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BP's Deepwater Oil Spill - Response to DougR's Concerns - and Open Thread 2
Posted by Gail the Actuary on June 25, 2010 - 6:25pm
This thread is being closed. Please comment on http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6660.
This is a guest post from Oil Drum commenter shelburn, who is a retired manager for an offshore underwater service company. Shelburn also wrote a previous guest post related to the oil spill. - Gail
In this post, I would like to respond to a long comment made by DougR a few days ago, that has received a lot of publicity.
First, I will say that in one area we are in complete agreement. BP and the USCG have been less than forthcoming, and in doing so have hurt both themselves and the general public as all kinds of wild rumors and technical misinformation abound. Some of this misinformation results in harm to individuals and businesses as people suffer increased stress and tourists cancel vacations.
In this information vacuum it is easy to make wrong assumptions that lead to mistaken conclusions. It can be made worse if you have some degree of technical knowledge and verbiage and use that to make a case for a scenario that doesn’t pass muster with actual engineering analysis but sounds highly authoritative to many people, some TV commentators and various politicians.
What eventually will happen is that the blow out preventer will literally tip over
DougR has made a case that he expects the BOP to tip over. He seems to base this on the following information.
1 – The well is leaking into the sediment below the mudline and that is undermining the foundation holding the BOP upright.
2 – In support of that theory he cites that BP cut off the broken riser to relieve pressure on the well.
3 – Currents are pushing on the BOP stack.
4 – He seems to believe the inclination or tilt of the BOP is increasing.
5 – The BOP, riser and well casing are eroding from the inside due to sand erosion further weakening the structure.
He weaves a visual picture of a 450 ton BOP waving around a hundred feet high supported by a thin piece of liner or well casing. Given that description it is understandable that people will believe the BOP is in immediate danger of collapse.
Looking at this from an engineering view point and using real data instead of conjecture and hyperbole I come to a much different conclusion.
The BOP is not in danger of tipping over.
Let look at each of his points.
1 – His theory seems to be that the well is blowing out the side about 1,000 feet below the mudline. I can understand, given the sparse and misleading information from BP and the USCG, how you could come to that conclusion. But let’s look at the actual make-up of the casing that supports the wellhead and the BOP. Here is the data:
http://www.energy.gov/open/documents/3.1_Item_2_Macondo_Well_07_Jun_1900...
First a 36” casing, up to 2” thick was put down. It extends from the mud line to 255 feet down, as tall as a 25 story building.
Next a 28” casing was run from the mudline to 1,150 feet down, almost the height of the Empire State building.
This was followed by a 22” casing from the mudline 2,870 feet down, twice as deep as the World Trade Center was high.
All three of these casings were completely cemented together and they form a very solid base which is what supports the BOP. I won’t detail the casing string below the 22” but is in the above pdf.
It is hard to envision any way the well would be able to leak out in the sediment between the mudline and the end of the 22” casing which is over a half mile down and well into formations below the mudline. At 1,000 feet there is a 1” thick pipe (the 22” casing) which is 100% cemented to another thick pipe (the 28” casing) which in turn is 100% cemented to the formation. Not much of a leak path there.
The immediate (first 1,000 feet) of well structure that remains is now also undoubtedly compromised.
There is no evidence that the foundation holding the BOP is being undermined or the upper portion of the casing (first 2,870 feet) is damaged. If you watch the leakage from under the LMRP cap you can see the oil and gas immediately start rising up at a pretty good velocity. If there were any oil or gas leaks anywhere near the BOP it would be very obvious as the leaks would look very much like the leakage from the cap and they would be quite visible as they flowed up around the BOP.
There are also occasional video shots of the lower part of the BOP and there is no sign of any seabed disturbance or subsidence. It looks pretty much like the earliest photos BP released.
The well pipes below the sea floor are broken and leaking
What may be helping to confuse the situation is that there are two more concentric “pipes” that run from the wellhead area down into the well.
A 16” casing string is suspended about 160 feet below the mudline and runs down to over a mile below the mudline. This piece of casing is also sealed to the 22” casing and hangs down from there. The “annular” space is inside the 16” casing between it and the liner.
A 9-7/8” liner was installed from the mudline to the bottom of the well. This liner reduces down to 7” before it reaches the bottom. It was through this liner that the well was expected to produce oil and gas.
The 16” casing has three rupture/burst disks subs installed and one of those is at about 980 feet down. It was this “disk” that Admiral Allen was referring to when he said it “failed”. This would indicate the “well pipes below the sea floor are broken and leaking”. But a rupture of that disk does NOT leak directly into the mud. It leaks inside the well casing.
The leak would have to migrate down to the bottom of the 18” casing - 3,902 feet below the mudline before it left the well. I expect that BP thinks they may have underground blowout at that level, which would leak into another formation, not up to the surface unless the cement jobs at the 18” casing or the 22” casing were also bad and those were fully tested and used.
DougR also supports his theory of downhole leaks by stating:
80 Barrels per minute is over 200,000 gallons per hour, over 115,000 barrels per day...did we seen an increase over and above what was already leaking out of 115k bpd?....we did not...it would have been a massive increase in order of multiples and this did not happen.
But three paragraphs above he contradicts himself stating:
Early that afternoon we saw a massive flow burst out of the riser "plume" area
and
Later on same day we saw a greatly increased flow out of the kink leaks
2 – DougR says BP cut off the riser to relieve the pressure but the timeline of the events indicates otherwise. BP had released the design of the LMRP cap well before they started the Top Kill.
If BP had thought they had a leakage problem requiring a pressure reduction, they would never have attempted a top kill. So the claim that they cut the riser to relieve the pressure doesn’t fit the facts--it fits the already announced plan to cut the riser and install the LMRP cap.
3 – There is very little current at 5,000 feet. There may be other forces acting on the BOP, like gravity, but the currents are minimal. It is easy to verify this just by watching the video of the oil leakage.
4 – DougR’s claim is that the inclination of the BOP is increasing. There is no evidence of this.
Early discussions on TOD when BP released the first pictures talked about the fact that the BOP to well head connection appeared bent and the BOP looked tilted. The pictures at that time (very bad quality) seem to show a bend between the base of the wellhead and the bottom of the BOP. I haven’t seen any evidence that this tilt has increased over time or that there is any less mud at the wellhead.
There is a good reason why the BOP wellhead connection could be bent and weakened. For over a day the DWH was without power and the 50,000 ton rig was anchored to the wellhead. The movements of the rig in the surface currents would have put a huge strain on the BOP stack.
Also, when the rig sank and the riser bent over it would also have put stress on the BOP. But the riser doesn’t weigh as much as most people would think as it has floatation on it.
It would be a reasonably easy exercise, if you have all the data, to calculate the force that bending the riser would impart to the BOP and the well head. I’m sure that BP did that calculation and it didn’t deter them from proceeding with the Top Kill.
The LMRP has a flexjoint where it connects to the BOP. I believe that flexjoint is designed to tip up to 7.5 or 10 degrees. Normally the LMRP is under some tension from the riser which tends to hold it straight. Without this support from the riser it will always tip to one side. So the LMRP will always have a substantial inclination, by design.
you may have noticed that some of the ROVs are using an inclinometer...and inclinometer is an instrument that measures "Incline" or tilt. The BOP is not supposed to be tilting...and after the riser clip off operation it has begun to...
The ROVs have been checking the bullseyes regularly, before and after the riser was cut. The box that DougR thinks is an inclinometer is likely some other instrument, probably ultrasonic. That would be backed up by another poster’s observation that they had been cleaning the area where the box was being used. They could be checking the wall thickness at that point or trying to determine fluid flow. Both are more likely that an inclinometer reading.
5 - Erosion
I am convinced the erosion and compromising of the entire system is accelerating and attacking more key structural areas of the well, the blow out preventer and surrounding strata holding it all up and together.
I‘m not sure if DougR is referring to internal pipeline erosion or external foundation erosion and I may be doing him a disservice but there has been enough other discussion about internal erosion to try to correct some misconceptions.
When we have been talking about erosion we are talking about small restrictions that have been eroded where the oil flow has to pass small spaces. The most dramatic example was the increase in the leaks at the riser kink. They started at almost nothing and grew dramatically over time. A similar process was occurring inside the BOP.
There are a lot of variables that effect erosion but the biggest is velocity. The only place that there is erosion in this well is where there are tight restrictions which have high velocity and large pressure reductions. These seem to be inside the BOP and the riser kink when it was still there. The original cross section of the leak path was probably less than 0.20 sq in. With the very high velocity this restriction would have eroded very quickly. The five fold increase in the flow estimate in the first few days of the spill would be consistent with this theory as is the continuing increase in flow estimates. As the restriction enlarges the pressure drops and the erosion slows down. This is also consistent with various pressure readings at the bottom of the BOP, dropping from the “8,000 to 9,000 psi” to 4,400 psi on May 25.
The velocity inside the casing, liner, body of the BOP and the riser is relatively low. I doubt that it would be possible to detect the erosion on the casing or riser with the naked eye. It would take years of flow before there would be enough structural damage from internal erosion to cause any problems.
This is especially true for vertical or near vertical piping. In a horizontal pipe sediment can drop to the bottom and over time wear a groove on the bottom of the pipe, which is not the case here.
All of these things lead to only one place, a fully wide open well bore directly to the oil deposit...after that, it goes into the realm of "the worst things you can think of" The well may come completely apart as the inner liners fail. There is still a very long drill string in the well, that could literally come flying out...as I said...all the worst things you can think of are a possibility, but the very least damaging outcome as bad as it is, is that we are stuck with a wide open gusher blowing out 150,000 barrels a day of raw oil or more.
This statement brings together all DougR’s suppositions. I’m not sure if he is actually that frightened himself or if he just enjoys scaring others, but his conclusions come pretty close to fear mongering.
Besides painting a picture of a completely out of control blowout (which is a true worst case), in his “very least damaging outcome” he pretty much doubles the amount of maximum flow that this well could produce according to analysis that has been presented on TOD by well experts.
Transparency Issues
If BP and the USG were more inclined to transparency, a lot of this aggravation could be avoided. You will never convince the conspiracy theorists; it is a life style they enjoy. But the MSM would not be quite as far out there if they were presented factual information, even if they couldn’t understand it.
Just doing a quick review of this long post I came up with this list of questions BP or the USG could answer that would indicate some transparency.
Have you found any seabed leaks of oil and gas?
Edit – Evidently this was answered by USCG at a press conference with an emphatic “No”. No seabed leak, no washing away of the well head foundation, no traction for the DougR theory.
Do you believe there are any leaks from the well into other formations? If so, which ones?
Has the inclination of the BOP changed? By how much?
Describe the “disk failure” at 1,000 feet.
Are you concerned about the structural integrity of the BOP?, wellhead?, the LMRP?, the casing?
Describe the formation levels.
What are the current pressure readings inside the BOP?, the historical readings?
Is there any indication of seabed movement at the base of the BOP?
What are the ROVs doing when they are looking at the seabed?
What is the little black box the ROVs place on the riser?
I could go on for pages. I understand that BP has legal reasons why they won’t comment on the flow rates or what happened to cause the blowout. But there are reams of information that they could be providing the public.
BP's Deepwater Oil Spill - Response to DougR's Concerns - and Open Thread 2
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BP's Deepwater Oil Spill - Response to DougR's Concerns - and Open Thread 2
PDF version
298 comments
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new stuff in this introductory comment, 23 JUN 10.
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This is not to say that well considered questions about current attempts and modifications to those attempts are not welcome; they are. But try to place them in context and in what's actually going on, as opposed to your MacGyver dream solution where you have a 10 megaton bomb, an ice pick, and Commander Spock at your side.
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7. Don't be afraid to go back and read the last couple of open threads yesterday and today before you start on this thread. They are really good, and will likely catch you up if you have been out of the loop for a while. We shut down threads when we get to 300-400 comments, as it's really unmanageable. Lots of good stuff in there though.
8. Yes, HO and others have put up many counterarguments to the "DougR" comment. There are many many links, but the first one was here: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6609. If you ask in the thread nicely, they will also point you to others.
I will start with a thank you to TOD.
"You do the math. You have a pipe 1 feet above ground and 2 feet below. You move it around in a circular motion for 24 hours right after it was cemented."
You do the math and I will follow. Your following comments would make one think the DWH sinking caused the earth to move off it's axis.
There is flex in a riser 5000 feet long, so your analogy would have blown out all the casings. Did I miss something?
I was just trying to write a long response to AlexH on the last thread and somehow lost all my work. I'll try again but the main point is applicable here.
One of the confusing facts is that there were at least 8 separate cement jobs, not counting the sidetrack, maybe a few more.
The cement securing the 3 outside layers of casing at the well head (from mudline down to 2,870 feet below the mud) was injected months before the blowout. It and all the others cement jobs, except the very last one at 18,300 feet, had been tested and most used under increasing pressure for weeks - with no problems reported in the cement. It is possible that they had problems before and had to do a squeeze, but each cement job had to be good before they could drill below it.
It was the last cement job that failed and that combined with a bunch of other reasons which Rockman has detailed much better than I ever could resulted in a blowout.
Nice points.
The basic situation is that BP...messed...this whole thing up extremely, extremely badly.
Then they proceeded to lie and let others lie for them, over, and over, and over again.
So at this point, many of us do not trust that they did anything much else right or are going to tell anything remotely resembling the truth.
It is very nice to have experts chime in, but let's admit that these are some of the underlying realities. One can call them over-paranoid, but these perceptions do have some foundation in what has transpired.
If they messed up the BOP, how can we be sure that they didn't mess up the other structures?
If they have lied to us repeatedly (and let others' misinformation stand), why should we accept their assurances now?
I'm not sure exactly what you are getting at but if it in reference to my points about the previous cement jobs I don't make that statement because BP said so, I make it because it the prior cement jobs had been bad they would have had a blowout or loss of circulation problems before the one they did have. They were used under stress with higher weight mud increasing the pressure.
That doesn't mean they couldn't have been damaged during the blowout or the top kill.
6655 appears to have been dominated by dougr and his detractors.
What happened to "high signal to noise ratio" on this site?
6655 was 90% noise in my view, with "gail-the-actuary" leading the noise.
I believe speculation toward the negative is no worse than speculation toward the positive. Both are speculation.
Speculation is the problem. Speculation is what raises the noise level. Debating speculation further raises the noise level.
Who f***ing cares if dougr is right or wrong? It's all speculation.
People think they're somehow helping the cause here by debating dougr's points into the f***ing ground.
They're not helping the cause here. All they're doing is boring other people to tears.
I got home today and scanned through 6655 looking for some relevant updates about this freikin disaster. I got so frustrated with all the dougr debate I regretted having donated to this site. I thought "what a friekin waste of money that was".
I wonder how many other donators read though 6655 and come away with that same feeling?
You people want dougr and those like him to go away?
THEN STOP RESPONDING TO THEM.
As far as I know this site is the best place to get factual analysis of what's happening in this spill. That's why I donated.
... or it used to be anyway. Now it appears to be morphing into a friekin gossip column.
"6655 appears to have been dominated by dougr and his detractors." Well, yeah. It was titled "Response to DougR's Concerns - and Open Thread." And plenty of his supporters showed up, too. I think it was a good idea to devote a thread to it. The scariest stuff in that post made KO's CNBC show this week, it was associated with TOD, and I'd bet a bunch that visitors with that specific interest showed up in spades. 59% of Americans are interested in this. That's an astounding stat. Fear is what's behind it, and turning the light on helps. Allowing focused debate in one thread does a service to those people flocking in by helping them figure out what's what instead of simply buying the scary stuff that was on CNBC. And letting it play out a day or two makes sense to me just from a tactical point of view, even if the noise increases temporarily.
But what do I know. I've been a member for all of 4 weeks 14 hours and I'm not an engineer. I wandered here because the lights weren't on anywhere else.
Dittos - I too am a 4 week 14 hour noob with little knowledge and think that the funds I added to the kitty is the best contribution I've made this year. Thanks, Oil Drum!
I read your comment, thought seriously about it, and donated again, because I've been here two years, sponging up highly technical details about peak oil, survival techniques, and en passant political theorizing that does my old sociological brain a lot of good.
TOD is, as usual, handling it. I don't even mind when my occasionally snarky posts get deleted. Their site, well built, and likely to last long after dougr has been thoroughly refuted.
Carry on.
no noise in your post
thanks for that!
All I can say is that it is about time there was a thread dedicated to DougR's post. Maybe this is a lesson for the moderators of TOD. If a comment is going viral, especially if it is one the moderators think is faulty, a tread dedicated to rebuttal is definitely warranted. Periodic commentary in numerous threads just does not address the problem.
Ever since the post, I have been looking for a rebuttal of it here, but trying to find cogent rebuttal has been difficult. A little here, a little there, but nothing like this thread.
A dedicated thread is better later than never.
DougR's post intrigued me. Did I think it was likely the BOP would fall over in 60 days? No. A year? No. Five years? Well I didn't have a good idea about that. A lot could happen in five hears if the kill bores don't work.
When I was describing DougR's post to people who do not frequent this board, I described it as a theory, which if proven to be prophetic, would not be just catastrophic, but would be an extinction event for many, possibly all biologic forms dependent on the gulf.
An extinction event. That's what I called it.
And the real question DougR proposes is whether we could be facing not just a catastrophic event, but an extinction event.
What DougR really fears is that the kill bores will not work and that this well may be leaking for years, not months.
I see legitimate reason for concern that the kill bores will not work, especially if the downhole pipe is severely damaged in the area where the kill bore tap is to be made.
What are the odds of this happening? I have no clue.
But inquiring minds want to know.
Answering Swift Loris:
Yes.
From what I understand, even ole Rupert is becoming a little queasy over the wilder shores of Fox News. But they're what make money. Ole Rupert's in a bit of a jam. [More Pogo, please.]
From a previous thread:
"Her" example, actually, but thanks for the help.
Many apologies, madam. And you're most welcome.
This is today briefing by Adm Thad Allen.
http://www.c-span.org/Watch/Media/2010/06/25/HP/R/34650/Oil+Creeps+Along...
Looks like most of the qeustions are related to the weatherm how long will it take to evacuate all the ships, the containment cap, and production capability once all the ship arrive.. I think one nugget of information that go with this thread is the weight of the containment cap (toward the very end of the briefing) that they are considering. It range from 1 ton to 20 tons.. And that pretty answer the qeustion of whether they think the BOP is going to tip over or not.. Why would anyone even design and consider putting 20 tons of weight on top of the BOP if they think the support is weak??
Another things that strike me is the tone of the questions.. In the first few briefing there is a lot of "we have so and so problems in place xyz, why didn't you take care or it? or what are you going to do about it?" Now the tone of the qeustions is "Can you let us know why are we doing that?".. Sound like the reporters are running out of pointed questions (which either reporters are not doing their jobs in finding out all the problematic in the clean up effort) or Coast Guard has turned the corner and has handled all the highly visible problems (no easy feat) and start to catch up and get a handle of how to deal with the spill..
Also in the briefing, Adm Allen answered the question on Jones Act point blank (i.e. we don't need waiver for skimming ship)..
.....working farther than 3 miles offshore as long as there is reciprocity for our ships if we need them. If I heard him correctly.
My post today is going to be short, and it's about inclination - the Leaning Tower of BOP to be specific.
I'm using stills taken from YouTube of the inclinometer readings taken on two days, and an article from later still. The readings are taken from the bullseye inclinometers, which measure tilt by how far the ball is from the center. Each black ring indicates one degree of tilt.
Note that both these photos were taken after the piping had been cut off the top, thus relieving any stress the collapsed pipes and cutting process may have produced.
First, the BOP Lean as of July 10th, 2010: 2.5°.
Second, the BOP lean as of July 18th, 2010: 3.9°.
In a mere eight days the lean has increased by 56%. As the lean progressed even more, on July 23 this story appeared: "BP pipe tilting more than Leaning Tower of Pisa".
The article quoted Thad Allen as saying in a press release posted on the 21st: "I think it’s 10 or 12 degrees off perpendicular so it’s not quite straight up."
So between July 18th and 21st, the BOP's tilt has increased to at least ten degrees, possibly up to twelve degrees.
All evidence so far indicates the BOP's lean is steadily and progressively increasing, contrary to Mr. Shelburn's whitewashing of reality. Mr. Shelburn provides no real-world evidence to substantiate his statement: "I haven’t seen any evidence that this tilt has increased over time..."
Mr. Shelburn has not seen any evidence of increased tilt not because the beast doesn't exist, but because he has not been looking. A good way to separate fact from fiction is to look at the actual data coming out from the cameras, inclinometers, and even official press releases as I have done. It took only a few minutes to find out the truth.
"I think it’s 10 or 12 degrees off perpendicular so it’s not quite straight up."
Ummm... You're treating an obviously vague "I think" remark, by an incident commander who has continually demonstrated that his grasp of technical detail is a little shaky, as "actual data" in support of your assertion?
Not persuasive.
I am, of course, impressed with the precision of your reading of the bullseye—using frame grabs from low-res video feeds.
Not to be picky, but it's still June...
Are those both the same indicator? Is one from the BOP and the other the LMRP? Just asking.
Both inclinometers are mounted on the BOP. One is mounted at the middle, the other at the base.
Two questions:
1. Is the Bullseye on the LMRP?
2. Does the LMRP pivot on a flexible joint?
If you look closely the two screen captures don't seem to be the same bullseye. Look at the center, one has a cross hair and the other the cross hair doesn't go through the center. To get comparative readings you have to be watching the same bullseye.
The 10 to 12 degree report was for the LMRP, not the BOP. The LMRP has a flexjoint (think swivel) between it and the BOP so it will always have a greater angle than the BOP and could possible move - no big deal - if the BOP moves THAT is a big deal.
I have been watching some of the video (I have a satellite internet that shuts me down at about 400mb download so I can't watch more than a few minutes a day and it seems they always come in at a different angle so the parallax is confusing but I haven't detected any appreciable change.
Most of the misapprehension we see on TOD is due to exactly this kind of confusing information. Different reports about slightly different subjects (different bullseyes or different cement jobs or different depths or different casing) are pulled together to end up with bad information and erroneous conclusions.
shelburn, is there any way for the bullseye levels to be calibrated when they're attached by an ROV? Isn't it impossible to get an absolute reading from an instrument that was attached after the (alleged) bending has already happened? Isn't it more likely the bullseyes are only useful as a comparative reading from day to day?
Bullseye are on the BOP and LMRP when it leaves the surface, they have been there the whole time.
In the old days divers used to hang around and try to figure out how we could get mud or something on the bullseye so the wireline camera (early forerunner of an ROV) couldn't see and we could get a jump and collect our depth pay.
Future,
1) the two pictures you labeled July 10th and July 18th are of two different instruments at two different points on the structure. There is no way to compare their readings, and I suspect the second one is using a different scale, and may be reading about 2 degrees. No inference about a change in inclination can be made based on these.
2) Thad Allen's comment has been widely reported as referring to the flex coupling bullseye and the riser stub above it. It has been tilted much more than the BOP since the blowout, by design. This is completely independent of the other two bullseyes; comparing them doesn't mean anything.
Reality check: just watch the ROV videos with a protractor at hand, stick it on the screen when you get a good view. The BOP isn't tilted anywhere near 10 degrees, is it? So Shelburn isn't whitewashing anything.
Be careful of using ROV video to measure anything.
(1) ROVs fly very much like helicopters and are constantly changing attitude, often the camera isn't square to the earth.
(2) ROV cameras are normally very wide angle with a lot of zoom so objects close to the center have different dimensions that those on the edge. At maximum zoom out they can make a straight pipe appear substantially curved.
This can affect the apparent reading on a bullseye also. I was watching one today that seemed zoomed in to the max reading a bullseye, very unstable and fuzzy picture. When he zoomed out you could barely see where the bullseye was mounted on the LMRP for the distance.
Shelburn, you're absolutely right. I work with wide angle lenses a lot, so I sort of compensate on the fly. But it would be easy to get a completely misleading angle the way I suggested.
why does one of those have a central "dot" and not the other? also one has differing thicknesses of the circles and the other's seem to be the same
seem to be two different instruments and I recall from discussion here or on the IRC that there were two of these bullseye dealies
What could be increasing the lean? Remember the marine riser pushed and pulled on the BOP. Finally the riser parted, just leaving the BOP supporting the famous bent section and the remaining weight of the riser to the seafloor. It took a strong tug to break the riser.
Here is a simple experiment you can visualize. Take a thick section of pipe, say schedule 80, 1" ID. Stick one end in a vise. Grab the other end and try to bend it double, just like the marine riser. Very few humans if any, would have the strength to do that. Cut a piece about a foot long of this thick-walled pipe. This represents the BOP.
Now, take a piece of thin-wall tubing about 1.75" in diameter. Stick it in the vise and try to bend it. It bends double fairly easily. Take another piece of thinwall that snugly fits inside the first and slide it inside the 1.75". Now bend it double. Most people won't be able to budge it, maybe a few will. Take a third piece and slide it inside the first and second tubes. While you're at it, spread a little glue between them to hold them together. Now bend it double. Few humans could do that. These pieces glued together represent the wellhead casing just below the riser.
Bury the tubes several feet into the ground with the heavy pipe bolted to the tubes. Now, kick the pipe over. Ouch, it won't budge.
So my question to all who think the BOP is leaning more and more is; What's making it lean? I can imagine it moving very little, if any at all.
Now THAT, my friend, is something even I can unnerstand! The glue would be concrete, right?
Yup, it would be concrete. I forgot to mention the buried pipe has a sack of concrete around it... and has been there a few days.
2 completely different gauges. Nothing proven. Even if they are on the same piece of equipment you cannot compare their readings unless you know their initial readings.
NAOM
BP's efforts to raise funds last week was a bust:
"Michael Block, chief equities strategist at Phoenix partners, said BP had ample resources and assets, but that “the spectre of voluntary bankruptcy or some other restructuring for one or some of BP’s entities in North America cannot be overlooked ... nothing is impossible”.
But BP will soon have to contend with the hurricane season, which could disrupt its efforts to plug a deepsea well and fight the slick. BP plans to bring a new vessel and device to catch the oil from the deepsea well that has been gushing into the Gulf since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 men. "
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f7cf196a-808f-11df-be5a-00144feabdc0.html
The question now is...
How long can this saga continue --- we are talking of $1b a month before the compensation fund.
Hope you shorted the stock at $27 - before it goes lower.
Oilyman- Here's a little test for all you arm-chair drilling engineers like dougr)...
You mean we are reading these indicators with the system at rest? In that case, sure they read the same. No magic anti-gravity here. When you said weight I should have understood that.
My answer would be 25 tons using an 11 part line. More parts of line, the easier the engine, clutches, etc work to pick it up. Also, a dime works real well jammed in under the over-ride switch so you can pick the damned thing up!
I still do not get it. Are we talking about static weight or tension under motion? Sorry for being a PIA.
TFHG: I believe this particular case would be static weight. The mast on a drilling rig lifts straight up on the drill stem, it doesn't have to move it any where. what do I know? just a lowly crane operator. gonna let the engineers have at me on this one.
Static weight will only change with a change in tackle, cable, or weight of object being lifted. I say it would read slightly more because of this. Only if the system is in the motion of lifting the object does tension increase and pulleys come into play.
50K is still 50K pulley(s) +/- only change the speed and horsepower rating for the pick.
I think Oily is bored.
So a 4 block and a 5 block weigh the same?
Edit: On previous statement I meant to say the Only when lifting is in progress does the pulley's ability to convert force needed by increasing distance the cable is pulled come into play. The weight of the pulleys themselves come into play in the static situation.
50 k on dead line or fast line for that matter means 400 k weight with 4 sheave traveling block. Switch to 5 sheaves with weight the same and indicater would read 40 k. I think that is what he was trying to get at. Of course weight indicaters are calibrated in total weight and not deadline weight and have settings dependent on the number of supporting lines, 4 sheaves would be 8 and 5 sheaves would be 10. I recall I learned all of this at about age 6 when going to the rigs with my father long before most on this forum were born.
It still makes a difference if the spool is turning or not, correct? I think maybe it was a trick question. When the cable moves, then forces needed for lift increase tension on the cable in an amount determined by many things, including the weight of the object being lifted, number of movable pulleys, friction, etc.
From previous post in reply to johnjackson http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6655#comment-660571
In my opinion these conspiracy theories take place also because some intelligent (and probably fundamentally honest) people are really in big trouble trying to find a reasonable explanation on why most of the decisions taken by the ones who are in charge look so stupid? can it really be just stupidity/corruption/seek-of-profit or there's something else?...
On the other hand the Doomsday theories are somehow charming to the ones who:
are tired to see how things are going in this poor world.. the soonest this mankind disappear the better chance for something to survive...
are tired to see everything reduced to an economical issue, to see that the only things that matter while taking a decision is profit..
are tired to be defined "consumers"... what a shaming word, I feel deeply outraged when I hear this word and I'll fight it with all my force. At the same time I'm very upset seeing that everybody ( more or less) are accepting this definition as a fact ( and we're proud to promote our "consumers association" as it would be a high and appreciable result while we're just playing their game)...there's an infinite highly power in a man's mind, body and soul and it cannot be reduced to be a "consumer"..
are tired to see how mass media (TV), corporations and governments are, together, finally on the way to achieve their evil scope: to destroy any capability of people to use their brains; to dissolve people's dreams; to impose to everyone one and one sole lifestyle and thinking.
are tired to hear "we need oil"...to do what?..to go where?...to fill our cars anr burn it on our way to the next shopping mall to buy the last SONY plasma TV 52 inches or the latest JOBS Ipad? or to land on the moon? it has be done decades ago and claimed as "a big step for mankind" ( something like that..) but where's our PROGRESS?..to progress means to move toward something better. I don't see it. What I see is an unavoidable rush toward our annihilation, without a scope, without a project.
Yes we do need oil but we don't need oil companies hard obstructionism in studying and finding alternative energies and a more balanced growth and progress..maybe not all of you oil experts knows about Enrico Mattei ( one of the few heroic public administrator in our italian history) who was (likely) killed by the "seven sisters" in 1962 [references: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Mattei
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_%28oil_companies%29 ]
I don't care if BP goes for bankruptcy, I don't care if BP shareholders are sad, I'm sure that we cannot go for the markets "plus" sign indefinitely, it's a maths and phisic paradox that we cannot ignore anymore. I guess that the "big step for mankind " at this point needs to be a reverse step, I don't know if it's a doomsday view but sooner or later we'll face something very close to it
Of course it depends on the point of view, I'm a fisherman and I've a lot to loose from sea pollution and poisoning; BP shareholders have a lot to loose from BP crash...but our sons have both all to loose from further lies and irresponsible actions.
Ok someone could state that I'm too dark,.. well the oil is dark and there's a lot of it in the Gulf...
But to be rose and give a chance: I just hope this mess can turn into a "DEEP VIEW HORIZON" givin us back the capability to see things a little bit further, not being blinded by these *fk..ng* cents..it's not interesting to be "the richest in the graveyard"...and that's valid for all of us, not important to cite the corporations as the origin of evil..
DVH and recover the capability to imagine that there is always another solution and another way of think...just open your eyes, turn off the television, go to your neighbor and drink a beer.
Please forgive my poor english, I hope the basic concepts are clear enough
"I don't care if BP goes for bankruptcy, I don't care if BP shareholders are sad,"
I am afraid that the only way significant compensation can be paid by BP is via a bankruptcy process.
If BP had more goodwill and trust, things might be different.
I don't want to offend anybody, my words want to go beyond BP, it's a general consideration that involves the whole financial/governative/media system that is currently running the world (not conspiracy, just facts)
To follow, perhaps, your lead —
I think that we are usually missing a step: the education of the public to their own mind structure, a process which has, in my scanning of the major media, already begun.
Check out the NYTimes site for a five part series on the psychology of not knowing you're incompetent, because your incompetence prevents the knowledge being presented to you.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/
An interesting reflexivity, as Soros would say. Maybe if you explain to people that maybe they don't know things because they're being addressed in the wrong language, they'll learn to learn.
Or, we're dead.
I am afraid that the only way significant compensation can be paid by BP is via a bankruptcy process
If anyone has a claim against BP, the last thing they want is to force BP into BK (wether BP USA or BP UK if they can pierce the corporate veil). In a BK process in US, all claims are line up into groups based on a preset priority. BK court judge approve any and all expense with the major goal in preserving the value of the bk asset. Any spill claims is an unsecured claim against the BP asset behind senior secured debt, senior debt, wages, tax etc. etc. And every claim will be litigated to determine the actual damage. It will take years to sort out which group get what and the end result is that the claims get convert to be the part of the new owner of the BP asset. In between now and the final resolution, BK court can and will reject all the claim and just make them wait in line to preserve the value of the asset. The only one get rich here is the lawyers (as a group, they may end up sucking majority of the asset out of BP leaving little else for everyone else). If someone need the money to pay their bill today, they are out of luck. So think before yelling "BK BP"
Those wanting a lottery winning from a BP BK will get the same reward as the victors in Jarndyce v. Jarndyce.
I got no legitamate claim against BP. But BP has caused me losses. And you too gentle reader -- and everyone else on the planet. BP has caused losses to the whole world. But let's not get too excited about accountability.
There is a notion that, "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it." Along with that is the notion of "dollarization" -- putting a price on everything. Well, tell that to a Dolphin! Or a Jelllyfish. They won't understand, because to these living creatures as well as to us humans, life is priceless. You cannot put a value on life. At least not a value that those at risk can understand.
This unfolding disaster is not against our economy, the local businesses in the area, against the United States but against Life on This Planet. It is an ECOLOGICAL disaster at least as much as it is an ECONOMICAL one.
Bankruptcy will harm BP -- but will it harm us? It's easy to take a punitive stand on this.
In any case, however this mess ends up I predict that someone will get really rich off of it.
In bankruptcy, unlitigated and unsecured claims get the worst treatment; unless someone has a judgment in hand, or has a specific claim on a specific piece of property, they usually get nothing. People along the Gulf Coast will be told, "take this token amount for your losses, or eat dust."
If BP enters bankruptcy, it's $20 billion commitment to a disaster relief fund goes out the window. The bankruptcy judge will cancel it and use the money to pay off bondholders, or to reorganize BP's secured debt.
BTW, companies no longer see bankruptcy as shameful or something to avoid; it's simply another path to consider. Some healthy companies actually enter bankruptcy in order to free up cash for buying other companies.
retiredL: You might want to check this out but I read in an article on Bloomberg I vaguely recall that the US government arranged a priority security interest in $40 (?) billion of BP's assets to secure the $20 billion pledge. I'm not sure how the government could do this. Such a priority claim could look ugly to a judge like Judge Feldman, eh?
There are so many that want something for nothing that a BP BK will be inevitable, and the ones with legitimate claims will get little.
There are so many that want something for nothing that a BP BK will be inevitable
I can think of 2 situations where BP get into trouble and has to consider filing bk for the US sub. 1) if they cannot raise the 10B debt and 20B bank loans. they may have problem funding the day to day cash flow in settling claim, paying for clean up etc. They have 2.5B a Q that they save by not paying divy and may be another 1B or 2B from cash flow..And they are spending 1B a month or so right now and they have to fund the 20B (3B 3Q and 2B 4Q, and 1.25B each Q until the 20B is reached). Their cash flow is going tob be very tight so they need the loan. 2) if government assess a big penalty (something in the order of 10-20B or so and won't negotiate, BP will have to decide what is the best way to deal with it.. Have the US sub go bk can buy them some to way for the case to go through the court challenge (if they don't, they will have to come up with the money for a bond before they can challenge the penalty in court).. For all the other lawsuits outside of the 20B (which I think only pay for claim that can be verified like salary, business loss etc), BP will just drag it through court for years to come. They can afford the lawyer fee..
Come on, don't tell us you're not short this stock.
I hope the basic concepts are clear enough
Quite clear, andrea, and (as always) very much worth hearing. Grazie.
grazie a te...but seeing the last 2 comments ..the concepts does'nt seem clear enough.. I would hope less pragmatism and legal issues, they sound so misplaced
andrea: Unfortunately perhaps, but Peak Oil, the theme of this web site, has become a legal issue. Much of the solutions, for good or ill, will be played out in the courts in this country. And this is not new. Even our deified Founding Fathers left the major issue of their day, slavery, unresolved. It found a temporary answer in the Supreme Court in the Dred Scoot case, which enshrined slavery as legal. Only a civil war changed that decision. A lot of people hate it. But it is what it is.
"Peak Oil...has become a legal issue."
Huh?
"Peak Oil...has become a legal issue."
What I think he's saying is that oil supply will be limited by government regulations before it is limited by reservoir and technology limitations.
Unfortunately I think people is no longer able to combat any kind of "civil war" or "civil fight" against an unfair and hill system. Most of people have been dazed by media...we think it's enough to vote at the elections to see things changing but it's clear that it's just a game and the winners are always the same.
First tropical depression forms in western Caribbean
http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf/2010/06/first_tropical_depressio...
I'd like to see this tip over.
(Section similar to Macondo well posted by HO some days ago.)
"I'd like to see this tip over."
Figuratiive yes?
All the way over or just a degree or two?
Excuse me while I reach for my spinach.
(Gobble, gobble ...) In this argument, DougR is right and Shelburn is incorrect.
Here's why:
The different sections of riser are assembled out of sections of pipe of different diameters and thicknesses. The sections are also pretty much the same length so as to be manageable in the drilling support ships and in the drilling derrick. (40 feet)
As riser sections are driven (spudded) into the seafloor, more are added to the sections already in the ground. Unlike drill pipe that is screwed together on the drilling platform with integral coupling (male- female threads) , the riser sections have male threads which are inserted into narrow couplings with female threads on both ends. These couplings are identical to 'Merchant couplings' that are found in hardware stores. Keep in mind, risers are not to be retrieved, they are driven into the sea floor (following the drill) to the required depth and cemented into place.
http://www.glossary.oilfield.slb.com/Display.cfm?Term=casing%20string
The most critical dimension is the mud line. The concentric riser assemblies all have to be flush at the point where the BOP is installed. As the riser sections are all more or less the same length, the joints where the riser sections come together are all at roughly the same depth. From the BOP to the bottom of the 36" riser a systemic weak area exists every 40' of riser. The same weakness exists at the same depth in the 28" casing; likewise in the 22" casing. At one casing length from the BOP there is a systemic weakness in all the casings at the same depth. The same systemic weakness exists at the same points in all entire casing strings. Where one casing is vulnerable, all are vulnerable as all casing pipes are the same length and have the same 'starting point' at the BOP mudline.
Obviously, the concentric riser sections are filled with concrete. However, there is no rebar or other tension control devices embedded in the concrete. Concrete can be mixed with almost any level of compression resistance - up to 20,000 psi - but its tension resistance is negligible. Concrete has to have added tension control structures to prevent total failure of the concrete under tension loads. In the well the riser itself is expected to provide tensile strength, the concrete is a 'filler', basically.
Large tension loads are not a design characteristic of oil well risers. The forces to be controlled are the weight of the well- head valve systems and shear/vibration/axial forces transmitted from the drilling pipe. Deeper in the well the forces to be accommodated are crushing pressures. The weight of the BOP assembly and the riser sections is more than sufficient under almost all circumstances to withstand tension and keep the riser sections together.
The weight of the well- head device is also sufficient to keep compression loads on the riser even if there is a kick.
Consequent to the blowout and the ill- advised remediation attempts the BOP and at least the first sections of riser together have decoupled - broken - from the rest of the riser assembly below. Whether this was caused by the blowout itself, tension on the BOP assembly transmitted by the riser to the BOP by the drifting and burning rig, the sinking of the rig torquing on the riser and drill string, by massive over- pressure in the riser after the BOP closed or as a consequence of the 'top kill' effort ... any or all are beside the point.
As an analog, I cannot manually bend 2" steel pipe regardless of length. If I have two sections of 2" pipe connected with a coupling - even if these sections are short - I can break the two pieces of pipe apart at the coupling quite easily without tools. The threads on the coupling become compromised as the coupling itself is bent out-of-round. The riser assembly under the seafloor is similar to nested lengths of pipe with couplings that poorly resist bending.
Leaving aside DougR for a minute, this scenario is likely because of what BP's contractors are doing, not what BP itself is saying. BP lies ... volume OFF. The FACT that Oceaneering and other companies have seen fit to clean off the level indicators and are checking them indicates that there are problems under the sea floor.
With the weakness in the riser assembly indicated and a potential problem, what is (are) the potential outcome(s)?
If the BOP becomes overbalanced it and the first section of concentric risers will fall over leaving an open well 70- 100 feet below the sea floor. The wellhead at that point may as well be on Mars. There is no equipment anywhere that is capable of major excavation to any depth 5000 feet below the sea surface.
If a riser joint is broken at greater depths, the chances are the weight of the BOP assembly will be sufficient to press the sections together even if there is some minor leaking under the sea floor. This will remain true if BP can continue to keep oil flowing through the casing/BOP, relieving pressure on the riser package.
The bottom line conclusion is that DougR is correct, the riser assembly is (not even appears to be) fatally compromised, possibly broken where the concentric sections are joined together at forty foot intervals below the sea floor. As the Macando sea floor mud is soft and unstable, the flow of oil and gas through the well is sufficient to cause vibration which could cause the BOP to shift off the rest of the riser assembly. Under this hypothesis, the 500 ton weight - most of that at the top of the riser section - would ultimately tip over and lever the riser section out of the ground. If the first section of riser is decoupled under the mudline, the consequence of the BOP and that section falling over would be an uncontrollable, open wellhead.
Since BP is conserned about the BOP's listing, the possibility of this kind of failure has to be taken seriously. BP certainly is.
DougR suggested using braces to shore up the BOP. This would be pretty sensible and inexpensive.
It would also be prudent for BP to start drilling more (true) relief walls into the reservoir with the intention of relieving formation pressure. Other DW drilling companies should be hired to commence this drilling as soon as possible.
If the BOP (and first casing section) are disconnected from the rest of the well, it will be very hard to control the well by mud from an intercepting well. I will leave this to ROCKMAN to puzzle out the pressure differentials.
DougR is right, BP is in a race with time and the Gulf in a race with the devil.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6655#comment-660674
You raise some interesting and valid points.
I don't think it is a likely failure mode and here are a few reasons why. But it is still a point of concern.
1 - The weak point where bending is most likely to occur is probably at the connection between the BOP and the wellhead. This probably looks quite similar to the connection where the LMRP cap is now. A couple very heavy duty 20 to 24 inch flanged connections latched together. The necks of these flanges are probably weaker than the composite casing design.
2 - As you point out cement (why is it concrete in all other industries and cement for drilling?) has great compressive strength and practically no tensile strength. But that compressive strength in the annular space between the casings greatly resists deformation (out of round) so it takes a much greater force to deform it to where the coupling will tear off. Using your example of the two pipes with a coupling. Fill the pipe with concrete (or another smaller pipe with concrete in between and I think it will be very difficult to bend.
3 - The couplings used in the drilling industry are much better designed that the ones in the local hardware store. They are required to withstand substantial bending forces.
4 - Failure here would require that all layers of casing (2 or 3) rupture at the same level. Obviously the failure of any casing would be of great concern and would weaken the remaining casing, but still all would have to fail.
But all that said, if there was a failure at the surface, or within a few hundred feet of the surface it would be as catastrophic as you describe. But again, there is no indication that is happening.
BP is checking the tilt on a regular basis and I am going to be optimistic and believe it is part of a planned safety check and not because of a real concern that it is moving.
As for DougR's ideas about trying to support the riser I don't believe they are practical, the mud is too soft and the forces involved too great.
There was another thread that talked about tying the BOP down so it wouldn't blow off.
The only way I think they could support the BOP if it was to start to tip over would be to attach the drill rig to the top of the BOP and apply some upward lift, maybe 400 tons. They actually have that capability because the Discoverer Enterprise has twin drill towers and they could drop a second drill string with rigging the ROVs could attach. Would have to have a quick disconnect so the rig could leave in an emergency.
If they start to do that then I will concede they is a major problem at the wellhead. Until then I think I will stick with my theory. But thanks for the idea, it is one I hadn't considered.
The top 254' of well casing is enclosed in 36" pipe. That is one helluva strong column.
I'm presuming the 36" pipe was sunk from the mudline through the soft upper layers of the sediment and driven into reasonably firm ground which can provide some structural support. Can any TODer throw light on how firm the sediments gets with depth?
shelburn said,
Are you serious? Or was this a joke?
I haven't seen any "actual engineering analysis" from DougR or in shelburn's rebuttal. I have little expertise in seabed sediment or wellbore lining, so I have remained silent on this topic. I am a chemical engineer, so my expertise in the fluid mechanics and thermodynamics is more relevant to BP's LMRP cap attempt. However, a one-mile long riser falling to the sea floor seems to be a very extreme event that could easily lead to unexpected consequences. It reminds me of the two airliners that hit the WTC. Engineers would have never predicted there collapse because they failed to account for high temperatures of the burning fuel. It seems shelburns "common sense" rebuttal might also be missing something.
When a one mile long riser collapses, why couldn't there be torque at a weak joint several hundred feet below the surface in soft sediment? Is possible to have sub-surface bending and then a snap-back following the kinking and severing of the riser above the BOP (that relieves the torque). Could this bending create a crack(s) in the lining?
selburn said,
Have these videos of oil leaking from the seabed been misinterpreted or are they a hoax?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2RxIQP0IBU
probably just semantics. Cement is an ingredient in unmixed/uncured concrete. Drillers might refer to the cement job, rather than the concrete job. If I was to diagram the well, I would have leaders pointing to "conc." for concrete. In everyday discussion about the well, they might be used interchangeably. If you were looking for someone to finish concrete, you might look under either concrete finishers or cement finishers. If you were ordering from a batch plant, you would order concrete with a specified Portland cement composition, measured in 90# bags. If you were hiring me as a demolition worker, you'd be hiring me to break out concrete.
Dentists also use something they call cement, but I don't think it has anything to do with Portland cement.
Extremely tangential to the discussion, but pitching in my two pennies where they might fit.
Right helpful to some of us, too, so thanks, mtm.
Thanks, lotus. Looking elsewhere on the thread, you can see terms like "cemented casing" and infer from the context that the words are used somewhat interchangeably in the drilling industry. It's not something to get hung up on. There are technical reasons to understand the precise meanings of the lingo, as used, but I doubt this example is very central to the larger discussion.
deleted
Cramer: The video's not a hoax but the title is wrong. That video has been chewed to death here. There's been independent (not by BP) confirmation that there's no convincing evidence that that's a crack in the sea floor and it doesn't make common sense either.
Your investment advice sucks, by the way.
"I'd like to see this tip over."
IMO if you were to jerk around on it enough - a MASSIVE drilling platform connected to it by a mile long riser, exploding, burning, sinking, turning over and setteling several miles away from the BOP - it might just compromise this relatively tiny, spaghetti like column connected to the MASSIVE, HEAVY, BOP that is sitting on top of a couple thousand feet of soft mud that gives little resistance. Think.
Just saying
Indeed, it's all about scale and levers.
Not going to blow a gasket but I'm having a difficult time viewing your scale and levers. It would be helpful if you put it into perspective.
It depends on HOW we shall then think about this, then, does it not? I tend to think the STRUCTURAL engineers got this right.
enigma, I did some back of envelope calculations to put the pieces in perspective.
The "MASSIVE, HEAVY" BOP, of course weighs 450 tons as we are told. Just the upper 1150 feet of the "tiny, spaghetti like column" weighs about 800 tons, almost twice the BOP weight. This might help explain why it's only leaning a couple degrees after getting jerked around by the platform.
The riser has flotation which makes it close to neutrally buoyant. For the first couple days there was a loop which went up 1,200 feet off the bottom. The lower portion is heavier and that is what bent over to form the kink.
shelburn, I could be wrong, but I thought enigma was describing the pipe below the BOP as spaghetti.
Does the BOP itself weigh 450 tons, or does it weigh 40 tons and the entire seabed to surface package weigh 450 tons?
Edit: Or is it neither one of those?
Yes, just think about it. No need for engineering, when we can just use regular ol' common sense and go with our gut feelings.
Are you implying that they engineered for "a MASSIVE drilling platform connected to it by a mile long riser, exploding, burning, sinking, turning over and setteling several miles away from the BOP - it might just compromise this relatively tiny, spaghetti like column connected to the MASSIVE, HEAVY, BOP that is sitting on top of a couple thousand feet of soft mud that gives little resistance."?
I admire your confidence in these people...NOT!!!!!!
Never mind ...just keep HOPING for the best, I'm sure you won't be disappointed, I mean what reason would you possibly have for even doubting them for a second as they have such a stellar record WRT engineering for worst case and all. Lets just assume that they are already ten steps ahead of us already and we can't possibly even fathom what the hell they are doing so lets just get back to watching the world cup and leave them to it. Engineering is so complicated we shouldn't even attempt to understand.
BS!!!!!!!!!
Did you use your Gut Feeling Pocket Reference to come up with that? Sounds like something from CSI: Structural Engineering. Thanks for proving my point to a tee.
I don't think enigma got this memo:
relatively tiny [800 ton] spaghetti like column connected to the massive [450 ton] heavy BOP
Nice photo, aardvark.
It reminds me that there is a huge gap in interpretation when people of varying backgrounds see a picture like this. For those with drilling, engineering, or construction experience, this looks like it would be almost impossible to bend or break in a real world scenario. For those with less experience with reinforced columns, it just looks like some rusty metal with grungy rocks in it.
I think a lot of the disagreement over whether the BOP could tip over is between folks on opposite sides of this experience gap (not all of the disagreement, of course). I appreciate all the effort by the knowledgeable folks here to explain the kind of strengths and forces at play in this well, but I sometimes wish we could reach thru the screen and do some hands-on learning. But we've only got words and a few good pics.
If anyone is actually reading this, trust me, this pipe is enormously strong. And the one holding up the BOP is even bigger.
Yeah. We used to try to pull 8 inch pipe pile to try to straighten it with a D-8 dozer so it would look better. Had a HELL of a time trying to do that! The black smoke just POURED out that 8 and didn't do much! Heh! Heh!
I used to fix bent elbows for trumpets by pushing a line of right sized ball bearings through the tube. Of course thin brass is not M-1 Abrams plating either.
one point that was brought up above that has merit to consider is that this is not what is generally understood as steel reinforced concrete, as in rebar-reinforced. It'd probably be better understood as concrete reinforced steel. The centralizers are the only steel reinforcement at play if I'm not mistaken, and I'd say they have minimal effect in this case, especially being far downhole from the area of concern. I'm not an engineer, so defer to them as to the shear/tensile forces involved, but using my gut-feeling-reference chart, (I have worked with concrete and steel enough to have some idea of the material properties), I'd say this is a beefy structure, even after the high degree of torque applied to it. There is almost certainly some strain, (in the deformation sense of the word), but only time will tell if it is critical. I have faith there are smarter folks than myself keeping an eye on it.
“Give me a lever long enough, a fulcrum strong enough and I'll move the world” -Archimedes
Wth is the jet nozzle made of?
Hi shelburn, thanks very much for this guest posting. Since I started here nearly 4 years ago now I've been asking old (baldy) goose "where does the truth lie?". Of course we can guess and get lucky, but sober logical analysis of multi dynamic fast moving events and data are what we are looking for and that is what you have given us here.
The main worry for me is the way the MSM latch on to alarmist reporting. Oil Drum visits hit over 100,000 per day on the back of DougR's comment. If you have come here to read rubbish then I respectfully ask you to leave, go read a horrorscope or something of that ilk. The consequences of the GOM oil spill are already bigger than most reasonable folks can imagine, no one knows what the final environmental consequences might be. This is a very real disaster in many different ways, its really time to try and minimise it, contain its consequences and to stop blowing it beyond its already expanding boundaries.
I'm 100% behind the Americans conducting the relief well / bottom kill - kill it as soon as you can guys.
Euan
If a video game based upon an unrelated 'spill' incident was developed with booms and skimmers and such were released, with the profits going toward spill mitigation, it would hit #1 instantly. Being for the cause would probably placate ethical consideration and content could be geared toward science and conservation. It is what we do as humans. If I could write a decent one fast enough I would try and do it.
Superb idea. I would if I could.
Nah, the big money maker will be Grand Theft ROV: Deep Gulf. Rogue ROV pilots playing merry hell with various wellhead components.
With whales Vs Rov Or Whale Vs BOP matchups.
Do you get bonus points for saving a sword fish from the clutchs of an evil BOP?
With whales Vs Rov Or Whale Vs BOP matchups.
Mind-blowing, tabby. What an incredible thrill.
I think it could start a new trend. Best plan gets implemented IRL and the winning player gets a cool million and saves dolphins, becoming a hero too.
Do you mean that you are most worried about the perception of this catastrophe, rather than the catastrophe itself?
People have already canceled their vacations to Gulf resorts. All the hand-waving on CNN seems like standard fare in any disaster.
I'm trying to make sense of your comment. Yes we have a real catastrophe here. But you seem to think that people cancelling vacations to the Gulf is a catastrophe - that my friend is trivia. I really, really don't understand your position.
Yes we have a catastrophe - but it most probably doesn't include the BOP shooting up in the air and hitting the space station.
You need to get a grip of what is really important and what is not. Secure energy supplies to USA is very important; protecting the environmnet is very important; having a nice summer holiday every year is a luxury.
You have to understand that some of the coastal areas have essentially no economy beyond real-estate shenanigans and tourism. If the affluent German tourists stopped showing up, then the state of Florida, especially, would almost curl up and die...
Tourism is maybe 55 billion in Florida. Oil in Louisiana is 65 billion maybe.
Euan, I live in a tourist area. We have had several BAD hits to the tourist trade and it is not pretty. It hits all the way down the line. People laid off in resorts. People do not have money to spend in shops. Shops struggle to survive. Car repair shops are empty because no-one can afford to fix their cars. Mechanics get laid off and they have no money to spend and so it goes on in a big circle. No tourists hit the local economy HARD. Environment is important to the tourist trade as well. For the people in a tourist are this is no trivia, if you go through it you would understand.
NAOM
OK folks, I understand now. We're looking at this issue from completely different angles. Clearly if you live in the Gulf area and you see you livlihoods drying up because of the oil spill you see that as a disaster - and you do have my sympathy - you are innocent bystanders.
But The Oil Drum at core is a peak oil site. We see major problems with future energy supplies based upon the finite nature of these supplies, the fact we have already used the cheapest most easliy accessed supplies of oil gas and coal and there is increasing international competition (China) for what is left. Thus I perosnally would see tourism as an industry already doomed to fail in its current model - I'm real sorry but that is the way it is. Higher energy prices lowers discretionary spending of the masses and raises the cost of travel - there can be only one outcome.
The fact that BP was drilling in 5000 ft of water, targeting a reservoir 18,000 ft below sea level, using a rig that was costing them $500,000 / day is linked to this fact that we are running out of cheap energy.
Folks on the Gulf are looking at it from the angle of immediate consequence, as well as long term implications. Pardon us for our immediate concerns.
If tourism seems like a frivolous industry to some folks, consider if national parks and wildlife refuges are similarly frivolous? We're all part of a bigger ecosystem.
+100. Good post.
If there were even a 10% chance of the place I usually go in the summer having an oily beach and toxic fumes, I'd reschedule too. Now, is this the media's fault for reporting the reality, or BP's fault for creating the reality..?
Worrying about MSM reporting seems to be a little silly at this point. The seem to oscillate between propaganda, illusion and spectacle. Frankly, if it was decent there would be no TOD. The problem is they are not "alarming" about the proper things, which is why we are spiraling towards disaster not including the GOM mess. If anything, MSM does what it can not to alarm people.
Sorry, just don't understand your comment at all. I'm of to bed. If you want to expalin further then I'll answer in about 10 hours.
Worrying about MSM reporting seems to be a little silly at this point. The seem to oscillate between propaganda, illusion and spectacle.
And idiocy, don't forget idiocy. Brian Kilmeade on Fox and Friends today:
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201006250002
Yes, idiocy.
They imagine that we can overcome the laws of physics in the Gulf and that an occupation of Afghanistan can be "successful." And they understand even less about the former than about the latter.
The media, like the masses, lives in an imaginary world without limits and all are endlessly promised that "we will make it right" and told by authority to have faith in God and "our spirit."
Idiocy is built into the system.
Yeah, and if Macondo can leak 50,000 barrels a day, why can't Petraeus?
Why can't all our Generals be gushers?
Arraya - I think I went 1 bottle over the limit last night - I understand what you are saying now. The MSM tends to blast us with bad news, but mainly on trivial things - the little girl who was murdered, neglecting to report the hundreds who were killed on the roads. But when it comes to really bad news they tend to back off since this might actually affect those involved in reporting it. The GOM oil spill has actually produced few disaster images - I keep seeing pictures of beaches in Florida with minor contamination - enough to keep the tourists away but not enough to cause a visual media impact. And the actual potential environmental damage is unknown / unseen, as is the economic damage, a picture of the BP share price chart will mean nothing to most folks. The news flow from BP is slow and un-exciting. So here we have the biggest story of the year and nothing to report. They resort to sensationalism.
Gail,
See this? "... to make a case for a scenario that doesn’t pass muster with actual engineering analysis"
Then you: "I respectfully request that the TOD in general, and you in particular, reconsider the consequences of the statement above."
Huh? The consequences would be even lots more tangential noise, bad data, misinterpretation, flawed conclusions. That's what you want?
Agreed.
With peak oil and other topics we have data, papers, reports, books that we can read, re-analyse, question and debate. The conspiracy theorists and hoaxers cannot supply data to backup their claims. Take the angle of the BOP, for example. It would only take a couple of hours to review footage on youtube, numerous forums etc and publish real data and photographs of the bullseye to support their theory. But they don't.
Isn't it true that oil production really is falling from most producing areas, and more and more is more expensive to obtain? That's more an observation than a mere theory. We could argue how firm the trend is and all that, but it's "happening" is it not?
That was my statement, not Gail's, so I'll accept responsibility for it.
The peak oil question is a much more complex one than trying to define if a well in plain sight is leaking around the base and carving away the foundation.
I happen to believe that peak oil is close. My definition of peak oil is when supply can not meet demand resulting a steep price spike. But I expect that spike will send us into another recession resulting in less use of oil bringing the demand supply equation back in balance for a short time. A projection of a series of sawtooth attempts to climb out of recessions followed by a crisis caused by the price increase in a critical commodity (oil only being the most obvious) generating another recession. Hope I am wrong but the numbers scare me.
Well, by your definition of peak oil, it could be delayed by a major deflationary collapse. Which could spare us demand outstripping supply and create a glut for years. We have no idea the amount of demand that will get destroyed from the debt bomb going off. Oil worries will get outstripped by employment and social unrest worries and during this time our energy structural problems will not get attended to.
Exactly
Uh-huh. Seems most likely to me.
arraya: Are you assuming that Indian and Chinese demand will decrease if "our debt bomb goes off?" I think an equally likely future has supply decreasing slowly and Chinese and Indian demand increasing more rapidly than our decrease in demand. And that would fulfill the projections of the concept of Peak Oil. We have to pay more for oil as our economy fails. But the price keeps going up. The one saving grace ironically is that the Chinese have a extreme interest in keeping our borrowing costs low for the sake of their economic expansion with us as the buyers of their increasing production creating more jobs in their country. Until....
"...that the Chinese have a extreme interest in keeping our borrowing costs low for the sake of their economic expansion with us as the buyers of their increasing production..."
Yes, they do, but I'll be quite surprised if they can absorb the impact of the debt bomb. If they cannot, declining demand for their manufactures will undermine their economies and demand for oil.
And, of course, one way or another, the energy crunch is inescapable and permanent (depending upon population, technology level and consumption, of course). We're just talking about alternate failure modes and timetables.
kalliergo said
Agreed, mostly. Their rates of increase will certainly drop. Going negative is less of a sure thing.
kalliergo also said
But I saw the former chief honcho of Shell Oil on Hannity last night. And he said that there are "trillions of barrels of oil in Colorado alone" and that "this country has more energy than we could ever use."
He also thought that drilling RWs is the right option at this point but that a nuke would be second choice because that's what Matt Simmons said and he's the expert. So there.
Everything seeks it's balance. The bull market that was happening back in April curiously took a hike in May while folks were glued to the TV watching Macondo. HC consumption in the form of gas is down a lot. housing starts at record lows. Fed funds rates are at 1963 levels. Go figure. It all works out.
Hi Shelburn. My interests are somewhat technical; I want to understand. In the diagram of the well, I noted of course there is no abandoned drillpipe. The history of that has been obscured. It seems to me the whole story of that (I should say, the diagram of that) is not well reported. I'm talking about how the stuck drill pipe was abandoned and how much and at what depths and where deviation was initiated to continue deeper. And how cementing goes around that.
In addition, the two pipes in the visible portion of the riser where the shear cut it, revealed during the cap removal and replacement, have been touted as "a figure eight" by some but this seems impossible to double over drill pipe inside a riser. I came to the conclusion that perhaps multiple lengths of production tubing were already placed; that the production configuration progress was further along in this well than I had been led to believe. But my experience is limited; I think now there might be packer(s) already in the hole.
In any case, I don't have the RL contract so it's not critical I understand it. But if many others also want to understand the status of the well, it seems important.
Not really sure about the drill pipe but in a previous thread it seems to be about 3,000 ? feet below the BOP.
The drill pipe would have been hanging free inside the casing.
It might have been blowing up through the BOP when the BOP was activated so no one really knows how much is down there currently.
About the "figure 8" - I tried to "engineer" it but finally resorted to cutting a soda straw in two and when that didn't seem to model it well I went to my shop and cut a piece of aluminum conduit. And I got a "figure 8" that looks just like the photo.
So I think it is one piece of squashed pipe but I wouldn't bet Rockman's Blue Bell on it.
No production tubing they doing a temporary abandonment prior to converting to a production well.
PQ
I think the comment by Shelburn on "It can be made worse if you have some degree of technical experience...." was possibly refering to someone like Matt Simmons. To make DougR inclusive is a bit of a stretch. What DougR has done is worse than anything he has accused BP of doing. BP has been very vague side-stepping many questions. It's unfortunate there are no technical people in the room to rebutt the responses from BP and the mushroom experts in this field. It's painful to watch a congressional hearing when the politician runs out of questions to ask (their queue is dry)and the witness has avoided answering all questions.
It's easy to put a Matt Simmons to rest here because he dosen't come to defend his comments, unless DougR is Matt's alias. DougR has avoided every direct question with a hypothetical question or response. He has no credentials or credibility.
At the very minimum there is a logical process here and the physics involved to support D..gR theory are not viable. Of course if you support the if...if...if's then something could happen. People (newbies)posting throw out comments on casing and pipe as if they actually knew something about it. 22" riser with a .50" wall thickness weights in at about 290K tons from the blown out well (BOP)to the drill rig above. It fell to the bottom of the GoM and the BOP is still standing a couple of degrees out of plumb.
"What I am increasingly seeing on this site is expressions of hostility, intolerance, and anger that (given the absence of hard data), suggest this is perhaps not the best site for ideas to be exchanged."
I think you have done lots of typing to come back with a "I don't have a clue...." response. I think I can speak for myself and many of the posters here that TOD is one of the most stable sites around. You push DougR agenda and then comment on hostility, intolerance, and anger (directed toward whom?) and reference your feelings on the absence of hard data. What would you like to see happen?
My post specifically state that I have no particular bias for or against dougr
But I do have issues with the intemperate, uncivil discourse where certain posters resort to terms like "bullshit" with impunity.
There is no effective moderation, nor recognition that conflicting ideas and facts need to be tolerated and welcomed in the promotion of free thinking.
That is clearly not happening here.
When it comes to hurling insults, I am afraid, I am out of it --- I am moving my posts to a far better site.
See you there, if you can find it.
PQ, today you have overlooked several insulting and accusatory statements by dougr, exaggerated the severity of comments directed toward him, and repeatedly accused many people here of being paid shrills. The word is "shill" BTW.
Do you honestly think your behavior on TOD has been civil or tolerant?
"When it comes to hurling insults, I am afraid, I am out of it --- I am moving my posts to a far better site." That's a nasty little insult, but the irony is delicious.
Q.E.D.
http://baseballsongoftheday.blogspot.com/2010/03/saturday-night-at-movie...
Try a little tenderness? Nice thought dohboi, but I think PQ is playing a different game.
Oh I see now, the BP spill discussion on TOD has been upstaged by people concerned about their feelings.
That's it, I've had enough of this bullsh*t. Watching ROV feeds is more educational than this nonsense.
At least I got a couple of nice CRAW T-shirts out of it.
PQ17, pray tell where that far better site is. I'd like to check it out. You're welcome to email me on it.
Bye all.
Gee, our departing (fingers crossed) combatants sound strangely familiar . . .
I could a say a dragon flew down to the sea floor and turned the BOP into peanut butter.
Where do you draw the line between between sound science and peanut butter?
Peanut butter and jelly is sound science.
I'm not sure what to scratch first. Just puzzled I guess.
This reminds me of a few scenes of the Bachelor. I'm not a TV person but my better half turns it on for distraction. Flakey Jake got his woman and although his heart pined for all the beauties he had to send away he split up with his woman after a few months. It just goes to show that TV and movie producers think the rest of the world is crazy. They will just sit there and keep watching thinking it's got to get better. In DougR's synopsis nothing gets better.
As much as BP has fumbled they are making progress toward the goal. This is an area where you don't have to be wrong for me to be right and vice versa. I don't buy into DougR's theory and hyperbole. The problem with his position is it does what Shelburn stated. He acts as if he has experience in this area and people who have little or no knowledge in the technical, mechanical or structural arena start asking questions based on DougR's comments which have no foundation. Most of the world can agree that BP and the USCG have been less than transparent or straight forward with the info. In that regard that is where D...ougR's area of expertise ends. He know what every other individual in the world who cares knows.
Why would you want to go to a site where everyone agrees with you. That would seem to create an atmosphere of psychosis.
There is a huge difference between "I have no particular bias" and "I don't have a clue........"
I doubt that the paid shrills are being paid to track you, so they may not be looking.
The site have a really good comment moderation system, so even if they show up, they are welcome.
TheraP: I have a slight contribution to your analysis of "uncertainty" this am.
As H L Menken said: "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."
Your words read like an island of sanity. Thanks!
TheraP: I also enjoyed and agreed with your observations this morning. Add to it the realities of the information age and need for media outlets to one up each other with sensationalism. along with the tendency for many people to almost hope for a bigger disaster or a worse outcome. Imagine how upset some will be if a hurricane did not head toward the drill site or if BP actually started to catch all the oil and actually was successful with the first RW, or if the GOM actually recovered(by that time there will be another apocalyptic event to worry about. There are always a dozen or so to choose from)
Almost as if people are watching one of those disaster movies - and the quality of the "movie" is judged by how the "plot" has events grow worse and worse. As if it's "entertainment" of a terrifying kind. No wonder logic doesn't enter in!
Thank you, Diverdan, for your words of wisdom.
And now, TheraP, for my GRAND FINALE:
In the immortal words of the the greatest American philosopher... Drum Roll...
"There's a sucker born every minute." — P.T. Barnum
How utterly apropos!
TheraP:
Menken also said: "Everything I like is either immoral, illegal, or fattening."
Plus this gem: "Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."
His New Dictionary of Quotations is out of print again, sadly. The 1989 edition (14th printing) cost $75 new in 1990. No, you can't borrow my copy.
Many thanks for the education. And especially the sanity! ;)
TheraP: I have a soft spot for Clinical Pyschs. Some very close relatives and friends in that field.
I have soft spot for those of us calmly weathering this TOD hurricane that's blown in... We're like troops bonding in a foxhole.
Rockman: About your am posts: "The history of the West is a history of brutality and failure." Larry McMurtry, a Texas boy
posted in previous thread by
Euan Mearns on June 25, 2010 - 2:06pm
"Hi shelburn, thanks very much for this guest posting. Since I started here nearly 4 years ago now I've been asking old (baldy) goose "where does the truth lie?". Of course we can guess and get lucky, but sober logical analysis of multi dynamic fast moving events and data are what we are looking for and that is what you have given us here.
The main worry for me is the way the MSM latch on to alarmist reporting. Oil Drum visits hit over 100,000 per day on the back of DougR's comment. If you have come here to read rubbish then I respectfully ask you to leave, go read a horrorscope or something of that ilk. The consequences of the GOM oil spill are already bigger than most reasonable folks can imagine, no one knows what the final environmental consequences might be. This is a very real disaster in many different ways, its really time to try and minimise it, contain its consequences and to stop blowing it beyond its already expanding boundaries.
I'm 100% behind the Americans conducting the relief well / bottom kill - kill it as soon as you can guys.
Euan"
---
Emphasis added by me to further illustrate how important common sense, logic and deductive reasoning are in this new age of "journalism" on the internets.
I concur with the post by Euan and appreciate the time, effort and experience it took to write the guest article by Shelburn. This is why TOD is such a valuable resource.
The internets are big and I suppose there is a place for everything no matter how outrageous it may or may not be. There are ways to improve credibility for seemingly wild ass claims, if that is the desired goal.
(edit to mention Euan already reposted above - slow typing and multiple distractions while I was posting...)
Yeah. what Euan and you said. My hat is off to every body working on those kill wells and the clean up effort, on shore and off shore.
Thank you - it means a lot - full payment for an underpaid shrill.
To everyone (especially the principals) at TOD, Thanks for all the great work and info here. I've been lurking for a while, and finally decided to join up.
I've lived all over the US and a couple of foreign countries, and now live in Denver with my family. But as a small child I lived in Fort Walton Beach, FL, and I remember how impossibly white and squeaky the sand was when I walked on it. It just doesn't compute in my head any other way, certainly not coated in tar.
The financial picture for BP is indeed ugly. What amazes me is the number of people touting BP as a good long investment. In the spirit of full disclosure and "talking my book", I bought several thousand put options last week because of what I'm about to lay out.
They (BP) have 6 or 7 major areas of financial liability for this spill:
1. Direct clean-up costs. So far, these seem to be running at $1B per month. We have yet to see significant clean-up efforts necessitated in places like Tampa, where we all expect to oil come ashore within a few weeks, but those added expenses may be offset in the coming months as the RWs come online and the active spill is closed off. But I'd be willing to bet that BP spends $10B in direct clean-up costs, and will still be working on direct clean-up through the winter.
2. Compensation for oil workers idled by the drilling moratorium. ROCKMAN already addressed this a bit earlier, but I'll lay it out again. With something like 40,000 energy service workers idled, probably for the next year, that's a big bill. Their salaries may be 55,000 per year median, but with benefits thrown in the direct costs per worker are probably more like 85-90 K. Call it $4B to be conservative. That 100 million dollar fund is indeed a joke. In fact, it's probably been spent already.
3. Compensation for lost economic activity. It's hard to put a price tag on this one, but the seafood industry in the GOM and associated industries like processors, shippers, restaurants, etc. are probably worth $5B a year in economic activity. The tourism industry along the GOM is said to account for $100 B a year in economic activity. Assume that 20% of the tourist dollars vanish this year in a documentable fashion, and that the seafood industry in the GOM is simply done for the whole year. That's $5B + $20B = $25B in lost economic value. This number is obviously very nebulous, and is subject to court action that may take years. Note also that some fraction of this is probably going to be a recurring cost, i.e. ain't nobody gonna be shrimpin' or oysterin' for a few years.
4. The fine. The maximum amount of the fine that can be levied, under the Oil Pollution Act, is 4300 dollars per barrel. Assume the well will spill an average of 35000 BPD into the water for 90 days, that's more than 3 million barrels spilled. Assuming the Obamacons go for the maximum penalty, BP is looking at a fine of $13B, i.e. easily the largest corporate fine ever levied by the USG. Again, they may not go for the maximum fine, and BP can fight and apply some delaying tactics. But this will NOT drag on for 19 years a la Exxon Valdez. The political dynamic over this incident simply won't allow it.
5. Securities litigation. With $85B in damage done to shareholders, the Lizards and their legal ilk are already crawling out of the woodwork to initiate shareholder lawsuits. These will run the gamut, with everyone from large state pension funds that held huge stakes in BP, to hedgies that got blasted, to individual shareholders demanding compensation. If BP cut corners or hid other info about their operational practices, and that info is shown to be material to the accident and subsequent share price drop, then BP failed in their fiduciary duty to shareholders and is liable for damages. Nobody will ever recover the whole $85B loss, but a settlement worth 10-20% of the lost value isn't out of the question. Call it $8.5B to be conservative.
6. Litigation costs. BP is about to be sued by more people than they know existed. Merely defending themselves from 1000 class-action lawsuits could cost in the $2-3B dollars range. Every energy lawyer in Houston had better cancel their appointments for the next 3 years. They're about to be busy, either suing or defending BP.
7. Assorted regulatory costs and headaches, potential for lost drilling leases, losses associated with goodwill (a balance sheet fantasy that BP won't be able to use for a while), boycotts, losses of key personnel, etc. Most of this is tough to quantify.
Even with fairly conservative numbers like those above, it looks to me like BP is staring down the barrel of $55B worth of identified liabilities, just for the 12 months since the accident. As of the quarter ended March 30, they showed a quick ratio close to 1 (i.e. current liabilities are just about the same as current assets). So that $55B will have to be paid for out of earnings, loans, or asset sales. BP is projected to make something like $15B this year, although if oil slides some more they won't make that number. They had about $12B on hand as of the date of the accident. So for the 12 months after the accident, they should have or make $27B. That leaves them $28B short for the year. They could probably take on that level of debt, but with their CDSs blown out they will pay through the nose, if they can find willing counterparties.
They likely have to sell a bunch of stuff. The tangible book value of BP is about $100B right now, and they'll definitely be selling assets at a discount. If they have to make up $28B in one year, they have to sell assets equivalent to 1/4 to 1/3 of the company. That may not even be possible, depending on how the company is organized. My take on this is that BP can stave off re-organization or bankruptcy only be selling a major portion of its assets, or finding some political compromise with the Obamacons that slows down the rate at which they have to pay for liabilities from the spill. Absent that, they likely to have file some form of bankruptcy protection, probably for the North American subsidiary.
I have several bags of popcorn at the ready if this happens, 'cause the fireworks will be impressive. Even if BP squeaks through financially, the weight of their liabilities and uncertainty about the payment timelines will keep a lid on the stock for several quarters, if not several years.
Compensation for oil workers idled by the drilling moratorium. ROCKMAN already addressed this a bit earlier, but I'll lay it out again
No BP won't pay this.. Obama get BP to set up 100 million for those idled worker and that is it. Those loss are caused by government decision.. And you see that the moritarium itself is being challenged in court..
Compensation for lost economic activity. It's hard to put a price tag on this one, but the seafood industry in the GOM and associated industries like processors, shippers, restaurants, etc. are probably worth $5B a year in economic activity
BP would pay the gorss, they will just pay the profit loss... So a resturant did 100K business last year and gross 20k. This year they do 40K business and loss 10K, BP will only pay 30K..
At the end of the day, most like British government will come to BP rescue by either guarantee their loan or loaning them the money if BP is in a bind.. It is not good for British tax payer that BP go BK either..
The tangible book value of BP is about $100B right now
tangible book mean very little in oil industry.. What they carry in the book and what the economic value of a property can be quite different.. But selling asset is hard when everyone know that you need the money.. The upshot is that if they can arrnage the loan, they may have a year or two to sell all the asset..And they can also shrink their budget as well..
They likely have to sell a bunch of stuff
BP want to sell 10B bond, arrange 20B bank loan and sell 20B asset.. the problem is that it did not go well.. Rumor is flying all over the place for the term.. Let hope they can arrange it, otherwise no one will get pay a dime and everyone will have to go to the BK court to claim their money..
"No BP won't pay this.. Obama get BP to set up 100 million for those idled worker and that is it. Those loss are caused by government decision.. And you see that the moritarium itself is being challenged in court..."
Uhh, just because Obama only managed to get 100 million up front does not imply that this is the maximum liability. The losses were not caused by a government decision taken in vacuum, they were caused by a government decision made in response to gross negligence on the part of BP. Now that the loss of wages to oil service workers has been recognized as a causus belli, you can bet that it will remain an issue. If it's not something the Obamacons and BP can agree to keep paying on, then it will wind up as another class-action lawsuit. An interesting wrinkle might be if the oil service guys name the MMS and/or the Interior Dept. as co-defendants in their suit, along with BP.
The moratorium challenge is turning into a legal version of a Kaufka play. In the end, the challenge is meaningless because Salazar has supposedly instructed his staff to ignore Judge Feldman's injunction, and continue enforcing the moratorium. Salazar and his staff are busy finding a regulatory way to justify giving Feldman the finger. All of this just creates uncertainty for DW drillers, and by next month most of the DW rigs will be on their way to other contracts in Africa or Brazil. And those jobs will be gone regardless of the tortured legal arguments.
"BP would pay the gorss, they will just pay the profit loss... So a resturant did 100K business last year and gross 20k. This year they do 40K business and loss 10K, BP will only pay 30K."
Actually, BP will wind up paying whatever Feinberg finds them legitimately responsible for, or if it comes to that what the jury finds them liable for. They will clearly try to low-ball every claim that they can, but they will largely wind up paying for lost revenues, not merely lost profits. Unfortunately many of the claims will be for a complete loss of the businesses in question. That goes beyond the question of what one grosses or nets in a year.
"At the end of the day, most like British government will come to BP rescue by either guarantee their loan or loaning them the money if BP is in a bind.. It is not good for British tax payer that BP go BK either."
I wouldn't count on that. Cameron and Clegg have been pretty quiet so far on this whole subject, and I find it very hard to believe that a Lib Dem politician in the UK would back a taxpayer bail-out of such an ecological fiasco. I find it tough to believe that a Tory politician elected basically to set Britain's finances straight would, as his first act in government, hand BP 20 billion pounds (and on the eve of an austerity budget that will cut painfully into public services). The kind of bail-out you're talking about could cause the fall of the UK government.
"tangible book mean very little in oil industry.. What they carry in the book and what the economic value of a property can be quite different.. But selling asset is hard when everyone know that you need the money.. The upshot is that if they can arrnage the loan, they may have a year or two to sell all the asset..And they can also shrink their budget as well.."
I agree completely that what they carry as book value may not accurately represent what they might get in asset sales. My expectation is that they'll take a 20-30% shave off of "book value" for many of their assets. That just makes my point more powerfully. I should also point out that the book value of their assets does matter when securing financing, as those assets represent the bondholders and/or lenders best chance of being repaid in the event of default. So the book value does matter, even if it isn't exactly an accurate predictor of asset sale prices.
"BP want to sell 10B bond, arrange 20B bank loan and sell 20B asset.. the problem is that it did not go well.. Rumor is flying all over the place for the term.. Let hope they can arrange it, otherwise no one will get pay a dime and everyone will have to go to the BK court to claim their money.."
I'm sure BP would like the capital markets to bail them out, but of course that won't go well for them. With their CDSs in such bad shape, I can just imagine the types of deals being floated around right now to issue new BP debt. As far as bank loans go, I read that they had approached a syndicate of British banks (Barclay's and RBS were the 2 I heard about). Those loans could come through, but the terms might be so horrible that BP would wish they had just sold some assets.
"Let hope they can arrange it, otherwise no one will get pay a dime and everyone will have to go to the BK court to claim their money"
That's something worth agreeing on.
Item 2, having to compensate lost wages from a moratorium, is pure lunacy.
This spill isn't the cause of the moratorium. Regulators sitting on their lazy asses for so long and having to play catch-up now is the cause of this moratorium ...as Salazar more or less admits.
So by rights Salazar and his MMS clowns should have to compensate lost wages.
"Item 2, having to compensate lost wages from a moratorium, is pure lunacy." Agreed.
"So by rights Salazar and his MMS clowns should have to compensate lost wages." Whoa. That would be you and me. We already got screwed by having to pay for MMS's failure and got a catastrophe for it. If MMS has to pay out, that'll be us again. The government is ours when it's time to pay.
Doubly agreed, with both sets of comments. However, now that the issue is out there does anybody think the loss of those jobs won't remain a political and legal issue / liability? If I had a business servicing rigs in the Gulf that's about to be put out of business I would sue both BP and the Interior Dept....
I suspect that political impact will be localized after a while. Once there's a new episode most Americans forget about the old ones. The legal issues will go on but a BP with BK protection is unassailable in a practical sense. I also have the notion that BP is TBTF in the circles that matter. And you know what happens to the "small people" in that situation. As far as the USG being sued goes, I'd bet on a court ruling that prevents it, sound legal basis or not.
Welcome, Knob. Sounds like you have a lot to offer.
Tough to see how a shareholder lawsuit is going anywhere. Blowouts/spills are a well known risk in this business. It's not like Enron where the company was intentionally deceiving its investors. You can argue that the corporation was not living up to safety regulations, but it appears to me that the primary cause of the blowout isn't addressed by these regulations. Another tact being talked about is that BP misrepresented its safety record - which is lousy. Hard to believe that will work because the safety records are public information. Investors bringing suit are going to have a hard time with that. BP can rightly go to court and claim "our safety record is widely known to be really bad". Who except a camel-swallowing lawyer would dispute that?
Such a lawsuit will also take forever and a day to work through the courts.
Another big assumption here is that payout will be in one year. That is crazy talk. The continuing damages will last for at least two years, so how could it?
The $20b settlement fund will put a lid on most of the lawsuits. No need to sue to get your payout unless you want to take on the uncertainty of the legal process.
The fine of $4300/bbl assumes certain levels of negligence can be proved. And the size of the fine will be appealed (and probably reduced). Exxon's fine was originally going to be $5B. After appeals it was cut to $500M. Just that process could take a decade. And no Obama isn't going to speed that up - everybody gets due process. This process is going to outlive Obama's time in office, regardless of whether he gets a second term or not.
Certainly the time all of this could take could really ease the pressure on BP, which I think I mentioned in the bottom of my post. In fact, BP's financial picture is basically determined by the foot race between the payout schedule for these liabilities and the rate at which they can earn cash. If the burn rate is slow enough, they can stay out of bankruptcy.
Securities suits usually hinge on whether the company hid "material" facts about its business, such as deficiencies in its drilling procedures. That's the angle that matters. So you're right in saying that their general safety record, because it's very publically well known, isn't a good angle to pursue. But find a smoking gun that shows the company knew it was cutting corners in drilling procedures, and it's game on. E-discovery is a bitch.
My calculations were for just 12 months worth of liabilities. I agree that some of those payouts, like the fine, are unlikely to be paid out in full in 12 months. But I didn't include recurring damages, like the loss if fishing income for years 2-5, or the loss of tourism income in future years. That's a series of wounds that could bleed BP for years to come.
The $20 B settlement means nothing if it doesn't cover the losses. Also, I should point out that deal is less than it appears, because it only forces BP to pay $5B into escrow for each of the next 4 years. The $20B is not being paid upfront. The losses this year greatly exceed $5B dollars. As far as the uncertainty of the legal process goes, I'm afraid that in the end it will be the only recourse for many people in the Gulf: Face the certainty of not being paid in a timely fashion by BP, or take your chances in court. It's a lousy choice, especially with your home or business hanging in the balance.
I'm not sure what the basis of an appeal of the fine would be. BP just just flatly screwed up and caused the worst oil spill in US history. It would be hard to screw up worse than they have, and negligence in this case seems pretty self-evident. I'm also not sure what the basis would be for a reduction of the fine. In the case of the Exxon Valdez, the fine wasn't a fine, it was a jury award in a lawsuit (Baker vs. Exxon). It was reduced by SCOTUS because a damage award of $5B was entirely punitive and way out of scale compared to the actual monetary damage caused (~500 million dollars).
The fine I was talking about for BP is mandated by the Oil Pollution Act, which was passed in the wake of the Exxon Valdez accident. There's no lawsuit required to secure a judgement, the fine is enshrined in law already. A curious consequence of Baker v. Exxon is that in maritime incidents, punitive damage awards should roughly coincide with the actual damages done. If that same standard is applied to the Deepwater Horizon accident, BP could legitimately be on the string for a punitive settlement far worse than $13B. If BP sued to overturn the law, every court in the land would simply reference Baker v. Exxon and dismiss their case. I'm not even sure they could get SCOTUS to hear the case, since BP would literally be asking the court to overturn its own 2-year old decision.
Bottom line, forget Exxon Valdez. It's not a precedent that any of us should base our expectations on.
Family: Oil disaster devastated captain who committed suicide.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/25/gulf.oil.disaster.suicide/?hpt=C1
I asked some questions too late in the previous version, so pardon me asking similar again:
The threads are interesting and compelling critique of the idea in dougr's post that the BOP might tip over, etc. But a major point I remember is his idea the well casing was compromised a long distance and that could cause worse problems than we expect. Isn't there still something there to wonder and be concerned about? And dougr thought the top kill would work unless something more was wrong. But other/s gave more orthodox explanation of why the top-kill didn't work, and that it had never worked on a gushing well before anyway etc. - true, no surprise? But I don't remember skepticism rolling out anywhere (my apologies if most of you did indeed) of how unlikely that was to succeed, just various mixed doubts. More insight would be appreciated.
I believe the comment was that no one ever successfully cemented a flowing well. Top kill has worked, though
Hi! Ya'll
I've been was gone for a while. Here's what I learned, when I came back, from the morning thread. Everyone is a paid shill except for you and me. And I'm beginning to have my suspicions about you.
Signed,
Ponce de Leon Montgomery County Alabama Georgia Beauregard Possum.
EL : So are you an unpaid shill?
Dd: Proudly paid, sir, but only when Beauregard Bugleboy gets himself some cash for playn' Taps. Make me all tear up. (The cash, that is.)
Yeah, he's a volunteer for sanity and perspective. Almost certainly an endangered species.
I'll second that.
"Sanity and Perspective"
Could be the next hit show on CNBC ..
Triff ..
Maybe PBS.
I believe that was paid shrills.
Heh! Heh! I believe it was, as well!
PdLMCAGBP: you messed up man, the capitalized H, Y and exclamation point are shouting, you're busted just like the rest of us.
I do need to clear up one point though. The largest group of shrills on TOD aren't working for BP or some stock manipulator. Don't tell anybody, EL, but we have a huge secret group on TOD shilling for Blue Bell.
I'm getting paid with all the fruit bars I can carry home in my back pocket.
signed,
Just Another Overheated & Underpaid Garcon d'Louisiane
oilfield: I am shrilling for Rockman's return to divine status here on TOD and the right to have that Blue Bell stuff for breakfast! Glad you are still cooking. Someone has to keep that alive down there. be a shame to lose it in the mess we got here.
GW, maybe you are thinking Garcon as in restaurant? I meant garcon as a fancy way to say Louisiana boy. I do cook a mean oyster & crawfish-stuffed turgoose, though, when I'm not butchering wood.
Oh, go back to that flitter fly house. You just making your pointy rounds.
I have not posted for some time but I read something early this am that I copied and posted to some friends with some comments of my own. I am reproducing this below as I think some of what I say may be of general interest. My E-mail was headed "It's an ill wind that blews nobody any good".
BTW My chief beef with BP and the Coast Guard is them not coming clean on what they know about damage in or below the BOP that lead them to prematurely kill the 'top kill'. If they knew at the start they did not dare back pressure up to circa 9000 psi to reverse the flow then the top kill was never going to work and their was no way they could say the attempt had 70% chance of success. It was zero percent. Now I have yet to see what they know about the damage they are frightened of and that maybe DouugR unwittingly exploited. When are they going to tell us what they know so that this guessing game can stop and we can focus on helping them?
Here is my E-mail to friends. You do not need to know about the character involved to get the gest.
QUOTE
I have not been reading my favorite site on the oil spill lately: the one where the industry insiders, mostly retired like me, but keen to add their lifetime of knowledge to the issue, converse.
As I said before, it is mostly very frustrating since BP and the Coast Guard do not provide details of what they know so that responsible suggestions from the outside world can be focused.
That is mostly why I gave up reading (and contributing to) this forum - that is called The Oil Drum.
But late last night I decided to have another look and came upon the gem below that is right on with regard to the problem Mary has had for the last 10 years and is why she has to banish herself to the, at least pristine, boondocks of Western Mass. Since she is no longer able to go to the library and check her E-mail (as it is polluted with Wi-Fi that also effects her) I telephoned and read the below to her and she said she would get in touch with a fellow afflicted - who has a computer - so she could, in turn, contact this Dr. Claudia Miller.
Toxicant Induced Loss of Tolerance
http://www.woai.com/content/health/story/Mysterious-illness-plagues-Gulf...
For weeks now, local hospitals have tracked patients with suspicious symptoms coming in from the gulf coast. Doctors are having trouble distinguishing it from the flu.
"What makes it challenging is that patients show up with non-specific symptoms. Headaches, fatigue, problems with memory and concentration, upset stomach," lists Dr. Claudia Miller at UT Health Science Center.
The illness is called "TILT," or Toxicant-Induced Loss of Tolerance. Patients lose tolerance to household products, medication, or even food after being exposed to chemicals, like burning oil, toxic fumes, or dispersants from the spill.
"Things like diesel fuel, exposure to fragrances, cleaning agents that never bothered them before suddenly bother them," adds Dr. Miller.
TILT has been difficult to track because symptoms are similar to the flu. Currently, Dr. Miller is educating primary care doctors on how to spot and treat the illness before it gets worse. Though it's not contagious, the best cure right now is staying away from affected areas.
"Be sure to wear protective equipment and stay out of areas with smell, if [you] feel sick," Dr. Miller says. "The smells are usually chemicals that can make them ill."
Those who are most at risk are pregnant women and patients with prior medical problems, like asthma. To see how susceptible you may be to the disease,
click here http://drclaudiamiller.com/QEESI
Their was also a prior entry from a man who lived in Tampa Florida, that must be a few hundred miles from the spill, where they are now burning off some of the gases and oil at the surface, but downwind, who said he had headaches in the last few weeks and felt the air was different. He had never had headache before in his life.
(Sorry I did not keep the names of those who provided these comments)
Now, with respect to the symptoms described, this is almost exactly what Mary has been saying for years and which the medical profession have mostly responded by ignoring her, giving her useless and expensive treatments, or saying it is all in the mind, and also denying her 'disability benefits'. So the current good from this 'blowing wind' is that it might bring some added credence to this subject that, to date, the medical profession has swept under the rug.
It also beggars the question as to whether BP (or the independent arbiter they have now agreed to use) will honor any claims for compensation from people suffering from the above. Their now famous statement is that they will 'honor all legitimate claims'. Obviously it will be very hard to decide whether those with these symptoms are legitimate as, as yet, there is no physical item that can be examined that demonstrates the effect by a physical change.
I am also reminded of the First Gulf War. If you remember many soldiers returned to the USA claiming a complete change in their physical abilities. The Veterans Administration refused to honor their claims for treatment and compensation and a lot of the focus, among those trying to help them, was on the multiple vaccinations they had been given, over a short time before being deployed, for anthrax and other possible nasty things. But what I am now remembering is that Saddam had torched 100's of oil wells out in the Kuwait Desert so the atmosphere must have been similar to now existing in the Gulf of Mexico - ipso facto.
You first read it here.
UNQUOTE
Now, this is just a thought. Maybe their is not a lot in it since many who work the wells must have suffered this type of exposure over many years without apparently developing these symptoms. Nevertheless we need to keep it in mind.
You said:
I did a google search on Toxicant Induced Loss of Tolerance and got lots of hits:
See http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Toxicant+Induced+Los...
The key paper appears to be this:
http://www.niehs.nih.gov/news/events/pastmtg/2005/addiction/docs/miller.pdf
In a previous thread, Tinfoilhatguy wrote:
I thought when an object falls toward the surface of a body due to gravity, it constantly accelerates as it falls. Constant acceleration increases velocity exponentially unless other forces act. Would this not mean the riser/BOP would have tipped over by now?
That's for a free-falling body in a vacuum or at atmosphere in this case. In the case of meteorites, friction plays a role.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_fall
I think someone else pointed out earlier that velocity does not increase exponentially anyways. Perhaps, but it does increase greatly. Point being, it falls much faster the last inch than the first inch. If the mass was falling due to gravitational forces, it would have fallen down by now. If it moved and we noticed it, then it would take less time to move another noticeable unit and even less to move a third.
As for the friction role, I added the phrase unless other forces act to catch all the forces that act, some of which I am sure I am unaware of.
TFHG, factor in the increasingly effective lever arm as the pipe becomes more horizontal, and your argument gets even better. What I mean is that the more the BOP tips past vertical, the greater the rotational torque component.
IMHO, if the BOP had started to tip over as some people conjecture, you right, it would be a gone pecan by now.
But, but... you didn't mention the water currents which apparently exert more force than an out of control drill rig. What if the currents just happen to be moving in a direction that's holding it up? And as soon as the currents change direction it falls over, and BOOOOM!
Glad you caught that comfychair. What if we conscript the Cypress Gardens mermaids to hang out at the wellhead and kick up an artificial current? Have to do a Back-to-the-Future operation to get them there before the BOP falls over on June 19th, can you call the Professor?
If the BOP is supposedly falling due to structure failure of the pipe, then random currents would only accelerate such failure due to metal fatigue and other stress factors. A pole will blow down in a swirling wind quicker than it would fall on its own IMHO. To think random winds will somehow support it is just silly.
Exactly, TFHG, that's why we need a tightly choreographed team of lightly clothed mermaids to direct precision microcurrents at the BOP. And I completely agree with the "just silly" remark.
In a previous thread, ddtuttle wrote:
The post has lots of welcome perspective, but I sense an extreme defensiveness about the industry. Pride in one's work is a great thing, but it can cloud one's vision. First, the BOP, and presumably the 36" casing (is this the spud?) it rests on ARE leaning at 10-12 deg. The question remains were they "pulled over" by the sinking DWH? Or are they beginning to "fall over" on their own? If they were pulled over, the forces required yank a 36"dia, 2" thick pipe sideways is deeply concerning. Anything that big and strong that is bent by 10-12 deg somewhere under the mud-line suggests the thing could easily be compromised. We don't know, and that's the point.
and
More importantly, this talks a lot about big butch technology, but not about the really fragile geology. It seems almost certain that the fragility of the geological situation is a major contributor to the problems. If things are caving in down hole, would we even know? What happens to all this really cool casing when it has no support from surrounding rock? What would happen during the blow-out to unsupported casing, bad cement jobs etc? I don't know, does anybody?
and
Get BP off this job and put somebody on it who actually gives a s%$# about the gulf, America and the world's oceans. Obama has botched this by believing BP, even when he KNOWS they're chronic liars. He's left them on the job far too long. You want to know what's happening, GET BP OFF THE JOB! And put liens their US bank accounts while you're at it.
Excellent, and you need to post more often. Nationalize it. Federalize it. Get BP the f%$& out of here forever from now on. The whole s%#@teree from the judges to the gas pump is corrupt, and we need to get off hydrocarbons. Now is the time.
I was wondering if anyone here has some experience with variations in chemical composition from one oil deposit to another.
There have been a few remarks about the color of this oil, which are usually dismissed as lighting or camera variations. But when you see shots of the slick on the surface, where it's built up really thick, there is a distinctly red color to it. Also when you see images of the blobs floating around underwater, or the 'smokestack' on the LMRP. Of course there are white highlights of clathrate, and it does seem a little blacker sometimes and redder others.
Other crude oil I've seen is usually black or brown. Sometimes it's translucent yellow like new motor oil (maybe after a refining step?). This is the reddest crude I've seen.
Maybe it was derived from an ancient deposit of tomato sauce? :-)
I've seen it before after Ixtoc I. They called it "mousse" then and got a lot of snark for it. "Oh, minimize the tragedy by naming it after friendly hair products." Maybe so. But it does get whipped up into a froth unlike any oil product I've seen. I think, but don't know, the effect is probably hastened by dispersants. In any case, it's not new, it happens.
And yes, it's bad stuff.
I just had a chat with an elderly gentleman friend who located here on the west coast (actually he is homeless) after Katrina destroyed his family home on Lake Pontchartrain. He still has family back there, and today his folks say the oil is there and the smell is terrible. They have been sick with headaches and nausea. Of course this is just hearsay. But I am worried about the health of the people in the most affected areas and I wonder if anyone has some first-hand news.
As snakehead said to tinfoilhat on a previous thread, please, those of you on the Gulf-- let us know what you need! There are many ready to help you. We are unsure what to do.
aardvark - Thank you for the picture of cross sectional cut of well. While, I'm an aerospace engineer, just looking at it my gut feel is 'yes' that it could fatigue after all the stresses it's been through, all I mean is that I wouldn't bet against it. The press the The Oil Drum got from DougR's comments on The Keith Oberman news show was good. Keith presented it just as he should have, identifying The Oil Drum and that someone named "DougR". As much information as is being hidden by BP, we need to keep calling them for disclosure.
BP accused of killing endangered sea turtles in cleanup operation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/25/bp-accused-of-killing-...
Looking at this list from the internet of past oil spills I wonder; is the gulf spill more like the baby pissed in the bath water? Is America just a bunch of whiners? Just asking. Where's the gumption to just get this thing cleaned up, repaired, better safety measures put in place then get on with life?
1. Kuwait – 1991 – 520 million gallons
Iraqi forces opened the valves of several oil tankers in order to slow the invasion of American troops. The oil slick was four inches thick in places and covered 4000 square miles of ocean….2. Mexico – 1980 – 100 million gallons
An accident in an oil well caused an explosion which then caused the well to collapse. The well remained open, spilling 30,000 gallons a day into the ocean for a full year. …3. Trinidad and Tobago – 1979 – 90 million
During a tropical storm off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago, a Greek oil tanker collided with another ship, and lost nearly its entire cargo. …4. Russia – 1994 – 84 million gallons …A broken pipeline in Russia leaked for eight months before it was noticed and repaired. Uh oops? …5. Persian Gulf – 1983 – 80 million gallons
A tanker collided with a drilling platform which, eventually, collapsed into the sea. The well continued to spill oil into the ocean for seven months before it was repaired….6. South Africa – 1983 – 79 million gallons
A tanker caught fire and was abandoned before sinking 25 miles off the coast of Saldanha Bay….7. France – 1978 – 69 million gallons. A tanker’s rudder was broken in a severe storm, despite several ships responding to its distress call, the ship ran aground and broke in two. It’s entire payload was dumped into the English Channel.
The gumption part of it is, I believe, underway. The infamous Obama moratorium was an attempt to put better safety measures in place.
The events of Kuwait were caused by pure evil. There's no comparison between BP's greed and that kindof evil.
Yes, things have been worse but what's your point? That we should not squawk? Not speak out our anger and frustration?
If we don't speak out now and establish some useful kindof criteria for safety, then when the next blowout happens, folks will just say, well remember Maconda? This is nothing...
#2: 30,000 gallons a day for a year would be about 10 million, not 100 million gallons.
Seems to me that getting it cleaned up, repaired, etc. is just what's going on; of course everyone wants it done faster and with fewer mis-steps. But a lot of leaks elsewhere in the world have taken a year to stop; bad as it is, we're only 2 months in, and have what seems a good chance of killing the well in another 2 months.
So I guess all us Americans are "whiners" because we spill less oil than others, and we clean it up faster? Or are we "whiners" because a lot of us are very concerned about the spill even though it's only *our* worst one, and might not be so off-the-chart compared to the others you cite? Interesting perspective.
Actually it was 30,000 bpd, not gallons, for 9-1/2 months and a lot was burned at the surface.
You mean spill less off our own coast right? My understanding is that Western oil concerns spill all over the place in other peoples' backyards.
there is an ecological concept having to do with threshholds or tipping points (maybe an engineering concept as well) where by a system can handle many kinds of heavy stresses but at some point it may take very little to cause catastrophe.
easily understood by the old saying "the straw that broke the camel's back"
At some point the filth in out nest may really bite us back. Not saying this is it, I have no clue - but when we venture into using the kinds of examples such as yours it brings the question up in my mind.
Reply to AlexH from last thread – I was well along and got cut off
Will try to show my replies as My Replies
OK Lets rebuke your rebuttal point by point.
But first let met state that your thread doesn't even disprove dougr's conclusion, it only attacks the assumptions he made to arrive at his conclusion.
1) You assert that the well casing is structurally intact and is 100% cemented.
Your assertions are incorrect.
If you read my post carefully you will see that I only discussed the cement jobs above about 4,000 feet. I stand by my statement that the three top casings were 100% cemented, tested and used in service for a couple months before the blowout.
A) Congressional investigation clearly shows that the BP did not test the cement and the well was not circulated. Therefore there is no way to tell if the there is problems with the structural integrity.
In fact it is hypothesized that blown cement is the reason the well blew in the first place.
b) MMS documents show BP ran into problems with the cracks in the well casing and cracks in rocks around the well as far back as february. It took BP three attempts at cementing those cracks before they could continue.
That is well below the area I was talking about, as are the following statements.
BP continued to run into issues with cracks during the cement process which lead to a "well control" problem in march.
No one can make any claims as to whether those repairs have held. In fact, since the rocks continued to crack as BP drill further the assumption that the repairs did not hold seems more logical
c) BP's own internal documents point to a) an open hole in the well casings, b) shale collapse and c) the possibility that the oil is indeed leaking into the annulus at some point in the well.
Further more each of the joins where the well goes to a smaller diameter represents a possible failure point.
You claim not much of a leak point there but other experts say that is exactly the place where the well would leak from.
I clearly stated that there is "not much of a leak point" at 1,000 feet below the mudline. If you have an expert who has said different I would appreciate having a link. I doubt very much there is a leak above 4,000 feet although there is one potential leak point about 2,900 feet below the mudline.
If there were any oil or gas leaks anywhere near the BOP it would be very obvious as the leaks would look very much like the leakage from the cap and they would be quite visible as they flowed up around the BOP.
You claim that leaks at this point would be clearly visible as the flow up around the BOP. This an incorrect assumption you make which may not necessarily be the case. Leaks could be making its way through a spiderweb of fissures or could possibly be making its way back down hole for some distance.
There could be leaks at many places, I am especially suspicious about the formation at 4,000 feet, but the whole point was to show that there is little chance of there being leaks around the base of the BOP. DougR has scared a lot of people with misinformation based on a leak at the BOP washing the support away. There is no indication of leaks around the wellhead that are endangering its stability.
There are also occasional video shots of the lower part of the BOP and there is no sign of any seabed disturbance or subsidence. It looks pretty much like the earliest photos BP released.
Again this is incorrect. BP has cleaned a few feet of mud from the lower part of the BOP.
The photos I was referring to showed the wellhead after it had been cleaned. The point is that there is no sign of seabed subsidence at the wellhead.
the 18” casing or the 22” casing were also bad and those were fully tested and used.
Where is the evidence of this?
See the first comment, these were in use for months.
2 - DougR says BP cut off the riser to relieve the pressure but the time line of the events indicates otherwise. BP had released the design of the LMRP cap well before they started the Top Kill.
If BP had thought they had a leakage problem requiring a pressure reduction, they would never have attempted a top kill. So the claim that they cut the riser to relieve the pressure doesn’t fit the facts--it fits the already announced plan to cut the riser and install the LMRP cap.
The fact that BP released the LMRP design before they attempted top kill makes no sense to support your claim nor does it discredit dougr's claims.
Actually I think the fact that they designed a cap that required removing the riser BEFORE they did the top kill does support my position. DougR based a large portion of his analysis on the fact that BP cut the riser to relieve the pressure. He used this to bolster his argument, but it was planned well in advance. Was BP glad to cut the cap and relieve some pressure? Could be, they certainly haven't said.
BP surely would have calculated that a the largest risk of top kill failing would be due to loss of well integrity down hole. Based on that assumption alone BP would have calculated the best way to prevent further substantial damage down hole in would be to cut the pipe and relieve pressure. They would have through of that before hand and hence release the design documents for that plan before hand.
That is getting a bit too much like a conspiracy for me. It assumes that about fifty to over a hundred engineers are involved, many not BP employees, some even working for other oil companies or the government. If they believed that the top kill would cause substantial damage they wouldn't have done it. A thought - were they pressured by the USG?
In fact Thad Allen and BP's comments confirm that they are afraid of that applying any additional pressure to a possibly compromised well that they don't know the condition of could lead to leaks into the formations surrounding the well casing.
Thad Allen also did not say that this hasn't occurred. He said what hasn't occurred, to his knowledge, is communication of such leaks to the seafloor.
Actually that is my whole point – that there has not been any “communication of such leaks to the seafloor” and even more specifically not around the BOP. I am not even taking the position that there could be seabed leaks somewhere away from the BOP, I just haven't seen any sign of them. DougR’s position that leaks around the BOP were causing it to be undermined and it was in intimate danger of tipping over. I understand he projected that to happen by June 19.
3 - There is very little current at 5,000 feet. There may be other forces acting on the BOP, like gravity, but the currents are minimal. It is easy to verify this just by watching the video of the oil leakage.
There is current and it any pressure, no how minimal, applied to a 5 story 450 ton BOP will only increase the leverage of the pressure of the leaning BOP
As I said - minimal. The weight of a BOP stack leaning 3 degrees with an LMRP leaning 10 degrees on top of it will be a lot more overturning moment than any currents on the bottom.
4 - DougR’s claim is that the inclination of the BOP is increasing. There is no evidence of this.
I haven’t seen any evidence that this tilt has increased over time or that there is any less mud at the wellhead.
There is also no evidence to dispute that the lean is increasing. The only absolute evidence we have is that on June 10th the BOP was leaning 3 degrees according to the manufacturer of the subsea bullseye.
There have been multiple video shots of the bullseyes on the BOP. If you have a clear indication that the same bullseye on the BOP has moved over time then I am very interested.
However, contradicting your statem, there is indeed evidence of less mud at the well head because BP cleaned it away with ROV thrusters.
But the riser doesn’t weigh as much as most people would think as it has flotation on it.
Regardless the weight amount of leverage generated by a solid pipe that is 1 mile long is huge. In fact to the circular motion of the pipe moving around for over 24 hours while the riser was still connected to the rig that was floating on the surface of the Gulf after the rig lost its navigational capabilities may have in fact not only bent the BOP but it could have destroyed the cement casing down hole that you assume is 100% intact.
You do the math. You have a pipe 1 feet above ground and 2 feet below. You move it around in a circular motion for 24 hours right after it was cemented.
The cement had set up for months. The well would not have moved inside the casing but the wellhead, casing and BOP could have moved around in the mud. In theory it could have actually moved a long way, possibly tens of feet but there is no indication that it did. If it had moved that much it would probably have left a scare in the mud and the positioning systems would have caught it. Of course that is information that BP would have and could be withholding.
Now replace feet with miles and calculate how many degrees do you need to move a 3 mile long pipe with a 1 mile lever point above the seafloor to displace the formation beneath the seafloor hundreds of feet or even greater?
Hundreds of feet is very unlikely, it would be dependent on how soft the mud is and the distance to the first hard formation.
In any case it is not illogical to assume that such an event would damage cement casing and compromise the integrity of the well down hole.
I’m sure that BP did that calculation and it didn’t deter them from proceeding with the Top Kill.
Another flaw assumption. Top kill was the only chance BP had of killing the well until relied wells could be completed months down the road. Even if they calculated a 5 or 10% chance of success, even with the risk of making the well worse they would have attempted top kill.
Furthermore BP has admitted that the BOP is leaning and they are indeed measuring the incline.
The BOP has been inclined since the rig sank. This is not something new.
5 - When we have been talking about erosion we are talking about small restrictions that have been eroded where the oil flow has to pass small spaces. The most dramatic example was the increase in the leaks at the riser kink. They started at almost nothing and grew dramatically over time. A similar process was occurring inside the BOP.
Where is the evidence of this? All I have seen is speculation that makes excuses for the cover up of the true flow rate.
An awful lot of speculation from an awful lot of people.
Furthermore, in my opinion the TOD thread that discusses the internal erosion as a possible increase in flow rate is flawed.
In fact, the thread discusses a flow rate in the range of 17-25k prior to the riser being cut off, but do you realize that at the same time WHOI measured a raw flow rate of 125K barrels per day or raw material using sonar or have you ignored that number just as the media has because WHOI numbers where in cubic meters per second? The WHOI measurements totally discredit the slow increase due to "erosion hypothesis" .
I haven’t seen the WHOI report. When did they take the measurements and a link to the report please. All the measurements I have seen outside the task force were based on flow velocities which then disintigrate into arguments about cross sectional area, etc. Do they have voumetic measurements or just flow velocity?
Also well casing compromised down hole leaking into the surrounding formation is much more likely to explain the drop in pressure in the bottom of the BOP. It also explains why there is such a huge pressure differential between the reservoir and the bottom of the BOP.
There are several factors that might contribute to the pressure drop at the bottom of the BOP. The most obvious is the weight of the oil/gas in 13,300 feet of vertical pipe which in theory could be as much as 5,000 psi or as little as 1,000 psi. Second there is a drop due to friction from the flow, probably not very much, maybe a couple hundred psi. There could be a drop in the formation pressure from the original 11,900 psi. There could be restrictions downhole as BP mentioned but I actually doubt it. There could be an underground blowout as you suggest. I never claimed there was no leak, in fact I have stated several times I think it is likely there is a leak. In any case, the thrust of my post was that there is no leak around the base of the BOP washing it out.
In reviewing this I get the impression you are more interesting in defending DougR than in having a reasoned discussion about the matter. If true then we can leave it at this point. If not true I apologize and we can discuss further.
Shelburn,
First, thanks for your contribution - makes it much easier to talk coherently about the dougr thing - hope the editors do not close this thread so it can be fully thrashed out until people are tired of it.
So I also have a question about the time line. BP had another operation that they cancelled: installation of a functional BOP on top of the older one. They even delayed one of the relief wells because of this : potentially a very controversial delay. The cancellation came right after top kill and my thought at the time was that they were very afraid of an underground blowout. In your secnario, why was the new BOP cancelled?
My read is exactly that - afraid of an underground blowout. But the downhole experts here would know more. My expertise is underwater construction and structural engineering.
shelburn:
First of all, you've earned your wings!
Second, I believe you forgot to rebut one thing. The very same thing, in fact, that struck me when I came across the comment you have just responded to. And that comes at the beginning, where AlexH says:
And I'm going to use your exact words, from the beginning of your (original) post above, which neatly point out the logic, which AlexH apparently missed:
I will refrain from commenting further. But I applaud your immense patience here.
(Edited to add the beginning of shelburn's sentence in the second quote.)
Shelburn: Those flow rate numbers come from the flow team interim report
http://www.doi.gov/deepwaterhorizon/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile...
Note they have not been adjusted for gas content. When that is done the rates fall within the range released by the team in that particular report.
Dan, I think this was a good effort at measuring the flow, but this caveat makes the flow estimate worse than useless: "Only a small subset of the data collected from field operations has been analyzed to produce this preliminary estimate". They throw a range of numbers out, but there is no way to know what the confidence in it is.
Beyond that, my confidence in their estimate is low without knowing how they modeled an expanding, decelerating flow containing an unknown fraction of an elastic supercooled gas passing through a pressure drop of around 2000 psi.
Good luck to them in sorting this out, but I wish they had held back their guesses; their rough estimates are now being reported as fact.
Shelburn:
Agreed- a leak around the wellhead would be obvious and unambiguous:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhZKUYVXM78
Actinia Blowout in Vietnam
I would like to see the mudlogs to see where the loss of circulation zones were, but they apparently won't be available until July 2, per Sen. Markeys request.
Although not available (reasons unknown - listed as RESERVED) online via eCFR were the existing MMS regulations:
Subpart G -- Abandonment of Wells Sec. 250.110 General requirements
Sec. 250.112 Permanent abandonment.
"(h) Fluid left in hole. Each of the respective intervals of the hole between the various plugs shall be filled with fluid of sufficient density to exert a hydrostatic pressure exceeding the greatest formation pressure in the intervals between the plugs at time of
abandonment"
Sec. 250.113 Temporary abandonment.
("a) Any drilling well which is to be temporarily abandoned shall meet the requirements for permanent abandonment (except for the provisions in Sec. 250.112 (f) and (i), and 250.114) and the following:
(1) A bridge plug or a cement plug at least 100 feet in length shall be set at the base of the deepest casing string unless the casing string has been cemented and has not been drilled out. If a cement plug is set, it is not necessary for the cement plug to extend below
the casing shoe into the open hole. (2) A retrievable or a permanent-type bridge plug or a cement plug at least 100 feet in
length, shall be set in the casing within the first 200 feet below the mud line. (b) Subsea wellheads, casing stubs, or other obstructions above the seafloor remaining after temporary abandonment will be protected in such a manner as to allow commercial
fisheries gear to pass over the structure without damage to the structure or fishing gear. Depending on water depth, nature and height of obstruction above the seafloor, and the
types and periods of fishing activity in the area, the District Supervisor may waive this requirement.
(c) In order to maintain the temporarily abandoned status of a well, the lessee shall provide, within 1 year of the original temporary abandonment and at successive 1-year
intervals thereafter, an annual report describing plans for reentry to complete or permanently abandon the well"
This is where this document should be:
http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&sid=338a3731c01f937...
However it is listed as "RESERVED"
I think you are citing an old version.
This appears to be the current version
_________________________
§ 250.1715 How must I permanently plug a well?
(a) You must permanently plug wells according to the table in this section. The District Manager may require additional well plugs as necessary.
[...]
If you have:
(9) Fluid left in the hole
Then you must use:
A fluid in the intervals between the plugs that is dense enough to exert a hydrostatic pressure that is greater than the formation pressures in the intervals.
___________________________
Here's a good chunk of the applicable regs.
http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&sid=159e4fcf565d0c8...
Thanks, not bad for an old "chain hand". Like I said it has been a while since I was offshore.
What do you think?
Hey, thanks. What do I think?
Well, the plain text of the regulation says, if you have fluid in the hole between the plugs, and you're leaving it there for a bit, the fluid has to be of sufficient weight to counter the pressure of the well.
I would want to read all of the related regs before giving it the status of an opinion, though. But it looks pretty clear on its face.
It would not appear to apply to the riser, though. The text limits it to fluid "left in the hole" in the intervals between plugs.
What do you think?
I agree - not including the riser.
I think they were in the neighborhood of 40% underbalance at the time of the blowout. Sorry I'm hooked up now and can't provide calcs.
upon further consideration,
The section does not require there to be fluid left in the hole, but if there is, then you have to do what they say. What was going to be left in that hole? They hadn't capped it yet. I assume in a live well there would always be fluid left in the hole if you were leaving it to come back later?
Second, what exactly does this mean. I want to make sure i am not misinterperting it:
A fluid in the intervals between the plugs that is dense enough to exert a hydrostatic pressure that is greater than the formation pressures in the intervals.
What is that pressure going to be relative to the formation pressure?
Stupid question but I don't know squat about MMS drilling rules.
Is there are requirement the hole be cased? If not then a cased hole might have a different fluid requirement.
syn - Going back to the quick calc the MW required to be overbalanced to a 11,900 psi reservoir pressure in a 13,000' hole (remember the riser column is gone) is 17.6 ppg. Thus following those regs not only should BP not have displaced with seawater but should have bumped the MW up from the 14.5 ppg to 17.6 ppg. Now here's the tricky part for BP: maybe they could show plans to do just that. But to get the MW that high would have taken over a 1000 bbls of mud at 17.6 ppg to fill the csg. Common sense would be to displace to the well head with 17.6 ppg, finish setting your plugs and then displace the riser. Displacing with seawater first would not make sense.
But there's an even more critical tech aspect: by running the long string from TD to wellhead there is the annular path that still has the 14.5 ppg mud in it. If you follow what appears to be the letter of the law they were required to replace it with 17.6 ppg mud. The annulus was a potential pathway for fluid to the surface. I've seen nothing to indicated BP cmtd the top end of this annulus. I'm not even sure if it would have been physically possible to replace the annulus mud. Perhaps this was an exception the MMS granted on the long string run. This annular "blind spot" may be the reason most engineers would have gone with a liner instead.
Rockman, Syncro, Frontier, thanks for discussing this in more detail. This is what I was asking about earlier http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6652/659762 (thanks ExDrllngMgr for the reply).
I'm not entirely clear what all of this means, but I'm trying to get more understanding on the procedures that led to the blowout, and what could've been done to prevent the catastrophic result.
I realise BOPs are part of it, but I don't think just having a bigger, badder BOP as the last line of defense alone will address what should have been avoided to begin with. I guess I'm concerned that we'll hear: we have sturdier BOPs, so the problem has been addressed, rather than really understanding and improving the actual process that needs to be improved upon.
Hope that makes sense, and thanks to all of the contributers, blue bell shrills included, who continue to make this site a great source for technical and hands-on perspective.
Eisenhower was dead f%$#ing right on the money. Military-industrial complex indeed. Bring it all the way down now and deal with it.
Kimbra Ameson from Venice, LA., an insider working in a first responder role, has seen many of the operations from the command view and heard them talking about it all. What she has to say should be heard by everyone:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkYJDI8pK9Y
"They are slowly poisoning everyone I know..."
"We are expendable to them..."
"They never cease to amaze me for their lack of humanity..."
They are preventing cleanup workers from wearing masks.
Yes, expendable. Exactly.
BP is Too Big To Fail and the USG has to try to make sure it doesn't go under. The "small people" are expendable.
Darn...I hoped I would get a response from dougr. Maybe he can't remember any of his statics and dynamics.
Anyway, with 4 sheaves, there are 10 lines holding up the 50k#. Thus tension in each line is 5k. Adding another sheave makes it 12 lines holding the 50k. Thus each line tension is 4.666k, which is what the weight indicator would read. Neat, huh? With an infinite number of pulleys and lines, the line tension would approach zero.
A fellow named W C Goins, Jr., who wrote the book on well control years ago, came up with this as one of many questions he asked in a test he gave prospective candidates wanting to join his firm.
I wish he was still alive to comment on much of the garbage being presented here. Then again he'd probably suffer apoplexy.
Oilyman: You do know Mechanical Advantage calculations are supposed to be taught in junior high science. I think a lot of folks forget it or slept through that topic.
Evidently DiverDan.
Incorrect, 4 sheaves means 8 lines holding the load, the fast line and dead line do not support the load. Go back to your highshool physics class and give youself an F.
I learned this when going to the rigs at about age 6 with my dad long enough ago that they were still using standard derricks in Oklahoma.
Oh yeah...seems you need some tutoring!!! Each line has the exactly same tension..Go back and repeat 3rd grade Rio.
Next time respond when you know what you're talking about!
You're one of the reasons I posted this test--to weed out the old grandma's talking about knitting from a real engineer.
I am going to talk real slow so maybe you can grasp the concept. With 4 sheaves there 8 lines supporting the traveling block from the crown block, therefore the load on each line of 1/8 of the load. The dead line and fast line for all intents coud be removed and the drilling line connected at the crown and the load on each line would still be 1/8 of the total weight.
The load on the fast line and the dead line is also 1/8 of the weight ie the load on the drilling line is the same thoughout the system.
You just weeded yourself out.
Rio is exactly right on this.
As another kid who got to hang out on derricks in Oklahoma (in the 50's), I'm with Rio Hondo Hank on this one.
If I remember correctly, oilyman described the fast and dead lines as being anchored below the block. So with 4 sheaves holding a 50K load, there are 8 lines running between the sheaves and each holds 6250 lbs. up, while the fast and dead lines each hold 6250 lbs. down.
Adding a fifth sheave makes 10 lines carrying the load, 5000 lbs. each, and 5000 lb. downward pull on the fast and dead lines.
If the fast and dead lines were anchored above the sheaves, then it would be 10 lines for 4 sheaves at 5000 lbs each, but who would rig it that way?
If you diagram it this will make sense.
Hank: did they ever let you climb the derrick? I never got past halfway before I got caught.
I started working as an extra hand on a drilling crew at age 12 (1952) for a dollar a day and climbed the derrick and greased the crown block. Moved to Stillwater, rented a room and broke out roughnecking at 15. Worked summers though college like that and even worked offshore one summer.
Here is my dad and uncle on a rig in 1922, grandad is the one with hands in pockets. So you can see oil runs in my veins. I would say my grandad was somewhat of a legend in the drilling business and also my dad and uncle later years. When I was young and went on a rig floor there were always hands that had worked for grandad. I had even heard that Red Adair got his start in the oilfield on one of his rigs.
Hank, that is a fast way to grow up. My dad was a geologist for Texaco out of Ardmore from 56 to 61. He took me along into the field pretty often, lots of long nights flying down corduroy roads, and sleeping in a corner of the logging shack while the crew played music and swapped lies. He had me hand color his geo maps and stratigraphy cross sections before I was in school, so I may not have that much oil in my blood, but there is a bit rattling around in my head.
How did y'all deal with the 6 foot skeeters? Buckshot or a ballpeen hammer?
edit to add: Thanks for sharing the photo and the story of your grandfather. Reminds me of the drillers who let me poke my nose almost everywhere on the rigs.
I would not trade the experience for a million dollars. My dad really know what he was doing when he put me in the field. Of course he could not get away with it these days. He broke out roughnecking at 13.
I learned so much while the other kids were sacking groceries and the like.
I learned so much more from dad, but the two things that stick in my mind are "there ain't no can'ts in the oil field" and "your word is your bond".
He proved it in his actions. In 1958 he had to take bankrupcy in tha drilling business. He fought back and put together a group of investers and drilled a very successfull well. The first thing he did with the money was go back and pay all the creditors in the bankrupcy. Legally he did not have to do it, but morally he fellt it was his obligation.
That pic is priceless, thanks for sharing that Hank.
I have another picture of grandad from the same era that has quite a story behind it. I will post it some day when I have more time, but if any of you have the Hughes Tool company belt buckle that they gave out about 1981. Take a look at it and read the inscription on the back.
I never grasped what you were asking. I read it again and being unfamiliar with what you do in the real world I cannot make the common sense assumptions you make. I am still stuck on if you have a mass (in this case weight+cable+pulley) suspended by a single cable anchored on each end, then unless the system was in motion, all you have is gravity on one cable/pulleys/weight. In your answer you mentioned individual cables under the pulleys. Of course in that case, even if the system were at rest, each cable would share the load evenly and so you count cables. I get that. Is that where you were going? I would have asked for a diagram in class for that one.
Correct you are TFHG. A picture is best for these problems......speaking of which after all the oil spill fatigue and the long arguments of the last day on TOD, how about some more pictures of those Hooters workers to lighten things up?
I'd vote for that Diver...Blue Bell's bad for me!
I will get some tomorrow. If you give me the file names of your favorites, I will have them record personal videos for you. Of course, PG rated, this is mass media.
You got it TinFoil! But even in a dynamic situation, the tension in each line will be equal, so the same principle applies. Move up two seats ahead of Rio.
I NEVER said the tension would not be equal, my quarrel with you is that with 4 sheaves the division factor is 8 and with 5 sheaves it is 10. I hate to say this but you would be referred to as a worm in my day.
I guess you could attach the fast line and dead line to the traveling block and get 10 or 12 but how in the hell would you move the load, by magnetic levitation. the dead line runs back to the floor with the weight indicator attached and the fast line runs to the draw works.
Another possible way would be attach the only the deadline to the block and then the factors would be 9 and 11. But there would be no way to periodically cut drilling line, but that operation is beyond you pay grade as a worm.
It is obvious that you have never even been close to a drilling rig. Or you are just a troll.
Oilyman,
I think you believe that the fast line and the dead line coming down from the derrick add to the mechanical advantage. They do not, but only provide for a change in direction to get the ends of the drilling line back to the rig floor. Think of it this way, if you had a single pulley hanging from a tree with a rope though it could you pick up a 200 lb weight with 100 pounds of force? You have 2 lines but that does not give a 2 to 1 advantage, only a change in direction. It is the same with the fast line and the dead line.
My turn oilman. Where can you travel a mile south, a mile east, a mile north and end up where you started?
BTW You only get 50% or an F for getting one of the two known solutions.
North pole for one, I don't know of another because you can't travel south from the south pole.
Yeah, but don't forget you would be standing upside down there so it would seem like south:)
Everybody gets that one. I will reveal the solution at midnight (CDT) or a personal Hooter message (guy or gals it is just a wave) to the math guru that gets it.
Wadda you mean two known solutions? LOL
As for you question--the south pole??
Forget about the Southern Hemisphere. Last clue.
How about at magnetic pole using a compass?
No and I forgot. Three solutions, one solution in Southern Hemisphere.
Here, we can find many solutions to S.E.N problem, not just 3 ?
Well I guess you could also count the magnetic north pole, but strictly speaking you would not be traveling south, east and north, but magnetic south, east and north.
This is during the magnetic pole switching phase of the earth. Compasses no longer work, but GPS is fine.
Two solutions both North. There is an original problem I forgot, but this works well.
Edit: I definitely worked out one more South. Sorry the clues messed me up. I do think there is a north. I have till midnite.
Additional Southern solution here. There is another solution. Too tired to remember.
http://s892.photobucket.com/albums/ac126/tinfoilhatguy/BP%20is%20the%20d...
I think this might be it. Maybe the original was different with the directions, but i do not see how. In any case, 2 solutions currently known as question asked. Diagram provided by link. I came up with this second solution in college on my own after a couple of days on and off the problem.
Denumerable infinity of southern solutions. Head south on meridian, go around latitude circle once, head north on original meridian, as in diagram. Start a little further south: head south, go around twice, head north. Further still: head south, go around three times, head north. And so on...
Ah so now it comes back. Too many brain cells lost.
Now you need to go back to grade school geography.
oily,
I am still waiting for your response to my response to you post are you still trying to count to 8 using your fingers? 4 sheaves = divide load by 8, 5 sheaves = divide load by 10
I have never claimed to be an engineer, but have more time on a rig floor than most of the posters here put together.
Hello everyone. I've been lurking, but couldn't resist this one.
Tin Foil, this is one of my favorite riddles. I won't ruin your fun by answering it. But I will say that it is philosophical in nature. What it teaches us is to be persistent. Far too often we are ready to jump at the obvious solution to our problems when we should be looking for the best solution.
Two or three solutions? I forget.
An infinite number of infinite unique points.
Well sure, my southern solution offers infinite starting and stopping points. Is there a third solution in the sense of different starting latitude?
BTW, TYVM.
Is there a time frame involved? If you walked slowly enough, the crust under your feet might shift a mile to the west during your trek. Although the crust would probably also have moved N/S also. Never mind.
How about on a treadmill resting on a piano dolly that an assistant points in correct direction at the designated mile markers?
Apologies if I missed a comment thread already taking place on this subject, but the author says this:
"If BP had thought they had a leakage problem requiring a pressure reduction, they would never have attempted a top kill."
..but here's a quote from Admiral Thad Allen:
"One of the reasons we did not continue with the top kill at higher pressures," Allen said in that June 17 briefing, referring to an unsuccessful effort in May to kill the well by pumping drilling mud into it through its failed blowout preventer, "was a concern that if we increased the pressure too hard it might do damage to the casing and the wellbore. What we didn't want was open communication of any oil from the reservoir . . . to the seafloor and then . . . uncontrolled discharge at that point."
which I saw today in this article: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/06/24/1699197_p2/relief-may-not-come-soo...
Did I misunderstand what shelburn was saying in that section?
Basically saying the same thing - but backwards. Allen is saying they didn't want to add additional pressure and I was saying that if they had identified a problem that required reducing the pressure (per DougR) they would not have added the pressure they did add. Therefore, in my theory, they didn't anticipate a problem until they got some readings they didn't like during the top kill. That theory is backed up by the aborted second BOP plan.
80 bpm would have added a lot of pressure, maybe Rockman could guesstimate how much.
Thanks for the clarification. Makes sense.
Some regulations of possible interest:
_____________
§ 250.428 What must I do in certain cementing and casing situations?
The table in this section describes actions that lessees must take when certain situations occur during casing and cementing activities.
[...]
(c) Have indication of inadequate cement job (such as lost returns, cement channeling, or failure of equipment)
(1) Pressure test the casing shoe; (2) Run a temperature survey; (3) Run a cement bond log; or (4) Use a combination of these techniques.
[...]
(f) Decide to produce a well that was not originally contemplated for production
Have at least two cemented casing strings (does not include liners) in the well. Note: All producing wells must have at least two cemented casing strings.
_________________
§ 250.422 When may I resume drilling after cementing?
(a) After cementing surface, intermediate, or production casing (or liners), you may resume drilling after the cement has been held under pressure for 12 hours. For conductor casing, you may resume drilling after the cement has been held under pressure for 8 hours. One acceptable method of holding cement under pressure is to use float valves to hold the cement in place.
(b) If you plan to nipple down your diverter or BOP stack during the 8- or 12-hour waiting time, you must determine, before nippling down, when it will be safe to do so. You must base your determination on a knowledge of formation conditions, cement composition, effects of nippling down, presence of potential drilling hazards, well conditions during drilling, cementing, and post cementing, as well as past experience.
________________________
§ 250.510 Diesel engine air intakes.
Diesel engine air intakes must be equipped with a device to shut down the diesel engine in the event of runaway. Diesel engines that are continuously attended must be equipped with either remote operated manual or automatic-shutdown devices. Diesel engines that are not continuously attended must be equipped with automatic-shutdown devices.
___________________
http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&sid=159e4fcf565d0c8...
Yes - you are on track.
One More:
_____________________
§ 250.420 What well casing and cementing requirements must I meet?
You must case and cement all wells. Your casing and cementing programs must meet the requirements of this section and of §§250.421 through 250.428.
(a) Casing and cementing program requirements. Your casing and cementing programs must:
(1) Properly control formation pressures and fluids;
(2) Prevent the direct or indirect release of fluids from any stratum through the wellbore into offshore waters;
(3) Prevent communication between separate hydrocarbon-bearing strata;
(4) Protect freshwater aquifers from contamination; and
(5) Support unconsolidated sediments.
(b) Casing requirements. (1) You must design casing (including liners) to withstand the anticipated stresses imposed by tensile, compressive, and buckling loads; burst and collapse pressures; thermal effects; and combinations thereof.
(2) The casing design must include safety measures that ensure well control during drilling and safe operations during the life of the well.
(c) Cementing requirements. You must design and conduct your cementing jobs so that cement composition, placement techniques, and waiting times ensure that the cement placed behind the bottom 500 feet of casing attains a minimum compressive strength of 500 psi before drilling out of the casing or before commencing completion operations.
I have a question I have not seen addressed anywhere. How long does it take an escaped unit (barrel, gallonn, ...) to reach the surface from 5,000'? And roughly how far from the vertical point (ie location of the recovery ship or where the drill ship would have been) would it surface?
The reason I ask is, it still baffles me why more is not being recovered by skimmers. If the bulk of the oil surfaces say a mile away from where the concentrated recovery fleet is, then skimmers should not interfere with them.
Another thought occurs to me. The oil balls coming up on Florida beaches (for example). Are they surface oil that has traveled 100's of miles on the surface? Or are they balls from dispersant treated oil suspended in the water column that have coalesced when tossed together by wave action on the shore?
And I have to say, it's a sad sad commentary on US preparedness/technology to see shimpers towing a boom trying to scoop up floating oil. That looks like 3rd world technology to me. (All credit to the shrimpers for even trying, but jeez ...)
Where is the vaunted 400,000 barrel (gallon?) a day skimmer capacity that is in BP's (and apparently all other company) drill application? Could it be that it never existed? That MMS never checked it was available?
Where is the President (via Admiral Allen) demanding/ordering experienced proven skimming ships from Europe? And if they haven't, why haven't they?
Where is MSM demanding answers why the oil is not being collected closer to the site rather than waiting until it nears shore?
This is a pretty wild guess but based on some experience. I think it will take from 45 minutes to a couple hours for most of the oil and gas to reach the surface. Some will be slower and some may never reach the surface as we are learning from the oil "plumes".
Where it comes up is primarily dependent on the various cross currents on the way up but I expect most of it will come up with in a 1 mile diameter circle centered over the well.
If they weren't injecting so much dispersant there'd be more surfacing at thicker concentration.
According to a U of Georgia scientist interviewed in a link cited in the general discussion thread earlier today, the smaller oil and gas particles are kept at depth for far longer than we might expect; days or weeks as opposed to hours. They don't necessarily simply rise. She said that the previous studies done on this were at the depth of 2000', and at 5000' who knows how long and how far particles will travel before surfacing, and at what concentrations. It doesn't seem to be well-studied.
Bedtime thought:
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
— William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5
EL,
nice choice for today's thread, sleep well
James
To sleep, perchance to dream. Romeo and Juliet-William Shakespeare, not looking up Scene and Act, but they are both still alive at this point in the play, early on maybe act 1 or 2.
heres a few oil patch jokes for the old timers ...
1- This roughneck went to the hardware store. The attendant asked what he needed and he told him he needed a wrench. When asked what type of wrench, the roughneck replied "It don't make no difference I'm going to ues it for a hammer anyway.
2- Its's been said that all a consultant needs is 2 books:
1). A Halliburton book
2). A Phone Book
One is for Displacements and the other is for Replacements.
if any one of yall had to deal with cementing reps you will enjoy this one....(my favourite by far)
Two Haliburton hands won a trip to France for all their accomplishments in the patch.
As they were strolling thru Paris, they looked up in surprise and seen the biggest Rig ever! They stopped a Frenchman walking by and asked, " Hey man, how long ya'll been rigged up?" The Frenchman stepped back and said "Oh mesuir, ze Eiffel Tower is over 200 years old !!!"
The cementers scratched their heads, kicked rocks, and started looking down the road. Finally, one turned back and said, " well don't worry, TRUCKS ARE ON THE WAY!"
Good jokes, especially the first one. I'm just a dumb geologist, not a driller or engineer, and what tiny bit of GOM experience I've had is long past it's shelf life, so I've kept out of the discussions. But I really appreciate some of the folks who've tried to educate the non oil patch posters, and call bullshit on some of the more wacked out posts. Shelburn, Rockman, aliilaali, and a couple of other who I'm forgetting really earned your Bluebell Iscream and unpaid shrill wages!
How to seal the well in ¼ the time!
While drill mud is a lubricant that should be minimally abrasive, bottom kill mud may be abrasive because it is only introduced when the bore is very close to the original well casing. Therefore I propose a new type of mud for use specifically for the bottom kill.
Assume a drill mud with approximately 50% material additive to increase the density. A common material is barium sulfate with a specific gravity of 4.5. Assuming the other components of the mud have a specific gravity of about 1, the mixture would have a specific gravity of about 2.25.
Now consider a new type of mud designed specifically for use in a “Bottom kill” operation. Suppose, instead of barium sulfate, a finely powered tungsten is used. Tungsten has a specific gravity of 19.62. Assuming the same 50% ratio of fluids to solids, the specific gravity of this new mud would be 9.81.
The new mud, called T-mud, would have a specific gravity of 4.36 times the specific gravity of regular mud.
What this means is that you would have to go down to a depth of 1 / 4.36 = about .23 the depth to achieve the same hydraulic force on the well column. Therefore instead of having to drill down 18,000 feet you would only have to drill down about 4,500 feet to achieve bottom kill pressure This would mean they could stop the leak in about ¼ the time.
Tungsten costs about $220/metric ton. I don’t know what the total volume of the well bore is between the sea floor and a depth of 4500 feet under the sea floor, but just for argument’s sake, suppose the average cross section of the well bore were 1 square foot. Then you would need a net volume of 2250 cubic feet of tungsten to seal the well.
Tungsten is 1224 pounds per cubic feet and a metric ton is 2,204 pounds. So the net cost of the tungsten would be $275,000 for 1250 metric tons of tungsten.
I am sure this is more than the cost of barium sulfate but compared with all other costs it is nothing.
Of course it would require more that 1250 metric tons. The drill bore of the relief well would also need to be filled with the same mud so we are immediately doubling the quantity. And you would want a LOT of spare mud around in case there are leaks because the well bore is compromised. Say you want to have 10 times the amount of drill mud in reserve. Now your talking about 25,000 tons of tungsten at a value of $5.5 million. But if the well could be sealed in ¼ the time, wouldn’t it be worth it?
I suggest that if this bottom kill method fails, the standard one would fail as well. But you will find out in ¼ the time.
I got the cost of tungsten wrong...sorry It is a lot more... something like $22,000 per metric ton. This raises the above costs by a factor of 100. Is it worth it?
I suppose it is good to double check things, but we are working on such limited information. It is like we are trying to watch a football game through a microscope. Providing information takes time. Often what is requested is unreasonable. I used to work as a software engineer for a phone company. Sounds glamorous now, we calculated and and created phone bills. One time we got a subpoena in Federal Court for some records, millions of records based upon the subpoena request. I estimated it would take 250 cases of widebar just to print out the records in condensed print with programming designed to make the most use of page space. I was the Jr. manager, so I got to go to court and explain the situation. When I got to court and the Judge asked me where the records were and I asked him if there was an electronic medium we could use or some other way to make the information more usable for the court.
The judge's response was printouts in 48 hours or jail for me in 48 hours. I thanked the court and sped back to the office and started printing. We completed the job in 32 hours and loaded a tractor trailer rig and at the appropriate time off to the courthouse we went. When I arrived an hour early the Judge went ahead and saw us. I had a small sample in my hands and he thanked me for my work. That is when I asked him where the loading dock was. I think the Judge suddenly understood what I was trying to tell him before he threatened to incarcerate me. He apologized on the record (rare for a federal judge) and had me get with one of the assistant clerks that was in Data Processing (long ago) and we worked out delivering a diskette with a 64k file on it.
Long story short, just because you are denied information, it does not necessarily mean the denier does not want you to have the information, it may be that the information is not easily available or practical to deliver.
Edit: Speaking of information I got some hard intel. Of course it was no big deal. I just photoed a parked bulldozer. Here is one contractor. He does good work.
Justice Department files an emergency request with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Friday asked a U.S. appeals court to stay a ruling that lifted a temporary ban on deepwater oil drilling, its latest attempt to clamp down in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico spill.
The Justice Department filed an emergency request with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, based in New Orleans, to put on hold a decision by Judge Martin Feldman that blocked a six-month suspension on exploratory and development drilling in U.S. waters from being enforced.
Without a stay that would keep the temporary moratorium intact, "a second deepwater spill could overwhelm response efforts and dramatically set back recovery," the Justice Department warned in its request to the appeals court.
"The district court committed legal error and abused its discretion in issuing its preliminary injunction order," it said.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=11018096
And...
Moratorium Won’t Reduce Drilling Risks
[...]
"In the end, the real problem with the six-month moratorium is that it allows us to continue to kid ourselves. It helps us create the illusion that, by regulatory fiat, we can make the extraction of fossil fuels a riskless endeavor. But that can never be true. Six months from now, whether or not the Interior Department succeeds getting Judge Feldman’s decision overturned on appeal, deepwater drilling will still be risky. Drilling thousands of feet into water, searching for dangerous natural gas and oil, contained in the earth under immense pressure, is inherently risky.
We would all be better off facing that fact squarely, instead of wishing it away under the guise of a moratorium."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/business/26nocera.html?pagewanted=2
I don't think it will succeed, for two reasons:
1. The appeal is of a preliminary nature; it's not about a final judgment. The courts usually don't hear appeals on such things, because they're pretty sure it's all going to be appealed in the end anyway. Better to let it play out in the district court.
2. The appeals court can only consider matters of law (what law you use, what standards are laid out in that law), and not matters of evidence (what you present to the court to support your case). A large part of Judge Feldman's ruling is based on evidence; evidence of irreparable harm to oil workers, evidence of the need for a moratorium. The appeals court can't consider any of that evidence in its ruling. Since it's a fact-sensitive ruling, I think that the appeals court will let it stand.
I think DougR did a good service by raising a probability of what could be happening or could happen. After his post and by some reading of (by my guess) qualified people I came to the opinion that it could happen.
Note that it is a probability, I leave it to others better qualified to judge what that is - 1%, 5% .... If it is really 0.001% then it is pretty much ok to ignore the possibility.
But I also note the endless lies coming from BP and the US Govt and sadly that means that many people will give DougR's article higher credence. Basically if the real probabaility is 1% they will multiply that in their minds by 10 or more. That's why the advice of how to deal with things going pear shaped is ALWAYS tell the truth to the best of your ability and if you don't know admit it, but tell people as soon as you do know. Otherwise? After you have lost credibility then you can never get it back.
Me? If BP said the sun will rise tomorrow I'll not believe them until I see the sun with my own eyes.
But low(er) probability evernts are important in planning. In this sort of situation you must have a plan B and a C (ideally a D and E as well). This lets you at least set up potential resources in advance in case you need them. For example, say his scenario actualy happens, if you have taken something like this into account and have a plan B then at least you can mitigate the effects to a certain extent.
If you always just work on 'most probable case' then you are like Wall St, the Black Swan could kill you. Plan Bs (etc) realise that lower probability things (sometimes called black swans) do happen, and if they do then at least you have some sort of contingency plan ready.
I have 10 laws of life, 6 & 8 are perfect for this situation:
(6) There are 3 options for getting something done effectively. These are, in descending order of effectiveness:
• A good plan well implemented.
• A poorer plan well implemented.
• A good plan poorly implemented.
Sadly usually life is compsed of bad plans badly implimented.
(8) Unfounded optimism and hope (combined with Law 6) are responsible for more disasters, deaths and suffering than anything else in the world, as they are the most dangerous ways of denying reality - and reality is always right.
In any complex system, there are always forces at work we do not understand. Science and experience guide us to cover the ones we know and that is usually quite sufficient for safe operations. Third order forces (not very significant) can become first order (the ballgame) forces just by changing, miscalculating, or omitting a key factor such wind load that caused the aerolastic flutter that destroyed the Tacoma Narrow Suspension Bridge. On the other hand, some things are subject to law. When the bridge fell, it fell down. When a dog stuck in the car was not rescued, he was going down too.
I am not saying that the BOP stack will behave in a certain way or there is a 0% chance this is happening. I am saying that assigning numbers is equally inaccurate. Anecdotally, I can say in all my years of real world observations and physics experiments, when materials degrade and fail they almost always fail in an accelerating way, unless the forces acting upon it are reduced. I see no evidence that any forces are being reduced, so unless there counteracting forces that before now are unknown to the main body of science, stack stability should not be a primary or secondary concern. An example would be the Challenger Space Shuttle. The rings failed on the pad, aluminum from the solid fuel sealed the ring temporarily before a final blowout. When the final blowout happened though, it was an increasing flame. We all saw it, at least the old folks.
The real concern to me is if the RW's do not work. Then we have a real problem. I would say the failure percentage must be greater than 1%.
selburn said,
Have these videos of oil leaking from the seabed been misinterpreted or are they a hoax?
ROV films oil leak coming from rock cracks on seafloor.
BP denies them. And there doesn't seem to be any MSM coverage of this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2RxIQP0IBU
We seem to have two groups, the "move along there is nothing to see" and the "what is going to happen next" group.
I'll admit that my lack of knowledge puts me in the black swan camp. But some of that lack of knowledge was a gift of BP and its supporters.
My experience is markets, which admittedly have a large element of non-rational behavior
When a mechanical system goes bad there is a real world reason. But I appreciate dougr, Simmons, and others who look outside the box to improbable events.
The reaction to Simmons was that he was a drunk. It was not to send a ROV over and take a look. A black swan guy would say, they did not look for they knew the answer already. But WE, I, myself don't.
Nothing against Shelburn, He could be little more tolerant of people trying to look into the future. The BOP could fall over, for reasons dougr did not enumerate. To me when compared to the trajectory of the escaped oil, there is a slight off center configuration.
However, this is not the only thing that can yet go wrong. So this is somewhat a feel good diversion even if not intentional. But I give kudos to Shelburn for his realistic look, the flaws in the info and what the science is. The later is what makes OilDrum unique or almost so on the net.
Regardless. I personally FEEL I don't have the full story or facts yet. The only thing that will make this go away now is how the event plays out. I am past trusting sources.
I am told that hurricanes cannot reach he ocean floor. I put little faith in that, for fool me once, twice, all day and night I finally get the message.
Right now I go with that this is a unique oil/gas pool. Expect and prepare for the worst.
Hi:
I was just curious of the dimensions and the ground sorrounding the spill as I was unable to find that information. In closed loop cooling there is a type of cap that gets tighter the greater the pressure on the inside I forgot what they are called I just remember looking at a schematic a while back. I was wondering what is bad about the idea of putting down a foundation piece then placing one of these caps over it with the pipeline coming out the top?
I don't think BP has any idea how big this oil reservoir is. I have a strong belief it is abiotic oil.
Here is a good article on it.
http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/400230-vinod-dar/47079-abiotic-oil-and...
This may change "peak oil" but not so much the price.
Climate change mitigation is not so likely.
My dearest dougr:
One thing, and only one thing, you have proven beyond a shadow of a subatomic particle of doubt:
You have learned your Andrew Warhola well.
Bye, bye now,
Ultra Violet
An aerial overflight of the Deepwater Horizon drill site yesterday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSrRqrr1A98
TheraP:
I have been up half the night cookin' up this Okefenokee Swamp recipe with Churchill "Churchy" LaFemme:
Take one cup: "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." —Menken
Add one cup: "There's a sucker born every minute." —P.T.Barnum
Mix well and bake uncovered for several weeks in an over heated imagination.
And the resulting gumbo is:
http://s0.ilike.com/play#Jefferson+Airplane:White+Rabbit:37638:s309632.8...
[Sorry. I went to graduate school in the mid 60s thirty miles down the road from Haight-Ashbury. But that was in another county; besides, H-A is dead. Pardon, Mr. Marlowe.]
Ah, now the TOD Glee & Perloo Society has something to march to (our lines ain't the straightest, but we groove rill good)!
In reading this thread there are several references to MSM,in context it appears to be a media outlet. I am not familiar with the term. Please enlighten. Thanks
MSM = mainstream media
Or, "Minerals Service Media", "Corporate Media", "The News", "Old Media", "Fox News", etc., depending on how irate a person is, and about what.
Mammoet (www.mammoet.com), Dutch company that lifted the Kursk nuclear submarine, has a plan to shut BP leak within 2 weeks. Contacted Bill Clinton, but not taken up by BP
Can't locate that info on their site and I'm coming up empty via Google. Do you have a more specific link?