BP Deepwater Oil Spill - the New (and Allegedly "Better") BP Plans - and Open Thread
Posted by Heading Out on June 15, 2010 - 10:40am
BP has now sent a reply to Admiral Watson in regard to the Coast Guard request that BP provide a “better” plan for dealing with the oil spill at the Deepwater Horizon site. In part, the response deals with increasing the capacity for the collection of oil through the provision of additional vessels; in part, by providing better for a Hurricane, and in part, by providing better back-up systems.
This post will go through and explain what the letter describes, and I intend, in a later post, to explain in more detail why BP should plan for a steadily increasing volume of oil. Simplistically, it is because the erosion from the sand in the oil continues to widen passages through the reservoir, the casing and lining of the well, and the blow out preventer (BOP). The latest "production" figures are
For the last 12 hours on June 14th (noon to midnight), approximately 7,800 barrels of oil were collected and 16.8 million cubic feet of natural gas were flared. On June 14th, a total of approximately 15,420 barrels of oil were collected and 33.2 million cubic feet of natural gas were flared.
The first step in the process begins almost immediately, and that is the redirection of oil, so that it flows up through the choke lines of the BOP to the Q4000. (corrected to remove the kill line, which is not being used - h/t rainyday)
This is a reversal of the flow of mud that was used in the Top Kill option tried earlier. The system is being tested today, and if it all works, then by tomorrow (Tuesday the 15th) the oil and gas drawn off from the well, will flow up the 3-inch lines to the Q4000 where the oil will be vaporized and burned with the “Evergreen Burner.” Given that this will burn oil in the range from 5 – 13,000 barrels a day (at $75 a barrel) that is a lot of money (up to $1 million a day) going up in smoke that could have gone to relief – but that is becoming small change. However a single Burner can only burn 3,000 bd, so it would appear that a multiple mount is being built.
There are some concerns with this plan. Some of the “junk” pumped into the well might be flushed back out by the oil, into these smaller lines, and block them. The sand in the oil that is eroding the BOP and casing could also erode the choke and kill lines, which are vulnerable, particularly at the couplings and with the hose jumpers. Those concerns will continue until the more permanent risers are installed .
That should bring the capacity of the system up to 28,000 bd. But the continued erosion of the flow paths means that additional provisions should be on hand.
At the end of the month the more permanent riser (for which they just located the suction pile) will be in place. This will allow a more permanent sub-sea system to be installed that will be less vulnerable to Hurricanes. The riser will provide oil to either the Toisa Pisces, or the Helix Producer. This latter is a Floating Production Unit that is already in the Gulf, but working on the Phoenix field.
As a result of the HPI's involvement in the BP spill response, production from Helix ESG's Phoenix deepwater oil field will be deferred until the HPI comes off hire with BP. Helix ESG expects the financial contribution from the BP HPI contract will offset the financial impact from deferred production of the Phoenix oilfield. The Phoenix oil field, located in the Gulf of Mexico's Green Canyon block 237, is ready to commence production upon HPI's return to the site, with all necessary U.S. Coast Guard and Minerals Management Service permits and approvals in place.
However, the opportunity costs for this additional back-up are only going to become obvious in the longer term.
At this point in the process, with a capacity of 53,000 bbl, a day there is still the concern that the well could be producing up to 100,000 bd, and so additional capacity is still required. This will come by now supplying a floating, production, storage, and offloading unit (FPSO) to the site. I had mentioned this last week, at which time BP did not seem to think one was necessary. They have now changed their minds and a vessel (rumored to be the Seillean) will be released from South America to come to the Gulf. It will take 4-weeks to arrive, and is being brought, in part, to provide insurance in case the Toisa Pisces, or the Helix Producer should have a problem. This can handle some 25,000 bd, and will raise to overall capacity at the site to 80,000 bd.
However the flow paths will be changed, so that the primary vessels receiving oil are the Helix Producer and the Toisa Pisces, which can handle up to 50,000 bd, and the other vessels available (the Enterprise and the Clear Leader, which is a second drillship, – the Q4000 being possibly released) providing additional coverage.
It is interesting to note the plans include that the new LMRP cap that will be installed will “ensure a successful relief well kill operation.”
As part of the transition the controls of the feed lines on the BOP, which currently pass through the yellow pod on it, must be transferred to one of the FPSO’s and to back this up, the engineers are now working to resurrect the blue pod on the BOP and make this available.
BP add some caveats to their current plans.
1. Changing the cap could cause problems.
2. It depends how good a seal the new cap gets as to how much oil will be collected.
3. The flow rate is not known, and so the plans are only contingent on the estimates.
4. Leaks will occur whenever the system has to change.
5. They can’t collect oil in the middle of a hurricane.
Now all we have to do is to see if President Obama leaves them with enough cash to pay for all this.
BP Deepwater Oil Spill - the New (and Allegedly "Better") BP Plans - and Open Thread
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255 comments
BP Deepwater Oil Spill - the New (and Allegedly "Better") BP Plans - and Open Thread
PDF version
255 comments
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The fractured bedrock may not make the leaking material follow the path of the bore hole, it may cause multiple VENTS some miles away to come into being, they need to consider using BOTH THE FAILED WELL BORE HOLE AND THE RELIEF WELL to pump cement and sealant materials down there to re-cement the bedrock and create a man made containment dome over this pocket, they should also begin a SECOND relief well and have neutrally buoyant material ready to pump directly into the pocket itself to provide the equivalent of a stopped up TOILET from within the pocket to slow the flow and as the pressure JAMS IT UP(wards) it will assist in allowing cement and sealants to disperse into the fragmented bedrock and seal it back into a man made bedrock dome.
THIS MEANS SUPER TANKERS (more than two) OF CEMENT ready to go just as soon as they can begin pumping it down, not the small barges of sealants they tried before, it has to be continuous and sustained till it stops.
Start the second relief well now, out flow at the first breach will draw material floating in the oil to the leak sites to begin the STOP UP FROM BELOW inside the pocket.
This a war to save the Gulf and the NORTH ATLANTIC FISHERIES.
Dave - the flow volumes are mind boggling. I think one reason for this can be the cause of the blow out. Reading the letter sent to Hayward it seems that they ran inner casing from rig to reservoir. The cement between this and outer casing failed giving gas and then oil a free ride from reservoir to surface up the annulus. This is a much wider diameter flow path, which may in part explain the high flow rates - at least that's how I see things right now.
They need to get the relief well in there while they still have an intact lower well section - this sand erosion sounds rather ominous.
As usual, sounds good, probably won't work........why? Because BP are dealing with equipment on the seabed that has suffered catastrophic failure already, and is being further compromised daily by erosion and fatigue....my guess, instead of getting better, it gets worse. I am also leaning towards believing the sea bed fracture theories, and the leaks through the casing and up through the sea floor. Too much oil out there folks, way too much!
Video of oil seeping out thru cracks around the wellhead. Also read/viewed ROV installing inclinometer on BOP. Could the seabed around the wellhead be rising due to oil/gas escaping into the strata below the wellhead?
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdo0f9_videos-of-oil-leaking-thru-crack...
Link blocked as an adult video site.
I have no problem linking to the site. Watching the video now.
Try this link?
http://dai.ly/bZWJeg
That location translates to 48' from the #1 wellhead.
Yeah that happens at work all the time. I used to have a job until the Macondo Incident destroyed my way of life. Personally I like 4/20 better. It is short. It parallels the use of 9/11. It pays deference to the '11'. At times, it seems BP management was on pot when they were doing risk analysis.
Actually you are giving pot a bad name here. Pot usually causes paranoia which would have been very useful in this situation.
I'm not convinced it's oil.
Seems to me, that (slightly before) every time the ROV moves/stops, there's a wave of dark material cast into the water. I'm thinking thruster wash stirring up mud. There's a surface crust (kill mud that settled out, natural calcium carbonate rich material, ???) over mud that looks like cracks to those who want to see it that way.
I've never seen oil seeps that would emit at a large line simultaneously like that - thruster wash would.
I'd expect a line of seepage, randomly emitting in time, non-synchronized.
Thanks for the link. Its the first 30 secs that look most convincing - that does look like oil seep to me. Most of the rest is equivocal. If they do have a sub-surface blow out then god knows what might happen. One big danger would be "explosive" discharge of gas into water column. This lowers density of water and sinks all that is trying to float upon it - has happened before. If they lose the well head - that's not good either.
Funny how the focus is on how much Oil BP can recover and the elaborate steps taken to do so. How about fixing the hole?
It's in progress. They post relief well status updates periodically in the Update on Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Response press releases at:
http://www.bp.com/extendedsectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=40&content...
They are also updating the relief well graphic here:
http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=9033657&contentId=7061734
Not so much progress at the moment;
"BP: Ship Fire Halts Oil Capture From Well in Gulf"
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=10921618
Speaking of the President, today, before he addresses us tonight, may be a good time to discuss what we in the Peak Oil community would like to hear him tell the nation.
I think it is time for President Obama to declassify the government’s reports on Peak Petroleum. Tonight, speaking to us for the first time from the Oval Office, he should become the first President since Jimmy Carter to tell the American people the truth about Peak Oil. Every President since Carter has been told the truth. Every President since Carter has chosen to shield us, our economy and our helpless dependence on automobiles from that truth so that we can continue another year of joy riding.
As Dick Cheney said when he was readying us to invade Iraq, “the American lifestyle is not on the table.” But it is on the table now. The BP oil disaster has put it on the table.
The hard message about Peak Oil will not be popular. We don’t want to hear it. The attack machine will make the squabble over health care look like a polite discussion.
Americans are going to hate it. Many of us will fall for any sugar-coated lie that will allow us to keep denying it. But it is time for a leader to lead …even if it makes him a one-term President.
It's clear where Obama will be politically: restoration of gulf coast economy and jobs. Restoration of the environment is a harder sell … and I would be very impressed with a broad and comprehensive plan for wetlands restoration in Mississippi Delta (which is left-over business from Katrina). On energy transition and peak oil, frankly speaking, this is big picture stuff and beyond the scope of a single speech. He will point his finger in the right direction, but will likely remain at the starting gate. It's not Obama (I hold) … but the general public who has to make up its mind and agree to tackle the issue. This will require long term strategic thinking, and politics is not particularly equipped to deal with this (since most elected representatives are looking at 2 or 6 year election cycles). And with the economy on the ropes and hemorrhaging jobs after 2-3 years, I doubt we will see much public support for large investments that won't show results for another 5 or 10 years. It's a gloomy policy environment, even in the midst of a crisis, but we will see what a good speech will do. Cap and trade is on the table (it's a no brainer to me), but looking at global competitive position of U.S. it appears dead on arrival. We're in a bind as a country, time is running out, and our political will for getting something done is unmatched to the current challenges. People seem to be looking for a loud and angry diatribe, and holding someone else (and not themselves) to blame.
Condensed version: We need Obama to make a War Speech, wherein the American People will make war on Global Warming, through personal sacrifice.
Obama has to make "Lighter Lifestyles" fashionable, and "catapult the propaganda to "get 'er done".
Note the invocation of popular memes. Maybe we can enlist adbusters.com...
He's very close to being a one-term anyway, so he might as well go for broke before Lame ducks nibble all his social capital.
Give it up. Obama is the BP company man on the Oval Office deck.
Not one word will slip from Obama's lip about consumption. Instead there will be a cheap theatric (an advertisement) suggesting how dynamic and progressive - and irked - the President is.
The speech will be all about Obama and little else. The aim is to position the Democratic party in advance of the upcomimg mid- term elections.
Hmmm ... what does that remark infer? Do you suggest that the Administration is going to somehow 'strip' funds from BP and for what purpose?
"Cry for me, BP!" NOT! Obama had any idea of what a President can do he would have frozen BP's assets from the get- go and there would be no issue about 'enough cash'.
Rather, BP will hide as much of its assets as possible leaving a shell, and for the (broke) taxpayers to pick up the tab.
A new "War on Global Warming" (or more likely a "War on Energy Insecurity") is likely to mean the centralization of more power in Washington and a lot of wasted resources. At least that appears to be the case with the War on Poverty, War on Cancer, War on Drugs, War on Terror and possibly several more that I can't recall at the moment.
And if it is really a serious effort, really like a war, then the effects could be quite far reaching. In World Wars I and II, companies were put under the direction of wartime production boards, some companies were nationalized, consumption of many goods were rationed, and people were moved to where they were needed for the war effort.
One could hope, but that's so 2008 (or earlier if you took the time to look behind the brand). Obama hasn't failed to disappoint on every issue so far...gitmo, military spending, wars, predator drones, torture prosecution, big Ag, healthcare, israel-palestine, financial reform, etc... Ugh! His entire agenda negates any fessing up about peak oil.
I saw an interview clip from last week where he was answering if he had actually talked to Tony Heyward. He said in affect, no, and that to talk to the BP CEO was not very useful because a guy like that would just say the right things we wanted to hear but not take any action. I almost want to think of the cliche about pots and kettles, but that would bring up the whole race card.
ej
Don't forget gay rights (ending government discrimination and second class citizenship). Most western countries moved towards equality a generation ago. Even places like Uruguay are better than tha US now. On this issue the US has left the west entirely and now groups with North Korea and Iran. Obama has been useless in improving the situation, Dick Cheney is more supportive of gay equality.
add disappointments on mountaintop mining, reversal of position on offshore oil drilling, failure in transparency of process (how about those pre-health insurance legislation meetings with the large pharmaceuticals, echoing Cheney's energy industry get-togethers...)
When he announced his financial team shortly after the election - Summers, Geitner, etc. - it was clear it was going to be more of the same-old, same-old.
Seems like you all agree Obama's a disaster, but I'm still not quite clear if that's because he's a socialist working towards sending gun-toting Christian Republicans to the gulags, or a thinly-disguised neo-con neo-imperialist puppet of big business. (Both, maybe?) From the luxury of several thousand miles' distance and having no skin in the game, he seems to be doing as well as could be expected, given the highly imperfect organisation he has to work with and what one of our old leaders once called "events, dear boy, events".
Never gonna happen. Even if he believed it was that dire, saying something like that would kick the right wing denialist machine into overdrive, and he would lose both chambers in the elections and all hope of getting even the most modest of changes through. He'd be lucky to prevent greater and faster damage from republican legislation.
I'm certain the what passes for an intelligensia for the right recognizes our world and life style are not sustainable. I think their strategy is essentially social darwinism; they want to grab up as much as they can before it all goes to hell so that they will be the ones to survive when the big dieback hits. They don't believe there is enough for every one (possibly true), especially if they want to keep their current lifestyle (definitely true). They don't believe in organization or government, beyond using it to gain and protect wealth.
I agree that the current strategy is to "outcompete" and "outlast" as many competing nations as possible. Both Bush and Obama seem to be playing the same game.
If other countries' economies decline, that leaves more resources for the US, and more power to control resources.
Bush/Cheney knew about peak oil and initiated their "20-30 year war on terror" - their propagandized version of "the Long Emergency." They saw this Transition, expected it to last a few decades, and decided to compete instead of trying to develop a more cooperative and equitable distribution of the remaining resouces, and instead of neglecting efforts at home to plan and prepare for a lower-energy consuming economy.
In terms of the financial system and geopolitics, Obama seems to have picked up where Bush/Cheney plans left off.
Regardless of whether we're forbidden tacitly to discuss such deep sociological axioms, I'd really like to see one of the editors take on this concept:
Has government EVER actually addressed this further than a safety net, and SHOULD IT?
Should the purpose of government be to make a level playing field for any genome that comes along? Every phenotype that develops?
Obama announcing the realities of resource constraints is tantamount to announcing WORLD WAR III.
Na gunna appem.
People laughed at Carter when he said it was the moral equivalent of war.
I don't think anyone will be laughing in 2020.
William James, the ur-social psychologist, introduced the concept at Stanford in 1906:
http://www.constitution.org/wj/meow_intro.htm
It is a great concept, and when it is adopted as an underlying meme by an empire such as ours, humanity will leap forward.
I'm not holding my breath.
Obama should invoke that Carter phrase. Obama should pay tribute to the 11 who died here and the many others who have died servicing our nations appetite for energy extracted from the Earth as those energy resources become increasingly more difficult to find and more dangerous and destructive to extract. I wouldn't go into all the wonky policy things that then should be the "better way" in this speech but just set up the idea that there must be a new path vis-a-vis energy sourcing and consumption. And, spend the bulk of the speech on Gulf response specifics.
Impose an immediate tax of a dollar on a gallon of gasoline, followed by semi annual increases of 50 cents until the tax reaches ten dollars. Anything short of a dramatic shift away from oil dependency is just blowing in the wind.
Alternative energy is the future; steps to cut way back on the consumption of gasoline is now. People have had plenty of warning and most have chosen to ignore the problem and even buy gas guzzlers in the face of rising oil and gas prices. It is time to tough it out and for those who feel they cannot afford higher gas prices, they can choose to get to know people in their vicinity who are going near where they work or where they shop or play or do all the other things that require that most people buy cars.
I live in a community where most people can afford higher gas prices even though they will not like it. The response of most people even in the light of this catastrophe is to drill, drill now, and drill everywhere. Some people have been explicit. They want cheap gas now and for as long as possible, damn the consequences. And they are not talking about driving to work; they are talking about driving vast distances for pleasure. The vast majority of people here are retired.
Necessity is the mother of invention and through pain and suffering comes consciousness and enlightenment.
World War II was a time of deprivation, but of common purpose and leadership. We transformed the entire auto industry within a few months to build thousands of tanks and planes. Even though we are still at war in two places, we have no common purpose worth of the name.
Yes, we have had stupid so called wars against things like drugs. But we never really believed in those wars and they were pointless, anyway. This is a war that would not be pointless. Let us just see if Americans, for once in a long time, can stand up and be counted and just what is really a fight, if not for civilization, for survival.
Step it up, Obama; this may be your last chance.
"Step it up, Obama; this may be your last chance."
One thing obama seems to believe or realize is that we can't make big changes until people come together to support them. It's impossible.
And i think he's tried, and had hoped to do that, bring the country together to focus on common goals. Probably still has that hope. But when you have all of this nonsense flamed by idiots on cable tv that he's not a citizen, he needs to show his birth certificate, he's a socialist, he's a islamic extremist who wants to bring America down. The most off-the chart kind of stuff. You can't even have a dialogue with that kind of noise and nonsense drwoning everything else out.
The extreme politics have polarized this country way to much. How can you have change when on one side you have people bringing up issues like global warming and alternative energy, the need to move away from oil and have a plan in place to do that, and then on the other side you have people claiming climate change is a big hoax/conspiracy to take over the world, and the solution to our energy future is 'drill baby drill'? There's no common ground to even discuss anything.
A disaster like this can change that dynamic if it wakes poeple up. They have to feel the pain for that to happen, though, and turn off the idiots on cable TV.
"World War II was a time of deprivation, but of common purpose and leadership. We transformed the entire auto industry within a few months to build thousands of tanks and planes. Even though we are still at war in two places, we have no common purpose worth of the name."
He used the same illustration of what we can do that you did.
Happy now?
I'd like him to at least say all the easy oil is gone and then open up a more public debate on whether or not going after the more difficult oil is worth the trouble in contrast to the difficulties of converting to a green energy economy. For instance replacing the Deep Water Horizon rig is equal to building hundreds or maybe over a thousand large wind turbines. Who knows how many acres of solar power a couple of billion dollars could cover? Or how many electric vehicles that same investment would pay for? Or how many miles of electrified rail could be built?
I would also hope he would announce measures to put BP into receivership until all claims are satisfied. The proposed escrow plans are just not big enough to satisfy all claims. Something as drastic as receivership would mean future deep water attempts would not pinch pennies on safety or rely on outdated equipment. It might lead oil companies to become truly green energy companies instead of counting on a finite resource to keep them in business.
Thanks for the great diagrams, I'm amazed at just how many "producing" vessels will be on station in a small area.
Might set a new record for most connections to a single wellhead - as opposed to the usual target of many wells tied back to a single production platform.
Great discussion all... one item not discussed yet, What effect will all this new crude production have on the rest of the GOM production? Isn't there a glut (albiet temporary) now of crude reaching the local refineries? All of the crude from the Deepwater Horizon must be put into the refinery flow, so other sources may have to wait in line. What do you think?
Rick Steele, Sarasota
The amount of oil currently being delivered to shore is less than, probably a lot less than, one percent of Gulf Coast refining capacity.
Also, BP has recently shut in a good deal of the production from Thunder Horse complex, reportedly for maintenance, although the main producing structure showed a huge collapse in production in 2009. BP has so far apparently tried, as one Oil Drum poster put it, to "Hide the Decline."
I noticed the projections for the NOAA map moved 40 miles overnight. It moved away from shore. I hope that is a positive development, even if temporary. I was applauding the accuracy of the map. I now retract my statement. The president's motorcade came by my house yesterday and I have footage. Just a bunch of SUV's but I also have footage of the cops hassling me. I tried to have fun even though I thought the way the cops treat average citizens is outrageous. Especially during a crisis. Remember Danzinger Bridge. I hope that law enforcement does not go into crisis mode around here for this event. Remember the Macondo 11.
Other URL's pertaining to the Presidential visit for this incident and a Danzinger 7 link.
http://s892.photobucket.com/albums/ac126/tinfoilhatguy/Gulf%20Shores%206...
http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2010/06/charges_against_five_offi...
http://i892.photobucket.com/albums/ac126/tinfoilhatguy/BP%20is%20the%20d...
a few questions:
1) is drill pipe (say 3" dia) available with a constant outside dia (no coupling bump)? it appears heavy walled "collared pipe" is made, but is standard wall pipe available?
2) is it technically possible to make a reasonable pipe passage seal that can withstand 9,000psig? Something like annular, followed by a length providing packing, followed by another annular. the packing might incorporate teflon with adjustment (mechanical or hydraulic) to account for wear. the annulars would provide low leakage seals when the pipe is stationary.
all help is appreciated.
what's you're asking for is essentially coiled tubing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coiled_tubing
http://www.slb.com/services/coiled_tubing.aspx
with a snubber unit.
http://www.glossary.oilfield.slb.com/Display.cfm?Term=snubbing
http://www.glossary.oilfield.slb.com/Display.cfm?Term=snubbing%20jack
http://www.greatwhitepressurecontrol.com/snubbing/snubbing.html
9,000 psi - seems like Boots & Coots has something that will handle that.
http://www.bootsandcoots.com/engineer/20090501%20HWO%20article%20Hart%27...
But, in the context of BP/Macondo - it would have to be:
(a) on the surface on a functioning/pressure capable riser - uhhh, sorry about that...
(riser gone, and probably only would withstand a few thousand psi)
or:
(b) on the sea floor, on top of a functioning/pressure capable BOP and casing - uhhh, double sorry about that...
(the BOP is broken, AND apparently the casing is compromised)
heading MIKE WILLIAMS vindicated re damaged annular story
Re: CAUSES OF BLOWOUT / DISASTER, witness/ survivor/ whistleblower MIKE WILLIAMS, STRIPPING OPERATION, RECENTLY RELEASED BP MEMOS
Congress' investigations continue regarding the cause of this disaster, and among the documents released recently is a TransOcean report on the investigation, which can be seen here.
http://energycommerce.house.gov/documents/20100614/Transocean.DWH.Intern...
This is just a summary however and the presentation is far from complete. However it is worth noting that the accident described on 60 minutes by the well's IT expert Mike WIlliams regarding the inadvertent running of the drill pipe through the closed rubber annular is mentioned on page 15. It seems this happened on April 6th and aprox 1300 feet of drill pipe was moved through the closed annular, sending chunks of rubber to the surface in the drill mud.
This event has never been admitted or commented on by BPs PR flacks or anyone who has testified under oath, so I felt it was significant to make note of. At least TransOcean is confirming what Mr. Mike Williams has said.
for those interested in the ongoing investigation as to the causes of the blowout, the pattern as characterized by a senator on the committee is summed up fairly well here :
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/06/14/horizon-rig-six-days/
pull quote is below
"The common feature of these five decisions is that they posed a trade-off between cost and well safety," said Waxman and Stupak. Waxman, D-Calif., chairs the energy panel while Stupak, D-Mich., heads a subcommittee on oversight and investigations.
here is a direct link to the list of recently released documents
http://energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=articl...
Several sound-bite worthy comments are spread throughout these memos, including phrases like "nightmare well" and "who cares?" and the mainstream media is having a field day reporting on them but what seems more significant to me is that many of the names on these emails are no longer redacted, and so we are learning the names of the individuals who are personally responsible for the well plan.
I think that the transocean report indicates that they think that the rubber was part of normal wear, as the annular later pressure tested OK.
A minor correction - the Q4000 is being connected only to the choke lines, not both the choke and kill. Incidentally, news reports out this morning say that BP last night received gov't permission to burn oil rather than capture it, so they should be good to proceed with testing.
The lack of utilization of the kill line was noted in Watson's letter to BP requesting a plan that would provide for faster utilization. The latest plan has it being used for one of the floating riser connections.
Plans and diagrams have been changing frequently in recent days. The latest plans differ from Wells' latest briefing in that the permanent containment diagrams eventually have the two floating riser/Helix Producer & Toisa Pisces connecting via the choke and kill lines, rather than via the valves on top of the new cap, as they were in Wells' 6/12 technical briefing.
It appears the new cap is now seen more as the seal that will allow the relief well kill operation to be successful rather than as the primary path for oil capture.
Another noticeable difference - unlike earlier plans, the current one contains several warnings about the increased risk posed by the increasing number of vessels in the area. That warning is being picked up by the British press - see New BP collection plan brings risk of too many boats in the FT.
Something I have not seen discussion about.
Have there been any effort or is there any plan to level the riser flex joint before the production top hat is installed? If not why not? If it remain off plumb will that not result in a poor seal?
Thanks,
Donner
In the Kent Wells Technical Update on Jun 10th he discusses the next containment plan.
The current LMRP Cap #4 and riser will be removed and this new Overshot Tool will be placed on the BOP.
This will remove any vertical stability provided by the current riser and replace it with the new 75 ton Overshot Tool.
This would seem to exacerbate any BOP stability and near mudline integrity issues.
RE-posting for Rock incase he does't see it on the other thread. Transocean's notes. Also am starting to wonder about a post in the previous thread by somebody in aviation. E.g. pilot flying into the ground...other people see it, but don't do anything. Starting to wonder about this here....lot's of little stuff, and lot's of 'it really isn't happening' going on in people's heads...
Posted this yesterday from the Transocean report....it sounded like there might have been something 'masking' the mud returns? But given the Halliburton guy saying that they had to suspend testing on the one pressure test because the pits were full, it seems that everybody would have been more suspicious.
http://energycommerce.house.gov/documents/20100614/Transocean.DWH.Intern...
Transoceans notes re: negative test (excuse the formatting -I cant cut/paste directly):
Negative pressure testing
Negative pressure testing
-Set up for negative pressure test began approximately 17:00
-~17:15, 60 barrels of spacer moved below annular
-Increased annular activating pressure from 1200 to 1900 psi
-Set up fluids through crew handover at 18:00
-Under-displaced 16 ppgspacer
-Spacer was not in MMS permit
-Position under annular led to confusing pressure readings
-Float equipment under tested by 285 psi
-Discussion 18:00-19:00
-About fluid volumes due to movement below annular and line up for monitoring –either from drill pipe (normal procedure used by rig) or kill line (MMS permit)
-Either line up is appropriate and will correctly monitor well
•Area of Investigation
-Typically negative test to ~500 ft below well head with sea water
-~3300 ft below –stated on MMS permit in order to prevent well head seal area contamination
-Imposed additional 1000 psi differential on float equipment/casing/cement
-Where did ~60 bblsfrom riser go below annular
-U-tube up kill line or up drill pipe?
-Impacts final negative test pressure applied to well
Notes on mud returns in the final hour:
Flow Show at 20:58
-Trip tank being discharged to pits through flow line (normal procedures ahead of change from oil to water mud in active system)
-At same point pumps ramp down for stop at static sheen test
-Increased flow out due to discharge of trip tank
-Driller expected to see flow increase
-Flow returned near pre-tank discharge level when trip tank pump stopped, THEN increased
-Potentially masked the gain
•Area of Investigation
-Complete review of all volumes and real time data (received 5/24)
-Use of trip tank in operation
-Sperry Sun sensors failure to record a flow out after 21:1021:
This is my very first post on T.O.D. and what a great web site.
I was a plumber before retirement, I know, plumbing and well drilling
are two different trades, but at the end of the day the boss would ask
“How much pipe did you install today”
I would like to go back a few days when the “Big Chomp” was cutting
off the last two feet of the BOP riser. I would guess the flow was down
to about 10% or less and the pressure would have been pretty close to max.
This went on for several hours before they trimmed the riser off with a
a saw and the pressure would drop to what is today.
Now if you installed a seismic system on the sea floor to monitor the
activities’ below the BOP and remove the flange above the BOV and install a
better control system, could you possible reduce the flow down to 15k barrels
they can recover today without spillage.
Outofctrl:
I would tend to agree, However at this juncture, BP and folks are terrified of the possibility of rupturing the BOP so I don't think anything that would pressurize the system will be considered.
Welcome, Outofctrl.
If you take a look through the older posts, you will see there is a lot of concern about creating too much pressure in the system and possibly causing more damage down below. This could hurt the effort to stop the leak with the relief well. So the focus seems to be to capture as much as possible without causing more damage inside the well.
Poll:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38542.html#ixzz0qw1clKNa
What do you mean folks say he is not tough enough? I thought Presidents were supposed to speak softly...
Is this tough enough for you?
http://i892.photobucket.com/albums/ac126/tinfoilhatguy/BP%20is%20the%20d...
I am still an Obama fan during this crisis. We all need to work together. I still might critique one of his actions or policies however. I think citizens should always have some basic questions and ideas for our leaders, and find positive reasons to support them if possible.
What is it about America that everyone needs their hand held by the President to get anything done? Does he not have any people working for him that can help?
He is supposed to be running the country, not an oil company.
I just don't understand this Obama bashing.
There were specific regulations in place that BP and other contractors should have followed by law. They didn't. That doesn't make it all Obama's fault surely?
So maybe tighter legislations should have been in place - agian is that Obamas job to do? - He surely has branches of government to handle responsibility of that. Surely he can not be responsible for every bit of legislation that is supposed to be handle by various branches of government?
Is there some fatal flaw in my logic I am just not understanding?
Marco.
Makes me wonder how many appointments being blocked by GOP senators is making the delegation of responsibility more difficult? If the law requires a certain appointed official, whose office is currently unfilled, to sign off on certain activities is delaying important work WRT the blowout response.
Obama's the CEO. He picked Salazar. Salazar either didn't discover the mess at the R&O agency, MMS, or didn't act to fix it. And MMS is the tool that the USG has in its arsenal. Then, of course, Obama picked a lawyer as his top dog in running the post explosion op. There's no opinion in what I've written; it's factual. I wouldn't have picked a lawyer, and that is my opinion.
And there is also nothing in what you've written that means anything.
It was an apolitical, nonpartisan response to 1) why are you people looking towards Obama for a solution? and 2) can't we blame the Republicans for hanging up an appointment?
The big problem was picking Elizabeth Birnbaum, a Washington bureaucrat lawyer to head MMS. It doesn't appear that she had ever managed anything larger than an $11 million/year advocacy group. She was probably not the type to go out and visit the field offices and the industry and find out what whas actually going on. She jumped or was pushed as soon as the heat was on.
MMS director resigns amid criticism"
I think their excuse was that she had been working on getting the wind project offshore Cape Cod over the regulatory hurdles - something that had become feasible after Teddy's passing.
Cue another lawyer to head of MMS....
Obama picks official to head oil oversight industry
" a former assistant U.S. attorney....with expertise in organizational oversight. He served from 2002-2008 as the independent monitor for the District of Columbia's police department, ensuring compliance with civil rights and other laws.
Bromwich was the Justice Department's inspector general from 1994-1999"
Looks like the right skill set and prior experience to reform a decrepit/corrupt agency.
I do wonder if Obama will offer up Salazar's head to appease the "Obama isn't doing enough" crowd, though. Salazar had an opportunity to clean up MMS and said that was his goal, but obviously he didn't do enough. It doesn't help that Salazar is a big proponent of offshore drilling either; right or wrong, the connection is he's friendly with the oil companies more than he's interested in making them clean up their acts.
We should remember that Obama said before the spill that there was very little danger from offshore drilling Salazar believed that as well. I am not sure that I would have necessarily refuted that before the drilling. On the other hand, the safeguards and strong enforcement of regulations were not in place. So we have just been lucky all these years and our luck run out.
Obama screwed up but I think that almost anyone in his position would have believed the same thing. The oil industry had gone for years and hardly anyone would have expected that we were due for a spill of this magnitude.
Putting someone's head on a plate is not going to solve anything. Unfortunately, Obama will probably just see the appropriate response has better procedures and better enforcement. But even if there is a will to do this, where will they find the expertise and resources to do the kind of job that needs to be done. It will take years to get a competent, reliable, and trustworthy group of people in place that will do the job that needs to be done.
Meanwhile, the gusher continues. This spill may never be contained..
I don't think many people polled understand the technicalities of relief wells etc.
My mom complained, " Obama can't get BP to plug the leak".
@Marco -- I don't care whether or not President Obama expresses anger as it is not particularly useful in solving problems. The president's role is similar to that of a ship's captain. A good captain does not express their own distress (fear, anger etc.) during a storm threatening the ship, but rather actively seeks to reassure the crew that he is in command and able to get them through the storm - and then does their best to do so. The captain typically doesn't do this by hiding in his cabin and only talking to the crew through junior officers. The crappier things go and the more goes wrong, the higher the need for the crew to have face time with their captain.
President Obama unfortunately, and I am an admirer, seems to approach the public reflection of his leadership role as optional. I get the distinct impression that, to him, it is a waste of time to address people's concerns when he knows he is doing all he can. He seems to adhere to some pathological (to me) false narrative that the all negative perceptions of his performance can be traced directly to the talking heads in the media. He appears to me to be absolutely tone deaf to the underlying currents of fear and anger in the populace which are influenced by the events and not the media. I believe most people who voted for President Obama are still on his side, they just wish they were more sure he was on theirs.
Break out the Advair.
How flammable is the oil slick floating around the various drilling rigs and ships around the well? The gas flaring is one big flame, and now it looks like they're planning to add some more big flames to the surface. I don't think I'd want to be hanging around the area....Is this an opportunity for an uncontrolled burn?
duh
ROTFL! Shoot! Potato chips all over the keyboard! Damn! this kinda thing happened to me twice yesterday!
Straight answer: Very flammable, dangerous as hell. But, they know that and will proceed with all reasonable caution.
It's clear from Scuttles' 6/13 response to Watson that BP is becoming increasingly concerned about the risks accompanying their accelerated plan.
and, bold added,
I sure hope the understandable wish for speedier containment doesn't wind up in something else entirely.
They're sitting in two miles of water. Is it not possable to add a little bit more hose and space the vessels out a bit?
yes.
One of the siting criteria for the relief well drillships was where the slick was going on the current.
They've had at times workboats spraying water over the slick to bust it up and shoo it away.
The Discoverer Enterprise has a times turned so it's flare is not blowing back toward the ship.
See notes in:
http://www.energy.gov/open/documents/5.2_Item_30_Flow_Data_14JUN_0600_NL...
It's a mess.
When BP warns that something is not so safe ....!!!!
http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/posted/2931/BP_Response_to_FOSC....
Looks like the Discoverer Enterprise was struck by lightning and caught on fire for a bit so they had to halt collection...(AP story on the link)
Is it usual for rigs in the GOM to be hit by lightning?
Thanks for the comments. I thought it would be dangerous, and the photo up top of the evergreen burner is quite dramatic.
It occurs to me that all of the folks on the various ships and rigs are owed a tremendous THANKS. They didn't cause this problem, yet they are in a dangerous spot trying to get it under control and fixed.
I've done a google news search, and I can't find any progress reports on the relief wells. Someone had posted some about 3 weeks ago, but given the BP track record, the silence on the relief wells ( and is there still two or did one get shutdown for spare parts?) I worry that these may not be doing so well.
Wondering if any one else has heard or seen anything.
The new pump and burn solution ( since it will of course not be up for at least a week or more) seems to be a bit more permanent than one would hope.
Update on Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Response - 14 June
http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=2012968&contentId=7062886
http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=9033657&contentId=7061734
This is showing as last updated two days ago. RW1 should be well past 14,000 feet, intended to interesect at 18,000. The best I can tell, they average 150-200 feet per day.
They'll have to slow way down as they get closer.
Just go to the BP site;
http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=2012968&contentId=7062886
the 1st relief well is at 14,000 feet and the second at 9,000 so making good progress at a fair old lick , so far.
I don't think they're going to shout about being ahead of schedule but if our subsea Red Adair, Mr Wright, can get his drill thingy's on target, and he's apparently the best man on the planet for the job, then the Gulf states might just get their first bit of good news since April 20th.
God speed to him and his crew.
Besides the occasional press release (thanks esarlls3),
BP -> "response in detail" -> "how a relief well works"
is updated form time to time,
the graphic is from June 13:
http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/in...
Sorry for off topic but ...
I take huffpost w/ a grain of salt since the post-captions are usually exaggerated, but I do find some interesting stuff.
I don't know how respected Cavner is (a "30 plus year veteran of the oil and gas industry," mostly management?) but he opines that the 6 month drilling moratorium is a good idea.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-l-cavnar/is-the-drilling-moratoriu_...
To Cavner the key issues are:
1. Only 4 of the dozen or so oil companies in the gulf have the resources to clean up a spill
2. Critical components, such as BOPs need to be redesigned
3. Acoustic communications systems need to be installed
4. Third party witnessed safety systems tests need to be mandated
5. Regulations around approval of offshore permits, drilling, production & remedial plans, remediation plans, etc need to be tightened
6. Deepwater risers and collection systems need to be improved/designed.
7. Need to rethink and redesign oil spill recovery techniques
He concludes,
The Huffington Post is a collection of 3000 bloggers. It's not a newspaper. There's no editorial oversight beyond choosing to feature bloggers who seem rational. We have to judge each contributor on his or her own merits.
yes, I agree - that's why I wondered about Cavner's merits.
While I think the moratorium is justified, many of the issues raised here aren't even close to being solvable in 6 months, or are irrelevant.
You aren't going to do a redesign of BOPs in 6 months. Acoustic comm systems are a "nice to have", but certainly would not have affected this outcome. I doubt an effective overhaul of regulations can be done in 6 months. Ditto collection systems. Oil spill recovery improvements is a really tough problem that will take a continuing effort over decades, if we call really solve it at all.
I agree STA. But there's is a two step approach I believe. First, if we are correct about the judgment error of trusting the cmt while displacing that riser, this potential mistake has probably been eliminated as best as it will ever be. Again, the BIG IF, but if they didn't get a good cmt test and then really didn't monitor the mud returns properly that potential error has all but been eliminated IMHO. Every operator in the GOM has seen the details for weeks. I have no doubt there have been thousands of hours of safety lectures given on this subject to every hand on every rig in the GOM as well as every in house engineer. Go on a GOM rig tomorrow and watch how many folks are analyzing their cmt job. And then testing cmt again. And testing again. Watch how many hands they have monitoring mud returns. And watch how many folks are monitoring those watchers. As I mentioned before my SOP was to have three levels of mud return monitors...and that was before the blow out.
Second, BOP design. That will take a good bit of time. Probably closer to a year than 6 months IMHO. Maybe 2 years to come up with a completely new generation. I would also think the new design would include modification to allow an easier capture effort should the BOP fail. But the good news is that it might not be too big a risk to go with current BOP designs since folks will make really, really sure they are in tip top shape. The BOP are only critical if you lose control of the well. If I'm correct that possibility has now been reduced to a small fraction of what it was before the BP blow out. Can't put a number on it and can't make any promises. Someone might find another novel way to lose contol of a well. But I doubt the assumed errors will be seen again for many decades.
Perhaps an intermediate step before new BOP designs are available would be to implement a double stack of BOP's as standard practice.
thanks rockman - good to have some sensible judgment - I always look forward to your comments because I know I'll learn something!
Rock - Spot On !
Best hopes for 95% containment on this mess before the end of the month.
Bill
"Someone might find another novel way to lose control of a well. But I doubt the assumed errors will be seen again for many decades."
I think that's *probably* right, Rockman. I have little doubt that extreme caution is now the order of the day offshore.
However, I'm not willing to bet the Gulf, or any other marine environment, on it, so I think we should adopt Reagan's favorite Russian proverb:
"Trust, but verify." (Доверяй, но проверяй)
Self-regulation just isn't a reasonable option at this point.
kall -- And once again the enraged villagers plead for the help of Rockman, Inc. Rockman will consider their cries after he finishes his bowl of Blue Bell. We must have our priorities, after all.
I just had vanilla ice cream mixed with fresh blueberries (5 lb at Farmers &
FishersMarket for $15). Experiment that WORKED ! :-))Alan
Since the shear ram BOPs are the last line of defense, they have to be able to shear and seal whatever may be in them, drill pipe, pipe joints, casing, etc.
Tests run by West Engineering for MMS show that they are not able to do this in many cases.
Review of Shear Ram Capabilities
Evaluation of Sheer Ram Capabilities
It appears that BOPs have become primarily used for testing and other operations, and that development of their former primary function of blowout prevention has not kept pace with increasingly difficult to shear pipes.
They should also be able to sense a blowout and function autonomously without requireing power or signaling from the surface.
True Merrill. In fact when I saw your oft repeated "last line of defense" comment it made me think: after 35 years in the oil patch and looking back at the blow outs I'm famiiar with I would describe BOP's as "The worse line of defense". To my failing memory it seems as though the worst events involved BOP's that didn't function properly. Though it certain has happened I can't personally recall a single incident where the BOP did function effectively.
Perhaps the first requirement for a new BOP design should be that it have two shear rams, so there's always at least one that isn't aimed at a pipe joint.
If I told BOP manufacturers I need a ram shear that could damn near cut diamonds and I have 400 million to spend, could I get a better mousetrap?
Heh, turns out cavner was on the rachel maddow show last night - i'm just watching the video now.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show#3769...
An excellent interview about the ecological impacts of GoM oil spill: http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2284
Thanks for posting this. I think it presents a very rational view of the consequences, from a authoritative source without sensationalism.
There is a lot of blame to go around with respect to who is responsible for the oil spill in the Gulf. Some of the posts on this web site have been blaming the left or the right for the spill. The truth is both BP and the government share in the blame.
BP took a lot of short cuts they should not have taken, appear to be covering up on the magnitude to the spill and have not been putting in the resources required to clean up the oil. Government over at least three Administrations, Obama's, Bush's and Clinton's, allowed MMS to be corrupted by big oil. Thus, in the case of BP, MMS waived many of the regulations that may have prevented the spill in the first place.
In terms of the left and right blame game.
As far as the left is concerned under Obama's watch, MMS was ordered to concentrate many of their regulatory resources on alternate energy sources like wind farms instead of the deep sea oil rigs. www dot washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Enamored-with-wind_-Obama-ignored-drilling-risks-96334959.html. In addition, the left forbid oil companies from drilling in much safer locations like Anwar, where a spill of the nature in the Gulf, could have been much more easily contained. As to the idea of the left that oil is a limited resource, the gusher in the Gulf appears to prove otherwise. In addition, Obama knew as far back as April the magnitude of the oil spill and the fact it was unlikely BP could contain it, yet did not take the steps necessary to mitigate the disaster like putting the resources in place to skim the oil, like the Arabs successfully did, expedite Jindal's requests for sand barriers and accept the help of other Nations, etc etc etc.
As far as the right is concerned, like Obama's MMS, Bush did not ensure that the MMS under his watch was not corrupted by big oil money. Since the Gulf oil spill did not occur under Bush's watch, it is unclear if Bush would have acted any differently under the same circumstances and gathered the resources necessary to mitigate the spill from the very beginning. One can only wonder.
The idea that the "left" is responsible because of the exclusion of ANWAR (or anywhere else) to drilling is ridiculous in the extreme.
Presumably oil companies would then be satisfied, having extracted another 1,000,000 BPD from ANWAR (in an 85 MMBPD world) that they would never ever want to drill for oil anywhere else, especially offshore is stupid. Very very stupid.
The idea that this blowout, of whatever size it ultimately is determined to be, disproves the limited nature of oil resources may be the stupidest thing I've ever read on this site.
Why would oil companies eschew offshore operations if, as you imply, they contain unlimited resources?
Also your contention that the blowout is due to the MMS spending too much time on windmills is probably the second stupidest thing I've ever read on this site.
Can someone explain why we're not drilling in Utah at breakneck speed?
geezer -- I'm not a Rocky Mnt geologist but I'll hazard a guess: lack of economicly viable prospects.
Same reason Willie Sutton didn't rob barber shops.
Ordinarily, I feel that this sort of vitriol is inappropriate for TOD, (Unless, of course I am in a bad mood, I feel justified, and I have had a rum or two and I am the one ranting) ;-)
In this case, valverex, I think you held back.
I am tempted to rant on but I close with Herr Einstein's quote: (IIRC)
There are only two things that are infinite: The universe and stupidity, and I am not sure about the universe."
"As to the idea of the left that oil is a limited resource, the gusher in the Gulf appears to prove otherwise."
This is nonsense. See the last thread for simple arithmetic.
Also, didn't the last poster promoting this idea tell us that PO was a *Bush-Cheney-Big Oil* myth?
This conspiracy is growing so vast... we might *all* be part of it!
Kal: "This conspiracy is growing so vast... we might *all* be part of it!" We are but it's not that conspiracy. Pogo identified the conspiracy in, I think, 1970.
The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy.
"It's always nice to have visitors drop in from Fantasy Island."
P.S. Below is my reference on the fact President Obama was aware as early as April about the magnitude of the spill and the fact it was unlikely it could be contained, yet did not take the steps necessary to mitigate the environmental impact. .... "Carol Browner, director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, told Obama at one of the earliest briefings in late April that the blowout would likely lead to an unprecedented environmental disaster, senior White House aides told The Daily Beast. Browner warned that capping a well at such depths had never been done before, and that they ought to expect an oil spill that would continue until a relief well was drilled in August, the aide said.That early briefing on the scope of the spill—and enormous technical challenges involved in fixing it—might help explain the sense of fatalism that has infused Obama's team from the start." http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-04/obama-briefed-...
It is apparent that the administration is in "reaction" mode and "pr control" mode, rather than "proactive leadership" mode. If it had been me sitting as president, I'd simply have asked the relevant people to have a report on my desk in 24 hours answering the question "is there signficant chance that cleanup will be needed?". If the answer is yes, the president is commander of the CG and things set in motion.
I'm not saying that I'm smarter or otherwise. Most any of you would have done the same - most of us have instinctively understood the post-Katrina lessons of relying on beaurocracy to do things. We grasp the possible magnitude it could become in the future. Most people who have some kind of "accomplishment" in their lives grasp staying ahead of, rather than trying to catch up to, possible disaster. But instead, the President appeared to simply let the beaurocracy grind along slowly, and two MONTHS later, we have under 30K people working on cleanup and mitigation, with hundreds of companies, organizations, etc, still wondering "Who is in charge?" And, "How do I get my solution hired on?"
That's reactive image protection, rather than proactive management. Obama can be criticized for that, fairly, but as for the speed of the beaurocracy? It existed long before he came along, long before Bush came along, and it'll still be as calcified and ponderous long into the future.
The press doesn't know how to even ask the right questions, and so we get questions like "who is in charge of cleaning up" and answers from our daily briefer that they never seem to comprehend. And, we have an institutional view of getting stuff done. BP's actions are "what's in the rolodex" as I like to call it. The federal governemnt's is just as constricted, as it has no interest in the marketplace of ideas. It merely wants to call the top name on the list and ask 'how big will the bill be?".
We have a problem with hundreds of "solutions" out there seeking to be employed, but being put off and put off. Think about the implications of that for a while.
The great part about all of these "hundreds of solutions" is that they require no actual proof of effectiveness in order to get some shrieking harpy on Fox News to blame Obama for not throwing money at the erstwhile saviors.
Or, to be fair, someone on TOD to equate thousands of ideas with thousands of workable ideas.
Right click and view image: XKCD, amazingly on point in "Worst-Case Scenario"
original link: http://www.xkcd.com/748/
I realize this is probably a silly question, but other than “we’ll do it right this time”, is there anything preventing the relief wells from becoming their own gushers once they break through?
Not silly at all.
I understand the well design will allow for greater mud flow in the relief well(s) but otherwise only the knowledge of just how dangerous this formation may be is the only thing absolutely preventing another blowout.
You can bet all the centralizers will be run, more than minimum waiting on cement time, cement bond logs, mud pits watched like a hawk, etc, etc.
Well I guess it that americans think Presidents are gods and can command everything.
http://themoderatevoice.com/75009/obama-cinderella/
Cute cartoon but they left out a few things ... Korea and Greece for example.
Why wouldn't they?
He stated for the whole world that his election was going to change the world.
yeah, self proclaimed god... All you need do is believe.
yeah - you skipped the first two essential phrases -
It's easy to criticize .... so why don't we just skip the politics. You've made it perfectly clear a number of times that you dislike Obama - so we don't need to hear it again.
Well, somebody's gotta do it. Or ought to any how. I don't see any body else volunteering to at least try. Pretty easy to critisize. What are you doing to help the global situation?
Don't know if this has been posted here before or not, but NOLA has a good article on just how difficult it is to get a good concrete seal on these wells. I'm a highway design engineer and work with cement/concrete all the time, and we have government specs and requirements for all our concrete uses (bridges, roads, culverts, pipes, whatever). It blows my mind that there is NO government specs on the use of cement in these wells.
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/bad_cement_job...
Bendal -- The specs on the cmt aren't the issue. Companies like Halliburton come up with the best specs for a particular application. But that often doesn't matter. With your background I suspect that if you study the conditions under which cmt is put in place you'll understand just how difficult it is to get a good cmt job. On every cmt job I've seen pumped in the last 35 years I had expectations that it wouldn't go according to plan. Not only do we have a standard procedure for testing cmt (leak off test) we have standard remediation tools on the rig for every cmt job. The LOT fails and you go in with the squeeze tool and pump more cmt. And then test again. I've seen this process repeated a dozen times on a single cmt job before they could get it to hold. Blaming Halliburton or any other cmt company is a non-starter: their contract specifically says they ARE NOT giving a 100% guarantee on the cmt job. In fact, if they have to squeeze a failed cmt job then the operator has to pay extra for that. And keep paying until they get it right. You can always get a good cmt job...if you spend the time and money. I suspect the failing of the BP well may have been a desire to not spend the extra $'s to squeeze their cmt job. The sqz job itself isn't that expensive. The rig time to do it (around $1 million) is a much bigger expense.
Rockman, I hear what you're saying. Specs don't matter if the man in charge says "do it anyway", which is why I like to come down on the side of rigorous inspections and experienced inspectors.
One of my projects involved a continuous pour for a 540 CY bridge support. Since it was in midsummer they started the pour at night due to the heat, but halfway through the onsite tests found the cement ration was bad. The inspector sent back to the plant 17 consecutive truckloads before the cement ratio was acceptable.
By that time the contractor was sweating bullets; the bent was sitting on top of a 175' high column, only accessible by crane and bucket, was half-poured, and our specs called for an emergency joint if he couldn't get good cement in the next 20 minutes. The inspector was under a LOT of pressure to approve those truckloads, but he knew his stuff and didn't give in, and the job got done the way we wanted it.
Bendal -- You missed my point. The best cmt specs in the world, i.e absolute gold plated spec, can still deliver bad cmt jobs. That's was my point: bad cmt jobs happen all the time no matter how good they are or how much you spend. It's just reallly difficult to get a good cmt job on the first try. That's why you sqz and sqz and sqz until you get it right. But you're right: if "the man" says no to the sqz job then you're often screwed.
These kind of cement jobs have the added difficulty of being inaccessible to direct inspection too, so all you've got to work with is what the tests tell you. Our cement can be visually inspected and samples taken in place; your's can't, at least not easily. If the tests aren't 100% reliable, does that mean that better tests/verification methods are needed? In situations like this, having an unreliable cementing job just doesn't sound like a great idea.
Cement jobs on oil wells can be inspected by cement bond logs like those that BP decided not to run. Oilfield cementing does have "best practices" which often get cementing service companies derided by the customers when they attempt to employ those practices, until something goes wrong of coarse. Your correct we can't easily inspect those cement jobs, but we can deduce the outcome and help that final outcome produce good results when the best practices are applied.
You pick the placement on your casing string if at all posible in a formation that gives you a better chance to get a good cement job.
The operator should circulate the well enough prior to a cement job to get gas out of the mud and you get your drilling fluid properties within certain parameters, so you can ensure proper mud removal while cementing.
They should properly centralize the casing so you don't have problems with mud channels in the cement job.
You should plan on pumping enough cement to make sure that zonal isolation occurs and that cement can have a better chance at being barrier to well flow.
In a synthetic mud environment as most deep water wells are, you must clean the mud out with surfactant spacers that create a "water wet" environment so your cement can bond with the well surfaces and not have a micro annulus between the well bore or casing and the cement.
Oilfield cementing has many aspects and I only pointed out a few here. BP didn't follow all of the best practices and now all workers in the Deep Water gulf of Mexico has to pay for BP's actions right along with the millions of other people affected.
Of course to get good experienced inspectors they need to have years of industry experience (like ROCKMAN and others here). And then you are in the position of having inspectors with a "cozy relationship" with the work they are inspecting.
Catch 22.
es -- Only as cozy as a half gallon of my favorite Blue Bell ice cream will get them. But that's why I would assign only former employees to monitor their former company: residual anomosity would solve any coziness.
Not necessarily. IF they worked for Rockman Inc.and got too cozy with either the sub-contractor and/or owner, they would: 1)have their balls nailed to the floor, or 2) sent to Wyo in the middle of winter @ -25F to piss in a pop bottle for lack facilities. The baloney sandwich for lunch would be optional.
I have heard of some large wells but 20k bls and 33mmcf a day???
How big can a well get?
Ganzo Azul blew out in the Mexican golden lane in about 1919 and produced over 300,000 barrels a day for quite a while
jeff -- For a GOM well that volume is definately on the high side. Especially now that I've seen the log of the main pay sand: it's only about 60' thick. I've seen DW GOM wells with oil pay sands 300'-400' thick. There have been wells that could be produced at even higher rates but to do so would have begged for reservoir damage and premature well loss. That's what makes the blow out so bizarre. If the well is flowing at such a rate (or even higher) had some engineer recommended producing it at such a high level he might have been laughed out of the room...or fired. Had the blow out occured in an uncased hole it likely would have collapsed on itself by now. But the csg really makes this about your worse case nightmare. Had the well been set up completely for prodcution there would have been addition flow controls in place. It really was the worse possible moment to lose control of the well. Not really a Black Swan IMHO but not too far away either.
I think I made it through your lingo but there was a leap, here:
Regarding a Black Swan or "rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations".
1.) Do you only mean the event and subsequent failures, but the situation is now predictable and becoming stable and (even if) a relief well is the only solution?
2.) It the flow, csg (per your remarks) still part of the ongoing event so those dynamics are a persistent (growing) threat, and the Swan is still with us?
2b.) Do your observations change expectations for the relief well, so we will only know the Swan is dead in retrospect?
math -- The cmt failing was far from a rare event. I expect bad cmt jobs. That's why we test and re-cmt as needed. And the well blowing out when they displaced the drill mud was far from a rare event IF you start with the proposition: what would happen if the cmt failed when you took the mud weight off? The well would flow on you and try to blow out....100% absolute.
The near Black Swan, or rare, event, to me is the fact that the hands on the rig didn't notice what seems to be obvious indications that the well was coming in. So odd I still wonder if I have the details correct. I expect the RW to get the job done. Might take a lot longer than anyone wants to see though. A RW blowing out wouldn't be a BS IMHO but is still possible.
The gamma ray looks persuasive, 60 ft pay. Something bugs me about that. Original well plan was to drill to 20,000 ft. Lost circulation zone above stopped them from continuing, and improvised the long tapered liner for "production keeper." Okay, fine, I follow all that, but what if the big pay was at 19,000 and overbalanced mud fractured the seal between logged pay and much bigger HPHT reservoir below it?
Glad we have some data (finally) but I'd like to see the whole well and a dipmeter.
Awful lot of casual use of Black Swan here. Might be good to read the book.
When a sequence of predictable errors cause a peak catastrophe, that's not a swan, it's corporate capitalism.
But...but...no one could have predicted something like this might happen. It was just one of those things that happen, you know. No one's fault or anything. It was an accident. :~D
Hey syncro-so disappointed you did not show for the grunion hunt....This spill is horrible and will take many many years to recover from if that is even possible. See ya back at the fort
ROCKMAN, I appreciate your commentary and your insight. I totally agree with your comments on this.
I would have thought that this well would have sanded up at these high flow rates, what ever they end up being. Do you think that the N2 foam cement job with severe channeling could be acting as a poor mans gravel pack?
I've had some recent discussions with Well Testing and TCP guys that were on the Thunderhorse when the wells were flow tested and they agree that it's highly unlikely that this well can be anywhere near some of the extreme flow rates that some of the talking head professors have come up with.
Any thoughts?
Had not thought of the gravel pack idea wildman. GRAVEL PACK: a method of consolidating/stablizing a reservoir to allow it to flow at high rates without collapsing. This might give Halliburton a new market angle:"Our cement is so good you can still make great well no matter how badly you screw it up."
It appears that the "bubble" on the BOP has moved in the past 24 hours...it now shows a 15-20 degree BOP list. Two days ago the BOP was vertical.
Also flow or strong movements below the BOP.
Is this the worst case scenario that BP or HLS has not discussed?
I haven't been watching the BOP - can anyone confirm this?
Off bubble? Thats not good. Getting back to the unbelievable flows of some wells...it really astonishes me to read about these small(diameter) holes we dig to thousands of feet that are capable of commuting hundreds of thousands of bls a day. I think there was one in New Guinea last year that ip rates were up to 100k blsd oe. If I remember correctly it was about 700mmcfmd + 11k blsd. This blows my mind. I am happy if I can get 40blsd. Of course I am playing in a different league.
BTW I am new here and am excited to communicate with what are obviously very experienced oil men. Love the oil biz. Wish I would have started in it when I was a lot younger.
The bubble or clinometer on the BOP has been centered until yesterday. now it shows a 10-15 degree off bubble. The ROV mission calls it a bulls eye operation when they examine the bubble. It is located just below the flange on top of the BOP.
Not seeing it. The BOP was leaning slightly after the DWH sunk. It moved around at bit when the riser was cut. I haven't seen any movement recently.
The "top hat" wobbles around slightly, but it always has. (Its amazing it doesn't move more considering its connected to ship in open water via a mile of pipe).
No flow coming up from below the BOP that I can see.
Recently they have been checking pressure gauges, and I think preping the BOP for the next phase.
Sometimes they blow the oil out of the way with a big fan to get a clearer look at things, and the ROV on the other side then gets a face full of oil.
They have been checking the "spirit levels" on the manifold (i think) the ROV title says "manifold relocation", and its definitely another piece of kit, not the BOP.
Where are you getting that information? Are you talking about the whole BOP assembly, or the top cap that is sitting upon it? 15 or 20 degrees would be alot if you are talking about the BOP and the well head. I do not see the evidence of that. The top hat is another matter.
I think I have seen 2 bulls eyes on there. One on the flexi joint and one lower. They may well give different results with the joint one possibly worse. If there is a lot of jigging around of the cap it may be moving the joint relative to the BOP and the ball moves. Just thoughts.
NAOM
BP Deepwater Oil Spill - the New (and Allegedly "Better") BP Plans
From what I understand BP is providing new and improved ways to store more and more oil in different ships. This is temporary and cannot be a better plan. The only real final plan is one that plugs this well. They continue to try and find ways to tap this well when they should be spending all their time and energy PLUGGING IT. From what I can see they do not have a plan to "plug" it now or ever.
What do you imagine the relief wells are for?
Surely you cannot be thinking that BP is trying to turn Macondo into a profit center?
“What do you imagine the relief wells are for?”
They are there to drill down and inject cement into the original well bore plugging it. I pray they are successful. Has anyone asked what kind of BOP is being used on these relief wells-? BP has projected out several months stating the volume of oil they will be able to capture over time. And this time frame runs past the time these relief wells should have plugged this well. Please tell me why there is an overlap here-?
“Surely you cannot be thinking that BP is trying to turn Macondo into a profit center?”
When the well blow BP lost millions, perhaps billions. If they plug this well these loses cannot be recouped. If they stick with it no matter the damage done and eventually get the well producing 50,000 barrels of oil a day + the gas then within a year or two they will get back every dime lost.
If you were BP would you abandon it or try to tap it-?
I am sorry but I just don’t trust BP’s motives
This well is a complete loss and cannot be rehabilitated in any way to eventually be used as a production well. Keep in mind that it blew-out before any completion work was done and the post blow-out damage to the well bore is not repairable. After the relief wells are successful, I have no doubt that BP (or whom ever takes over ?) will continue development of the discovery but that development will be through new wells. The relief wells will never be used for production in that they are being drilled as part of well control and were not designed or drilled to be part of any production development.
I'd plug it and drill another hole next to it. More carefully.
Tool, Surely you are a Troll....
Zero Hedge: "Here Come The Ultimatums: House Rep. Stearns Asks BP President McKay To Resign"
Current Hearing with Oil Executives....
The ExxonMobil Chairman just said, as shown in a clip on Fox News, when quizzed about the spill efforts, "that's why we spend so much effort to ensure these things don't happen because we are not well positioned to do much about them in a hurry if they do happen". That's really a paraphrase but I'm sure the soundbite will be shown on the news all day and tonight for all to see. Actually, its a bold and truthful statement and he's not about kidding anyone in the room. The complexity and risks involved in this Industry are not very forgiving when bad decisions are made.
Zing!! that is about as honest a statement as a guy in his shoes can make publicaly.....good show
Exxon really learnt from Valdez ..past 15 yrs or so Exxon has been probably the most safety minded company around...really proactive safety approach ....see things happen wrong and take time to correct it with concerned individual kinda deal....
ali: "Exxon really learnt from Valdez" Maybe, BP could stop their danse macabre if they replaced some of the present officers with Exxon executives. But, maybe again, no one in the industry will go near this sick guppy now.
Fitch gave BP a huge downgrade today, from AA to BBB, just above junk.
It's unusual to see such a big move all at once.
As the damages increase, BP becomes vulnerable to a takeover by an unscrupulous buyer who might attempt to loot the assets and leave the liabilities to be paid by a bankrupt shell.
As a UK corporation, BP is protected under EU standards concerning corporate takeovers. There is some information here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takeover
So for example, if a shareholder reaches 30% ownership, they are supposed to do certain things, make a general offering, which might be expensive.
These rules are really not adequate protection against a ruthless, state-supported buyer, from, let's say, country X. A group of agents could act in concert, each one acquiring a few per cent. They might buy the shares outright, they are cheap now, but an even cheaper way to do it is to control asset managers such as mutual funds and use other people's money. Of course, they are not supposed to do this, but they could decide to break the law.
If a state-supported actor gains control of the board, they could begin to sell the valuable assets, each sale for a little cash and big IOU's, to companies you have never heard of. The assets then get resold multiple times, until they all wind up in the control of country X. At this point, all of the buyers fold up shop, and the old BP is left with the GOM damages and a lot of IOU's.
What such a buyer would accomplish is to remove the valuable cash-producing assets from the burden of the GOM damages.
This is why I kind of like the escrow idea.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2010/06/mysterious_structure_...
"Mysterious structure at bottom of gulf"
It's the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey?
Nope ... looks like the remains of a suburb of Atlantis to me.
That was my first observation.
HAL would know.
I'd be willing to bet money that that grainy, black-and-white video did not come from the ROV's that have been uploading high definition video to other news sources and are sending out live highly compressed but still RGB images continuously. If it can be established that the images aren't from the ROV's working the site, the next question begged is what are the images of at all? It could be footage from a bridge somewhere on a river for all we know.
Some questions while looking at the ROV:s today:
1) The Top Hat is bumping up and down and from one side to the other. I have seen this before but now the movements are much more violent than before. Is that because an increased leak due to increased erosion?
2) Some days ago the body of the Top Hat could be seen through the flow. Now the Top Hat is not visible at all. Due to increased flow?
3) There are some slimy sort of things drifting around in the water. I have not seen those things before. What are they?
4) One of the ROV:s was near the seafloor at the bottom of the BOP and it seems to be a crater around the wellhead about 6-8 feet diameter (my rough estimation). Have the crater always been there or has it appeared lately. And if so, why?
I hope someone will clarify.
Kind regards from Sweden.
Noob question here … beware … I am wondering about the reserve well. If its possible to find the end of the pipe in the ground (amazing), instead of pumping it full with drilling mud and then concrete and worrying about cracks in the casing for leaks etc. etc. why not place a cap on the pipe? It seems it would be much more effective to prevent pressurized liquids / gas from getting into a pipe than to stop them coming out? Surely this has been thought of and discarded, why does this not work?
Exact pathway is is uncertain, and steel pipe goes all the way through the oil producing formation. Filling it with a couple hundred feet of concrete at several different places is the best solution.
Alan
Top hat was shut down this morning due to fire on top of the receiving ship. Is in process of beeing restarted.
http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=2012968&contentId=7062935
“4) One of the ROV:s was near the seafloor at the bottom of the BOP and it seems to be a crater around the wellhead about 6-8 feet diameter (my rough estimation). Have the crater always been there or has it appeared lately. And if so, why?”
Here is one possible explanation. See slide #1 in the link below
http://albums.phanfare.com/isolated/g0vulMDu/1/4682842
Can anyone tell me is there a way to post these slides--?
When the outer casing was inserted, they used hydraulic jets to insert it (shallower water they just pile drive it in). Could leave "crater" around BOP. Not sure.
Alan
At ~17:00 CDT none of the video feeds from the ROV's showed them excavating.
Capping the well would result in ~7,000 psi inside the well at the sea floor which could cause the damaged and poorly constructed well casing to rupture causing oil and gas to erupt from the sea floor.
The coupling would not seal against the outside of the well casing sufficiently to prevent leaks with a pressure of ~7,000 psi. Oil and gas would come spurting out from the sea floor around the concrete.
The weight of at least 2.4 million pounds of concrete would tend to sink into the silt crushing the well casing.
Can cement cure in sea water at a pressure of ~2,300 psi?
How does one move wet concrete down there?
An ROV might not be strong enough to turn the lever on the ball valve.
Can a ball valve seal against 7,000 psi? A gate valve might be a better choice.
Did TOD create a thread for all the ideas that will not work?
When they stopped sucking gas & oil up the pipe, it would increase flow out the edges of the "tophat". I suspect that is what you are seeing.
Alan
msnbc reporting oil recovery operations stopped due to fire
Just cross Fidelity...
HOUSTON, June 15 (Reuters) - BP Plc (BP:$31.29,00$0.62,002.02%) temporarily shut down oil-collection efforts from its blown-out Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday after a collection vessel on the surface caught fire, the company said.
A fire on the drilling derrick of the Discoverer Enterprise drillship was extinguished and there were no injuries, BP said in a statement. BP said the fire could have been caused by a lightning strike.
BP said it expects to restart collection this afternoon
UPDATE 3:18 p.m. ET: A spokesman for BP now says the company has no estimate on when the containment system will restart. It originally had said the process would resume this afternoon.
UPDATE 2:50 p.m. ET: BP has issued a statement:
At approximately 9:30 am CDT, a small fire was observed at the top of the derrick on the Discoverer Enterprise. The fire was quickly extinguished. The preliminary view is that the fire was caused by a lightning strike.
There were no injuries. All procedures were followed and, as a precaution, the LMRP containment operation was shut-down. All safety shut-down systems operated as designed.
Final safety and operational assurance inspections are underway and operations are expected to recommence this afternoon.
UPDATE 2:39 p.m. ET: BP says the small fire started about 10:30 a.m. ET and was quickly contained. No one was injured, and collection of oil is expected to resume this afternoon, the company says.
UPDATE 2:36 p.m. ET: The Associated Press follows with an alert saying the fire was caused by a lightning strike.
_____
Bulletin from Reuters: "BP says small fire at top of derrick on Discover Enterprise caused temporary shutdown of oil spill collection."
We're trying to find out more and will post an update as soon as we can. Read more about the Discover Enterprise here.
http://fieldnotes.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/06/15/4512892-fire-halts-oil-...
How often do ships/rigs/etc. in the GOM get hit by lightning and have fires started?
Tons of t-storms in summer in the gulf-increasing over the next month or two. And water spouts.
kall -- BP certainly has the luck of the Irish: seen many rigs hit with lightning. But never saw it cause a fire before..
Perhaps others are more careful about having organic volatiles sitting about in open containers.
UPDATE 4:06 p.m. ET: BP now says oil containment operations have resumed after five hours.
UPDATE 3:30 p.m. ET: A BP official tells NBC News' Tom Costello, "Those rigs are the tallest things out there — they get hit all the time."
If the BOP is leaning, The overturning moment may be enough to tip it over. It may be a good time to move the ships in case a huge gas bubble erupts and sinks everything.
So if the drillship is shut that would mean all of the oil is gushing out of the BOP at the moment? Might be a good time to take some measurements if anyone wants to try to figure out the real flow rate?
Skandi ROV 1:
http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/in...
forgive my ignorance, but why isn't the existing casing being chased by another drill casing (sans drillhead) or well pipe of the same diameter as the final stage that protrudes into the reservoir? If the leading end was tapered and the end open or openable, it seems to me that at that depth, hitting the last leg of casing would create enough of a seal to allow mud to be pumped like a redo. Now that the damaged pipe and top is off the BOP, would it not be feasible to pull out any remaining drill pipe to facilitate this if it has not been blown out already?
Compared to the diameter of the final stage of well casing, what minimum diameter of pipe would be necessary to allow enough volume of mud to offset the well's pressure so that if a smaller diameter pipe is used, that perhaps it could be remotely swedged elctrically or hydraulically enough to stabilize the event.
crws -- Not sure if I follow you. But if the casing at the BOP were open and accessible they could run drill pipe to bottom and pump mud. Wouldn't be easy but could be done. If they could get a tight seal with the top of the BOP they could pump mud down from that point. That was the Top Kill method. But it was a poor seal and most of the mud was pumped out of the BOP and not down the casing. With regards to casing diameter it doesn't matter. It's the height of the mud column that counts. A sufficiently heavy mud weight (> 14 #/gallon would stop the flow IF they had a 18,000' column of mud. But the well bore below the sea floor is only 13,000' so it would take a column of 16+ ppg or mud of that height to kill the flow
Rockman, Do you think the well casing and BOP stack is really as fragile and unstable as everyone makes it out to be?
It seems to me that it stayed structurally intact through the original blowout. Then it withstood the force of the riser assembly (a lever made of heavy pipe 1 mile long) collapsing to the sea floor and kinking just above the BOP. The flex joint on top (that the bullseye is attached to) appears to have been permanently bent a few degrees, but everything below that appears to be solid as a rock considering what it went through.
It and the well head it is sitting are built out of massive pieces of heavy steel. Even with some assumed down hole damage, it still looks like it is pretty substantial structurally.
What do you think?
James -- How fragile? Not as fragile as my ego but not nearly a tough as my hard head. They are a relatively simple hunk of metal compared to the Space Shuttle. I would just guess they'll stay intact. But blown seals happen all the time but I doubt that would add much to the problem. I would say the weakest parts of the entire system are the cmt job behind the shallow csg strings. There was no need to test these anywhere close to the pressure levels seen in the flowing reservoir. Just a suspicion but that may have been why they backed off the Top Kill effort: fear that they would break down these shallower csg shoe and have an underground blow or maybe even breach the area outside the csg around the wellhead. My next big worry would be the wellhead losing its connection to the multiple csg strings and falling over. But The drill pipe would probably keep it in place.
.
Rockman, is it possible to cut the BOP off and pump mud?
DBL
DBL -- Don't know the BOP/well head connection enough to guess. But the BOP is designed to delatch from the well head. That system may be to damaged to work. Plus the drill pipe is still stuck in there.
for instance, roughly like this:
The pipe would continue on up to the surface/drill rig. If a closed, rounded bullet shaped end were used, then the smaller diameter pipe would let the well flow out around it until the last bit when the tapered end contacted the 7" tapered casing shoulder and effectively sealed it? The pipe could be filled with mud on the way down, then bored out and the well top killed when in place? Is the BOP column a straight shot through or has it been triggered to crimp shut near or below the annular ring, which may or may not be there?
There seems to be a lot of pipes and collectors to be attached to the BOP. It now seems that this device is becoming pretty shaky at best. Now what happen if it crack/broke/fell of the floor, it`s game over. Basically nothing in the world could now stop the oil gush. Basically the effect will be apocalyptic and the GOM would become a lifeless oil pool. It`s mind boggling that we are still drilling in deep water without knowing what to do in case of an accident like that. It`s called accident because no matter how you plan for, it went wrong anyway. As we speak Chevron is drilling 1.6 mile down near Newfoundland Canada. If something happen there, no way they can fix that and have oil recovery teams available so far out. Looks like humans are now playing with matches in the firework factory.
as usual, spending about 1 hour per day watching the oil spill out of
LMRP. Today, waiting for them to connect the Q4000 and see the oil noticeably decrease. However, it looked much worse than usual today, and now I read that it is much worse, since they stopped pumping any oil at all to due to fire on the first ship.
Two questions
1. Can we guestimate total flow from what we see now spewing out of the LMRP compared to what we've seen when they were taking 15,000 bpd?
2. When are they going to hook up the Q4000?
It it just me, or does it appear the flow has increased?
Could just be the angle.
wow check it out now. You're right it looks like it. Because of the fire I presume. Pretty frightening.
It looks terrifying...
Valrex, When the left starts calling people "stupid" you know they have lost the argument. As to my 3 points that you have no credible reply to:
1) Under Obama's watch, MMS was ordered to concentrate many of their regulatory resources on alternate energy sources like wind farms instead of the deep sea oil rigs. www dot washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Enamored-with-wind_-Obama-ignored-drilling-risks-96334959.html.
FYI, MMS is already saying that it was due to limited resources they were unable to dedicate the amount of oversight necessary to adequately regulate BP. So with limited resources, Obama's MMS decided to allocated more resources to Wind turbines instead of deep water oil rigs. Logic tells you, that if the priority had been given to dedicating more MMS regulatory resources to deep oil rigs, maybe the oil spill in the Gulf could have been prevented.
2) As to the idea of the left that oil is a limited resource, the gusher in the Gulf appears to prove otherwise.
FYI “There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,” said Samantha Joye, from the University of Georgia, who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather information from the spill. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column,” Dr Joye told the newspaper.
After studying footage of the gushing oil scientists on board the research vessel Pelican, which is gathering samples and information about the spill, said that it could be flowing at a rate of 25,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil a day, or 3.4 million gallons a day." The oil has been flowing at this rate since April and, unless capped, is expected to continue flowing for months may be years. Seems like a lot of oil down there in them hills to me. http://www.thegenerator.com.au/news/climate/4055-scientists-find-vast-un...
3) The left did not allow oil drilling in much safer location where a disaster of this magnitude could have been much more easily contained.
FYI Obama just gave a speech where he said that the fact that BP was in mile deep water was because all the easily accessible oil was gone which is just plain untrue. The government owns one third of this country and 95% of federal lands are off limits to oil exploration. Estimates range from 50 years to 1,000 years of untapped oil on currently off limits Federal land and in shallow water. However, no one knows for sure there could be even more oil so the claim all the accessible oil is gone is a lie plain and simple. In these places even a catastrophic failure could have been much more easily contained. Thus, the left's banning of oil production in ANWAR and other off limit Federal land is indefensible. Just answer one question, does it make more sense for the government to give permits to drill in the safer now off limits Federal land or give permits to drill in the very unsafe deep water sites like BPs Deep Water Horizon? You tell me.
1) That article has no meat to it. Nothing but a rapid correspondent's attempt at conjecture and quoting a Rep. congressman. What resources, pray tell, were diverted to wind?
2) The amount of oil spilled so far is a few million barrels, perhaps. Quoting someone who went looking for some of this in the vastness of the Gulf, and concluding from her observations that there is no limit to the oil available in the GOM, really means that you do have no clue. None. Know how many "gallons" of oil the US uses per day?
1000 years of oil. Not even worth wasting time on that one.
Valrex, When the left starts calling people "stupid" you know they have lost the argument. As to my 3 points that you have no credible reply to:
1) Under Obama's watch, MMS was ordered to concentrate many of their regulatory resources on alternate energy sources like wind farms instead of the deep sea oil rigs. www dot washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Enamored-with-wind_-Obama-ignored-drilling-risks-96334959.html.
FYI, MMS is already saying that it was due to limited resources they were unable to dedicate the amount of oversight necessary to adequately regulate BP. So with limited resources, Obama's MMS decided to allocated more resources to Wind turbines instead of deep water oil rigs. Logic tells you, that if the priority had been given to dedicating more MMS regulatory resources to deep oil rigs, maybe the oil spill in the Gulf could have been prevented.
2) As to the idea of the left that oil is a limited resource, the gusher in the Gulf appears to prove otherwise.
FYI “There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,” said Samantha Joye, from the University of Georgia, who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather information from the spill. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column,” Dr Joye told the newspaper.
After studying footage of the gushing oil scientists on board the research vessel Pelican, which is gathering samples and information about the spill, said that it could be flowing at a rate of 25,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil a day, or 3.4 million gallons a day." The oil has been flowing at this rate since April and, unless capped, is expected to continue flowing for months may be years. Seems like a lot of oil down there in them hills to me. http://www.thegenerator.com.au/news/climate/4055-scientists-find-vast-un...
3) The left did not allow oil drilling in much safer location where a disaster of this magnitude could have been much more easily contained.
FYI Obama just gave a speech where he said that the fact that BP was in mile deep water was because all the easily accessible oil was gone which is just plain untrue. The government owns one third of this country and 95% of federal lands are off limits to oil exploration. Estimates range from 50 years to 1,000 years of untapped oil on currently off limits Federal land and in shallow water. However, no one knows for sure there could be even more oil so the claim all the accessible oil is gone is a lie plain and simple. In these places even a catastrophic failure could have been much more easily contained. Thus, the left's banning of oil production in ANWAR and other off limit Federal land is indefensible. Just answer one question, does it make more sense for the government to give permits to drill in the safer now off limits Federal land or give permits to drill in the very unsafe deep water sites like BPs Deep Water Horizon? You tell me.
Stick around... you might learn something.
But do us a favor and lurk. Don't post any more of this Limbaugh trash talk.
Valrex, When the left starts calling people "stupid" you know they have lost the argument. As to my 3 points that you have no credible reply to:
1) Under Obama's watch, MMS was ordered to concentrate many of their regulatory resources on alternate energy sources like wind farms instead of the deep sea oil rigs. www dot washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Enamored-with-wind_-Obama-ignored-drilling-risks-96334959.html.
FYI, MMS is already saying that it was due to limited resources they were unable to dedicate the amount of oversight necessary to adequately regulate BP. So with limited resources, Obama's MMS decided to allocated more resources to Wind turbines instead of deep water oil rigs. Logic tells you, that if the priority had been given to dedicating more MMS regulatory resources to deep oil rigs, maybe the oil spill in the Gulf could have been prevented.
2) As to the idea of the left that oil is a limited resource, the gusher in the Gulf appears to prove otherwise.
FYI “There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,” said Samantha Joye, from the University of Georgia, who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather information from the spill. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column,” Dr Joye told the newspaper.
After studying footage of the gushing oil scientists on board the research vessel Pelican, which is gathering samples and information about the spill, said that it could be flowing at a rate of 25,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil a day, or 3.4 million gallons a day." The oil has been flowing at this rate since April and, unless capped, is expected to continue flowing for months may be years. Seems like a lot of oil down there in them hills to me. http://www.thegenerator.com.au/news/climate/4055-scientists-find-vast-un...
3) The left did not allow oil drilling in much safer location where a disaster of this magnitude could have been much more easily contained.
FYI Obama just gave a speech where he said that the fact that BP was in mile deep water was because all the easily accessible oil was gone which is just plain untrue. The government owns one third of this country and 95% of federal lands are off limits to oil exploration. Estimates range from 50 years to 1,000 years of untapped oil on currently off limits Federal land and in shallow water. However, no one knows for sure there could be even more oil so the claim all the accessible oil is gone is a lie plain and simple. In these places even a catastrophic failure could have been much more easily contained. Thus, the left's banning of oil production in ANWAR and other off limit Federal land is indefensible. Just answer one question, does it make more sense for the government to give permits to drill in the safer now off limits Federal land or give permits to drill in the very unsafe deep water sites like BPs Deep Water Horizon? You tell me.
Estimates range from 50 years to 1,000 years of untapped oil on currently off limits Federal land and in shallow water.
LMAO !!
You do realize that TOD is the "tech center" for those concerned about Peak Oil don't you ?
Your statement has 0.000% probability of being correct.
Hint: Texas, with *NO* restrictions on drilling on or off-shore, cannot produce enough oil for the traffic in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, El Paso et al. Texas is an oil IMPORTER with "Drill, BPaby, Drill !"
Alan
I called the statements stupid, as they are. I can't possibly make a judgment about you personally except to say you are challenged logically and mathematically.
1) Cause / effect. You imply that the focus of the MMC was on wind generation and that this caused this blowout. You have provided zero evidence.
2) This well could spew 100,000 BPD for twenty years and not move the needle on world production. How do you claim that this well proves the unlimited nature of petroleum? You do understand that 100,000 is much less than 85,000,000 right? Even if this field was bigger than Cantarell, the largest offshore field in history, it would not prove unlimited resources. Simple arithmetic.
3) Are you really saying that you folks "on the right" would ban offshore drilling if ANWAR was opened for drilling? That is stupid.
They drill for oil in deepwater because that's where it is. If, as you suggest, oil is somehow unlimited (please elaborate on the mechanisms creating oil at a rate greater than or equal to the current extraction rate) they would still be producing the offshore wells in shallow water that I worked on in my youth.
Edit: Duplicate post.
"...(please elaborate on the mechanisms creating oil at a rate greater than or equal to the current extraction rate)..."
No! Ignore him. Please, don't! ;^)
You clearly haven't looked at oil production figures lately.
Also, you might want to consider that a lot of that federal land you talk about is wilderness, national parks and forests, military bases, and government buildings, and that means that whatever oil might possibly be there is pretty much off-limits to drilling.
There is an old saying that nothing is certain except death and taxes. Death is a reference to the inescapable fact of nature. Taxes is a reference to the inescapable fact of government. In a similar vein, things can be inaccessible because of nature or because of government regulation or, in a democracy, because of public outcry. I would say getting government approval to drill has proven to be not easy at all and therefore the statement is plainly TRUE, not untrue.
My only quibble is with the use of the word 'gone', since there never was a time when the government regulations were permissive.
tsuhod,
Posting twice doesn't make vapid talk show regurg more believable. I can hear Tony commenting; The blowout occurred because you made me drill here.
"2) As to the idea of the left that oil is a limited resource, the gusher in the Gulf appears to prove otherwise."
On this one I'm practicing self control.
There's lots of good info here and most is based on science backed by lots of experience. Occasionally you will see a prophetic comment such as the one yesterday by Rockman regarding a fire on the ship(s) and if you stay up to date on news you know the rest. Before making statements prompting/inciting someone to call them stupid tiptoe around the site and then ask the questions regarding the many things you don't know or maybe you've been misinformed. The folks here will be very helpful. Hint: Don't post news links supporting your position.
PS. "FYI, MMS is already saying that it was due to limited resources they were....."
It isn't FYI, it's CYA.
Concievably, you could locate a drilling platform outside the restricted area, and angle a well bore so as to get to any hydrocarbons under the restricted area. But, this isn't happening, because the drilling companies know there's probably not enough there to be worth the effort.
Rockman: In an answer to a question I asked you mentioned that the mud used was to overcome 13,000 psi, if I understood correctly.
1. The well blows out, does that now imply that the well is "bleeding" oil at 13,000 psi?
2. The well casing. Do we know if the well casing has blown out of the top of the BOP? I remember you writing about a training video you saw (I think it was you) were a well casing exploded into the air. Did that happen in this case?
3. I've read that sand is mixed with the oil and gas - if the well casing is into the reserve, where is the sand coming from?
Thank you for considering my questions,
DBL
DBL -- I would guess no bleeding. New data indicates the reservoir pressure was around 11,900 psi (12.6 ppg). They drilled it with 14 ppg mud (around 13,000 psi) so they should have been overbalanced enough to control the zone.
I'm not sure about csg integrety up shallow but the flow pressure combined with the Top Kill pressures could have done some serious damage IMHO. this shallow csg shoe are not tested to very high pressure since there would be no expectation of such high pressures reaching them.
If the reservoir is blowing down the annulus between the rock and the production csg there's plenty of room for sand to come up with the oil/NG. There such a big pressure drawdown I would expect some sand cut.
No sand cut on the production spreadsheet as of last week. Haven't looked at it this week.
the wellsite is starting to get crowded now....this much of oil transfer taking place all over....rigs..production vessels.....33 MMSCF of daily NG flaring......all sorts of activity..I don't know what the limit of such a complex logistical and engineering environment is before it simply gets just too complex ...but i suspect we are about to find out what this limit might be.....this level of activity is already unprecedented and looks like more vessels are headed this way.....
From BP's update it sounds like they're concerned, too.
BTW - you say 'this way'...are you in the area?
no I am not in the area....did meet with some ppl involved in planning ops over the weekend and just talking generally this was something no one was comfortable with....makes sense ....the level and scale of activity is directly linked to number of tired eyes and distracted minds......I would imagine at some point this issue will have to be raised within BP and no one wants to be the bearer of such news when results are so critical....
I've been wondering the same thing. The latest plan, carried out through the middle of July, calls for:
- Four production vessels - Toisa Pisces, Enterprise, Helix Producer and Clear Leader (I'm always tempted to type Dear Leader for that last one) - plus a redundant FPSO on its way from South America
- At least two tankers with dynamic positioning capability - the Loch Rannoch plus one other for storage from the two active FPSOs
- Three lightering tankers, coming and going shuttling oil to shore
- DD2 and DD3 working on the relief wells
plus how many other support vessels and ROV mother ships?
Can all of them be managed safely?
RDay -- this is what I am wondering about...this is over my pay scale ... while it is not a small area to configure vessel positioning and plan ...it will be be very tricky in real life....since the safe radius for most vessels you have named is different for each .....DD 2/3 is easy to pick out ...big hulking structures and you set a safety radius around and that easy.....but most dynamic positioning vessels have certain area marked out with crosses where there thrusters are underwater so their safe distance is essentially an ellipse as opposed to a circle...FPSO vessels have their own concerns....storage vessels present another kind of safety rules......and then there are smaller tug boats and skimmers in the area....the piping , storage and transport of live crude is another aspect .....then you have the smaller boats running around patting the oil down with water in the vicinity ....freak issues like lightning and rough seas take a whole different meaning in such an environment.... ROV boats have to be in certain positioning to deploy effectively since each ROV is controlled via cable....none are issues in themselves obviously with GPS technologies....still there is lots of small things here are that adding up to the complexity of operations here and I would imagine at some point BP has to acknowledge the quickly rising complexity of operations at the wellsite and hwo far they can push this whole thing safely
I think that they already did...this was in their AM tech update:
It is important to note that as we move into a multi-vessel containment operation the health and safety of our people remains our absolute number one priority. The risks of operating multiple facilities in close proximity must be carefully managed. Several hundred people are working in a confined space with live hydrocarbons on up to four vessels. This is significantly beyond both BP and industry practice. We will continue to aggressively drive schedule to minimize pollution, but we must not allow this drive to compromise our number one priority, that being the health and safety of our people. The continued support and direction of the US Coast Guard and the MMS is essential to a successful and safe operation.
Folks, would you please have a look at this news I marooned at the bottom of the last thread and interpret it for us civilians?
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6604#comment-651143
Thanks!
Latest flow estimates being discussed on CNN now.
(35-60 K per day)
U.S. Scientific Team Draws on New Data, Multiple Scientific Methodologies to Reach Updated Estimate of Oil Flows from BP’s Well
bold added
There's no way currently to measure the delta, but I've been wondering if it's only the estimates that are increasing. And I'm not talking about what happened immediately after the riser was cut off.
Up again. Yikes.
Well, I guess that proves we have 1000 years of oil now.
The latest "oil impact assessment map" shows penetration into the bayous north of Barataria Bay some 5 to 15 miles in various places. One spot looks as though it is running a canal. The orange indicates medium-level oiling. It has breached a line of boom at the back of the bay (big surprise!). According to the map, this is the first deep penetration of wetlands. Or do you all know otherwise?
http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/posted/2931/SCAT_Oil_Spill_Daily...
Regarding the fragility of the BOP, remember it held for 2-1/2 days as tether for the rig, which displaced 52,600 tons and was, no doubt, catching a lot of current.
---------
Many thanks from a noob to the wise and patient regulars here.
Just got a CNN 'breaking news' notice that the Feds have upped their flow estimates to between 35,000 and 60,000 BOPD. That HAS to be some turbulent flow and gas coming out of solution.
The OH logs run at the end of the job (as Rock said previously) only show 60' of pay. Even at good porosity and permeability 60,000 seems pretty damned high otherwise.
And I am now incredibly disappointed in our lawmakers. This is just unnecessary and won't help anybody get to the bottom of anything.. But maybe that's business as usual in Congress.
Typical congressional blather. So very few relevant questions have come from either side or either House.
Oh, right, "Asian culture." Because Japanese and Vietnamese cultures are pretty much the same. Like Norwegians and Albanians have "European culture."
That said, a few BP ritual suicides would be OK by me. Maybe we could do pay-per-view and raise some funds for the families of the dead workers and the Gulf Coast...
Shutting down that mile-long pipe means starting all over again. Seems to me it took four-five days to tune the pipe. Is it going to take that long again?
Is there a clathrate problem again? Or methane hydrate, to be more exact.
No a Lightning Strike and fire on the Surface ship 'Discovery'
Question: Is it possible to cut the BOP off, run pipe past the "leaks" and pump mud as a last resort or Hail Mary?
DBL
BofA limits trades with BP:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65E5W520100615
From Reuters: "Limiting the duration of trades with a counterparty is one way in which banks can seek to protect themselves against risk that a company will be unable to meet its long-term obligations."
Make of this what you may....
Addendum: Reuters: "BP's five-year CDS costs have jumped to 515 basis points, or $515,000 per year to insure $10 million for five years, from around 40 basis points in April, according to Markit Intraday."
These are sticks and stones.
Matt Simmons Revises Leak Estimate To 120,000 Barrels Per Day, Believes Oil Covers 40% Of Gulf Beneath The Surface
via Zero Hedge
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/15/2010 17:53 -0500
"Matt Simmons was on Bloomberg earlier, adding some additional perspective to his original appearance on the station, in which he initially endorsed the nuclear option as the only viable way to resolve the oil spill. Simmons refutes even the latest oil spill estimate of 45,000-60,000 barrels per day, and in quoting research by the Thomas Jefferson research vessel which was compiled late on Sunday, quantifies the leak at 120,000 bpd. What is scarier is that according to the Jefferson the oil lake underneath the surface of the water could be covering up to 40% of the entire Gulf of Mexico. Simmons also says that as the leak has no casing, a relief well will not work, and the only possible resolution is, as he said previously, to use a small nuclear explosion to convert the rock to glass. Simmons concludes that as punishment for BP's arrogance and stupidity the government "will take all their cash." Now if only our own administration could tell us the truth about what is really happening in the gulf..."
Before the casing/no casing argument starts up, does anyone have access to the Thomas Jefferson research vessel data referred to?
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/06/gulf-oil-spill-unders...
Can you say 'concentrations below 1ppm'?
Clouds... Yeah, I wondered if that was the basis. Thanks for finding it. There seems to be a fair amount of respect for MS on this board, and I'm not familiar enough to say one way or the other. But the argument that there's NO casing strikes me as sort of weird, as does the "nuke it and glass it in" solution he's tossing around. And on the one hand the Simmons company has gently hung him out to dry, but on the other they've set $52 as a target price for BP. Pretty confusing, all in all.
Dear Heading Out,
Thank you for "the New (and Allegedly "Better") BP Plans" post. What I found very revealing is that BP is gearing up to deal with 80,000bpd which would seem to indicate that today's guess-estimate of flow, 20,000bpd to 40,000bpd (with about 15,000bpd captured), is still way too low. (Oh, news now reporting estimate has gone up to 50,000bpd.)
I went over the Schlumberger "Evergreen Burner" link. Along with a photo that catches your eye, yet just don't look right, I noticed there is no gas emissions data and while they do claim the burner works effectively with all types of oil, it also notes that it works best with "heavy and waxy oils".
With this ever-expanding flow-rate, the immediate future holds a dramatic increase of toxic inputs to the GOM waters. Blindly transforming and transferring tons of those toxics into our atmosphere, it seems to me, should be a last resort, not based solely on economics or traffic congestion at the site. So, I'm still not convinced it's the best alternative at this time. Still, good to have it in the "toolbox." Meanwhile, it's clear capture and containment is the order of the day, until those relief wells score a direct hit and we can sing, "the monster is dead, the monster is dead, we cut off its head!"
"5. They can’t collect oil in the middle of a hurricane." Massive, submerged collection bladders might come in handy?
I never thought I'd agree with the likes of Sarah Palin, but hell in this case it makes sense, "Drill baby, drill!" (those relief wells).
GF, I've heard lots of comments on the submerged collection bladders. How do they work? I know how mine works but what kind of relief mechanisms do they have? How do they control the flow, in and out? Can they hold the pressure for 10-15 days?
PS. I was responding to your comment about me playing with matches and the "no more comments" snagged me again. My condensed version; Accountability cures most of the ailments related to this disaster. If there is a BP (Deepwater Horizon) mentality for the cure then the there is no time line that's appropriate. I think all the majors in the oil industry are busy addressing this. I have strong physical and emotional ties to this region of the GOM so I'm not promoting anything to cause further damage. I also don't think it takes or needs to take six months to design and emplement a fix.
Curious-
What are the folk's thoughts about this article?
http://www.examiner.com/x-33986-Political-Spin-Examiner~y2010m5d23-BP-oi...
That's certainly terrifying to contemplate. Beyond comprehension. However, once I caught my breath, I thought it might be good to try to find legitimate estimates of the size of the field. The link doesn't seem to go where the author wanted it to. And then there's this, on the same page: "Should extraterrestrials stop the Gulf Leak? - 10,000 sign petition for ETs to show up". There are probably some folks at TOD who do have access to surveys and estimates. Come forth, please.
It's terrifying to contemplate that you would actually believe anything in that story. 2nd largest field? Perhaps 100 million barrels for size. Not too exciting.
The leak sucks, and maybe BP's performance sucks. There are some difficulties going forward. But don't believe everything you read, not even in the comments on TOD (Heading Out is usually reliable, except when he is talking about ________).
Belief isn't one of my strong suits. I'm a data junkie with a nearly undefeatable dry humor gene. No worries.
crws -- I don't normally trash folks on here even when they are absurdly off base. TOD exists for folks to offer differeing opinions. If nothing else it can add a little comic relief. But the web site they reference is so bizarre I can only assume it's intentional. Just the pressures they report from a "BP informant" are so far from physical reality that it's not worth the time detailing. The piece is not written in an unsophisticated fashion so I assume a certain level of intelligence. So much so I can only assume the intent to mislead folks is intentional. I consider it borderline criminal. I won't even honor it with my typical "IMHO".
Check out http://americanholocaustcoming.blogspot.com/, but have a beer or something at least as alcoholic handy. They cite Mary Ann Tobin, the author of the piece you provided the link for. There's interesting stuff there besides the Tobin reference, e.g., "Where TO...the FEMA CAMPS?Just like they planned to do for a NWO/martial law scenario ANY HOW? Is the oil spill "accidental" or part of a much BIGGER NWO agenda PLAN?"
I have so many questions in many different areas but most of the time I go looking. There's been discussion re; the riser and tophat pipe size etc. I had an idea that drill risers and production risers were probably different so I thought I would ck out DW production well risers. I found this very interesting.
http://www.spegcs.org/attachments/contentmanagers/1054/drilling_power_pt...
There was lot of focus on cheaper, cheaper and cheaper.
PS. Tobin is beyond scary
Cited: "PS. Tobin is beyond scary"
"Journalism" is a tough gig these days. People put themselves in harm's way to snap photos of Brad Pitt so their employers can print crap about his "affair" with Jennifer Anniston.
Despite Tobin's heavy breathing, I did find one claim in her article that could hold water (*NO* pun intended), and that's the FEMA has a plan to evacuate Tampa/Tampa Bay scenario. First, the Tampa area is demonstrably prone to hurricane damage. I would hope that FEMA has an evacuation plan. Second, they basically get their water from the GoM and the prospect of oil trashing the desalinization plants making relocation a viable alternative seems plausible.
The problem, as usual, is that you and I are seen as mushrooms. And that's not limited to "journalists" like Tobin. Hell, we *elect* people to feed us the BS that we want to hear, present company excluded of course. That's why boards like TOD are so valuable. We shouldn't have to wade through posts, deciding which ones seem valid and which ones don't. But that's the way it is and I suspect it'll never be different. I sent along my third contribution to TOD today.
Whew, I thought we were doomed.
Thanks to all for the informed input.
having been an observer and reader now on this rush to stop this leak.plume of black death into our oceans i thought that at this moment and after putting myself through a steep learning curve so that i could ,at real level understand what each step Bp was taking to fix,first the massive unchecked BOP that failed ,then to follow all the various mistakes that has brought us to this now static state of BPs #chart of recovery oil i felt it time to ask one question!If an designer /eng was convinced that he had the mechanical device draw up along with process by which to connect a line into the now cut off drill pipe that remains at the center of the rizer would you not be ready to set in motion an TOP TO BOTTOM KILL VIA THE DRILL PIPE WHILE
ALLOWING THE PLUME(LEAK TO CONTINUE THROUGH ANULAR)INSTEAD OF 2 MONTHS DOWN THE ROAD ,PERFOMING A BOTTOM KILL THROUGH ONE OF THE RELIEF WELL? PLEASE IF THOSE IN THE KNOW COULD TELL ME THAT I HAVE PROPOSED A STUPID MANNER IN WHICH TO KILL THIS WELL.EXPLAIN TO ME WHY MY SIMPLE SOUNDING APPROUCH HAS NOT ALREADY BEEN TRYED!!!! THANKING THOSE IN ADVANCE! JEFF
Your proposal would put the drilling ship right in the middle of fuel air bomb that with a single spark whould destroy it and the people on it just like the Horizon.
We do not know what state the drill pipe is in inside the BOP. They tried to close the shear rams, so there is a good chance that the drill pipe is at least partially squished and would have to be cut off square before there was any possibility of connection to it.
Therefore the only way to use the drill pipe would require opening the shear rams on the BOP. This could result in:
- the drill pipe falling into the hole if it is not sufficiently supported by the other pipe rams.
- a major increase in the flowrate of the blowout.
I don't doubt that the well control engineers brainstorming this situation with BP have considered whether they can try to use the drill stem. It appears that their assessment of the pros and cons has led them to the current containment approach. Unless something dramatic happens to the BOP like complete washout due to ongoing erosion, they will not change this approach.
One benefit of all this work & money being expended : we MUST be learning a huge amount of new stuff on how to work on oil systems at depth.
The safety aspects are certainly getting a full review!
Deep sea well designs, operations and fall-back systems in the future are going to be MUCH more effective & safer than currently.
Perhaps we - or at least oil industry workers - will look back on this incident with a degree of gratitude in addition to sadness & anger.
GOD I love this website...an island of largely sane discourse in a sea of insanity.
I am gonna donate some money.
Thank YOU!