and a transcript provided of their brainstorming ideas for a solution -- a quite different purpose than Cheney's closed door meetings, me thinks...

4) Please explain and quantify the results that would have been materially different if Obama had an engineer as Energy Secretary and also the nature of the so called lack of "effective response"

The Oil Drum is really good about requiring us to provide supporting details. Please do so.

I'm not sure why you perceive a lack of air time. Finger pointing in a partisan light is inappropriate. If there is fault with the current administration then it would be negligence on insuring appropriate personel and equipment to address the disaster. The USCG is responsible for cleanup/organization and BP is responsible for the tab. I see no reason why we need to wait on BP to provide the necessary equipment. What makes a chemical engineer a better choice or an atomic scientist a poor choice? Most of BP viewed Tony Hayward CEO in a good light before the blowout. What part of a degree equates to practical knowledge or management skills.

Energy Secretary, who *should* have been "front and center" in the resolution of this episode.

I disagree. The Department of Energy is not concerned with oil drilling, well safety, and so forth. The is a resource exploitation/management issue, and belongs in the Department of the Interior, where the MMS and USGS are located.

Don't know what sort of axe you have to grind against Sec. Chu, but you are way off base here and clearly don't know anything about the history or mission of the DoE.

I'm amused by the idea that someone who has been an experimental physicist for thirty years isn't qualified to supervise engineers. It's his job to find the right people and ask them the right questions, not to know all the answers himself. At the top this is a leadership challenge - finding the right experts, listening to them, understanding what they say, acting - more than an engineering challenge.

toll -- BSW = Basic Sediment and Water. When a reservoir produces oil/NG a small amount of water and/or sand may flow out with the oil/NG. This water isn't the same as water cut we talk about. Even a sandstone reservoir that contains oil still has a small percentage of water in the pore space. Think of BSW as a little trash that comes out with the good stuff.

Sand cut is determined using a very high tech approach: take a known volume of oil, mix some water, shake and let the sand settle to the bottom. The make up some number that seems to represent the amount of sand you see on the bottom.

Don't know if the well is producing much sand now but I would bet lunch it has eroded a lot of sand out of the reservoir to date. Even wll designed compltions will produce some sand. It this completion wasn't designed at all.

Could it be hotter and higher pressure with gas still in solution? (more direct route up the well) I think this tells us something important about the well condition/damage/leak paths, but I don't know how to interpret it.

Someone earlier posted that there is only one pipe within the cut riser. It has been deformed into the shape of an 8 on its side. Consider that when the pipe is cut by the shear the pressure of doing that will collapse the pipe. Drill pipe is extremely tough. The diameter of the pipe is smaller across than 1/2 of the circumference. When the circumference collapses it will somewhat V at the center and the point will tend to go the center, on both sides. That give the condition that you observe in the cut riser with only the drill pipe.

the daily flow rate is, in fact, somewhere between 798,000 gallons and 1.8 million gallons

Yes. 31 (+/- 12) kpbd. This I believe. It might have been less before the riser was cut.

Here's an idea that BP should consider, IMO-- http://tinyurl.com/OiltankerCarousel

There are many possible variations of the above scheme, some of which might involve multiple vortices.

Furthermore, away from the leak site, a fleet of relatively small sea craft could be deployed to create an "array" of vortices that would consolidate and "trap" the oil at specific locations.

For oil floating at or near the surface, I think a diesel cut could be sprayed or otherwise distributed below the weathered oil "strands" absorbing them, and make them more amenable to recovery from the vortex centers, by using pumps. The diesel cut could be separated by distillation on board for re-use.

IMO, this method of using ships as an "organized force" rather than in what appears to be a quite haphazard effort, would actually MINIMIZE the energy consumption involved in this effort.

HOG

In the same vein Adm. Thad Allen sends a note to CEO Tony Hayward asking for access to their "claims database...to monitor the status of individual claims...".

http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/posted/2931/NIC_Letter_to_BP_CEO.621247.pdf

What's disturbing to me: Where's the teeth? Where is the "or else"? Given BP's record so far why would they expect a response and what happens if they don't get one?

"We need more detail and openness from BP to fulfull our oversight responsibilities to the American people and ensure that you are meeting your commitment to restore the Gulf Coast."

No kidding Thad!

US govt (MMS) has sovereign immunity and has no liability (unless Congress choses to assume it LOL!). If fault was 99% MMS and 1% BP, then BP's share of the damages would be 100% - 0% (mms share) = 100%.

Et – Some clarifications. First, the MMS didn’t green light any of BP’s drilling decisions. Nor do they cast judgment on any other operator’s decisions while drilling. The MMS does have standards and regs operators are required to follow. The MMS does do well site inspections on an irregular basis to check compliance. Once again the BIG IF: if the well blew out because the cmt job failed due to the decrease in back pressure due to displacing the heavier drilling mud with sea water. It was BP’s sole responsibility to make sure this was a safe. No one at BP called the MMS and asked them to pass judgment on this decision.

There was some discussion about the MMS approval of BP’s final csg program. The MMS did approve BP running a csg string that some felt would have been more difficult to get a good cmt job. Even if that point is valid it did not relieve BP from the responsibility of making sure they had a good cmt job before displacement. In fact, it should have made them even more cautious.

The chain of command is very clear: BP, as operator, is responsible for all aspects of the blow out including the spill clean up from day 1, The Coast Guard has the responsibility for ascertain that BP is conducting these ops properly. At anytime that the Coast Guard feels that BP is not conducting the effort properly the gov’t has authority to immediately take over all aspects of the incident. But if that were to happen it would not relieve BP of any financial responsibilities: they will still pay all the bills including any that the gov’t runs up. That’s a very big motivation for operators to take care of business properly.

Pension funds everywhere have a hell of alot more to worry about than whatever might become of BP.

Any pension, or many pensions, loosing 2% on a single event is a VERY big deal. When they expect 8% growth per year, that's 25% of their growth going down the tubes in a heartbeat. You can expect every pension fund manager sitting on Obama's desk screaming at him not to hurt BP. They want the stock back up.

BP is a $100B company and anytime you have that kind of money involved, there are lots of financial interests involved. Many people will get hurt by BP's downfall, and most of them are the public.

When Dubai was threatening to default, 3 of the largest US pension funds went to visit them in person. Where do you think your 401K money is? It's in Dubai, it's in Greece, its in BP, etc. Do you want your next 401K statement to be Red? Most people don't.

The US gov has plenty of liability here. According to reports, the MMS signed off on pulling the mud out of the well. There are lots of people covering their butts here, and the US gov is one of them.

I'm waiting for the US gov to declare this a matter of "National Security", and then they will bury all of the information. That's the ultimate way the US gov always covers it's butt and hides the truth. Otherwise, the lawyers and court system will drag everything out in the open, which is the last thing the gov wants.

Any pension, or many pensions, loosing 2% on a single event is a VERY big deal. When they expect 8% growth per year, that's 25% of their growth going down the tubes in a heartbeat. You can expect every pension fund manager sitting on Obama's desk screaming at him not to hurt BP. They want the stock back up.

BP is a $100B company and anytime you have that kind of money involved, there are lots of financial interests involved. Many people will get hurt by BP's downfall, and most of them are the public.

When Dubai was threatening to default, 3 of the largest US pension funds went to visit them in person. Where do you think your 401K money is? It's in Dubai, it's in Greece, its in BP, etc. Do you want your next 401K statement to be Red? Most people don't.

The US gov has plenty of liability here. According to reports, the MMS signed off on pulling the mud out of the well. There are lots of people covering their butts here, and the US gov is one of them.

I'm waiting for the US gov to declare this a matter of "National Security", and then they will bury all of the information. That's the ultimate way the US gov always covers it's butt and hides the truth. Otherwise, the lawyers and court system will drag everything out in the open, which is the last thing the gov wants.

Any pension, or many pensions, loosing 2% on a single event is a VERY big deal. When they expect 8% growth per year, that's 25% of their growth going down the tubes in a heartbeat. You can expect every pension fund manager sitting on Obama's desk screaming at him not to hurt BP. They want the stock back up.

BP is a $100B company and anytime you have that kind of money involved, there are lots of financial interests involved. Many people will get hurt by BP's downfall, and most of them are the public.

When Dubai was threatening to default, 3 of the largest US pension funds went to visit them in person. Where do you think your 401K money is? It's in Dubai, it's in Greece, its in BP, etc. Do you want your next 401K statement to be Red? Most people don't.

The US gov has plenty of liability here. According to reports, the MMS signed off on pulling the mud out of the well. There are lots of people covering their butts here, and the US gov is one of them.

I'm waiting for the US gov to declare this a matter of "National Security", and then they will bury all of the information. That's the ultimate way the US gov always covers it's butt and hides the truth. Otherwise, the lawyers and court system will drag everything out in the open, which is the last thing the gov wants.

There's a good possibility, if metabolism of hydrocarbon substrates is contributing to the observed oxygen depletion, that methane is the principal species involved. It is likely to be widely present, it has relatively high solubility in water, and methanotrophes (bacteria that oxidize methane) are ubiquitous in nature. Solubility is around 40 mg/L, which is about 10X higher than the O2 present by weight and 25X higher on a molar concentration basis. This substrate is molecularly dispersed ("dissolved" as opposed to droplet or micellar), the bacteria are pre-adapted to it, and it's likely they're having a feast. If methane metabolism is dominating the oxygen depletion it's going to impact the ability of the bugs that can attack higher hydrocarbons, which also are aerobes, to do their jobs.

Or all of the fertilizer that just reached the GOM from the heavy rains a few weeks ago in the Ohio valley and upper Mississippi valley.

"Oxygen levels have declined steadily since a May 28 sampling effort, Graham said.

Levels were between 4 and 6 milligrams per liter at the research sites on May 28.

By June 2, they had declined to 3 milligrams per liter or less.

Tuesday, researchers measured 1.7 milligrams per liter.

Scientists consider 2 milligrams per liter the threshold for survival."

Matt is no flake

That is what I used to think. Great book in 2005. Now, I don't know. Aged 65+ now. Maybe early Alzheimer's?

In gas processing applications, burst plates are used as alternatives to pressure relief valves. They relieve pressure by bursting -- protecting the rest of the equipment -- but once they break, the system is depressurized until the plate is replaced. Sometimes they are used because they are cheaper than valves, but that's not necessarily the reason why you might choose them.

I don't know what they do specifically on the MC252, but I think you are on the right track. See:

http://www.epa.gov/gasstar/documents/replaceburst.pdf

Or, if you prefer to dwell on the pain:

http://scienceblogs.com/worldsfair/2010/06/eulogy_for_the_gulf_of_mexico...

Wasn't nuking an oil reservoir the job of the Spectre VILLAIN in the James Bond movie "Never Say Never Again"? More than just a little irony here, I think.

And I agree that it would be good to get some independent visualization of the situation on the sea-floor in this area from one of the several subs capable of this job.

If it does get nuked, it sure won't be BP doing it. Be assured, BP has no nukes. Much of the gas is trapped as hydrates when it hits the water.

Matt Simmons is still recovering from a trip through the wormhole. He has claimed that the bottom hole formation pressure is 50,000 psi. Impossible. He has claimed that the casing was exploded out of the hole and is lying on the bottom. How did that happen and no one noticed 13,000 ft. of pipe flying up through the rig floor? Impossible.

I would not worry about the nuke option at all. All of our nuclear weapons that were small enough for the job were all destroyed in the late 1990s. To make matters worse - all of the blueprints and design data was destroyed as well (by destroying them you save money that would otherwise go to security).

And just to make things even more interesting - all of the people who had exiperence in designing and building nuclear weapons are all retired.

We know very well how to melt rock with nuclear explosions. Many glass caverns were created at the Nevada test site. However, even using a Nuke has to get at the bottom of the well. I hate to think what size of nuclear explosion you would need to melt rock to 13000 feet if one were to attack it from the top.

As for the nuclear contamination, these should be contained in the glass or near there and under 1300 feet of mud. Not a risk to the public. The science is well understood by the US scientist.

That being said in my opinion there are other ways to melt rock such as in situ verification, which uses several mega watts of power to melt dirt to glass. Microwave or some kind of resistance heat.

I think the nuke talk is just some fantasy - I guess some people have a nuke fetish.

Speaking of which, we are lucky McCain isn't the president.

I have a question for those who know about explosives and mining in general. Would a nuke even be required if it ever was decided that collapsing the well was the only way to go? I remember from the Iraq invasion days, talk about this "mother of all bombs" which theoretically had a similar yield to a tactical nuke. Would not modern conventional explosives be sufficient for that kind of job?

Hi Pete,

I believe you are correct, the plan is to be able to detach the riser from the rig and let it float far enough beneath the surface so a hurricane won't affect it. Then they will return and hook up again. The gas won't be the float though :-)

Right now, they'll have to pull the drill pipe up, then pull the riser up to the ship, which will take several hours for each step.
They they can run away. When they come back, they'll have to reassemble things, pick up the LMRP cap, and stick it back on the BOP.

Around the end of June they will have a riser pipe that will have a float and its own anchor, so they can easily detach and bail.

explained about 9:20 in this video:
http://bp.concerts.com/gom/kentwellstechupdatelong053110.htm

off the bp video archive site:
http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=9033572&contentId=7062790

Flow from June 9 midnight to 0500 was at a rate of about 16,100 bpd oil and 31,100 cf/d gas with zero (0) water through 2 chokes - 102/64 and 104/64 which would indicate they are close to max on production or flaring capacity and throttling the flow. Seems the cap and drill pipe recovery system could recover more if the ship's processing equipment could handle it.

Original GOR was about 2,500 and reduced to about 1,900 and been in the mid 1,700 at times. Oil has ranged from 36 to 39 API. Some obvious flow variations over time but not really dramatic.

Data from a spreadsheet which seems to be updated at least daily at:

http://www.energy.gov/open/oilspilldata.htm

Lots of great information including:

Well Configuration - Lots of casing and liner information, even some temperature data

Oil and Gas Recovery Data - spreadsheet of RITT recovery

Oil and Gas Flow Data - Detailed spreadsheet of LMRP cap recovery including chokes, and 15 minute detailed readings (unfortunately no pressure readings)

Pressure Data Within BOP spreadsheet stick-man drawing of BOP with pressure readings as of May 25.

Anyone still think BP doesn't sleep with the fishes?

They'll be taken over before years end although it may not close that fast.

That seems fair.

BP has said that they will be responsible for their spill too.

I believe that there are two factors that contribute to little FPSO activety in the GOM.

First is that that the area has developed relatively slowly over many decades with many pipelines developed and expanded as the development moved offshore. When production declines from an old well the pipeline capacity is available for the new ones and can be used by the step out fields / formations.

Second is that there are pretty expensive US Maritime laws. Ships that both pick up a cargo at a US port and deliver it to a US port MUST be constructed in a US shipyard and, I believe, be manned by US crews. Consider that a pipeline has little relative operating cost once installed and does not need staffing when not being used. sure, pipes cost money. but they may only be needed to connect to a nearby system, not all the way to shore. ships are expensive to build and to operate, even when not operating.

It is possible that the FPSO received some special dispensation from some Maritime Bureaucrat before it was allowed to operate in US waters.

Edit: this post is pretty descriptive of the effects of the Jones Act. It seems that offers of equipment were made by foreign sources and declined by Obama. Nothing needed here they responded. this would also restrict the BP options available. You cannot let an emergency screw up a good deal for the union supporters of The One.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/why-did-us-refuse-international-help-gu...

Let me point out that they didn't analyze for dispersant, so they don't know if there is any associated with the oil or not.

I also found the press report rather lacking in the description of the oil - this is dissolved hydrocarbon. If you had one of these samples in your hand it would be impossible to tell if it had oil in it by looking at it. It would look exactly the same as a sample of seawater without oil in it. You wouldn't see a "cloud of oil" or any cloudiness at all.

How much oil is hard to say - the number is proabably in the 10's of thousands of barrels based simply on taking the volume of the area surveyed and multiplying it by the concentration. Given the size of the leak this is not exactly surprising.

And some of it at least according to the NOAA report is from sources other than BP, much like the original tar ball reports from the Florida Keys turned out.

Dept. of Fish and Game is a good place to start. But I think every state is different when addressing salt water.

Every study I googled was behind a paywall, but below was this quote I saw before:

“Studies have suggested that concentrations of 1 part-per-billion have toxic effects to fish eggs.

http://greenamonggray.blogspot.com/

eggs from demersally-spawning fish species accumulate dissolved PAHs released from oiled substrates, even when the oil is heavily weathered; and (3) PAHs accumulated by embryos from aqueous concentrations of < 1 μg/L can lead to adverse sequelae appearing at random over the lifespan of an exposed cohort, probably as a result of damage during early embryogenesis. Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH) can be a slow-acting poison, and toxic effects may not manifest until long after exposure.

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a713849909&db=all

Tuna are NOT demersally-spawning but interesting anyway.

Also

Oil and other organic pollutants may include both mutagenic and carcinogenic compounds.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/7076320/EFFECT-OF-AQATIC-POLLUTION-ON-FISH-FIS...

Alan

BTW, the Atlantic blue fin tuna breeds in two known places, the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean and off Louisiana.

Here's a nice "Research Blogging" post about Atlantic bluefin tuna:

http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2010/06/atlantic_bluefin_tuna_oil_...

Found the link to the study: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0010756

and another for TGF's press release: http://www.tagagiant.org/PLoS_GOM_5.28.10.shtml

Bluefin apparently spawn both in select regions of the Gulf and in select regions of the Mediterranian.

They don't need any pumps and the collection system is NOT supposed to seal tight.

The limit is how much the Discoverer Enterprise can handle safely, the collection system could deliver more to the surface but the ship can't process it.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6558/640389

If this well needed a pump, why would you want to pump it? Would you add the pump so you could turn the pump off and stop the leak ha! Wow, more fun in the anti-science world. You really sent that and had some one waste their time opening the letter? If all it took was to add a pump don't you think 80,000 BP people would have done that? Wow, how novel, add a pump, really.

From the story:

Allegations of major disagreements between Transocean’s crew and BP representatives over drilling activities continue, specifically displacing the heavy drilling mud in the riser with seawater.

Houston lawyer Tony Buzbee, who represents a group of Transocean employees provided Mother Jones with an account of a conversation between Transocean manager Jimmy Harrell and someone in Houston that took place via satellite phone.

According to the Buzbee account, Harrell was screaming, "Are you f*******g happy? Are you f******g happy? The rig's on fire! I told you this was gonna happen."

When the person tried to calm Harrell, he is supposed to have replied "I am f******g calm. You realize the rig is burning?"

from the article;
"However, due the restrictions of the Jones Act, which require ships doing business between two US ports to be flagged in the US, BP may need to use another tanker to actually take the oil ashore, or may need to seek a temporary exemption from the act. "

See this article for more on the restrictions BP has had to consider in engaging vessels:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/why-did-us-refuse-international-help-gu...

Thanks.

Nice info in the .pdf on the FPSO

http://www.sealionshipping.co.uk/pdf/Toisa%20Pisces.pdf

I also live in Philadelphia, and having observed Jody's behavior up close I can assure everyone this is all her fault.

Seriously, though... Hello neighbor first off. I'm new here too and I have to say people are largely smart and nice, sometimes simultaneously. It's a great site & beyond the crisis I'm going to keep reading in future on peak oil issues.

IMO "It's everyone's fault" is very close in practice to saying "It's no one's fault." As a person who's never owned a car, walks bikes and rides the subway (and I have since the '70s), owns largely used stuff including clothing, and went the past two winters w/o turning on the heat (detail in a comment I left on a different thread in the TOD Europe Campfire discussion this week), have a TV in my home for the first time in 14 years (through marriage), etc etc etc... I'm none too inclined to accept equal responsibility on this as BP execs, or bought off politicians who havent regulated, or cokeheads at MMS, or even Hummer drivers.

I use some energy and I eat food that uses petroleum to exist and to get to me. On the whole for an American my footprint is tiny. I've never had any real say in how the food in my society is produced, I've never had any real say in how we do energy. My calls and letters to my elected 'representatives' are ignored, and always have been. 95%+ of the candidates I vote for lose, usually badly. I even spent the better part of a year running for public office on what could be called a responsibility platform; rec'd less than 1% of the vote (which was still 1000 people, not bad considering...). My economic choices are 'outvoted' as well.

This isn't an appeal for not trying. But I steadfastly refuse to accept responsibility for screw ups like this, especially when they more than counterbalance a life I've tried to live deliberately and responsibly.

I'm not irresponsible. BP has been irresponsible, the entire oil industry has been irresponsible, the US government has been irresponsible, the state governments have been irresponsible, and most of the American public who are able-bodied and well-educated and comfortable enough in their position in life to make better choices - and don't - are irresponsible.

In order to maintain any sanity at all in times like this I can take some small, cold comfort in knowing I did my best not to contribute to the problem. So, again, no, I'm not willing to take a share of the responsibility here. You sound like a responsible person to even raise these issues. Don't beat yourself up.

The shore will stop the barge.

Optimum strategies like fi lowest price incentives will hopefully produces alternatives through applied technology spin-offs ,
the principle of least restriction is a mode of nature ,
easy oil will flow.
Collective guilt alas such an unworkable and stagnating sentiment.
Do you allow for stratification of the collective ?

Peace

Hi jody, it seems you understand more than most:) This is OUR fault, we ask for more and more and more oil everyday. When you have to mine, drill at
-5,000 ft sea level, fracture rock, pump a thousand barrels of water to pump one barrel of oil that should tell all of us expect more of this. That is the price of doing business.

except that are NO fibers that can handle multi-kilowatt laser beams over a 5000 ft distance. every high power cutting laser i know of uses air or vacuum in hollow pips to guide the beams

http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/in...

Frightening.....its flow has increased if anything from yesterday. And this is what is escaping......wow!

http://mfile.akamai.com/97892/live/reflector:31499.asx?bkup=31500

Oil on the camera lens, for sure. But I just don't get the purpose of this nightly survey. Ostensibly looking at the fallen 5000 ft riser, but certainly something else of interest, occasionally quite active black billows and heavy hydrates. Reminds me of Doc Sevrensen and Johnnie Carson playing 'Stump The Bloggers'

The Akers Goo-Cam isn't idle or parked. It's swimming south.

What expertise, precisely, does the US Navy have in dealing with out-of-control oil wells?

There seems to be a widespread belief that by kicking ass and screaming, a solution to a major accident involving engineering under extreme conditions will emerge through either the shear force of Presidential charisma or public indignation. But the real world, does, not work that way. I have no knowledge whatever of the oil business, but I cannot see how solving novel and complex technical problems can be helped by the idiotic yelping of the US President or environmentalists whose consumption of fossil fuel is probably very little different from that of the average US citizen.

I would caution against putting percentage numbers on the oil collection rate. The cap design is crude, it lacks a proper diffuser and a well designed manifold to create a stable reservoir of oil for maximum rate of collection with minimum internal pressure differential.

Currently, the pressure differential is clearly substantial, as evidenced by large and energetic flow from the lower seal (and presumably from the upper vents, though they are not shown...).

I would wait until the total flow estimation is made by the government (BP obviously has one, but rather not say) and I would expect the collection percentage of this first-generation device to be in 50-60% maximum, which is better than I would have expected a week ago, but still far from a sustainable long term solution. At the same time, it would seem that the well flow may be quite variable, for a host of reasons and may increase, or change the flow characteristics that would make it less "collectible" with a unsealed system.

For example, at this time I see very substantial movements of the cap, both up and down and circumferentially, which have not been seen lately. I am not sure if these are flow driven or induced by the riser excitation.

After reading several posts here i'm more confident that the relief well will kill the blowout well.
BP estimated that the well would take until sometime in August to drill.
Give them time for several intercept missed and it is certainly the end of the month.
That has been the BP position from the beginning of the blowout that a relief well is the only solution to the problem.

BP has used modern tech to locate and drill into a tremedous resivoir. It somewhat proves up the idea of the tremedous oil reserves in the deep GOM and stands the Peak Oil theories on their ear. They screwed up the final stages or completion. Producing it with two or three or four more wells will not make much difference in drawdown.

It seems like the very name "relief well" implies that it is intended to be used to draw off flow, thus relieving pressure from the upper (failed) portion of the well. If enough flow could be diverted away from the failed part of the bore, perhaps the pressures in that portion of the original well above the intersection would be reduced enough to allow another attempt at a "top kill" type of procedure and/or cementing of that upper section without as much fear of it blowing out through the casing. With the portion of the original well above the intersection properly plugged, they could then either continue producing from the relief well or attempt to seal off the whole thing.

Well, the cap assembly is YELLOW. Bright lights, swirling oil, yellow color — think fake firelogs.

nevermind -- the background is yellow -- it is an illusion.

I've seen that a few times, and I think you get that effect when an ROV is on the opposite side, and one of the lights is shining through the yellowish/brownish oil.

Its definitely NOT the yellow paint
Its a fire , you can see the yellow region extending beyond the top-hat
My guess is the DISPERSANT has caught on because of the heat generated by the pressures involved.
I saw it appearing for about 8 hours ago
If its not the dispersant but the METAL , then I think there is a problem (...Houston)
The 3x4 cams show a dispersant line entering the flames :

http://mxl.fi/bpfeeds2/

They could adjust the hue on that camera
But it does serve to enforce that 'hell of a well' comment

The plumes they have been talking about are mostly over 1,000 feet of water - no SCUBA divers there. What you are seeing are divers in the surface slick which often hangs down in the water several feet.

The deepwater plumes are pretty diffused with the oil measured in ppm. Nothing you can see with the naked eye, it requires special instruments.

The scientists seem to be more concerned about the low levels of oxygen created by the microbes eating the oil although there are others who think even these minute amounts of oil may endanger eggs and larva of reproducing marine life. I'm no biologist so I can't express an opinion as I have no knowledge or training.

If only the financial collapse of BP would serve any purpose other than assuaging the human lynching instinct, that would be a great idea.

Killing the responsible party does not mystically return things to the previous status quo. Though I guess the people that effed up would not be with BP any more, they would be with Shell or Exxon. Would that be helpful to you?

3M barrels is 126M gallons is 16,843,750 cu ft so 1 inch thick would cover 202,125,000 sq ft.
1 sq mi is 27,878,400 sq ft so the spill would cover an area 7.25 sq mi with 1 inch of oil
or an area of .60 sq mi with 1 ft of oil. which is 1.5 km sq

I see it, I am not sure the Cap or BOP is going to make it till August when the 'Relief Well' is supposed to be done, what a disaster that would be

Also, Enterprise ROV 1 is looking slightly down at the the cap. Every once in a while you can get a good look at one of the 4 valves on top of the cap through the plumes. I've not seen these before. It appears to be closed at the moment.

Allen never explicitly said they were changing flow estimates. He simply said that they will be able to get 18,000bpd max on the DE and 10,000bpd via burning on the Q4000. The delay in moving the Q4000 over has been due to the retrofitting necessary to allow for the burning of both oil and gas ... the oil won't be stored on board.

His briefing is available both in transcript (on the Deepwaterhorizonresponse site) and video (on cspan).

Might I add that first Katrina (and the Nashvile floods more recently) and now this, how many full-time military personnel and National Guard people who could be assigned to help clean up, monitoring and so forth aren't here right now... because they're burning massive amounts of fuel on the other side of the planet (in a region we have an interest in for its massive amounts of fuel...)

"National security" needs to be better defined.