BP's Deepwater Oil Spill - Adding Mud to the Well - and Open Thread
Posted by Heading Out on July 9, 2010 - 10:20am
This thread is being closed. Please comment on http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6711.
Admiral Allen held another briefing yesterday in which he elaborated a little more about the procedures to be followed when the two wells, the relief (RW) and the original (WW) are joined. He also promised that in a briefing tomorrow, he will bring together the different numbers that have been used for well positioning - the measured depth and the true vertical depth – so that everyone can start talking from the same page.
However, in discussing the connection between the two wells he broke down the process into four parts, and to illustrate these I am going back to the figure that I used yesterday, and making a couple of modifications to it so that the process might be better understood. I am also going to revisit my gripe about the “band of brilliant minds” which Secretary Chu put together, but who seem unable, in a timely fashion, to decide whether to allow BP to change the cap on the well, or not.
So to begin with let me start with the illustration from yesterday showing the possible configuration at the bottom of the lined section of the Deepwater Horizon well.
As I noted earlier, we don’t actually know how long the gap is in the cement around the production casing. It depends on how far up the annulus the cement was able to penetrate after it was injected from the bottom of the production casing. The bottom of the lined section is at 17,163 ft, and the bottom of the well is at 18,360 ft (according to Congressional testimony ). And, for reference, in his briefing today Admiral Allen said
Development Driller III, which is the lead drilling rig for the relief wells is now at 17,780 feet measured depth, within a couple hundred feet of the proposed penetration point of the wellbore.
Well it was at 17,700 ft on Monday, so the progress has been 80 ft over three days, but with 200 ft to go from the beginning, we should perhaps be about 120 ft above the intersection.
For those who want to do the math, Haliburton, if my memory serves, injected 55 barrels of cement into the well at the bottom of the production casing, and the casing has a 7-inch outer diameter. I believe the last section of the well was drilled at 8.5 inch diameter from this bit of the Congressional information.
Operations Procedure for Cementing Production Casing
1. Ensure BOP has been tested (per compliance with approved APO).
2. Ensure 16" liner and blind shear rams have been tested (per APO requirements). Record pressure with volume pumped.
3. Pick-up and run-in-hole with 8-1/2" clean-out drilling assembly (same as drilling assembly)
• Dril-Quip Wear Sleeve Running/Retrieval Tool should be run in the 6-5/S" DP4. RIH to bottom and wipe/work any tight spots (document)
5. At TD circulate per WSL recommendation / hole conditions
• If a short trip is not required, circulate per step 7.6. If tight spots were seen, make a short trip to the casing shoe to ensure any tight areas have been properly cleaned up and mud weight is correct.
7. Once at TD again, pump a 100 bbl weighted / viscous sweep and circulate hole clean with a minimum of 1-1/2 capacity.
• Plan to set the 7" x 9-7/8" long string 50-60' off bottom
• Circulate and condition, as required, to clean hole and lower yield point for running liner (lower YP to ~15 or as hole conditions dictate and keep gels flat).
• Do not need to set 16.5 ppg mud in rat hole as volume is only ~4 bbls and a large volume may cause issues with the cement job or breaking down the formation.8. POOH and retrieve the wear sleeve.
• Do not rotate once the wear bushing has been pulled.
(That is an interesting document to read, in regard, inter alia, to the discussion on centralizers it notes:)
Centralizer details: Weatherford Bow Spring subs (6) / Weatherford Slip-on (15)
I may revisit those procedures in a later post, since they contain several bits of information that has been debated after some earlier posts.
To return to the discussion of the kill process, the RW will drill over so that it intersects the WW in the gap zone below the last lined section. This means that the drill will enter the gap between the production casing and the well. At the point that the drill enters this space, the mud in the RW will flow into the WW, and be carried by any oil and gas flow up the well. At this time the mud pumps on the ships will kick into gear, and keep pumping in mud at a relatively high rate, so that the mud concentration in the column now flowing up to the surface through the WW annulus is as heavy (mud containing) as possible. The relief well is not cased but is, at this stage an open hole connection (i.e. just lined by the rock drilled through).
Once the mud reaches the surface, and the concentration, over time, increases to the point that flow up the annulus is halted (because the mud column weight exceeds the reservoir pressure) then – if flow is only through the annulus, the well has been killed. To seal it, the mud is displaced at the bottom of the well, by injecting a cement plug into the well that fills the bottom of the relief well and the annulus.
If the flow of oil has only been up through the annulus, there should, at this point, be no more oil flow out of the well, and the top of the well can be sealed with an additional cement plug, (as will the relief well) and the site can be closed down.
However if the oil flow continues, then it means that the oil is flowing up the inside of the production casing, At this point the drill is replaced on the end of the drilling string in the RW and the drill drills the cement plug out of the well, and continues drilling forward until it has penetrated the production casing. (It will use PDC cutters to do this). As before the mud in the RW will flow into the open channel, and with the mud pumps engaged, mud will flow into the central bore of the well filling it with a heavier and heavier mud concentration, until, again, the pressure exceeds that in the rock, and the oil and mud flow stop. The well is now killed.
Once the well is stable, then, as in the earlier step, the mud is replaced with a cement to create a plug at the bottom of the WW and the RW and the wells are sealed. Additional caps at the top of the wells, and they can be closed down.
Admiral Allen described the process thus
What will have to happen is when the relief well is adjacent to the well bore and close enough to be able to turn to make the penetration, then we'll first penetrate the area outside the well pipe.
And we will see if there is oil there or not. At that point mud will be pumped into the wellbore to see if that contains the well. If that does not, the mud and a (inaudible) plug will be inserted and then we will drill again into the inner pipe.
That will be the second attempt to plug the well if oil is coming up through the pipe with mud and cement. These two procedures will take us into August. There're things that could happen that could shorten that but right now into August is what the official estimate is.
And he then reinforced the point
Number one, if you take into account that you’re going to exhaust every possibility, if you go someplace and there’s not oil and you have to go find it in other place in that wellbore and you have to first seal what they call the annulus, the area outside the pipe, with mud and then cement that and go back in and re-bore into the pipe itself because you’re going to slowly remove any source of oil the closer you get inside the wellbore.
If you have to do all of that, it will take you well into August. If you get in there and you find the oil, you can see the oil in the annulus of the well bore the first time around, then it could be shorter. So it could happen, but I’m not going to assume that. I’ve been around you folks long enough to know that we need to under-promise and over-deliver.
He also mentioned that the decision on the cap had not yet been made.
I am asking BP to give me a detailed timeline in 24 hours on how they would accomplish the hookup of the units producer to the free standing riser pipe and then how they would move the current containment cap off, putting a containment cap on that would effectively seal the top of that well and go to the new containment structure, which does a couple of things, it gets us to a production capacity and a redundancy in the system of 60 to 80,000 barrels of day.
It also gives us quick hookup and quick disconnect and it will give us heavy weather or a hurricane. So not only do we have number one we have a weather window, number two we're going to get the weather to be able to hookup the Helix Producer.
I have asked BP to give me within the next 24 hours a detailed timeline that we can look at and then approve that will allow them to move forward. If we can take advantage of this weather window we will certainly do that.
The bottleneck here is the “brains trust” that Secretaries Chu and Salazar have assembled, and who will vet the idea. Here is my gripe. They have known about the design and the plans for weeks now. They have a short window of opportunity before the next storm rolls in and stops the effort, and they are only now getting the paperwork that they have to approve. It does not seem unreasonable to ask why this wasn’t done over a week ago, so that approval was in hand the moment that the weather allowed the procedure to begin. If the weather closes in again before the approval is given and the process completed, whose fault is this?
If the new cap is on, then when mud flows up the well it will go through the BOP and the sealed cap and up to the surface so that there is an additional pressure on the bottom of the well. If it is not, then the mud column weight above the BOP is lost. But the Federal Government is in charge, and processes and procedures must be followed, as they are repeatedly now informing folk. Sigh! So if the opportunity is lost, why that is just the way things go!
The current data on oil and gas production from the site:
For the first 12 hours on July 8 (midnight to noon), approximately 8,565 barrels of oil were collected and approximately 3,940 barrels of oil and 28.3 million cubic feet of natural gas were flared.
• On July 7, total oil recovered was approx. 24,575 barrels:
• approx. 16,655 barrels of oil were collected,
• approx. 7,920 barrels of oil were flared,
• and approx. 57.6 million cubic feet of natural gas were flared.
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Deleted-wrong thread.
"But the Federal Government is in charge, and processes and procedures must be followed"
This reminds me of the offers of help from outside the US.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/oil-spill-belgians-shouldnt-feel-too-ba...
Reminds me of far too many times when a Government Agency took so long to make up it's mind on an obvious situation that the window of opportunity closed or was closing and the actions taken (when finally approved) were done quickly and not very well such that the schedule could be kept AFTER all the delays. The Challenger accident comes to mind.
Let's hope this time the delay from the "decision making" doesn't cause any problems.
and here's another article, Skimmers and sand barriers
http://www.financialpost.com/Avertible+catastrophe/3203808/story.html#ix...
Anyway most of the Netherlands is now focusing on the football finals against Spain.
tonyw, the claim that foreign skimmers could have averted a catastrophe had we "accepted their offer of aid" (i.e. had BP purchased the equipment earlier) is false and has been repeatedly debunked here. It is very misleading to compare the claimed capacity of the Dutch skimmers with the actual performance of US skimmers. BP's cleanup contractors had dozens of large-capacity skimmers stationed in the Gulf. Their claimed skimming capacity was 500,000 bbl/day. But skimming an unconfined slick is ineffective regardless of the equipment. Three ships carrying the Dutch skimmer arms have been at work in the Gulf for 3 weeks, and there's still plenty of oil out there.
I've been reading TOD since day 1 (and before that too) and I've not seen a "total debunking" from EXPERTS in the area on this topic. Please post what you consider as that evidence.
It's just common sense that more skimmers regardless of their origin can cover more area, which is exactly what you need when things are unconsolidated. You can send skimmers chasing about different parts of the slick and play the divide and conquer approach. Maybe it would work but maybe not but why not TRY?? Even if the foreign skimmers were only as effective as what was available every thing helps. As I recall BP was accepting ALL offers but foreign skimmers had to be cleared via the MMS and other agencies due to legal issues such as the Jones Act and others. As several legal minds here mentioned there was more to the legalities than only the Jones Act. Anytime you get into legal issues involving the Gov't things slow to a crawl.
NASA, if you've read all the skimming subthreads and are unconvinced, I don't know what else to tell you. The skimming fleet has averaged around 1000 bbl/day over the life of the spill, and to me it seems preposterous to claim that a few foreign skimmers arriving on say May 7 would have kept the slick from making landfall. Here is a map from that time:
http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/posted/2931/forecast_20100508_06...
The slick covered around 5,000 square miles on May 8. One Dutch-armed skimmer ship can cover about one square mile per day. Yes, every little bit helps, but every little bit doesn't "avert catastrophe" as tonyw's link claims.
Once the flow has been stopped, skimmers will help reduce the slick, but not nearly as much as in situ burning, evaporation, and bacterial action. Under good conditions today, the fleet could capture 2000-3000 bbl compared to perhaps 15,000 bbl that will be spilled in 24 hours.
Gobbet: I still have not seen them post the actually oil skimmed number. Also the skimming is highly variable and really weather dependent. During the early days in a press conference the skimmer oil/water mix was 50%. But as you say the overall results do not approach expectations. A breakdown of results by sea state, location, and skimmer type would be interesting and a good future planning tool.
No Diverdan, they have not posted the amount of oil skimmed, so we have to estimate. In a press briefing (June 11 IIRC), Allen said "We usually get a 10-15% return on that," that is, the percentage of oil in the oil-water mix. I haven't seen the 50% figure you mention. But 12% x total mix collected yields roughly 1000 bbl/day of oil. At 12% they were getting 1,500 bbl/day of oil in the good weather before Alex. If the Dutch skimmers are vastly more efficient than the rest of the fleet, they might get 500 bbl/day each, which is why I guesstimated a possible 3000 bbl/day for today's fleet.
The Dutch skimmers can cover roughly 1 sq. mi. in a 12-hour day. Oil near the center of an unconfined slick can be about 0.1 mm thick (perhaps less for light crude on warm water). At 100% efficiency and running through thickest oil every minute of the day, the maximum it could collect would be 1,600 bbl/day, unless I've misplaced a decimal. This would also be roughly the limit for A Whale unless it is widened by booms.
Thank you for making my point. I did NOT say the extra skimmers would have prevented landfall, I said every little bit helps. 1600 bbls per day is not a huge amount but it's more than we would have had without them. Plus BP was paying the bills. Just plain stupid.
NASA, my posts in this subthread have been addressed to the claims in tonyw's links that fumbling by the government prevented the miraculous Belgian and Dutch skimmers from containing the spill near the wellhead. Anyone who looks at the May 8 map I linked should understand that this is a preposterous notion. I agree that every little bit helps, but realistically, skimmers don't seem to make much difference in a massive, open-sea spill.
I posted total barrels skimmed (67,143 bbl) allegedly from BP on July 6th. This is from article written by Kimberly Kindy of Washington Post.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6696#comment-669931
Gobbet, I am one of many arguing with you about skimmers. You obfuscate the points I make so much you are either a lawyer, politician or both. Here's the salient quote from the previously mentioned FP article
Emphasis mine.
Now we've had this discussion BEFORE and you ignored it then as you ignore it now. The EPA regs that don't allow "tainted" water to be returned to the gulf is asinine, stupid and moronic on ANY planet but planet Washington D.C. So instead of having let's say 80% clean water, we have substantially more 100% dirty water hitting our shores because of bureaucrats. Now once the press makes a big enough stink about this (ala the Jones Act stink) the bureaucrats in charge will PRETEND they weren't being obstructive, but the facts are facts. Meanwhile, because the ships have to go back to port constantly to unload their mostly water cargo, they are indeed falling under the 3 mile limit as well as the Jones Act requirements. IF and it is a big IF this government ever is called to task for their response to this spill, heads should roll. But I won't be surprised to see a whitewash investigation, just like we saw with Climategate and Penngate and Sunday Bloody Sunday (maybe they'll admit something 40 yrs from now).
widelyred, I agree with you about the EPA rule and have said so here more than once. The EPA has ruled that skimmers with a water-return system--including A Whale and the Dutch skimmers--may operate by returning the polluted water upstream of the collection device, and they are doing that as we speak. However, it is still a stupid rule for any large unconfined spill. I can't imagine why it has not been suspended unless it is based in a directive law. It surely has had the effect of inhibiting the development of more efficient skimmer technology in the US. However, it has not prevented the deployment of European skimmers. We don't know whether it played a role in BP's initial decision not to buy the Koseq arms, or whether BP in April just thought they wouldn't be needed.
There are tank barges positioned out in the water for the skimmers to offload their oil-water mix, so they don't have to return to port (normally; I'm sure there are exceptions). This is primarily for efficiency rather than to satisfy the Jones Act.
Gobbet, the Dutch skimmers aren't configured that way, and the Dutch clearly think the US gov't has its collective head up its you know where (and they're not far off IMHO). I really recommend you read the whole article I linked to, not just the part I quoted. Bottom line, the skimmers in Europe (offered already to the US, offer refused) are substantially superior to ANY American vessel, but unfortunately don't have overpaid, under-worked American union employees on board (who just happen to vote 99% for a certain political party and contribute 100% to that party). My flight instructor flew those booms from Holland, so I know when they arrived and how. I further know they went on ships that weren't designed to hold them, and crews had to be trained, then refused to go out in anything approaching rough seas. AFAIK, the only ship that gets to spill contaminated water in front of the skimmer is the A Whale, which is experimental at best. It is obvious you haven't captained any boat larger than a speedboat, or you wouldn't so blithely talk about offloading (what is now by EPA rules considered HAZARDOUS WASTE) ship to ship in potentially rough seas (even minor swells make this problematic at best).
Here's how an INTELLIGENT COMPETENT administration would have handled this problem:
First accept ALL help immediately.
Second, suspend ALL stupid laws that don't contribute to the cleanup
Third, starting at the SOURCE, use any and all booming equipment to contain the spill, skim there
Fourth, spend tax dollars and use federal resources as necessary, sending ALL bills to BP for reimbursement, if they complain too bad.
Fifth, move QUICKLY, quit dragging your feet
Sixth, Fire that moron Allen and put a true military admiral in charge
Hear! Hear!
If you're referring to the Jones Act preventing skimming ships from other countries operating in the Gulf then you're simply regurgitating right-wing lies and anti-union propaganda. The Jones Act only applies to ships carrying cargoes from one American port to another and it specifically exempts oil and pollution control operations from requiring American built, owned and operated ships to carry out this trade. The Jones Act has not prevented any foreign-registered ships from being brought in to perform oil recovery in the Gulf and such vessels have been on station from shortly after the Deepwater Horizon sank. Basically rich right-wing interests are using this disaster to carry out a union-bashing propaganda operation in the hopes of eventually offshoring a lot of the coastal cargo trade in the US to foreign-registered ships crewed with cheap labour and theyu are finding lots of folks like yourself who swallow their lies and regurgitate them on demand.
As a matter of interest what would a "true military admiral" do in this situation, once the Coast Guard has been taken out of the picture? Bring in a couple of aircraft carriers and launch an alpha strike on the wellhead? Send in a submarine or two to torpedo the BOP? I know, order Navy SEALs down 5000 feet to attach demolition charges and blow the thing up!
Nojay is correct wrt assigning command to the US Navy.
The USN excels at blowing stuff up...other surface ships, hostile subs, ground targets, airplanes, and even ballistic missiles and the occasional falling satellite!
Round peg, square hole...please stow the 'U.S. military is the answer to all problems' jive...
//A recently retired U.S. military member//
I've got a military related question, I'm from the UK and rather clueless on the subject.
As I understand it the oil slicks are spread out in strings and hard to see from the skimmers. They are using spotter planes to direct skimmers to the slicks.
Why not point a spy satellite at the GOM, get analysts provide real time locations of the oil, then have an awax in the air directing all the skimmers? Oil slick data could be supplemented with drones, rather than actual planes. My limited understanding is the US has the capability. So why not use it?
Spy satellites are located where there are military requirements and their wavelengths tuned for that purpose so I doubt they would be of much help. NOAA/NASA has a fleet of earth observation satellites that are up to the job and I would expect that the coastguard has full access to whatever they require. I doubt AWACS would be up to the job of directing skimmers, its primary role is in control of airspace not ocean. It may not even be capable of handling the comms the skimmers are using but I can't say for certain. Drones are mostly tied up in the middle east/stans so not a not available plus FAA issues about using them in US airspace. Coastguard probably has the best capability for directing the operation anyway. Biggest issue I see is that the skimmers are just totally overwhelmed by the scale of the job. HTH
NAOM
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/witnesses-tenacity-along-with-cat...
Canadian Govt aircraft are doing radar mapping of the oil spill for cleanup by skimmers.
tabbycat,
Google KH-11 and/or KH-12 . Look for hits in Wikipedia on these code names. They designate a couple of the more modern US spy satelites.
I don't think they would be much help. The Coast Guard already has airplanes and pilots specifically for searching the open ocean. I think the problem is actually skimming the oil that has already been found. Vessels with really tall masts, and a crows nest would probably be better suited to the task. I dread to think about the national security issues that would have to be addressed. Especially when Coast Guard is already doing a better job with equipment designed for the task --- searching for stuff in open ocean.
A fleet of drones that could be assigned one drone to one skimmer and operated from the skimmer crew might be nice to have. US or BP have the money to pay for such, but it would take years to design, build, and deploy. Should be put on the list of things to do before the next blowout.
The spy satellites are interesting to read about, so have at it!
Nojay, right on and well said. However, there is one union I hope we can bust up real soon: Rightus Wingnutus.
Agreed, The Jones act is a bit of a non-issue, but if you have exemptions for stupid laws then it removes all fear, uncertainty and doubt about the issue. The issue becomes a non-issue, one less thing to even bother to think about, more time can be spent focused on solving problems quickly.
Recall that when Katrina happened a certain blue ocean admiral was brought in and coordinated everything immediately and did an excellent job. The negative military comments are uncalled for and unjustified. What any true student of history knows is that the military excels NOT just at blowing things up, but at something called logistics. Allen has shown himself inept at reading the cue cards, let alone logistics, replace him with someone who understands the job, I don't care if he's a quartermaster, he'd do a better job.
The Jones Act apologists do not sway me. I don't watch Fox News, but do read voraciously hence my nom de guerre. I've read the Jones Act, I've read the appeals in Congress to temporarily appeal it, and I've read Allen's apologetics about it, without admitting the salient fact, which is that ONLY the Sec of Defense can ask for a waiver, so until they hear Gates ask for the waiver they can pretend all day, every day, that no one has asked. Left wingers trying to bury this under legalese won't fool me, it IS an ongoing issue, enough that foreign flagged vessels worry about it. Now some of the left wing lawyers (and I often wonder if there are any other kind) on this site will argue about the nuances of the law, but ask yourself how familiar YOU are with for instance French law and ask yourself if you'd feel comfortable playing the nuance game in the country where the word came from.
My list still stands.
"Now some of the left wing lawyers (and I often wonder if there are any other kind) on this site will argue about the nuances of the law..."
Widelyread, i thought yoo were widely read. If yoo think all lawyers are left wing, yoo can't be. Either that, or you are letting your politics color reality.
Your lawyer friend, left on some things, right on others, mainly what works.
Again with the 'Military can solve anything' meme: Stow that bilge!
The military can certainly conduct Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence (C3I), as well as Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) operations, and can do these ops well in many circumstances.
However, the military can do what it has been trained and equipped for, and does not necessarily have the ability to step into any situation which is out of its realm of experience and then excel. Dealing with civilian authorities and private firms which it does not have a standing relationship with is not the military's forte. For a recent example, witness how well the military and the other parts of the USG have cooperated in Afghanistan. Then take an objective look at how the military has not only cozied up to, but out-sourced major parts of their mission to contractors such as Blackwater, now known as Xe, and their little Rambo-style shooting sprees. Don't forget KBR and the electrocution showers for our troops.
Don't blithely assert that if you put your favorite admiral in the mix to 'command' this GOM fiasco that much would be better. The military does not know the oil business, including the clean-up response mission.
I have 20+ years in uniform (not counting four years of military training) and am still associated with the community. I make my comments based on actual experience and not by being widely read in Tom Clancy novels.
Widelyred, you quote approvingly from a financialpost.com article. You shouldn't.
This is complete crap.
Why don't you go to http://www.koseq.com/ and see for yourself.
First, Koseq themselves don't give any numbers on their website. There are only pictures and a brief explanation of how the skimmer arms work. So you have to make your own estimate.
Max possible volume of oil recovered per day is Area Swept x Depth of Oil.
Depth of Oil is somewhere from 1 µm to 50 µm (a human hair is 100 µm) in the slick.
Area swept is Speed x Width. 24 hrs x 3 km/hr x 25 m = not much. Use your own numbers, these are just a guess. It's always going to be insignificant compared to the scale of the current slick.
And the booms don't "extract" the oil. They are v-shaped and guide the slick to the point of the 'v' where a pump about the size of my swimming pool pump sucks the oily water into tanks on the boat, where the oil settles out.
It's just common sense that more skimmers regardless of their origin can cover more area, which is exactly what you need when things are unconsolidated
No, it doesn't. Adm Allen covered this yesterday. You can't coordinate the skimmer operation without air support. i.e. you can have skimmer in an area but they have to spend time to find the oil.. It is the failure of the initial respond plan where they thing all the oil sheen will be in the same general area. And they can just cover the area like a grid search.. But right now the oil has been spreading out to a very big area and you need eyes in the sky to direct the skimmers to the right place. Right now we are paying for the "inadequate" emergency response plan.. But the next one will be much better.
Like the USAF and Army, Civil Air Patrol and Oil company planes/choppers couldn't have been out there in a grid search pattern calling in the co-ordinates? I don't know of any pilot who wouldn't want seat time paid for!!! In the early days the slick was small and pretty much within a few tens of miles from the well, that would have been pretty easy to co-ordinate. Now with it spread all over it's much harder.
They have to think quit thinking so rigid when all the rules that normally work don't apply. Cut it with the Analysis Paralysis.. Bring in ALL the resources you can get, don't worry about credit/blame just get the bleeping job done. This applies to BP and the Government both. Don't do anything wild-ass crazy to make things worse but venture out of the box.
The Dutch company Van Oord was ready to help with both skimming and dredging capability two days after the Macondo tragedy. In fact, BP had a signed contingent contract on April 23rd, only three days after the disaster. If deployed earlier, the slick would have been more confined.
That coupled with the tardiness of several federal agencies goes to the heart of determining responsibility and to what extent. At the end of the day, their will be significant concurrent responsibility for the disaster, something that the federal government is now leaning towards.
Meanwhile, every true deep water expert is waiting with baited breath for the BOP to come to the surface to be analyzed. So am I.
Your concerns and Heading Out's are totally valid and serious. That said, it would be probably unfair to paint Dr Chu as a clueless bureaucrat who would slavishly follow bureaucratic process to the exclusion of all else. He is new to government and many of the scientists on this team are not in government, but academia. Could it be, that YOU may not know all of what needs to be considered (I know, a shock), or that as knowledgeable as you and HO and many others are here, you may not have all the facts and key dependencies in this situation?
I have no problem with justified criticism...and I recognize even without being an expert in this area, that the time window that HO and you point out is extremely important. However, you have to assume, and there is no evidence of it, that the scientists are either completely clueless, or stupid to adhere to bureacratic process in the face of such an important issue.
Too many knowledgeable people at TOM fall into easy bias in their commentary about the behavior or decisions of those in government. Unless you are mind readers, it would be nice to state your bias upfront or some other caveats about your ability to read minds and know all in a given situation to which you are not formally privy.
You also have a very simplified interpretation of what happened in the Challenger accident and the complex organizational environment that added to the delays. NASA and its contractors have a very tight, interdependent relationship and culture that could not be just easily characterized as purely "government". Also the nature of the activity (space flight) was inherently filled with uncertainty in materials and behavior of key components as well as budget and other accountabilities.
Please. Just make an attempt at even handedness. The assumption that underlies your bias is insulting and incorrect: that people who work in government have no desire to perform well and do the right thing -- that they are all nincompoops who could care less about performance and outcome. That people of Dr Chu's stature, would allow themselves to be part of an entity that has no goal but to be fools and foot draggers.
What you are thinking is distorted by your bias.
Amen, Elie. Steve Chu, according to all I've read and observed of him, is about as far from "fool" or "foot-dragger" as a human being can get. When the smoke clears, I'm willing to bet everyone who's working on this with him will attest to that and his good humor too. He didn't dump all those characteristics at the "gummint" door.
Having jointly won the Noble Prize in Physics for his work in "developing of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light", Dr. Chu is obviously a brilliant man and not a foot dragger.
Dr. Chu is also aware of BP's $500 million grant which helped establish Lawrence Berkeley National Lab's Bioenergy Research Center. As such, he will probably not be as preconditioned against BP as many in Washington. Most scientists at his level tend to be driven more by facts than by politics.
I have skimmed through this thread a few times and I don't think anyone has addressed HO's point of expressed frustration/exasperation with the sudden need of the government to see details from BP in regards to acceptance of the plan to replace the cap. The flip side of BP's negligence is the Fed's with their need to see everything through a magnifying glass in detail with reams of boilerplate. One more flip is the aire of complacency which attributed to the disaster in the fiirst place. There is no real accountability if things go wrong and no incentive to really get it right.
The decision mentioned should have been decided when the welders started on the project. How long has it been since we saw the 10" thick overshot containment device in progress. I agree with NASA on the "NO" fear factor. Standing on the outside looking in it is a rather sad site to behold. Heads down, walking in circles or from cubicle to cubicle making sure someone will guarantee to the last gallon how much crude will be spilled while the cap replacement occurs. If someone murmurs a tangled cable...ooops back to the drawing boards. The mere mention of the unfinished detail states how inefficient government bureauracy is. I have served in the military under military direction and control; in the military under the direction of civil service (ultimately military control) and employed in a civil service capacity under government contract and I agree with NASA on the points he is making. In doing so it isn't necessary to take away from Dr. Chu and crew or Adm. Allen but their field of expertise is not DW well blowouts.
I am reasonably sure any of the shrimp boat captains skimming the GoM could organize an armada to keep the coast clear and clean if given the resoures to do so. The difference (I may hurt feelings here)in how they would proceed is based on their incentive. They have lots of incentive that's been stymied or more appropriately killed, by bureauracy.
I don't think everything in government is as I expressed but I think I can safely say it's a comfortable fit for about 90%. Whoever was responsible in the chain of command between Dr. Chu and Adm. Allen for missing the sign-off on the procedure for cap replacement deserves to be B*&^H Slapped.
Elie, For who you are, Thank you.
Landrew, I'm sure it's probably Freudian; you meant 2016.
I wonder if the delay has not been the government but the lack of sufficient detail provided by BP. When government bodies want a plan they want a PLAN. Admiral Thad's request seemed to have a tone of frustration with emphasis on 'detailed'.
NAOM
We really don't know what Thad Allen wanted in a plan, so it is problematic whether or not BP complied.
I seriously question the notion that when government bodies want a plan, they want a PLAN, as there are so many notions of what a plan involves. As an example, take the recent national Health Care Initiative. It is still in the 'early' development stages even though Congress and the President signed the bill into law without having seen a completed plan or even read the bill.
Elie: Despite my feelings about government inefficiencies, I all along have felt that Chu is probably what we needed and the most professional. He is one of the few who has not joined in the the political grandstanding we have seen from other agency heads and government officials. My guess is that behind the scenes he and his experts have worked quite collaboratively with BP and industry partners to objectively look at ways to solve the problem.(I think CG and BP are working pretty well together too). Unfortunately, many people are keen on making one or the other out to be evil and incompetent while in reality, despite the imperfections and time it is taking, this is probably a better example of working together than many would ever admit. I would guess that amongst those there in Houston there is probably a mutual respect and pretty good working relationship.
Thank you, Diverdan.
While I support government more than many on this site, I definitely will criticize it when warranted -- and unfortunately, it is warranted often. That said, there are many occasions when the private and government sectors has worked together sufficiently well to achieve something important. Let us hope and pray that this is one of those instances. In any case, I am sure that Dr Chu and his associates on this mission are working hard with all the important players from industry and academia to get this done. After all, everyone wants to look good as well as have a good result...Everyone.
Yep, a lot of the good work gets lost in the cloud of politics, bias, and agendas.
Somewhere recently I saw an article that described Sec. Chu's role in a long meeting as one in which he repeatedly asked "Yes, and imagine if that doesn't work.. what then?" in attempts to get the participants to continue thinking beyond proposed solutions. Seemed like a more sustained version of the the reported government requirement to start a second RW ... "what if the first RW fails?"
I thought TOD banned ad-hominen posts?? Oh well, I'll answer anyway. Shouldn't feed the trolls, but I can't resist.
Umm NO it is NOT. Go read the report. It clearly faults indecision at the higher levels of NASA as to go or no-go based on the conditions. The longer they delayed the longer the "cold soak" which made the O-rings worse. Then they decided to blow off the engineers who said it might be a problem and they should just scrub. No one wanted to make a "NO" decision as they thought it might look bad that they lost the cost of the fuel that had to be drained from the External Tank.
I was also a member of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, and the NASA Mission Assurance and Safety Group. I validated the Safety and Performance of several NASA Missons such as HST. I've shut down missions and launches due to serious quality and safety issues. I have awards and honors out the a** from NASA and DoD. I've worked for the Army, Airforce, Navy, DHS, Treasury, Federal Reserve, FAA, DOT and others. I'm not basing my opinion on just one person or one agency. I've yet to see ONE manager (exception is Military) that could make a decision without consulting several levels up and playing CYA to make sure if they made the wrong call they didn't get hit with the splash!! That attitude of not accepting responsibility is just the culture.
What you call "bias" is the scars of years of experience. Note that I'm NOT talking about Engineers and Technical people, just Managers.
Why don't you disclose what jobs you've done? I bet you've got some "bias" too!!! I'm suspecting you work for a Gov't agency.
nasa: Wow! Great insights. You have had some amazing experiences.Thanks.
Nasa --
I don't think that I attacked you on a personal basis -- did not call you names or such -- just referred to your bias, to which you attest to based on your "scars".
I am definitely not minimizing your scars or experience -- who am I to do that? That said, your extensive experience with the complexities of government and private sector organizations in very complex collaborative relationships still gives you a fairly black and white, good/bad sense of that experience rather than a more complex and nuanced respect for their differences and respective responsibilities. Different roles may see the world slightly differently. Doesnt mean one side is BAD and the other is GOOD. A senior manager may have a great deal more to weigh in a given decision that a technical expert working on one specific project has to deal with. Its easy but totally false to say that only the technical expert has the only TRUTH worth respecting. Is that what you are saying?
I am not an "expert" in your field of engineering. Am I therefore unable to make any judgements on anything about the process of organizational decisionmaking and priority setting? Or on analytical decision making versus sweeping generalizations? Note, I have not nor have I ever disrespected private sector, industry or other organizations. I only challenge the ongoing unbalanced criticism of ALL government, which I hear from your statements particularly.
I am a nurse and manager. Historically I have worked in government and provider organizations as well as data organizations. I spend a lot of time evaluating and making decisions, weighting options using a variety of information sources. I hear it when I make mistakes, so I had better come through with the goods.
I believe in the ability of all types of organizations to do good work and to be accountable. That always starts with integrity to honest analysis of information and challenging bias -- made up minds before the information supports one's conclusions. You apparently believe in the role of bias and support retaining it rather than having an open mind. Your choice. But don't give me push back on MY credibility, Mr fact based engineering, if YOU don't wait for eviddence to form your opinions.
Elie,
First, thank you! We do care about what we do! Many of us could make far more in industry but, we pursue science with a love not the love of a dollar.
Chu, one of the smartest people in the country now. I confess, I work for him but wish he could stay long after BO is gone in 2012. In fact I would like to see Chu as president. We need a problem solver and he may very well be our best.
Yesterday, in a previous thread, I wrote:
I received several requests for stills from this video, since apparently Pee Cees can't read Quicktime movies.
I put up some stills at
http://homepage.mac.com/james_r_white/tei_share/OilSpillMovies/pix.html which are basically screen grabs off of the movie. There are several stills from different angles of both ends of the cut-off riser.
Hope this helps.
Mine does. All I had to do was download 100MB of iSoftware that's constantly nagging me to upgrade and be willing to put up with the iStore popping up every time I brush by something it thinks it can sell me.
Anyway, thanks. Interesting but still mystifying stuff.
Deleted - reposted in correct place.
I can't play it either, even though my system says the QT codec is working and I can play other .mov files. I even tried to reencode it but it crashes Handbrake, and avidemux says it doesn't have a video stream.
Can someone elaborate on what is in the gap(void) between the DEEP WATER steel casing liner and the production liner AND between the rock and the steel casing line (before the mud is in place)?
I recall reading somewhere that there was not enough production casing to reach TD so a liner was used instead. If so, how would the casing and liner connect; in other words, are they compatible?
Z - This link (http://www.energy.gov/open/documents/3.1_Item_2_Macondo_Well_07_Jun_1900...) will get you to a schematic of the well. That will make it easier to follow the chat. The profile shows that the annulus (gap) between the prodcution csg and the various shallow liners is empty except for where there was cmt pumped at the base of the prod csg. This cmt seal is what has apparently failed. The prod liner was run to TD and hung off the bottom of the well head. There was discussion that running a liner from the previous liner instead of running the prod csg would have been a safer approach and probably could have prevented the blow. Perhaps you're misreading some of those comments. The prod csg and any liner don't really connect per se. Liners are connected: the deep liner is attached to the shallower line by (drum roll please) the "liner hanger".
I don't think we can say it was really empty. Somebody from outside the industry may think it was just an empty cavity full of air. The best way to put it, I think is that this space had the mud used to pre-flush the annulus ahead of the cement job. Since the well is new, that mud should have been fairly fresh. Later, during the blow out phase, because the cement job failed (probably because hydrocarbons chanelled into it), then the subsequent flow probably blew out pieces of cement, some of the mud, and quite a bit of adjoining rock formation, to form an erosion channel.
We call them wormholes when they're made in viscous oil reservoirs, where they can grow very fast and reach hundreds of feet in length, so I'll use the term wormhole here because that's the closest I know to what's likely to be going on, an eroded channel cut on one side of the casing running to a point where the casing failed.
Good point fd...coffee hadn't kicked in yet. Z -- listen to FD.
Hope the guys out on the rig have your knowledge and understanding. If what you say it true they could be pumping mud a LONG time before they get any flow in the annular area stopped as the mud would have to fill those wormholes before starting to stem the flow. They better have a LOT of mud on the site.
When they lost control of the well they were swapping out heavy drill mud for lighter sea water - inside the production casing, IIUC. The mud ahead of the cement in the annulus would still be heavy, and not replaced - at least up to the riser, right? So the total pressure on the formation on the annulus side should have been considerably higher than up the inside of the production casing, and the blowout occurred while that pressure difference was getting larger. Wouldn't that make shoe failure and flow up the inside more likely than flow up the annulus?
Isn't this scenario just what the doomsdayers were talking about? Luckily casing broke and let the flow inside and at least all these caps devices have a chance to work?
Rockman-
Start right there with the DOE well configuration and you can see how Chu et al clearly DO NOT have any working familiarity with the engineering. I offer into evidence the three 16" rupture/burst disks shown in the 9-7/8" section of the production casing. I sell rupture discs (Continental & LaMot) and have sold BS&B and have looked at Fike, and I can assure one and all that none of those manufacturers has a 16 inch disc that will fit inside a 9-7/8" pipe. I did my civic duty and sent Sec Chu an e-mail to point this out and yet it is still uncorrected (more dithering and indecision!).
Heading Out
I agree that dithering, not decisionmaking, is the hallmark of the government overseers. On another thread, I discussed the difficulties of getting the mud weight right to stop the flow when the WW is open to the sea at the BOP while the RW goes all the way to the surface. Installing the new cap to rectify that problem is a no brainer.
I would offer a solution to controlling the WW from the top without a RW, a modified top kill procedure I'll call "All the Marbles". Run a hose or tubing (about 3/4" OD) from the surface to the kill line on the BOP with valves at either end. Fill it with 1/2" diameter glass marbles, then fill the space with oil. Close the upper valve and open the lower one allowing oil form the WW to flow into the hose equalizing the pressure, at which point the marbles will start to fall out into the flowing oil at a measured pace which is limited by the reverse flow of oil needed to backfill the space vacated by the departing marbles. Repeat as needed.
This drops the marbles into the oil stream where they will fall downhole per Stoke's Law. Assuming the acceleration of gravity is 32.2 ft/sec^2, the marble diameter is 0.5 inches, its density (SG) is 2 gram/cm^3, the oil density is 0.9 gram/cm^3, and the viscosity is 0.3 centipoise cP (0.3 gram/meter-sec) you can calculate the terminal velocity of the marbles here http://www.ajdesigner.com/phpstokeslaw/stokes_law_terminal_velocity.php
If the terminal velocity is greater than the upward flow rate, the marbles will fall to the bottom of the well. The maximum upward flow velocity based on a 60,000 barrel per day flow can be calculated thus.
A 42 gallon barrel is 5.61 cubic feet x 60,000 barrels = 336,6000 cubic feet per day. Divide by 24 hrs/day by 60 mins/hr by 60 secs/min to arrive at 3.9 cubic feet per second. The worst case for this well would be all the flow going up the annulus (i.e. between the ID of the 9-7/8" liner and the OD of the 7" production casing).
The ID of the liner is about 8-5/8", that area is 58.4 square inches, the 7" OD casing's area is 38.5 square inches, so the Minimum Net Flow Area (MNFA in ASME Code-speak)is 19.9 square inches. Dividing by 144 sq inch/ sq ft and you get an MNFA of 0.138 sq ft.
3.9 cu ft/sec divided by 0.138 sq ft gives us an upward flow rate of 28.3 ft/sec. So the Stoke's calculator proves the marbles' terminal velocity is greater than the upward velocity of the oil and the marbles will fall to the bottom. As they do, they will introduce a flow restriction (e.g a "choke") to the WW further reducing the leak rate. Choke it enough and you can go to progressively smaller "marbles" until you get to the point where you can pack the all intersticial spaces in the marbles and kill the well, FROM THE TOP!
NO MUSS, NO FUSS JUST A SLOW MOTION TOP KILL. It might take a couple of days to inject all the decreasing sized marbles, but it would be a lot faster than this project has been.
That would be a pretty good trick. It is just another example of the misinformation that is availible to the public that makes hard for them to understand what is happening. Another is Admiral Allen often uses the incorrect terms. You would you would take at least a very short course in drilling if he is going to hold press conferences about it.
I guess accuracy does't matter anymore.
Thanks for the stills. The end with one pipe appears to be a pipe within a pipe. At first I thought it might be casing and a collar, but the in last picture the outer pipe appears to long to be a collar. Do you know which end of the piece of riser was closest to the BOP?
The end showing two (or one deformed) pipes was closest to the BOP. IIRC, the shear crushed from the side with the more squished pipe.
Also the end with two pipes it appears that you can see threads within one of them. To me they looked pretty course like a drill pipe tool joint, but I could be wrong.
2 pipes at one end closest to the BOP. Pipe on left has threads. Pipe on right has cement in it. One pipe at end of section furthest from BOP also has what looks like cement in it.
Any idea how cement could still be in there?
Not sure I see cement but a possibility is that the cement was not fully set when the blow out occurred then the DP caught it on they way up. There are reports of cement falling on the support ship.
NAOM
The only pipe in the hole that should have had cement in it, or on the outside except for the liners and I believe the pipe shown is smaller than any of them, is the bottom of production string (7 inch casing), but wierd things can happen to pipe during a blow out.
If the pipe on the left is a female drill pipe tool joint as it kind of resembles, it is upside down too what is normal. Again see my comment above. It could also be the threads of a casing collar which could have detached either way so it could be right side up or upside down.
I sure would like to know what is in the rest of the riser laying on the sea floor.
This is totally wild speculation, but what I see appears like the production string was torn in pieces and parts including the 7 inch at the bottom came up into the riser.
Side note, if that is the case it would effect the magnetic rangeing by the RW after they get below the last liner, but there could still be steel in the bottom of the hole to range off of, like the drill pipe may have dropped to bottom.
This is the first time I have taken a close look at the piece of riser, so the possiblities are still cooking in my mind.
Good observation. Would there have been enough room in the BOP for a piece to get turned around? There is only one pipe in the other end so that may well be it. On the other hand the bits have a male screw on them so that end of the pipe would need to be female. Wonder why that should be all the way up there. Seems very coincidental that it should have ended up at the exact point of the snip. Any thoughts?
The riser was reported to have been brought to the surface. It is about time we had some hard information on what was found. I was surprised it was not recovered during the cut off operation as they already had a sling and hoist attached to it.
NAOM
EDIT: If that was the casing and there was nowt down there then they wouldn't be doing those ranging runs?
Normally the bit is screwed into the bottom drill collar (very thick wall heavy pipe to add weight to the drill string for drilling purposes) which is female on both ends.
For the operations they were conducting I think it is unlikely that they had any drill collars in the hole. Drill collars are a bit harder to deal with so if thay are not required you just run drill pipe into the hole.
But, they could have a short sub (short pipe for adapting different threads) for the purpose of running the casing down to the well head. One of these could have flipped over somewhre in the hole or even been female on the bottom end to start with.
We just need more info on the drill pipe and any other tools attached to it.
The liners would still be in the hole, but below the last liner who knows. The drill pipe may be there to range off of.
I was speaking to a retired drilling engineer friend of mine today and he told me that on the first job he was sent out to do, they were doing some kind of workover and had been shut down overnite and when he arrived on location in the morning the entire 6000 ft string of 5 1/2 was laying on the ground. Guess they were lucky that it happened at night while no one was there. That would have been quite a phone call back to the boss on your first day.
I couldn't play this movie with either Apple Quicktime or VLC (which pretty much plays everything). Could you check your encoding. It appears to require the WMV3 codec which is bizarre for an Apple encoded movie.
WMV3 = Windows Media Video 9 not an Apple format. Unfortunately there are proprietary formats that companies don't want to be allowed to be used by other companies so they have a monopoly on their use. There are formats such as Vorbis that can be freely used.
NAOM
Oh, 2 pipes. LHS with female thread, break at collar? Maybe 1st BOP shear attempt landed on a collar and broke the joint and loose pipe was displaced?
NAOM
Oh, 2 pipes. LHS with female thread, break at collar?
When I saw the still those threads just jumped out at me.
That may be why the BOP was compromised. IIRC the shear rams usually can't slice or crush the joints.
In a blowout you take what you can get though.
I'm more concerned with the other pipe as some have speculated that it may be casing. and BP's docs sent to congress indicate the casing may be compromised at 1000ft or so. below the BOP/well head.
I don't have enough info to even guess.
See my exchange, above, with RioHondoHank.
NAOM
The family and I were waiting for the main course in a restaurant last night - Outback if you must know - so I got to playing with the cylinder-shaped loaf of bread. Sure enough, as AlanfromBigEasy indicated quite some time ago (think it was him but others too) you can take a cylinder and squish it into a figure 8 shape cross section.
Not saying it's one or two pipes in the pics just saying if you want all the table bread to yourself then just squish it into a figure eight shape.
Pete
If you download the high resolution image of the riser mock-up you can clearly see there are two pipes. It seems that BP would not have used two pipes in the mock-up if there weren't two pipes in the cut off riser.
Link to that?
The high resolution image is at:
http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/in...
As seen on
http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=9033571&contentId=7061902
Thanks.
Anyone want to take on the question? As I see it, the question is "WTF?"
I'm willing to bet you're somebody's little brother, ptoemmes, because in my family that was one of the best little-brother tricks.
See there? I knew it was worth it to donate to TOD, just for that piece of info right there!!! Thanks! I've wondered all my life how to solve that conundrum! Heh! Heh!
But, Pete, wouldn't the two parts of the "figure-8" be about half the size of the original cylinder-shaped loaf of bread?
Something like O=oo vs. O=OO??
I don't have a loaf to play with, but . . .
James, do you happen to have ROV videos from 5th June 2010, late afternoon?
The screen capture at the following link
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51953657@N08/4776922637/
shows the far end of the broken riser at 16:27:07 on 5/Jun/10, a few days after the other end was sheared from the top of the BOP stack by Jaws. For visual reference, the screen capture at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51953657@N08/4777555820/
shows the same end of the riser several days earlier, when it was still spewing oil and gas.
The later image appears to show two concentric pipes within the riser, and from their sizes the larger one looks more like casing than drill pipe. However, I know how easy it is to see what you expect to see, and I could easily be convinced that what I'm looking at is just remnants from the siphon assembly that was inserted in the riser for a while to capture some of the oil. The image at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51953657@N08/4776922717/in/set-721576244572...
is the end of the riser on the following day, and I can't really tell what I'm looking at in it.
Anyway, if you have higher resolution videos or still images of the same area they might be interesting.
Again, I refer anyone who doubts there are two pipes to the high resolution image of the Cameron mock-up of the riser.
Here is just a small piece of the image clearly showing the two pipes in the mock-up.
I don't believe the mock-up would have be built with two pipes if there weren't two pipes in the piece of cut-off riser.
You can download the entire image from:
http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/in...
I think (based on some of the pictures of the riser itself) that there are probably two pipes. But over and over again I hear the argument "they wouldn't have built the mock-up with two pipes if there weren't two pipes in the riser".
That's not evidence, it's conjecture. Maybe they thought there were two pipes; maybe they were exploring alternatives and one of them was that there were two pipes in the riser.
In any case, I don't think anyone has disputed there being two pipes in that mock-up. But it's not proof and there's no point in posting and re-posting pictures of a dang mock-up.
Edit: caption to the pic at BP page (emphasis mine):
Is this the only mockup they did, or the only one they published a photo of? Nobody knows.
I don't believe the mock-up would have be built with two pipes if there weren't two pipes in the piece of cut-off riser.
Thad Allen in this morning's briefing, describing what will happen over the weekend:
Mainstream media just reporting that BP admits second pipe in BOP.
*BREAKING* Coast Guard and BP admit “MYSTERIOUS second pipe” stuck in BOP; Experts say indicates casing “dislodged”
http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/coast-guard-and-bp-now-admit-mysteriou...
Discovery of second pipe in Deepwater Horizon riser stirs debate among experts, New Orleans Times Picayune, July 9, 2010:
For the first time Friday, the Coast Guard and BP acknowledged that a mysterious second pipe, wedged next to the drill pipe in what remains of the Deepwater Horizon’s riser, is fouling up the works where the well is spewing hundreds of millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Second Pipe (nola.com)
“We used a diamond saw and we got inside. We found there was actually two sets of drill pipe there,” said retired Adm. Thad Allen, the top U.S. Coast Guard official overseeing the response to America’s worst-ever oil spill.
It “presumably fell down beside it as a result of the explosion and the riser pipe being bent over,” Allen said. He noted that the second pipe does not have oil shooting from it.
BP officials said late Friday that they believe the second pipe is drill pipe. Pictures show it is similar in diameter to the known drill pipe.
While Allen said he believes the second pipe fell from above, some experts have advanced another explanation. They believe poorly cemented casings — tubes that are supposed to form solid walls down thousands of feet of the well bore — may have been dislodged by the blast of natural gas that shot up out of the well and above the sea floor.
If that’s what happened, the piece of pipe would have gone into the blowout preventer, the 450-ton tower of valves and pistons that sits on top of the well head and is supposed to shut off the well in an emergency. The Deepwater Horizon’s blowout preventer failed to cut through the pipe that ran through it, and subsequent efforts to shut the so-called shear rams using remote-control submarine robots also failed. …
The idea that a loose pipe shot up from deeper in the well and prevented the shear ram from closing has been espoused by such experts as oil industry investment banker Matt Simmons and Bob Bea, a University of California at Berkeley engineer leading a scientific investigation into the blowout. But others have wondered if the mystery pipe isn’t just a section of the same drill pipe that came loose, or even a pipe that fell down the riser from the rig 5,000 feet above.
The Coast Guard’s acknowledgement [sic] of the two metal tubes Friday — and a subsequent reference by BP to its plans to tie the two pipes together as the company installs a new oil collection system over the shaved-off riser — actually comes more than a month after the Department of Energy noted the existence of two pipes using special imaging technology. At the time, BP dismissed the Energy findings as “impossible” because only one pipe in sections was used for drilling, a Tribune News Service story reported last month.
Video images of the riser when it was cut in early June clearly showed the two pipes, raising speculation on blogs. Allen said the second pipe also led to a jagged cut on the larger riser pipe, forcing the response team to use the loose cap with a rubber seal. And now, the two pieces are forcing the team to spend several days tying them together and clearing the way for a new, hopefully more solid connection.
Oil industry expert Matt Simmons says the second pipe is lodged in the BOP after “tremendous pressures” from the blast ruptured the well casing. This ejected part of the casing through 50 feet of steel inside the BOP.
A better read, IMHO, is the original story at
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/07/post_19.html
Looks like somebody from nola.com reads the oil drum.
It is interesting that after the pipe was cut, the stuff coming out of the stub at the top of the BOP was different color on one side than the other. I presume the lighter-colored stuff had drilling mud and/or sand . . . one flow might have been from the one of the drill pipes, the other from the annulus?
I will post some video stills of what I am talking about when I get a chance.
It will be interesting to see the BOP once it has been retrieved, if they share the info.
This well and surroundings should be treated like a crime scene. 11 people died due to probably criminal negligence. Odd that they allow the folks that are responsible to clean up the crime scene.
Yesterday, I wrote:
OK, OK, there is lots of folks who have crippled non-Mac 'puters that can't view .mov files for some reason, so I put it on Youtube. Youtube said:
There isn't any audio . . .
I tried loading it into iMovie, but iMovie wouldn't recognize it either.
I uploaded it twice to Youtube . . . got the same thing both times, and when I try the links at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLm5-tyZGoc
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZLpYMTs7QM
Youtube says
So I am out of luck. If any of you guys can fix it, have at it, but I just don't have the time. I gotta run to the store for some BlueBell . . .
Mainstream media just reporting that BP admits second pipe in BOP.
*BREAKING* Coast Guard and BP admit “MYSTERIOUS second pipe” stuck in BOP; Experts say indicates casing “dislodged”
http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/coast-guard-and-bp-now-admit-mysteriou...
Discovery of second pipe in Deepwater Horizon riser stirs debate among experts, New Orleans Times Picayune, July 9, 2010:
For the first time Friday, the Coast Guard and BP acknowledged that a mysterious second pipe, wedged next to the drill pipe in what remains of the Deepwater Horizon’s riser, is fouling up the works where the well is spewing hundreds of millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Second Pipe (nola.com)
“We used a diamond saw and we got inside. We found there was actually two sets of drill pipe there,” said retired Adm. Thad Allen, the top U.S. Coast Guard official overseeing the response to America’s worst-ever oil spill.
It “presumably fell down beside it as a result of the explosion and the riser pipe being bent over,” Allen said. He noted that the second pipe does not have oil shooting from it.
BP officials said late Friday that they believe the second pipe is drill pipe. Pictures show it is similar in diameter to the known drill pipe.
While Allen said he believes the second pipe fell from above, some experts have advanced another explanation. They believe poorly cemented casings — tubes that are supposed to form solid walls down thousands of feet of the well bore — may have been dislodged by the blast of natural gas that shot up out of the well and above the sea floor.
If that’s what happened, the piece of pipe would have gone into the blowout preventer, the 450-ton tower of valves and pistons that sits on top of the well head and is supposed to shut off the well in an emergency. The Deepwater Horizon’s blowout preventer failed to cut through the pipe that ran through it, and subsequent efforts to shut the so-called shear rams using remote-control submarine robots also failed. …
The idea that a loose pipe shot up from deeper in the well and prevented the shear ram from closing has been espoused by such experts as oil industry investment banker Matt Simmons and Bob Bea, a University of California at Berkeley engineer leading a scientific investigation into the blowout. But others have wondered if the mystery pipe isn’t just a section of the same drill pipe that came loose, or even a pipe that fell down the riser from the rig 5,000 feet above.
The Coast Guard’s acknowledgement [sic] of the two metal tubes Friday — and a subsequent reference by BP to its plans to tie the two pipes together as the company installs a new oil collection system over the shaved-off riser — actually comes more than a month after the Department of Energy noted the existence of two pipes using special imaging technology. At the time, BP dismissed the Energy findings as “impossible” because only one pipe in sections was used for drilling, a Tribune News Service story reported last month.
Video images of the riser when it was cut in early June clearly showed the two pipes, raising speculation on blogs. Allen said the second pipe also led to a jagged cut on the larger riser pipe, forcing the response team to use the loose cap with a rubber seal. And now, the two pieces are forcing the team to spend several days tying them together and clearing the way for a new, hopefully more solid connection.
Oil industry expert Matt Simmons says the second pipe is lodged in the BOP after “tremendous pressures” from the blast ruptured the well casing. This ejected part of the casing through 50 feet of steel inside the BOP.
I put up a new batch of movies and stills at my website
The movies at
http://tinyurl.com/23ztdwr
http://tinyurl.com/27yk9lx
http://tinyurl.com/2eu42rd
show the cut stub of a riser at the top of the BOP a day following the cut but without the LMRP cap or dispersants being injected into the plume. It looks to me that:
(*) the color of the stuff coming out of one side of the riser is different than the color of the stuff coming out of the other side of the riser.
(*) the darker fluid has gas bubbles, the lighter stuff does not.
From that I conclude that at the top of the riser, we have fluid coming out at two different locations from within the well. Perhaps one of them has a oil/gas mixture, the other having seawater and drilling mud (or water and sand from some other part of the formation).
Mind you, this is a day *AFTER* the riser was cut.
My guess is that one of these flow streams is coming from inside the one of the drill pipes inside the riser, the other is coming from the annular region around the drill pipe, but which is which, I don't know.
I wish I could put all I have on the 'net, but I have a *LOT* of stuff saved . . . and there is a *LOT* of interesting stuff there - 170 GB of stuff (or about 25 DVDs full of stuff) .
I just wish somebody at BP or the Government would tell us what they know. Surely somebody pulled a sample of this stuff. I guess if I were under investigation for a felony, I would probably keep my cards close to my chest too . . . .
At the DoE website, there are even better video clips than the ones I posted which shows the multicolored nature of the stuff coming out of the sawed-off riser - in high def even. They may be seen at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPpKZx854VQ
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4i_mN_AWvU
Thanks for all this clarity, HO. Just one quick question:
8. POOH and retrieve the wear sleeve.
POOH it? I take it this isn't the "Oh pooh" we hear from wives whose husbands are jumping up and down squeaking, "I Am your lord and master! I AM your lord and master"? So what does it mean in the Patch?
POOH-Pull out of hole. I remember as young guy learning to decipher the daily drilling reports that were faxed and telexed in from wells. Someone gave me a little black book published by petroleum club of Midland, Tx Women's Auxiliary or similar group. I may have it buried somewhere.
Might still have a mock comic telex that was circulated using the abbreviations and terms like perforating etc.....you get he idea.
Rockman may remember it too.
Thanks so much, Diverdan.
i think you mean desk and derrick.
elwood:That's it! Thanks. It has been probably 30+ years since I looked at it!
dan -- Yep...still have a list of such oil patch abbreviations that, should I ever get drunk enough to post, would lead to my life time ban on TOD. Thank goodness I don't drink like that anymore.
Rock: I remember having to get up in front of a company pres when we were drilling and getting ready to test the J. Hyman well ....
NOT WITH A 10' POLE DAN.
I'd love to see that list!! Being in a business with lots of slang and acronyms I enjoy seeing what others use and if I can decipher them. Kinda like code breaking. Would a couple gallons of Blue Bell grease the skids? Or a donation to the charity of your choice?
NASA: There are others on the Web but this will work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_field_acronyms
I think TOD should place this link in the "Frequently Asked Questions" section "Acronym Guide" page at http://www.theoildrum.com/special/acronyms. (It is more complete.)
;-)
http://www.energyindustryphotos.com/oilfield_terms_and_slang_used_in.htm
Thanks for the link TFHG, much appreciated and learning those will help me understand the post on here and help me ask a few less silly questions.
NASA -- Sorry...no. Years ago my company made me go to Sensitivity School for sharing comparable humor.
As to acronyms: A number of years ago I was sent to a one week training course at the National Hazardous waste Inspectors training site in Denver. The one lasting thing I took home (other than the fact that the national trainers didn't know all that much either) was a 100+ page publication.
It was titled the Standard Language And Name Guide listing the definations, single spaced, of over 100 pages of all known acronyms.
AKA - the SLANG guide. Who says bureaucrats don't have a sense of humor?
Bloody TLAs!
;)
As to acronyms....
It seems nowadays that all capital-letter abbreviations are referred to as acronyms, perhaps because there isn't really a specific word other than, well, abbreviations, which can also mean shortenings etc. Or maybe because so many Americans speak English like a second language (as they said of GWB)and just assume they know what's meant. I understood an acronym is a set of letters that can be pronounced as a word. NATO is an acronym, BAU or USPS are abbreviations.
Since we like to be technical here.
I know of two biophysicists who pronouned the abbreviation for University of Chapel Hill, North Carolina (UNCCH) as if it were a word rhyming with crunch.
At IBM my manager, normally the most buttoned-down guy you might think of, ran out of his office one day shouting "Acronyms! That's it, I've had enough! No more acronyms! I refuse to learn any more!"
Of course at that moment, he was my god. And I decided if he could do it, so could I.
NATO is an acronym, BAU or USPS are abbreviations. Since we like to be technical here.
To be even more technical, BAU and USPS are initialisms, not abbreviations. "Amt." for "amount" or "govt." for "government" or "assoc." for "association" are abbreviations. Typically abbreviations are followed by periods.
My experiance is mostly in the drilling end of the business and I am pretty familiar with the abbreviations in that context, but sometimes I get a report on a workover that I have and interest in that is just a long list of abbrevations and I have call one of my production expert friends to decipher it.
I used to fight the use of acronyms because they really muddy up things, lend themselves to confusion. But then I gave up, it was an impossible battle. And if you think this gets complicated, try doing it in an operation where two languages are used, and people switch back and forth without warning, or they have funny accents. For example, there's something called "scottish accent", those guys speak really garbled english.
Which reminds me, when I started working in the oil industry, my very first week, they gave me sheets with all the codes we used, and had me take the drilling reports starting at 4 AM every day - in those days they were called in on the radio, or by phone. The first week was hell, because most of the guys giving the report didn't speak proper English, they had something they call a cajun accent, or a Texais accent, and ah had to ask them to repeat it in English, which really pissed them off.
*Ahem* I think you'll find we speak perfect Scots. English is simply a badly corrupted inferior dialect of Scots ;)
Anyway, it's you yanks who speak the really garbled stuff ;) ;)
Funny story- here's a real life exchange between myself and a Wal-Mart* sales assistant in Houma.
Me: "I'd like to pay for these items please."
Assistant: "Gee, that's an unusual accent. You're not from around these parts, are you?"
Me: "No. I'm from Scotland."
Assistant: "Ooh! Do you speak English?"
Me: "...No."
*It may not have been Wal-Mart, all these places look the same to me.
The one I got was in Atlanta GA where the server, on discovering I was from the UK mentioned that "you folks drive on the left side of the road, doncha?"
I answered "Yes, that's correct".
"So If I wuz to go to England I'd have to do the same too, right?"
"Yes, it's almost obligatory."
Where you have to remember that heavy means beer not crude.
NAOM
pooh- pull out of hole.
do you know what miroo means ? here i will say it slower mir-ooh or miru, move in rig up.
sometimes if the person transcribing the drilling report isnt familiar with the terminology, interesting phrases can show up.
anyone here know what paws-mix is ?
pozmix, portland cement with pozilons(fly ash).
Haw, elwood, that sounds like a fun tangent we could wander off on on a slow-news day. Here, lemme try out my new vocab: Le's us P&A it for later!
lotus - I think you meant "TA".
Ah, 'deed I do. Okay, back to my trial-and-error, teach . . .
RU HOWCO & PMP 30 SX CMT, POOH, WOC 12 HRS, RIH W/WS W/B&S & CO TO TD
I got it to RIH, but don't have a clue what follows and how you got past that cement you pumped to get to TD. :)
Help, please, had no luck trying to decipher this list of instructions using Wiki or other oilfield acronym websites. Is there a list-of-acronyms website O&G contributors recommend?
If not, this'd be a useful new thread for the hordes of non-O&G folk like me who find TOD a fascinating place to visit. To think of the decades of experience you oilfield guys have - so willing to share as you do at TOD every day - not being used (dare I say drained) to let such a comprehensive list of acronyms grow via ongoing posts would be a lost opportunity; just a newby thinking out loud. Thanks for all you do at TOD for the rest of us.
here you go d: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_field_acronyms
Rig up Halliburton, pump 30 sacks cement, pull out of hole, wait on cement 12 hours, run in hole with workstring with bit and scraper and continue to total depth.
Halliburton is HES or HAL every time I've seen. I had assumed HOWCO that was the brand of pump.
HOWCO = Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Company
HALCO = Halliburton Company
HES = Halliburton Energy Services
Could be Clean Out to total depth
Thanks to wingfoot & Rockman for that. As mentioned in first post, Wikipedia's List of oil field acronyms too meager to offer much assistance in deciphering that line of code. So, as a layman with some spare time, I may just start up a new thread List of O&G-field Acronyms at TOD and see what happens. It amazes me there is no bible of acronyms as in so many of the techie trades, e.g. like IT.
Again, another informative post.
Great work.
However I really don't think it fair to blame the government for being the 'bottle neck' here, especially as they seem to be asking BP for a detailed plan for the cap, so that they can approve it.
If you are correct, and BP has known for some time how they intend to proceed with the cap, I guess it is not the Admiral's fault if his 'brain trust' has nothing in their hands, at this late date, to act on.
Yes it does seem unfair especially since it has been the government that has repeatedly had to pressure BP to do things that might stop the spill sooner (add processing capacity, drill a second relief well, investigate piping the oil to another rig etc.)
I've thought BP's lack on all-out redundant effort the strangest part of this thing, considering the damage they are taking. They could have had it contained a month ago if they had accepted the original offer of the Helix Producer.
I'll give you the addition of processing capacity, but the government should be asking for these plans well before it becomes "critical". The plans submitted by BP were accepted by the government, and the feds have been involved at every step since the beginning. If the plans were inadequate why wasn't the government (or the gov't and other big oil companies) providing their own plans?
I agree the Helix should have been on hand to help process addition oil from the Enterprise. But at the time it was offered, if it was the Helix or the Enterprise, the Enterprise was the better choice, the right choice would have been both. I don't think the Helix has the capability to dynamically position itself like the Enterprise to "hold" the Riser Insertion tool or the "top cap" in place as the Enterprise has.
I recall thinking when the White House said they told BP to drill a 2nd relief well and BP did it as a cheap way to take credit for what was already being done. I think BP announced the drilling of the two relief wells a several days before the White House came out and said "we've been on top of it since day 1", "we're in charge of this operation", "we told BP 2 RWs and BP did it", etc. Two relief wells were also drilled for Ixtoc I, so there is precedence for 2 RWs instead of one. Maybe they did tell BP to drill 2 RWs when BP wanted one, but I don't think we'll ever know that for sure. If I was the federal gov't I would've asked for 3. Who knows, with 3 they might have been able to get to the WW quicker by using ranging runs from all 3 RWs to help triangulate the position of the WW.
The Helix Producer does have dynamic positioning, as does the shuttle tanker Loch Rannoch that it reportedly will be paired with. (http://www.oilpubs.com/oso/article.asp?v1=9596)
I saw somewhere that BP had indicated that it could take 10 days to switch caps. That long with a free flowing well would jerk my chain. Maybe that's why everybody's asking for more detail from BP before just OKing the cap change, particularly since the RW is ahead of schedule. If they get the additional capacity added to the existing cap and the RW keeps going as it has, the oil lost to the Gulf may be less staying with the existing system. Of course, the new cap would be better if we have weather delays of any magnitude. It's a tough call for anybody.
Apparently not.
Looks like they expect to have the new cap on by Monday!
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/49903199-76/cap-oil-leak-gulf.html.csp
So much for those bureaucratic delays!
Now how much oil is the 'Whale' currently skimming?
I got the impression from Allen's Thursday briefing that what triggered the Feds' questions was the proposed change in plans to work on switching the caps at the same time as bringing up HP, rather than doing it in two steps - increasing the collection rate and then changing caps with a theoretically lighter flow coming from the top. The window of opportunity posed by a chance for good weather seems to have led to the change in plans.
See Allen's five questions to Dudley here http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6706/671463 There is obvious concern about how BP would deal with the unimpeded flow during the changeover.
I got the impression from Allen's Thursday briefing that what triggered the Feds' questions was the proposed change in plans to work on switching the caps at the same time as bringing up HP
That was my impression as well. Seems to have been Dudley's too, judging by his response to Allen today:
http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/posted/2931/Ltr_to_Admiral_Allen...
This includes a detailed timeline in Appendix A.
If you are correct, and BP has known for some time how they intend to proceed with the cap, I guess it is not the Admiral's fault if his 'brain trust' has nothing in their hands, at this late date, to act on.
I think we are just making too much out of the late approval.. They know generally what to do. But when you talk about a detailed plan, you need to know what every pieces of asset is and how to coordinate all their movement (e.g. which ROV is going to work on what and how long does it take. Which connection has to be make first and what contingency plan does to be taken).. There is no way to have a detail plan to lay out 2-3 weeks early given the weather delay. You can have a general plan and then modify them heavily as it get closer and closer to the time to execute it.. And I would imagine the cap placement also has to coordinate with the RW drilling as well.. There is a lot of moving parts, I would cut some slack for the project manager in charge of this operation..
Thank you for taking that one on .. this detailed plan could be in the 2000-5000 activity range, about what is used for a one week plant shutdown, which we would normally start planning 90-150 days in advance. And yes we start with a general plan, and break it out into as much detail as possible, and this plan will be updated throughout the day to reschedule for any "real life" changes. Had a few shutdown schedules in plant additions, in the overall schedule they would be a one line activity and then we would start breaking the shutdown activities down into another schedule, had over 1500 activities for a 3 day shutdown for tie-ins, and they can be down to 15 minute intervals .. or as I teased the guys "you better empty your bowels before coming to work as I don't have bathroom breaks scheduled in". Every piece of material is scheduled, and spares .. you can't exactly run to the hardware store if you run short. The shorter the time interval for the project the more detailed you have to be and since they will be wanting to minimize the time with the cap off that will mean an extremely detailed plan. Normally the client and management don't want to review the most detailed schedule, theirs is a roll up of the detail, but in this case I could see where they would at least want to see some of the detail.
lotus -- You're comment about responding to DougrReader's post with reference to the song "Walk on By" struck a cord with me. I disgree with some of our friends about banning him from TOD. That's exactly the opposite of what TOD is about IMHO. Granted he refuses to check our archives for info that would disprove many of his claims (maybe he has but won't admit it). Just the opinion of a dumb oil field hand but I think he should post all he wishes as long as he follows the same protocols with which the rest of us must comply. I also thinks it rude not to respond when someone says something to you...that's just how we are in Texas. So using you're "Walk on By" may be a viable compromise in responding to his post. We'll be responsive but not wasting much of anyone's time.
Just an early morning thought.
Morning, Rockman. Yes, it's very good of y'all with the expertise (and patience) to respond to such as dougr and his readers. But for bystanders who find their comments tiresome but don't really have the background to engage them (for anyone else's benefit, if not their own), maybe my tactic is best? Anything to encourage minimal flame-warring . . .
lotus -- "Walk on By" (just a practice run).
I for one admire Rockman's patience. Sometimes I have a hard time restraining myself and something better left unsaid slips out. :)
Amen and amen, Hank. The only thing that amazes me more than Rockman's teaching ability is his even keel. Sure would be nice to have one of those, wouldn't it? Ah well, we'll just have to play like we do.
Maybe it is the Blue Bell that does it. Well, maybe not and even keel, but it surely provides ballast. :)
Ditto that Rio. Been that way my whole career. Some people appreciate it some don't, but I'm getting too old to change :)
I agree Rio~he has been more than patient with me and let's me ask my "dumb questions" as so many others have...well most others except the spelinn police. I enjoy your post too and what and after I read your bio I have much respect for your input as it seems you come from a legacy of oil drillers.
Y'all just shut up. And please stop mentioning Blue Bell. I'm on the verge of getting my 3 month token in my 12 step program. The first 11 steps are the same: Don't eat ice cream. The 12 step: "Shoot yourself".
LOL~sorry RM, but I do appreciate your input, but you gave up BB?? Wow, that has to be hard.
I empathize completely RM. I have a very large weakness for Ice Cream, fortunately I have a high metabolism and it's doesn't all go to ballast. I also have orthopedic problems and a few pounds less ballast makes a HUGE difference in my pain levels. TANSTAAFL, one pleasure causes one pain.
Hang in there, we're pulling for ya!
For me, giving up ice cream was cheaper than going on lipitor.
Been there too Dan. All the Statin drugs I've tried made me feel crappy and then the monthly blood tests showed they really were not working all that well so I quit. Cost wasn't an issue as I had good 'scirpt coverage. So now I ust trying to avoid really fatty foods like BB, Fried Chicken, chocolate, etc.plus try to get more exericse. Having been born, raised and lived my whole 48+ yrs in the South I thought the food groups were Sugar, Butter, Pork Fat and Cornmeal which might explain how the test tubes of blood had a white skim on top :)
Where I am from the main food group was pizza--extra cheese.
one of the best ways to lower your blood pressure is to stop worrying about it, imo.
RM, your many informative, entertaining and ever-patient comments have not only increased my understanding of the oil industry immensely, they have also led to my increased ice-cream intake.
No BB here in CA tho', just good stuff from happy cows ... Straus Family Creamery: Ice Cream. The farm is now even producing 300,000 kwh of electricity annually from the methane from the other cow output. Reducing Greenhouse Gases.
I'm supposed to stop mentioning it, when I walk into a little store out in the woods of Alabama and see this?
I wouldn't have even noticed it 3 weeks ago. Jumped out at me like a punch in the nose.
I am supprised they haven't been after me. I post a lot from my iPhone and the spell checker is not worth a damn.
Well they know you are a very well respected member and since I am new I am the BP "shill" in their eyes, granted I post from my bberry alot and makes alot of spelin errors, but even on the laptop I do also.
Well I am a "shill" for the evil Dick Cheney who had Halliburton supply bad cement to BP to cause all this mess for the purpose of hurting Obama's image.
What "image"?
we get that a lot with tod denizens,purposely obtuse.
Being both literal minded and simple minded all I can do is say what I think is right and ask people to explain things that I don't understand. Guessing why other people write what they do is a distraction. It creates bad feelings and interferes with understanding.
I have no doubt this has been covered, but I can’t find a great version … I am interested to see a website / paper / description of everything that goes into drilling a deepwater well. From the gathering of seismic information and evaluating it, to the preparations and touch down at the ocean floor, to placing the BOP, to …. Until the well is made a producing well.
Is there a good description somewhere that I might read through to understand the whole process a little more finely?
KOW -- Don't have just one article that gets the job done. But http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_well#Drilling is rather complete. You'll just need to link to each section that interests you at the moment.
When your back is to the wall, you find out who your true friends are...
This quote appeared in yesterday's edition of the North Africa business newsletter "Maghreb Confidential":
"Tripoli Returns Favor for BP
Libya is pulling out all the stops to save BP. The country’s leaders are mounting a lobbying campaign to assist the British energy giant caught up in the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico...."
Perhaps the good Colonel will soon be pitching his famous tent on the White House lawn? He may be there a while.
Uh-huh, betcha Muammar will get about as far with that lobbying campaign as he did with Italy's Equal Opportunities Minister . . .
Yes, that went down a treat, didn't it?
Mweeheehee.
Thanks for the explanation and figures.
Which "brains trust" is that? The Richard Garwin brains trust or the group that is supposed to be looking into the reasons for the blowout?
Question for the pros':
The testimony of the crane operator indicates someone on the drill floor activated the diverter when mud started to shoot up in the derrick.
He recalled clearly the upward mud flow stopped for a while and then mud started to flow out of the degasser flollowed with a cloud of gas. The first explosion occurred shortly thereafter.
The chap on the bridge who tried to EDS (just before abandon ship) confirmed he could see on the BOP pannel that only the lower annular and the diverter were closed at the time.
My question: it must have been obvious to the driller who activated the diverter that the well was quicking bad. Would it not have been standard procedure at that stage to shut in the well with the blind shear rams? What about closing the upper annular which had a 10,000 psi rating (the lower one was rated at 5,000 psi)?
Is it possible some BOP functionality was disabled in the drill floor BOP pannel?
Cloudy -- With the bits and pieces we've heard I think it's difficult to be very definitive at this time. If the diverter worked the way I've seen others it should have directed the entire flow to an emergency flare line. Just a guess but the high pressure may have ruptured other valves/unions and prevented the entire flow from being sent down the flare line. Lots of theories but we may have to see what eventually comes out in sworn testimony. Even then it might not be clear.
I've only been on one rig when the kick had to be sent down the diverter line and was automaticly ignited. Obviously better than coming up the kelly to the drill floor but still scares the hell out of you. Had a 100' NG flare roaring like a jet engine. That's been 30 years ago and I can still picture it as clear as if it happened last week.
Slightly OT, but interesting in terms of what happens in an explosion... Check these videos out:
What really happens when a balloon explodes (Great slo-mo)
Shockwave From Explosion
The barge Ella G has been fitted out with Costner centrifuges, a boom towed by a second vessel, and a large-capacity floating skimmer called "T-Rex." The story claims up to a million gallons of liquid skimmed per day, while the cut line says 800,000 gallons of oil--a mistake that has been made in dozens or hundreds of articles about skimmers. Anyway, at 10% oil, that would be around 2,000 bbl/day of oil.
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/07/kevin_costners...
Ella G left Port Fourchon this morning and looks to be headed for the Macondo site. The centrifuges probably work best on fresh oil.
Gobbet: This will sound a bit optimistic but there might just be a good window of opportunity to make some progress. Looking at the footprint composites back around June 15th and coming forward to where we are now, the storms really did disperse and push a lot of the bands to shore. The latest foot print is quite a bit smaller. The bad part is it a mess to clean but the good part it may have given the shoreline(at least the eastern portions) a break for a bit and time to clean up. The waves are dying down and the winds will change to blowing offshore. As the oil footprint is much more concentrated now, perhaps a major focused push on burning and skimming can take place right as we approach the helix hookup that could get most/all of the oil as the wind keeps it offshore. Although impossible to get it all, there might be a chance to actually get out ahead of this a bit. Fingers crossed.
The latest foot print is quite a bit smaller.
Yes, I've noticed that the area of slick according to the forecast maps has shrunk quite a bit despite no skimming for around a week--that probably tells us something about the effectiveness of skimming :) I suspect what happened is that the heavy weather broke and scattered areas of sheen to the point that they aren't easily noticed. Also we've had a month of discharge at the rate of maybe 15K bbl/day instead of maybe 40K bbl/day, possibly allowing the bacteria to eat more than is being released each day, who knows?
What's most encouraging is that the maps don't show any darker blue areas except right around the wellhead, although that area is still ~2000 sq. mi. If most of the light blue is just sheen and tarballs, then landfalls of oil won't do as much damage as when fresh, heavy oil hit the Barataria sector in late May. On the downside, there are new threats to marshes in MS and westward in LA to Callilou Bay. It amazes me that we haven't seen more oil in the marshes than we have so far.
I'm sure the skimming capability has improved some and that will help a bit. I just wish we had reporting about what the vessels of particular interest are accomplishing. Don't hold your breath until a reporter asks about the amount of oil actually collected by Ella G--or Jindal's Shop-Vac armada--or the Dutch skimmers.
I was not looking at just the forecast maps rather the NESDIS composites that I looked at on the geoplatform through the NOAA site. Much more detailed. One can see why the Ala/Miss got hit with a lot They are never going to collect sheen. As you say ,and as was accomplished early on over a few calm days, the key is to burn and skim as much as possible near the site. I won't argue with you but I think the flow was lower until the riser cut and still might be doing less than what you say since the cap. Still agree with most of what you say. You know we may find out there was less on the surface to ultimately hit the marshes and that some booming dd better than we thought --- of course not ever as good as we wanted.
a nice sequence that shows changes in the slick from the Optical Oceanography Laboratory at the University of South Florida
June 9
June 12
June 17
June 24
June 26
July 4
July 8
and the easy to view nesdis. images (note the comments with the images - be sure to enlarge the images)
June 1
June 7
June 12
June 15
June 17
June19
June 24
June 26
July 1
July 4
July 5
July 7
July 8
source:
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/MPS/deepwater.html
http://optics.marine.usf.edu/events/GOM_rigfire/index_cal_jul.html#MODIS...
Onlooke: Good stuff. Thanks. I'll add it to all the other geoplatform stuff I look at.
question for Rockman from a long time lurker with a first time post
The RW intercept of the WW annulus and the pumping of mud. With the limited size of the RW entry to the WW versus the size of the annulus, won't this cause the OBD to travel quite a long distance before it becomes effective? Effectively a small diameter pipe joining a large diameter pipe with a coaxial blocking center casing.
Won't the high pressure at that depth be causing Laminar Flow of the oil? Thus further restricting the co-mingling of the OBD and the oil?
Will a second RW help if it penetrates on the opposite side of the WW?
Seq -- Just my speculation but there may be a good length of well bore annulus opened up before they starting pumping. The width of the annulus is only a few inches but the RW might cut a 10', 20' or more down the side of the csg. The bit will probably want to track the annulus. It might not sound like much of an opening but with the big pumps on the RW they should be able to inject the 80 bbl/minute or so we think they might need.
Lamflow is often a problem. Especially with pumping cmt. Sometimes we put plastic spiral adapters on the csg to break lamflow. Unfortunately they don't have that option. Just a guess but I think lamflow might be more of a problem inside the production csg than the annulus. If lamflow is too dominant in the prod csg it will be even more difficult to get to get a sufficiently heavy column. Better for the mud and oil to mix as it's being blown up. Probably going to lose a lot of mud either way.
Rockman, hadn't thought of the opening as a slit. You are a very positive contributor to TOD, Thanks!
A slit has the advantage over a round hole of forcing more mud around the periphery of the annulus; would start as a small vertical stream at the bottom of the slit, and then run into the mud entering further up the slit and thus be forced to widen out around the annulus. To achieve a good slit, it seems like the drilling should not stop until the RW mud flow rate peaks or reaches just below the pump capacity, or maybe the gut feeling that the production casing will be prematurely penetrated. I suspect the mud flow rate dropping from the peak would be a tell-tale for the WW coming into balance.
Oil has finally hit Mississippi's marshes, and this guy has a good point:
Regarding the failure of the oil booms, this several weeks old, but _definitely_ worth the watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UFNjJzHuX0
Warning for profane language.
Wow. Don't miss.
Failure???
They can't even spell failure --
Integrated Protection Systems boom manufacturing plant:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t9rOzqOH-4
Website:
http://www.bp-oil-spills.com/
EDIT: Added Picture from video
Video removed by user. :)
Integrated Protection Systems removed the original video, then reposted it, slightly edited.
Here is the updated URL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQmRz-gIKJs
One comment. In several previous threads people have wondered, dicussed, and debated about the RW pumping mud to kill the WW. There have been many questions about what mud weight, how much mud, and what pump weight may be required, and the risk of subsurface leaks at shallower depths. Some have questioned if the RW can work at all.
In this context it is worth looking again at the discussion on the John Wright webpage about "Part 5 - Hydraulics Modeling" at http://www.jwco.com/technical-litterature/tech.htm and also at "Simulations" in the brochure at http://www.jwco.com/newsLetters/JWCO%20Brochure.pdf
I have no doubt that Mr. Wright and his colleagues have already done an extensive series of models/simulations for the various scenarios that may be enountered when they intersect the relief well. One presumes that they have access to whatever additional data (beyond what has been publicly released) is available from BP. These simulations don't guarantee success, but they do allow Mr. Wright to plan and prepare for a wide variety of possible situations. As General Eisenhour once said "plans are worthless, but planning is essential". Mr. Wright appears to be the best there is in a very small niche of the oil patch. It may take more than one attempt, but I'm betting he will succeed.
Alaska: I am with you,but then I am often a "glass half full" type of guy.
dan -- along that same thought I saw a similar line the other day. Question: are you the type to see the glass half empty or half full? Answer: Neither. I'm the type who wonders why you used a glass twice as big as you needed. Can't wait to use it on the next smart *ss that challenges me. LOL.
Is glass half full or half empty?
It depends.
Is the glass in the prosess of being filled or is it being emptied?
eg: Pour in some Jack then drink it.
Rock...that glass is completely full; half with liquid, half with air.
A general note: for those of us (and I am one) learning tons even by lurking at this site, and if you're feeling sheepish about posting lots of basic questions about terminology, a truly fantastic tool is the Oilfield Glossary posted online by Schlumberger:
http://www.glossary.oilfield.slb.com/
It includes lots of slang-sounding terms (informal field lingo, I suppose) and acronyms, as well as more technical terms. It's a great place to start if you're picking your way through a paragraph and get hung up on one or two or three or more words. : )
Thanks for all the technical information. I have an introduction to engineering class where, either this year or next year, I'm planning on using this as a case study to draw the freshmen in. So appreciate everything you're discussing. Reading these threads is very addicting.
I have a couple of questions about the relief well:
1. When circulating drilling fluids, is the mud sucked up the annulus (negative pressure), pushed down the drill pipe (positive pressure), or both?
2. Which leads to a second question: How do you switch from circulating fluid to simply pushing it down? I surmise at that when they want to start pushing mud into the WW's annulus, they will have to hold pressure on the RW's annulus to keep fluids from returning via that path. When performing a kill, do you put positive pressure both in the RW drill pipe and the RW annulus to force mud into the WW?
3. In yesterday's post and other reading I've done, there is a plastic wiping plug at the ends that keep the concrete from mixing with the drilling fluid. Will the guide shoe for the RW be farther up the hole to keep this plug from entering the Wild Well?
Thanks again for all the efforts hear.
BTW, we have Blue Bell at Publix Grocery Stores in SC.
1. The mud is pushed down the drill pipe. (Unless you're reverse circulating, in which case it's pushed down the annulus, but that's a whole nother animal)
2. You can accomplish this two ways. If you have enough pump capacity and want to, you could pump down both the drill pipe and the annulus. More likely, you would simply close the valve at the top of the annulus.
3. I don't know specifically what they will do in this case, but the plug is not strictly necessary for every cement job. I'm performing a cement job today to abandon a well, and we will not have a plug. We just pump a spacer (clean fluid that will not interfere with the setting of the cement) before and after the cement, ensure we're pumping fast enough to get a piston effect with the fluids to minimize mixing, and pump a foam ball through the pipe afterward to wipe it clean instead of the plug.
Thanks spartan =)
Prof - typically you're pumping down the DP with a natural return up the annulus. Not sure what their exact plan is but you can close off the annulus and prevent mud from circ up as you're pumping down the DP. But they might let the RW annulus flow some for information gathering.
They probably won't pump cmt until the WW is dead. Just another guess: they may pump a chemical spacer before they start the cmt to clear the mud away. Tends to make for a better cmt job. Not sure that they'll pump a plug when the try to cmt the WW. Not quite the same situation as cmtg a csg string.
The BBC actually has an interesting story about these subs the Russians claim can work at 6,000 meters (nearly 20,000 feet); they just started their third annual investigation of the gas hydrates on the bottom of Lake Baikal (1,637 meters down). Cute little fishies they are, too:
More views there.
Very interesting vehicles indeed. After reading the article, I'm not sure what these Russian ROVs can do that the ones working down in the gulf now cannot. Sure they operate in much harsher conditions, but the conditions 5,000ft below the surface, though harsh, are within the limits of the ROVs down there already.
Just to clarify for anyone who didn't click through: these things aren't ROVs; they carry human crews that deep.
My recollection is that the Russians declined assistance after BP requested it.
I fall on the environmentalist side of the center of the spectrum (if that isn't always always clear it is probably because I have about equal lack of regard for those who choose their reality and facts based on ideology whether they be promoters of heavier-than-water bubbles of methane gas or climate change denial. 'Bout the same in my book) and generally think the causes and effects of this thing should get the maximum amount of study but that Dan Froomkin article DougRR posted at the end of the last thread really leaves a bad taste. Almost everything he reports the scientists to have said is either false or misleading.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/06/gulf-oil-spill-scientists_n_636...
Hucksters- as American as P.T. Barnum. It is a A Whale of a Phenomenon.
Sez here Anadarko's told BP to go fish for the $272 million it billed them in June.
lotus -- I don't recall if you were here when we chatted about this a while back. Drilling partnerships are typically covered by a JOA...joint operating agreement. There is a general form but it's always amended to some degree. But typically there is a clear statement regarding reckless/negligent/illegal actions. There would be a long legal battle utilizing expect witnesses on both side arguing if BP followed acceptable procedures. OTOH, if BP violated clear MMS regulations (by displacing with sea water) as it appears THEY MIGHT have, then Anadarko would have strong legal grounds to deny payment IMHO.
Mitsui, a 10% partner, is in the same boat as Anadarko.
Right, Rockman, I was here, so any response BUT this would have been a surprise.
Now that I have figured out how to embed an image, I post the following.
I refer anyone who doubts there are two pipes inside the riser to the high resolution image of the Cameron riser mock-up.
Here is just a small piece of the image clearly showing two pipes in the mock-up.
I don't believe the mock-up would have be built with two pipes if there weren't two pipes in the piece of cut-off riser.
You can download the entire image from:
http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/in...
Well, I might know how to embed an image, but I don't know jack about embedding a link. I screwed up the link to the entire hi-res image.
Here is the correct link:
http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/in...
That pretty much cinches it for me. I guess we now know why it was so hard to cut with the diamond saw. Both of those pipes bouncing around on the blade, would have made success a long shot.
It's very unlikely they were bouncing around, the bend in the riser would have made a very effective clamp.
It is obvious that the oilwell guys don't know that jail-house "bars" are hollow, and have a length of rebar inserted for the express purpose of defeating any sawing attempts.
Only way out of a jail these days is to bribe a politician.
Mainstream media just reporting that BP admits second pipe in BOP.
*BREAKING* Coast Guard and BP admit “MYSTERIOUS second pipe” stuck in BOP; Experts say indicates casing “dislodged”
http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/coast-guard-and-bp-now-admit-mysteriou...
Discovery of second pipe in Deepwater Horizon riser stirs debate among experts, New Orleans Times Picayune, July 9, 2010:
For the first time Friday, the Coast Guard and BP acknowledged that a mysterious second pipe, wedged next to the drill pipe in what remains of the Deepwater Horizon’s riser, is fouling up the works where the well is spewing hundreds of millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Second Pipe (nola.com)
“We used a diamond saw and we got inside. We found there was actually two sets of drill pipe there,” said retired Adm. Thad Allen, the top U.S. Coast Guard official overseeing the response to America’s worst-ever oil spill.
It “presumably fell down beside it as a result of the explosion and the riser pipe being bent over,” Allen said. He noted that the second pipe does not have oil shooting from it.
BP officials said late Friday that they believe the second pipe is drill pipe. Pictures show it is similar in diameter to the known drill pipe.
While Allen said he believes the second pipe fell from above, some experts have advanced another explanation. They believe poorly cemented casings — tubes that are supposed to form solid walls down thousands of feet of the well bore — may have been dislodged by the blast of natural gas that shot up out of the well and above the sea floor.
If that’s what happened, the piece of pipe would have gone into the blowout preventer, the 450-ton tower of valves and pistons that sits on top of the well head and is supposed to shut off the well in an emergency. The Deepwater Horizon’s blowout preventer failed to cut through the pipe that ran through it, and subsequent efforts to shut the so-called shear rams using remote-control submarine robots also failed. …
The idea that a loose pipe shot up from deeper in the well and prevented the shear ram from closing has been espoused by such experts as oil industry investment banker Matt Simmons and Bob Bea, a University of California at Berkeley engineer leading a scientific investigation into the blowout. But others have wondered if the mystery pipe isn’t just a section of the same drill pipe that came loose, or even a pipe that fell down the riser from the rig 5,000 feet above.
The Coast Guard’s acknowledgement [sic] of the two metal tubes Friday — and a subsequent reference by BP to its plans to tie the two pipes together as the company installs a new oil collection system over the shaved-off riser — actually comes more than a month after the Department of Energy noted the existence of two pipes using special imaging technology. At the time, BP dismissed the Energy findings as “impossible” because only one pipe in sections was used for drilling, a Tribune News Service story reported last month.
Video images of the riser when it was cut in early June clearly showed the two pipes, raising speculation on blogs. Allen said the second pipe also led to a jagged cut on the larger riser pipe, forcing the response team to use the loose cap with a rubber seal. And now, the two pieces are forcing the team to spend several days tying them together and clearing the way for a new, hopefully more solid connection.
Oil industry expert Matt Simmons says the second pipe is lodged in the BOP after “tremendous pressures” from the blast ruptured the well casing. This ejected part of the casing through 50 feet of steel inside the BOP.
But here’s the red herring, what if there is drill pipe inside the 7” casing and the well is indeed flowing up through the casing shoe as Rockman proposed? Pumping mud into the DP and 7” annulus won’t kill the well because a large portion of the flow will be inside the DP and exiting much further up inside the 7” casing. Because the DP isn’t cemented in place or otherwise locked into place, it will be hard to mill into the DP in order to pump mud into it. Wonder if BP has considered this?
Because the DP is not cemented in place, I would imagine the mud could get in just the same way the oil and gas would get in, either through the top or the bottom of the DP.
Red -- I think I follow you. If a section of DP has fallen to the bottom of the prod csg I don't think it will change the dynamics of the pumping. At most I think there can only be 3,000' of DP somewhere in the well. At this point I'm not sure if the flow is just going up the wellbore annulus or just down the annulus and back up the prod csg. Maybe a bit of both. But if it's 100% up the prod csg I would expect the kill pill to circ up the same whether there is DP there or not. The DP is open on both ends so it should stay static with whatever pressure is down there. If the flow is 100% up the annulus then if they get this volume filled with the right mud weight the well should die. Of course if there are breaches anywhere up the prod csg or any of the other liners/cmt shoes it could be much more complicated.
Did I miss your point?
Rock, let me try agian. I was thinking that the oil flow would be from the 7" shoe upwards in both the DP and the 7" annulus. The RW will intersect the 7" much higher. When pumping into the 7" with the kill mud, it will go upwards because of the oil flow and they will be unable to get enough head to kill the well because they will be unable to get mud into the DP.
So should this have coincided with a top kill effort to allow all paths to the surface to be terminated?
I get you Red. And it might not even be that simple: the annulus migh be partially block on the up side or down side and the kill pill could even change that balance. Even when the kill the well they still might not have a clear idea of what was what.
A selection of today's Press-Register headlines:
Oil skimming was stalled by need to organize boats, says Thad Allen
OSHA: Some oil spill workers may be getting deficient training
Oil spill sparks creativity, inspires inventions for cleanup effort
State orders Illinois company to stop selling 'miracle' Gulf cure
And from the AP: EPA: Air in 2 Louisiana towns poses health risk to vulnerable people
Okay, BP's credit business is officially now TBTF. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, on this side of the pond...
http://www.upstreamonline.com/live/article220421.ece
UK preps for possible BP bail-out
The UK government is reportedly working on contingency plans to bail out BP in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster.
snippets:
Published: 07 July 2010 07:16 GMT | Last updated: 07 July 2010 07:16 GMT
Times-Pic: New cap will be placed on Gulf of Mexico well this weekend
I think oil is already being diverted to HP through the new connection as there appears to be much less of it flowing out the bottom of the cap. Just in the last hour or so.
Also, early this morning they lowered and re-installed the (repaired?) blue control pod back onto the LMRP section above the BOP stack. I hadn't noticed it was missing, but they must have taken it topside for repairs at some point.
Somewhat off topic but why was/is BP left "in charge" of the clean up. The reason given by Obama, Coast Guard, etc. is that they have the expertise. Seem to me that the expertise is in the sub-contractors, ie. Transocean, Helix Energy Solutions Group, Halliburton, Schlumberger, John Walker, the clean up subs, etc. The apparent cooperation between BP and the USG to initially minimize the disaster, prevent public exposure of the extent, etc. has a rather bad smell.
Why has BP been left in charge?
Well, there isn't any government agency or other public institution that is supposed to have competence in cleaning up oil spills--just the CG to a limited extent. The folks who were supposed to have the equipment and expertise are the cleanup contractors. I would suppose they have people in BP's command centers at Houma and Mobile. Some of BP's people, like Ray Suttles, seem extremely capable. I'm sure they have set up an organization that is structured in a rational way. We can see on the videos that the command centers are well equipped for communication and information processing, etc. I guess what I'm getting at is that it's not clear any other organization is in a position to do a better job than BP. It's an inherently messy operation where the "line workers" are non-professionals, the equipment is heterogenous, and field conditions change massively from day to day. This is not to say BP has done a good job, but the situation may be largely unmanageable.
"It's an inherently messy operation where the "line workers" are non-professionals, the equipment is heterogeneous, and field conditions change massively from day to day. This is not to say BP has done a good job, but the situation may be largely unmanageable."
Your quote is applicable to a number of aspects of petrochem mining and processing. Yet many companies manage to maintain acceptable standards despite those obstacles. I don't mean to "bash" BP but I wonder if maybe they haven't let so many things slide for so long (and gotten by with it) that it's hard to refocus in this supercritical situation. Someone brought the below to my attention today. I told that the reporting media stated that 950 pounds of sulfur dioxide is not "serious" in brief coverage (which I could not find-I knew to go to the agency site), but it seems rather a lot to be floating in the air as the result of an upset cat cracker. Sounds like a baby with gas. I agree with you. Macondo may very well be beyond manageable so at this point I'm praying hard for BP to win and all the hard work of their people to pay off for all of us.
http://www11.tceq.state.tx.us/oce/eer/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.getDetai...
142016 BP PRODUCTS NORTH AMERICA 07/07/2010 07/07/2010 emissions event
Emission Event Reporting Database
Regulated entity name BP PRODUCTS NORTH AMERICA Physical location 2401 5TH AVE S, TEXAS CITY, TX 77590
Regulated entity RN number RN102535077 City, County TEXAS CITY, GALVESTON
Type(s) of air emissions event: EMISSIONS EVENT Event began: 07/07/2010 4:06AM
This is based on the: INITIAL REPORT Event ended: 07/07/2010 6:45AM
Cause Catalytic cracking Unit experienced upset. Cause is unknown at this time.
Action taken Routed off-gas to refinery fuel gas system.
Emissions estimation method Engineering estimates and online gas chromatagraph
Source 1: Flare 3, EPN number 321
Contaminant Authorization Limit Amount Released
1-Butene 47256 0.0 145.0 lbs (est.)
Nitrogen Oxides 47256 0.0 500.0 lbs (est.)
Sulfur dioxide 47256 0.0 950.0 lbs (est.)
New cap to be placed on well this weekend... or at least the replacement process will begin this weekend... and the work to hook up the Helix Producer should be completed today.
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/07/third_vessel_w...
Looks like Dudley provided satisfactory answers.
As if escaping crude isn't a big enough problem, snake oil's flowing too.
State orders Illinois company to stop selling 'miracle' Gulf cure
Ryan Dezember, Press-Register
More at http://blog.al.com/live/2010/07/state_orders_illinois_company.html
I have to own that this lede sentence at the Times-Pic surprised me:
Not sure who held that hope, but Bill Reilly confirms it's a forlorn one:
Presidential commission unlikely to tackle deepwater drilling moratorium
[Now to see if rainyday or snakehead beat me to this one.]
Stupid question #1: After they bolt on a new cap (sealed) why can't they then just close a valve and turn it off ?
The pressures involved on a complete close would be high enough to strain weak casing below the mudline. At some point, they will close it partially.
Okay, so WTF does this mean?
"National Incident Commander Thad Allen said Friday that the work to replace a leaky containment cap on the well head with a tighter one will begin Saturday. At the same time, a ship connecting to a different part of leak is expected to come online Sunday.
If all goes according to plan, the combination could collect all of the oil leaking from the seafloor."
Now there is "a different part of the leak," other than the one with the containment cap? That's rather surprising, is it not? Or am I missing something.
Poor choice of words by the writer, who is either unaware of the "the sea floor is opening up!!!" alarmists or is having some fun with them.
That would be where the 50,000psi red methane is leaking out, soon to be followed the 150,000psi yellow methane and then the vast reservoir of 2,000,000psi hydrogen sulfide which will destroy all life on the planet. It is best to slow this inescapable sequence as much as possible as it would be damaging to BP share price. ;-)
James: Just delaying the inevitable. Better go out and party by the river . Your days are numbered.
LOL! Oh, and did i mention the monsters that live in the red methane, and that the yellow methane is radioactive?
If you are going to have a 'Crack In The World' event, you need to have nastier stuff than just magma to worry about!
I found myself awake last night trying to figure out how contact with red methane, which I understand is only red when compressed, leaves the oil red even after it has come to the surface and the methane has presumably decompressed and left.
I came up with three good possibilities.
1) The red is a color, which means it is light, which means it is photons.
Under high pressure the red photons got stuck in the sticky oil.
2) Remember when you were a kid and if you concentrated on being heavy people couldn't lift you?
The methane is concentrating on staying compressed and is still in the oil. This can be called "puckered methane."
3) We are seeing a manifestation of Wile E.'s law:
"Physics loves an audience and won't act until you are paying attention."
Thus Wile E. Coyote wouldn't fall into the canyon until he'd looked around and noticed that there was no ground under him.
The methane is waiting until we've noticed it and then will decompress and kablowie!
Stuck photons! That's a possibility that hadn't occurred to me. So the methane's photons get stuck in the oil, making the methane INVISIBLE!
Simpleminded me, I thought it might be a previously unknown form of methane that BP located in the mantle, and they caused the blowout to get at it. Now they're the only company in the world that has COMPRESSED METHANE IN SEMI-SOLID FORM! Think of the PROFITS! When the World News discovered this, BP stock shot up by 9%!!!
OH NO the jennie is out of the bottle!
We are all doomed!
Now where is my duct tape?
Would you guys knock it off..... please? I gotta clean potato chip squack out of the keyboard now!!
We can't trust anything they say about the methane since now that it has lost its photons it could be anywhere in any amount and we wouldn't know.
Invisible. We can't count it now. I'll bet they're trying to strip the photons from the oil too.
First time poster,not too long time lurker.
My thanks to All here,Quite the education I've got from Ya'll,Thank You.
I haven't studied this hard since the days of Burnt ramen and sleepin face down in a textbook in the student library.
Just thought I would add this:
New Element Found
The recent hurricane and gasoline issues helped prove existence of a new element. In early October a major research institution announced discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element has been named "Government."
Governmentium (Gv) has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.
These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton like particles called peons. Since Gv has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of Gv causes one reaction to take over four days to complete, when it would normally take less than a second!
Gv has a normal half-life of 4 years; it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.
This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Gv is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as Critical Morass.
When catalyzed with money, Gv becomes Administratium (Am) - an element which radiates just as much energy as Gv since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.
Thanks Again Ya'll,Crazyolehippie
Bad translation. The different part of the leak most likely means the separate take point from the choke/kill line going to the Helix.
This means that they can't collect the methane or H2S that are leaking from the seafloor and we are all doomed except for the NWO.
We have the cap(15000 BOPD now), the choke line to the Q4000(8-10K BOPD burned), and next the kill line to the Helix (up to 25K BOPD) that will come on line Sunday. Same well head, just collecting through three different avenues. The new cap will add even more capacity if needed
I think it will also add the capability of choking the flow down to some extent, as long as pressures do not rise above what they consider a safe level. That concept was touched on briefly in one of their presentations.
For that matter they would be able to completely turn it off were it not for concerns that something in poor condition down hole might not stand the pressure.
...Not to mention that it should put an end to oil spilling into the Gulf.
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James: Remember what comes out of those cracks!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM7b0-HoTlc
Scary?
James : But he will save us
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ckq4_YyiJLo&feature=related
or him
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8sG_Lun3ZI
or him
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h4ZdDFLNno&feature=PlayList&p=2264082A03...
Oh no! It's a GIANT TOMATO WORM!
Presumably he means the Helix Producer will be hooked up to the kill line.
The Q4000 is hooked up to the choke line and the Enterprise to the LMRP cap via the riser.
The President's "BP Oil Spill Commission" has a goal of finding the causes of the blowout. None of the commission members know much about offshore drilling operations. Look them up if you don't believe me. Infact they are strong anti oil/drilling people. Any toolpusher or driller knows more about blowout causes than any of the members.
Show us your facts, tod. Who are they and by what do you make the judgement that they are all "strong anti oil drilling people". That is really important information and would automatically bring into doubt any of the commission's findings right off the bat, if they have a bias in either direction (pro or against drilling). Therefore, such a serious accusation should be supported.
Thanks in advance for your integrity.
Here are but a couple of stories that talk of backgrounds. Lots more out there.
http://www.examiner.com/x-325-Global-Warming-Examiner~y2010m6d22-Members...
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/energy/7079479.html
Elie -- Here you go: http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/06/14/obama-names-5-to-bp-oil-spill-co...
I haven't heard if anyone else has been added. None appear to have much practical oil industry experience. I wouldn't call them anti-oil until I hear any history of such statements. An educated group for sure. It would have been nice to see at least one member with firsthand knowledge about the details of drilling ops. But I'll assume given the magnitude of the situation they'll have access to as much technical assistance as needed for them to grasp the details. If it turns out they don't have such input it will be difficult to not label it as a sham. But I really don't expect that to happen. It would appear to be just to blatant IMHO. Their stated goal is to learn exactly what lead to the blow out and, most importantly, if it was a systemic problem or some unique to BP. There is nothing in their mission statement that addresses the environmental impact. That may be why folks have expressed some skepticism since their resumes would seem to make them more qualified in that regard. Without strong technical support advising it would seem impossible for this collection of folks to come up with those answers IMHO. But I'm more than willing to wait to see the process before I knock them for their backgrounds.
I completely agree and am disappointed in the lack of balance in the selection. Hopefully they can add to the group or change out some of them to include more industry. Can't have the appearance of a slant on something this important. Just cant.
I am going to email the White House with my recommendation that they open up the commission and add representatives from the industry. Again...this is very important in both perception and balance. Very disappointed that this was not a huge part of the decisionmaking on who was nominated...
I can't speak to any of the members of the commision except Fran Ulmer. She's a Democrat and former Leautenent Governor of Alaska. The oil industry is as important to the economy of Alaska as it is to Gulf Coast states, maybe more so. We are also a very red state up here and nobody (expecially a democrat) gets elected to statewide office if they are blatently anti oil. Oil is by far the big dog in our economy, and accounts for ~85% of the state's revenue (we don't have a state income or sales tax). I haven't met the woman but I know people who have, and she's generally well regarded by both Dems and Repubs (except maybe by the wack-job tea-baggers who don't like anybody who has half a brain).
Obama had started to open up more of the offshore than any pres in years, but BP sure f@cked that up! Up here, several major projects are in jeapordy because of the spill. These include Shell's plans for the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, BP's Liberty field, and a bunch of independents who are trying to get a jack up moved up to drill offshore in Cook Inlet for the first time in years.
I can't predict what Fran will do on the commission, but I'm willing to give her a chance. Remember that we've had a bit of experience up here with oil spills too. Fran might end up having some credibilty with both sides, coming from a state very dependent on oil, but also understanding the down side as well. I'll give her a chance before assuming she's anti oil.
Alaska...Your buddy Obama actually closed more promising areas to drilling than he opened when he announced his offshore plans pre-blowout. Promising meaning that they've already been explored and found to contain oil. But to be fair, both Bushes did the same before certain elections.
BTW, was Fran one of the crooked Dems that Palin ran out of office? Honestly I don't know.
Your characterization of Tea Party folks is insulting! I'm not a Tea Party member, but the ones I've met are salt of the earth folks who want to take the country back from BOTH Dem and Rep crooks and career politicians. Obama, Pelosi and Reid are at the top of their list. I guess they aren't liked because they have half a brain --your words, not mine..
This moratorium is pure BS so Obama can add the offshore drilling industry to his list of government run businesses, i.e., auto, health, financial. etc.
There are a dozen guys on here that, given the info not released to the public yet, could tell you in less than an hour exactly what caused the blowout and how to prevent future ones....IMHO.
Sorry for the rant...I breathing deeply now.
Damn! I am really getting sick of you RRWs!!! ("RRW" = Rabid Right Wingers who simply hate Obama no matter how much he caves into the GOP.)
Heck, Reagan, Nixon and a large number of Republican presidents were left of Obama (look up what they did or tried to do!)
Hasbeen, since you "honestly don't know" I will honestly tell you. The answer is no. Fran was Chancelor of UAA when the crooks (nearly all Republican legislators by the way) were busted by the FBI. Palin only ran one person out of office. He was Randy Ruderich, chair of the state Republican Party. At the time, Randy was also one of the three Commissioners of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. It seems good old boy Randy was doing Republican Party business on state time, and using state computers to send out party fundrasing emails. Randy also passed confidental state information to some friends running a small oil deal. Outing Randy was Sarah's claim to fame to get into the governors race.
I usually don't get into politics too much but since you mentioned our illustrious former gov, let me tell you a bit about her. After becoming governor, she pushed through the biggest tax increase on the oil companies in years. If you don't believe me, check out http://community.adn.com/node/145785 Most oil patch folks in Alaska barf when you mention ACES (Sarah's tax). It definately slowed production and impeded a number of worthwhile projects in the state. Of course once Sarah became McCain's VP running mate she was all "drill baby drill".
Going back a bit further, when Sarah was a candidate for governor she was all in favor of the plans for bridges in Ketchikan and accross Knik Arm (the famous "Bridges to Nowhere"). But again, when she ran for VP, she was against wasting the taxpayers money on those bridges. The woman changes her positions more often than most people change their socks.
Alaska politics are entertaining! End of my rant.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/president-obama-announces-mem...
Here is the link. I think you are right...it is too balanced towards environmentalists and academicians. I would support adding members from the industry if possible. It would be impossible to have their recommendations taken seriously with this composition. Lets see if they can find some other industry representatives to join
Surprising that no O&G folks made this list, especially since Obama is usually keen to achieve "bipartisan" results when he can (such as in Cabinet appointments). Mind you, I don't mean to cast this in "party/political" terms -- just thinking of the interest-balancing he seems to prefer, and that he needs the broadest possible acceptance of the report this commission will submit.
Well, if the Patch is well represented at the staff level, that could help -- though not as much as a well-respected Name or two on the commission proper.
I'm not familiar with the five members, recall Bill Reilly's time at EPA only vaguely, but as a Floridian am very used to and have great confidence in Bob Graham. Without a stitch of charisma, he was quite successful and popular as our governor and Senator -- very sharp, thorough to a fault, careful -- lots of things you'd want an investigation-leader to be. I'm confident he'll do a fine job and choose excellent staffers and consultants. But yeah, the lack of O&G Names on there is pretty glaring.
Appropriate since they're the Evil Ones.
Or possibly their inclusion would eliminate the opportunity to placate enviro groups and could threaten their campaign contributions. Obama isn't likely to want to be associated with contributions from petro next election.
Y'know, snakehead, I just can't see it. The guy really is governing as a center-rightist (much to my disappointment), and politics aside, he's also a wonk who's into reaching the right technical result (thus, he staffs up with the likes of Steve Chu).
All indications are that he believes getting the policy right means the politics will follow (though in this era, he might be wrong about that, which is maddening). Kind of hard to imagine that he'd be fearing petro-support in 2012, in any case.
I dunno -- never have figured out why he or anyone else who ran in '08 wanted to be the POTUS who'd have to clean up after GWB. (Eh, not that I understand people who want to be POTUS, period.)
I agree that he's a corporatist. But they're always running for re-election and he needs the lefty wing to line up behind him. Publicity about petro support in 2012 might not be helpful.
Center right. You must be sitting on an area with steep regional dip.
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2009/09/like-virgin.html
Center-rightist?!?! You gotta be kidding!
Lotus is right, IMO.
I have begun to tell people as a joke, but with more than truth to it than i would like to admit, frankly, that Obama has now surpassed Clinton as the most successful Republican president since Ronald Reagan.
If Obama was an old white balding guy like John McCain, no one would blink an eye toward his policies. Most of them bear a strong republican stamp, from the health care bill (same basic plan gop put forth in opposition to clinton's plan), to financial reform, bankruptcy reform, labor/union (no movement on legislative agenda).
He would be deemed center of the road before the extreme right hijacked the gop.
I still have some hope for Obama even if i was hoping for more in terms of him fighting for things I beleive in personally. There is a leadership quality beyond politics that matters. And obama has managed to charter some very roiled waters and attack some important problems, and focus people, and get things done where many others have failed. I think his presidency will be a success and good for America. And I hope he is, too, even though i hoped for more, because we need a successful president about now. America has a lot of problems to fix.
My son & me watched McCain concede and both exclaimed at the same time how openly relieved he looked to have lost. It was hilarious.
That is funny. He was probably just glad it was over. That was a rough campaign for him. He knew it was over by Sept., barring any miracle. And i don't think he enjoyed Palin very much. He looked to be in pain at times toward the end.
Might also be that O&G representatives might not want to be associated with signing onto anything coming out of the commission. Not saying that is the case, only that the politics of this flow a lot of different ways..O&G also have their political considerations and will play politics with this as well, doncha think?
By the way, I did email the White House and asked that such members be appointed to the commission for exactly the reason that your cynical reply supports -- no one will ever accept anything from it and the whole process will just have the appearance of a political consideration rather than a real attempt to come up with something useful and informative about what happened. Just like clockwork, of course, that is your comment's tone (and I can't refute it at all -- I don't know, you may be right). I would hope that if the commission is a serious effort, that it be made up in a balanced way...
Elie, the idea in your first graf hadn't occurred to me, but it makes sense now that you mention it. Bob Graham will be making a serious effort, and I expect the others to as well (not that my expectations hold much sway with national figures these days). Anyhow, I emailed the WH too. Can't hurt.
Patch folks, who would you put on there, if it were your call to make?
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The terms of reference are somehting that seems to be being missed.
is tasked with providing recommendations on how we can prevent – and mitigate the impact of – any future spills that result from offshore drilling.
Now with all the partisan conspiricy theories in the world, is is hard to see how these terms of reference give the commission all that much room to pursue any partisan agenda. The idea of not drilling isn't within their purview, nor is there much else that the environmental lobby might wish for.
One thread that continues to run thoughout all the conversation on TOD, this mostly wasn't a technical accident. It was one of poor work practices, poor management, and ill preparedness. The clear puporpose of the commission is to address these failings - failings that have clearly been manifest in both commercial and government bodies.
What the comission isn't tasked with is: determining the cause of the accident, and making broad recommendation on policy about continued deep water drilling. You might expect, and they will understand, that a bland recommendation that deep water drilling cease forever more will not be acceptable to anyone, and would be considered a mark of failure of the commission.
I am eager to watch them install that new cap. I think that will be quite a show of skill and determination by the guys who actually do all the work.
Pondering the future, looking at the new containment system, the part they are attaching to the BOP looks pretty much like an enormous air hose quick release. While hopefully never needed, is this the kind of thing that should be on every BOP? Should another well blow-out, then a ship with processing capability owned by this non-profit organization all the oil companies pay comes over. They have a cap that mates with the quick release and the spill is contained until a better plan is accomplished ala the RW. So, basically, the next blow-out warps to where BP hopes to be on Monday. Not ideal, but very little(in terms of ixtoc or dwh) oil spilled.
Actually this well and all others like it are already equipped with such a system. It is called EDS (Emergency Disconnect System), but unfortunately in this instance it did not work. It should have sealed the well and disconnected it from the ship.
That hydraulic coupling is still in place, but considering that we have extra pipes and who knows what else in the hole, it would not be a good idea to try and release it now.
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The top section of what everyone calls the BOP is actually a Lower Marine Riser Package (LMRP) that contains some valves and a hydraulic disconnect. In theory this could be removed and replaced with a new LMRP and riser connected to a drillship... but then you would have a ship connected to a blown out out of control well, just like DWH was. I don't think anyone would want to be on that ship when the connection was made!
Also, there are two pipes jammed in there and who knows what else. If you disconnected this coupling and tried to lift of the old LMRP, could you do that with those pipes jammed in there? Probably not, and what would you do then? If you did get it off, you still have the pipes in your way.
Instead Cameron built a special version of a BOP for them to attach to that 6 bolt riser flange, and they will carefully avoid waking the sleeping dogs below it.
Thanks James. Fair enough that there is a problem using the current hydraulic disconnect due to a blow-out / damage. Beyond accommodating something broken, one of the things that amazes me is how much of this is (or appears to be) custom and getting made on the fly Vs already made / tested equipment.
For example, if things had gone slightly better and the LMRP had disconnected leaving the hydraulic disconnect on the BOP available, but the shears failed, would all this equipment still need to be made or were they ready for that scenario?
I do get that a RW is the expected resolution, but after IXTOC and now DWH, it seems reasonable that infrastructure exists to handle the time between blow-out and RW kill.
For example, the oil companies pay a non-profit organization to provide skimming equipment / services. What if that same or similar organization had this BOP that Cameron made ready to go. Whatever capabilities it has above a LMRP would presumably be needed in case of another blow-out. Maybe one for the entire gulf. I suppose after this is over, that BOP now exists for the gulf.
The same is true for handling the situation after replacing the LMRP / new-BOP. It seems that infrastructure is being created on the fly. Having hundred million dollar ships waiting at a dock for a blow-out might be impractical, but the infrastructure between the LMRP / new-BOP and the ships ...
I want to start a rumour.
Al kaida did it.
its the only possible explanation.
i ve been reading and either these guys were so stupid they couldnt find their ...
or they decided to commit communal suzide and destroy the Gulf of Mexico ecology and ruin the USA.
remember al kaida got people willing to drive an airplane into a skyscraper
its the biggest terrorist act ever.
propably the BP guy was bought.
were the workeres ever checked ?
its too stupid to be stupid.
continue in a later post.
please don´t answer
i´m not into oil and i dont know anything.
i ´m not inteligence.
just thinking
Reason i wanted to start the rumor here ?
1. I started it in a german Forum 3 Days ago.
2. Its dokumented I started it.
http://www.politopia.de/dies-und-das/4075-ger%C3%BCchte-7.html
BTW if you understand german you can laugh ure ass off. Its really funny.
3. Its easy to show how mass meadia works. they are going to show my post from TOD without the first paragraph.
4. the post i started it first had the title rumours and in the 2 nd post of the creator of the thread he said he wanted a thread were people invent rumours.
5. its belivable.
people want to put the blame on someone. in this world there is no one better to put blame on then al kaida.
no one who wants to believe will believe a denial,
they wont want to believe i wanted to start a rumor.
therefore everything i say thats according to their belive is true.
everything else i say that would be in opposition to their belive will be called :
hes trying to get out
its just the CIA trying to control it.
this are the lies , before he said the true.
whatever is neccessary to make people belive their own.
it won´t matter to these people that they can check the date of this post.
because they will only believe what they want to believe.
they will say that TOD changed the dates.
thats why i posted this lie so it will conquer the internet.
edit double deleted
This is a test of viral information in the Internet
I allso hold the copyright this is my idea.
if anyone wants to contact me to produce film i allow my email adress to be released if they can give proper creditials.
My spelling and gramar is bad in any language i know.
you do understand what i mean anyway.
Why do I think our Hauke's just home from the Biergarten? Well, Happy Friday, all!
Time would be about right..
How advanced is the technology for partially containing the oil from the beginning of the spill. I know the weather would be a factor. If in a future spill, booms were deployed immediately and oil was allowed to come to the top, is the equipment capable of containing the largest percentage?
Rock, let me try agian. I was thinking that the oil flow would be from the 7" shoe upwards in both the DP and the 7" annulus. The RW will intersect the 7" much higher. When pumping into the 7" with the kill mud, it will go upwards because of the oil flow and they will be unable to get enough head to kill the well because they will be unable to get mud down into the DP. They won't be able to apply any/much back pressure to force the kill mud downwards because the casing strings are compromised.
Admiral Allen transcript . Talks about the two pipes and that they will band them together to make it easier to put on new top. Lot of good info.
http://app.restorethegulf.gov/go/doc/2931/769671/
Do not know if this was posted yet.
I wonder why they are removing the cap on Saturday and unleashing 15K bbl/day of spill prior to hooking up (on Sunday) Helix Producer that will be drawing 20K of flow from lower down,
I think they need to take full advantage of every hour of the window of good weather and calm seas. If they wait too long and the weather turns too rough to get the new cap on that would be a bigger problem.
Simple answer. The stock market is closed on weekends.
Every Friday around 7PM Eastern I brace for ugly news.
Allen said in briefing it would take a while to undo riser. The Helix will probably be on line at the time of removal of old cap or be close behind on way up to 25k, hopefully.
We had posted previously the pressure readings at various points in the BOP. Are the choke and kill lines upstream of the major pressure drop? If so, production through these lines may have little impact on the remaining flow being released through the top.
CloudSpin:
IMHO:
1-When mud started blowing out of the riser, up to the crown, someone did indeed close the diverter and the lower annular. As evidenced by the flow that began going out of the diverter.
2-Because the lower annular was closed, the DP pressure started increasing (from the Edrill logs) to the point that the pop-off valves on one or more of the mud pumps tripped/blew providing a convenient route for the gas into the mud and motor rooms.
3- There were explosions.
4- At this point the riser had collapsed because most of the fluids in the riser/DP annulus had been evacuated. When the riser collapsed, the BOP control lines from the rig to the BOPs were damaged by the riser collapse. Further attempts to use the EDS and shear rams were prevented by the lack of communication.
5- Which brings me back to an earlier question, why didn’t BP install riser dump valves in the riser string? They may have prevented the riser collapse.
http://www.c-a-m.com/content/products/product_detail.cfm?pid=2822&bunit=DRL
Redfish,
Riser fill up systems have gone out of fashion. The first generation DP drillships were all fitted with them, capable of 3000 to 5000ft of water and usually used 5/8" wall riser. I know for a fact the riser would not collapse in 3000ft. Once the newer generation started coming from 1997 onward with 1" wall risers and capable of 10,000ft water they were rarely used and 1" wall would have no problems in 5000ft. Oil base or should I say synthetic base drilling muds were also being more widely used the spill factor and mud contamination were also factors being taken into account.
Any way what makes you think the riser collasped. We can see via ROV that the very bottom section which has the greatest forces on it only collasped where it bent over. The rest of the pipe is still round.
Mr. Rockman:
This is a bit off topic but in light of everything else that is being discussed, here goes...
i was amused by your discussion last nite with Mr. Shellburn of "ISC" enhanced oil recovery which Mr. Fdolega offered that the refinery guys didn't like the crude produced by this method. He's right, we don't like it. If we did have a crude purchaser worth his salt; there would be an appreciable discount or reduction in the posted value of this crude versus the posted value of the original crude.
The problem is that the "ISC" recovery process results in partial oxidation of the crude which introduces all sorts of combustion products or oils containing oxygen and, if the burn is hot enough, nitrogen compounds may be produced as well as olefinic compounds which are created by thermal cracking. Normally, most refinery streams have to be hydrogenated (hydrotreated) at some point in the refining process to provide an acceptable product such as low sulphur diesel, for environmental considerations for downstream processing, or to protect the Pt-Rh catalyst in a cat reformer from sulphur poisoning. Say that a virgin oil will consume about 1000 SCF of hydrogen per barrel and your "ISC" recovered oil is introduced and it requires additional hydrogen (like doubling the hydrogen requirement to 2000 scf/bbl - SWAG) due to the oxygen, nitrogen, and olefinic compounds present; feed rate to the hydrotreater will have to be cut as the hydrogen make-up and recycle compressors are limited to a design amount plus the gas treating and piping capacities are equally limited by design. Also, the nitrogen compounds become ammonia and eventually wind up in the sulphur recovery unit where they chew up combustion air like everything.
Just thought i'd pass on a refinery guy's point of view.
BTW: Back when Mr. Kruse ran Bluebell, he ordered up a batch of "Dill Pickle" ice cream. I think they still have all of it around if you are interested.
RRC
"Dill Pickle" ice cream
Send it to Hauke! Boy's got the munchies, bad.
Interesting ChE. Unfortunately I never got far enough down the road to deal with a discount factor. OTOH if I could get field production up from 60 bopd to 600 bopd by injecting some air into I could probably live with the discount. LOL. You might be interested to know what goes on in the reservoir in ISC. It's been describes as a coking process. The heavies left behind the heat front is combusted and the lights are pushed forward. And yeah...a nasty boost of CO2 in the produced oil too.
Mr. Rockman:
You just nailed my point about the "ISC" crude when you mentioned "coking". If a refinery has a coker (delayed or fluid), it will have to hydrotreat the produced oils (pentanes thru heavy gas oil). The problem is that a refinery is generally not ready for having a crude similar to what leaves the coke drum entering the refinery.
Understood that there is a boost of CO2 in the "ISC" crude because of the process. The real question is how you deal with the SO2 from the sulphur in the heavies as there is a SARA/CERCLA limit of 500 pounds SO2 per day or used to be.
My guess is that "ISC" operations are small scale as you mentioned increasing production from 60 B/D to 600 B/D. A small quantity of "ISC" crude (say your 600 B/D) could be fed to even a small refinery (like 25,000 B/D) without much problem but we all know that crude gathering, transportation, and delivery doesn't work that way. Heck, some of these guys won't even pump on the weekend. Thus, a delivery of "ISC" crude would be dumped on the refinery in a large batch and that could lead to logistical problems.
RRC
Elie-- Back on June 22, 8:57 PM I identified and had a few notes concerning the seven people on the commission to find out the causes of the BP blowout. Probably should have listed them again.
Thanks for the Diverdan and Rockman links on members. Do you believe the deck is stacked on this commission?
Right now I would think that there is a reasonable suspicion that it is "stacked" -- and I really really regret that. Hopefully there will be some changes to it but who knows? I personally do not believe that people currently appointed to it probably want to do a good job, but the reality of it and the politics make it hard to support that -- unless they come back with something like that they could find no one willing from O & G to join or sign off on what comes out of this...
Elie -- I'm not willing to be that judgemental yet. But you know that's the odd thing when someone cheats and everyone knows it: they seldom win anything in my experience.
Not unlike when Bush appointed a group of tax lobbyists (who are paid to get Congress to tinker with the Income Tax) to his tax reform panel. Guess what they suggested: tinker with the income tax.
es -- certainly reasonable to be suspicious of either group's real motivation. OTOH the tax lobbyists understood the tax code. You think any of the folks on the BP panel understand anything about drilling hydraulics? Possibly being biased is one thing. Possibly being biased and certifiably ignorant is a bit less acceptable IMHO.
Rock, there are worse things than "certifiably ignorant", like "I know a little about...". As long as they know what they don't know, it might turn out alright.
Edit to add: But I would feel a whole heck of a lot better if they had one or two of our crusty old experts on the commission.
Guys -- I think you're missing one obvious (to me) reason to be concerned over the possible bias of any oil patch members on the commission. In fact, I would offer that its more than just a possibility. IMHO the vast majority of oil patch hands would be very biased. And that would be very unfair to BP. With few exceptions everyone I know wants to see BP crucified. And then have its tongue cut out while hanging there. And then set on fire. And then have the fire put out before it kills them. And then throw salt on them.
I think I made my point.
With talk about response by BP and President Obama's Commission this is an interesting read (note the co-author's name, talk about history repeating itself) GoogleDoc format
The EXXON VALDEZ
Oil Spill (A Report to the President) by Skinner and William K. Reilly
End of the two pipe argument.
Still wonder how the second one got into the BOP.
" We found out there was actually two sets of drill pipe there".
ADMIRAL ALLEN: In a word, yes. But let me take you through the sequence. It is complicated. First of all, we have a cap over the well head right now and the reason there’s a loose cap with a rubber seal on the bottom is we weren’t able to get a clean cut when we cut the riser pipe. We used a diamond wire saw and we got inside. We found out there was actually two sets of drill pipe there. And trying to use that diamond wire saw to cut against it—if you’ve ever tried to saw a limb or a piece of wood where you couldn’t hold it and it could move—you can’t get any traction, it doesn’t cut. So then we stopped.
We then used the big, hydraulic shears which were a very imperfect cut but we did cut it. So it was cut at an angle and we had this jagged cut. We have several feet down and then it is bolted—the lower marine riser package—by six bolts that go through phalanges which are those circles around that are connected to the pipes. We are going to physically unbolt that stub of riser pipe after we remove the containment cap. There are six bolts. They will be removed through the use of some tools, with ROVs.
We are even prepared to actually put in what we call a splitter that will actually force those two flanges apart if they become mated too closely because of the seawater and everything else. At that point we will completely remove that cut off stub of riser pipe and just deal with what we got. What you’ll have then is an open pipe with a phalange and two pieces of pipe sticking up—the drill pipe and the piece of pipe that presumably fell down beside it as a result of the explosion and the riser pipe being bent over.
At that point there will be a metal strap put around both of those pipes to make them closer together so it’s easier to put something over the top of them. At that point, they’re going to put a cylindrical device over the top of the two pipes that are banded together. They’re within a larger tool, what they call a spool that will go down and fit over the phalange and be bolted back together. That piece will then become the connector and once we will put a manifold or a valve system on top that will allow us to basically shut in the well.
This will take place over a series of several days because we are doing all of this with remotely operated vehicles. All this equipment will be staged and hung off of the vessels that are in the area that will come in and then put the equipment in place and ROVs will be used to actually do the bolting.
http://app.restorethegulf.gov/go/doc/2931/769671/
That "phalanges" for "flanges" thingie is starting to drive me nuts. Wish somebody could point out to the transcription service, "Yo, ain't no fingers er toes down there."
As I recall, Admiral Allen has confused the terms "drill pipe" and "casing" before, but the whole idea of a piece of drill pipe falling down the riser sounds possible. But still what accounts for what appears to be cement in one of the pipes? I guess we will just have to wait and see.
I agree with you, what the second pipe is still up in the air and even Allen is covering the bases when he said "the drill pipe and the piece of pipe".
I know it is hard to tell 3d from a 2d picture but looking at the mockup it sure looks like to me the pipes are different sizes and the fact they are both cut clear through but one is smashed and cracked and one is not makes me think they may be different pipe with different properties.
I am drawing my conclusions, be they right of wrong, from these pictures that show both ends of the cutoff piece of riser.
http://homepage.mac.com/james_r_white/tei_share/OilSpillMovies/pix.html
Note: one piece of pipe appears to have female threads, also the other end only one stange looking piece of pipe that looks like a pipe in a pipe or a pipe with cement or something in it. FYI the end with 2 pipes is the end toward the BOP which gives the impression if the threaded pipe is a drill pipe tool joint it is upside down from normal.
Rio, here are a few other wrinkles to consider.
If a section of drill pipe with nothing attached below it was sheared off immediately above the threaded box section, then you could end up looking down at the top end of a female thread. So, in principle the presence of that female thread doesn't necessarily mean that a section of drill pipe got turned upside down. I'm not saying that's very likely - just a possibility.
I don't know what variety of material was pumped during the top kill attempt, but if in fact one of the pieces of pipe has something in it now then perhaps it was introduced during the top kill attempt rather than before/during the blowout.
Also, in one of your earlier posts you speculated that perhaps some of the 7" casing was blown up the hole. Earlier in this thread I posted the following links in response to one of James R White's entries:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51953657@N08/4776922637/
(far end of the broken riser at 16:27:07 on 5/Jun/10, a few days after the other end was sheared from the top of the BOP stack by Jaws)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51953657@N08/4777555820/
(for visual reference, the same end of the riser several days earlier when it was still spewing oil and gas)
The later image appears to show two concentric pipes within the riser, and from their sizes the larger one looks more like 7" or 9-7/8" casing rather than drill pipe. However, as I said in my earlier post I could easily be persuaded that what's visible in the end of the riser is just remnants from the siphon assembly that was inserted for a while to capture some of the oil.
Most of what any of us can deduce from the pictures comes under the heading of WAG or maybe SWAG. There is no subsitute for being able to see all this stuff in real life. So in the mean time our musings are mostly just something to pass the time.
The mockup is just that. Hopefully, they either know for sure what's in there and only tested that one scenario, or they did multiple mockups of all kinds of different scenarios. One photo of one of those mockups got posted to their PR website. A mockup with two pipes means they did a mockup with two pipes, nothing more can be rationally drawn from that. There's no hard evidence available to us to say what's really poking up through that riser flange.
Now, if there were a picture of the actual riser on the actual LMRP as clear as the one being posted showing two pipes, then that would be evidence. But as long as the oil is flowing, I don't think we'll see it even when/if they unbolt the flange.
After they chewed off the riser with the claw, I have some video showing on of the ROV's working on the riser with their little 'hand saws', but the video is terrible because of all of the oil swirling around, and it is hard to see anything in the stream.
The point is, no telling what the top of the riser actually looks like without the oil flowing.
I have spent so much time looking at ROV video, I have given them names . . . Hewey, Dewey, BlueBell, Doc, etc.
They built 7 different versions of the 'top cap'; that's proof there are 6 other leaks they aren't showing us.
Plus the secret ones.
I think we should have a gallows humor thread. I'll start.
Boudreaux and Thibodeaux wanted to help out with cleaning up the oil spill in the Gulf, so they went to BP asking for jobs. BP hired them on right away and sent them to Venice to help clean the pelicans.
After they plucked and gutted their 23rd pelican, they were fired
Lefty, you know ol' Boudreaux too? Cha! Here's what he jes' done tol' me . . .
+1
"..pint a moonshine likker. He pour some drops into de snake’s mouf. Well, dat snake’s eyeballs roll back in he haid and he body go limp. Wit dat, Boudreaux toss dat snake into de bayou, den he go back to fish’n..."
lotus- I'm emailing a copy of your report immediately to LDEQ. Mystery solved! Tell that derned Boudreaux put a cork in it!
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/07/lake_pontchart...
"...Darrin Johnson lives in Slidell and says he has seen thousands of dead fish and crabs in the canals near his home....While a thin oil sheen was clearly visible in the area where the fish died, John Lopez of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation said oil probably wasn't the culprit in this kill. Still, he says, something like this is unusual, and he's taking water samples to test."
A grin to end the day, thanks. Just reminded me of Justin and I think he would be cookin' somthin' up for BP.
Glad you enjoyed it, my314tin.
Just reminded me of Justin and I think he would be cookin' somthin' up for BP.
I gar-on-tee he would (especially since he started out as a safety engineer in the refineries -- who knew?). Something to do with a "double-barreled carbine shoot-gun," doncha think?
(PS: This is one of the Englishes rovman doesn't speak, but with his connections in Houma, he can probably cut through it. Cajun may be too thick for the likes of TheOldSwede, Hauke, Andrea, and the Ozzies and Kiwis, though -- if so, apologies to y'all.)
Thank you Frontier_Energy for the redirection...didn't realize I was posting that on a different topic....anyway
Hey there, My name is Isaac, I'm not from these parts. I have some questions and see that this is the place to ask them.I see that there is almost a dangerous amount of brain-power on this site. I love it. I am not an engineer or physicist,tho' I work as a freelance consultant for different fields, so I do have some understanding of things...anyways..
If water based mud is provides the strength when it stops moving and starts to settle or " gel " , and it is a slurry mixture, and realistically not much different than cornstarch and water, in terms of particle equidistant positioning in the fluid, could it be considered to be a Non-Newtonian fluid..?
If the only way to rapidly overtake opposing pressure, is by producing stronger opposing pressure in a 3 dimensional space, that is really about density VS density...? It is what allows the rapid transit of waves, the rate of travel is determined by opposition of the intensity of the wave to the density of the fluid., ...the law of inverse proportion....?...I apologize if I do not make sense here, lol.
If H2S stress cracking is a common problem with sour oil, and the flow from this deposit has a high sand/particulate content from the surrounding shale/sand that's possibly been acting like a cnc water-jet on the surface of the inner diameter of the casing, does this make it prone to failure.
I saw by reading one of yesterday's posts, that there is space left as a void in-between the casing and the concrete used to line the bore. Does that mean that stratigraphic pressure that normally helps provide structural integrity to the contents of the wellbore, ie : the casing, ..is not there..?
If a stressed pipe is structurally reinforced by pressure applied from the outside, and it keeps stress-cracks in the plastic zone from creeping, but there is a void outside the casing, then it would make it more prone to fail from the inside when greater pressure is applied...?
A 3 mile column of mud with 2 concrete plugs, set no more than 200' from the mudline is the norm for plugging and abandoning a well..?
What happens if a 3 mile column of mud pops the casing at these depths...? If an established fluid column is given space to move at the bottom, and releasing the bottom pressure ( by a new void created by casing failure )breaks the " gelled " structure of the mud at the bottom of the column..and this 3 mile column of mud suddenly applies gravity waves to the reservoir..is that what will produce a massive " kick " ?
Just for the sake of knowing..There are other types of minerals that they have not mentioned that are actually heavier than Barium Sulfate
Possible substitutes for barite, especially in the oil drilling industry, include other similar minerals, such as celestite (strontium sulfate, and iron ore. A German company is producing synthetic iron ore (hematite) which is proving a good substitute for barite.
Also, I understand that this type of alloy can flex 6 degrees for every 10'...is that true..?
And,lol...sorry, Has anybody taken into consideration the Ursa-Princess waterflood project, or the East Independence Hub projects...?...they are joint BP collaborations in the same area that the Horizon blowout....WIKO Flowserve pumps is all I will say about that matter., ...I have some more on my blog..
Ok, that's all, thanks for taking the time to answer,what matters for me, despite any differences we may have, we all want the same thing.
Funny how it works like that. It would seem that all things are held to the same laws...?
http://mentaljudo.blogspot.com/
Whew...I'm trying to get caught up on all the reading. Rockman,fdoleza, NASAWatch and others, thank you for your kind replies to some of my rudimentary questions.
Rockman~ Here is the link: http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/06/oil_spill_cont... The article notes there not being enough production casing and a liner was supposedly used instead to finish the job. My understanding in reading this again today is, the steel casing liner and a different type of liner were not run TD concentric....it sound like in at least one instance, the casing liner was installed consecutively with a different type of liner. I don't think the article says if it was the casing liner or the production liner.
Hypothetically, if we were able to go back in time and isolate one location along the production casing at the exact point-in-time the casing is assumed to have failed, what would we see? Again, in theory, let's imagine the location of the pipe where the steel casing liner transitions to an inferior liner, possibly creating a weak link (assuming the article above is true). Earlier, I asked what is in the gap(void)between the steel casing liner and the production liner AND between the rock (well bore) and the steel casing liner, before the mud is in place? I think I have a good understanding of the construction materials and methodology but even with some of the explanations, I still have the same question....what is in the gap(s) between the steel casing liner and the production liner AND between the rock (well bore) and the steel casing liner? Unless the bore hole was hermetically sealed, it leads one to believe there was something else in the void(s)at the exact time the casing failed(i.e.,dust, gasses, water, sodium or perhaps,.....atomic particles - ions).
May I ask,is cathotic protection typical in these types of wells? I assume it has to be. What is the possibility of an electrostatic, electromagnetic reaction or electrostatic induction?
Wow... fdoleza wasn't kidding when saying, an erosion channel creates a "wormhole". ;)
Z = The article is correct about concerns over the csg integrity. Not a big surprise given the well blew up. But it’s very misleading when it says BP “ran out of csg and had to set the liners before reaching total depth. Liners are run when the rock pressures dictate the need. It a standard procedure that’s been done in literally 100’s of thousands of wells in this country. The tone of the statement is clear: BP screwed up by “running out of csg”. Lord knows there’s a long list of things BP didn’t do right. It’s really isn’t necessary to make something up.
I understand how the article might confuse you. I don’t think they’re intentionally trying to be misleading. I suspect they just don’t have a good handle on the subject matter. For instance calling the area were the liners over lap a “weak link” is misleading. While those spot aren’t as strong as steel csg I would hardly call them weak. These are essentially the “csg shoes” you see us talk about. You test the csg shoe and if it holds you drill on. If it does test you pump more cmt in and test again. Right now it appears the prime source of the accident was the csg shoe and/or annular cmt failing. I’ve probably seen over 1500 csg shoes tested in my career and many have failed. A well I’m drilling today failed it’s last shoe test three times. But eventually we got it fix and it was able to hold against the proper pressure. Again, I’ve seen hundreds of shoe test fail and thus had to be cmt/tested again. But in 35 years I’ve not seen one shoe fail after it had been successfully tested. Not once in over 1500 liner sets. So again, weaker than steel csg but hardly weak IF YOU ASSURE YOU HAVE A GOOD CMT JOB.
In general the annular spaces that are not filled with cmt usually contain drilling mud for the most part. Remember ever void in the well bore is filled with mud. When you pump cmt you’re pushing the mud out of the way. Cathodic protection is a very big business offshore. Not just for the wells but the platforms and drilling rigs.
Since I pointed you to this discussion perhaps I can try to answer a few of your questions.
1. Drilling Mud is normally considered a Non-Newtonian fluid.
2. I think what you are asking is if in a kill situation whether greater density in pound per gallon ensures a kill. Total hydrostatic has more to do in this regard, but it is a function of the mud density. The trick is to keep the gas from breaking out in the fluid by slowly bleeding the pressure off. An analogy is to hold a soft drink bottle and shake it with the top closed. Open it fast and it runs all over. Gradually crack the top and slowly open and close and eventually the fluid becomes static as you bleed the gas(CO2) off. In simple terms this is what is going on when a well is shut in and on choke.
3. There is probably very little H2S in the Macondo well. For an example of a high H2S well look up the Piney Woods blowout in Mississippi. H2S in my experience occurs primarily in carbonates. Scavengers (iron filings) are used in areas where drilling occurs in H2S and I am sure by now there are other additives. Most operators that I work with avoid H2S areas.
There is a sand content to the oil but to my knowledge this has not been made public. And yes sand under pressure can erode components in the wellbore/wellhead. There has been discussion of that here and there are differing opinions.
4. Per the illustration that Heading Out posted above there is a section that is exposed to the formation. This design quite frankly pisses some of us in the business off, some are not so concerned.
5. My personal opinion is that there should be 100% cement between casing and formation. Others may disagree.
6. MMS had regulations regarding the temporary abandon requirements. Some of these requirements are here:
http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&sid=bd3b52e8c4d11d0...
7. The hydrostatic column pressure in the case of Macondo was significantly less than the formation pressure. This was the case in my opinion as opposed to overpressuring the casing from hydrostatic forces.
8. Yes there are other weighting material. RioHondoHank may pitch in with some of these materials. Among the heaviest is galena (lead) mud that I think that you can get to around 28 ppg.
9. Bending rates in the oilfield is normally measured in degrees per hundred feet. Maximum doglegs that I have seen is around 30 degrees per hundred feet using 3 1/2 inch drillpipe for horizontal re-entry. Normal doglegs are less than 3 degrees per hundred for most applications and around 12 degrees per hundred for horizontal drilling.
Don't know anything about BP's other projects- had limited experience with BP. Not familiar with Flowserve pumps although familiar with centrifigal pumps.
here is the chemical analysis of the reservoir......it jives with what geological studies say about the Mississippi canyon area.....so in terms of possible validity/vs false information by malicious intent .. 50/50 ?
http://mentaljudo.blogspot.com/2010/07/analysis-of-contents-in-oil-has-b...
Thanks again, I do have a couple drams short of a *ssload of other questions for you.
I won't be able to help you much regarding the oil analysis of the Macondo well. Perhaps there are others here that can provide more information in that regard. My impression is that it is a high grade oil relative to most found Gulf Coast. I am not happy about it being released into the Gulf of Mexico.
The heaviest mud I ever had actual experiance with was around 19 ppg. I had heard of using galena and hemetite. My mud experiance stops at 1984 and there my be other materials used since then. Basic requirements for a weighting material would be high specfic gravity (barite 4.6 as I recall) and ability to be ground into fine powder. I think there have been mud weights up to 22 ppg with barite, after that the flow properties would be really bad, so a material with higher specific gravity would be useful.
Thanks Hank
Dudley's response letter(pdf) to Allen contains the following projected time line for the RW.
Step 1 to begin at 17,874' MD, (17,120' TVD), 5' horizontal distance between WW and RW
1. Start date July 12th, elapsed time 8 days.
Tasks: Run and cement 9 7/8" liner; run cased hole logs (e.g. cement bond, casing inspection, etc); test BOP and casing; drill out; leak-off test.
2. Start date July 20th, elapsed time 20 days.
Tasks: Drill 8 1/2" hole with around 4 ranging runs; intersect annulus; kill annulus; cement.
3. Start date July 30th, elapsed time 14 days.
Tasks: Drill 8 1/2" hole with around 5 ranging runs; intersect 7" casing; trip for 8 12" mill; cut hole in 7" casing; kill 7" casing, cement.
Also, a very interesting item in point 3 of the same letter:
"At present this plan moves to shut in the well directly following the installation of the capping stack and the cessation of collection from the Q4000."
Both Allen's discussion and Dudley's letter state they are going to try to shut in the well, not just collecting oil using the capping stack. If all goes well, could be as soon as late day 4 (Tuesday).
You should see the setup for the Buffett show.
Yes it is photoshopped. From my bucket for today. Must see.
http://s892.photobucket.com/albums/ac126/tinfoilhatguy/GS-OB%20July%2020...
I was saddened to read the request to silence BB.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6708#comment-671932
Sir Tinfoil, for the purpose of continuing the saga of BB, kindly add to your website the legend of King Blue Bell and the Knights of the Nowhere Round Table.
Crazy as this sounds, if my candidate wins the election and we stop the burial of the oiled trash, then how long is it before everyone stops burying the Mud of Badness? If this comes to pass no postings, MOVIE. Keanu Reeves could easily play me. I give my odd for my candidate at a solid 25%. I give it 50%/50% that he follows through on his promise. My odds are not good.
Would this work for safely burning the oily waste (Mud of Badness)?
http://www.suncombustion.com/SPI%20Series%20Portable%20Incineration%20Sy...
Might depend on the temperature of combustion and type of sand you have. Different sands, silica, silicate, coral, igneous etc, will be affected differently by heat and by how hot it is. Some will laugh it off, some fuse, some decompose. They do note that one use is burning oil but I also wonder about quantity, you have some pretty big sandcastles down there of contaminated sand. Also you would need to dry the sand first to avoid excess fuel use. Why note try getting a sample of contaminated sand and applying a blowtorch to it, see what happens.
NAOM
No, screen out all sand for roads. Drain what oil you can. This is for the rest like booms.
Ok, see your point. Thought you meant the stuff that was heading to landfill. I had the impression that the skimmed stuff was going to refineries but I may be wrong.
NAOM
Sure, but would this device safely burn an absorbent drained boom? What kind of output are we talking about? Would it be very bad for the air quality?
I am SO jealous, I tried like he77 to get tickets, and when I couldn't I tried to book a room at the Phoenix (or at least that's what I thought it was called). I guess since you're local and with or without a ticket you can ride your bike and hear it and not be in that mass traffic mess.
Thanks for the link, that is a massive set-up
Look at my photobucket after my movies download. You can see good right over the fence. Sand fence 4-4.5 feet high. Stage is 20 feet high. Just walk through the GOM. You will get a good spot for free. Plenty of dry beach to see from. Wear flops and carry a sock in you pocket. AFTER your feet dry, brush the sand off, good to go.
http://s892.photobucket.com/albums/ac126/tinfoilhatguy/GS-OB%20July%2020...
I thought the traffic would be a nightmare and I have never even been to GS, so I assume I may have to park a mile or more away.....also, I only own flip flops and Uggs to that would be a given LOL. Great idea to just walk thru the GOM but where would you suggest I park there?
Traffic is an issue, but a much smaller issue than the Blue Angel show. I suggest parking on East 1st and 2nd Avenue. This is 35,000 tickets. 100,000 come in one day for the Shrimp Festival so really it should be OK, just takes you two hours to leave on the road east. I suggest waiting to leave. In any case, HAVE FUN THIS WEEKEND.
Are they leaving because of the moratorium or because they don't think the relief well will work or because they think something else is going to happen that might impact on them or all of the above? I wouldn't ask except for that word "immediately." It gives one a little frisson...
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/7101738.html
"WASHINGTON — Diamond Offshore announced Friday that its Ocean Endeavor drilling rig will leave the Gulf of Mexico and move to Egyptian waters immediately — making it the first to abandon the United States in the wake of the BP oil spill and a ban on deep-water drilling..."
Suprised its taken this long, I thought 3-4 others had already left. Leaving not only because of moratorium, but because it is completely undefined how long until the MMS might actually issue a new drilling permit in the deepwater. 6 months, 12 months, until after Obama leaves office, all just as likely at this point. Anything under 6 months now appears to be a lost cause. If administration had issued here's the new rules, and clarified conditions under which drilling could resume, many ships might hold out for the 6 months. But with complete uncertainty, they'll be gone.
Can't afford to leave 30 odd rigs x 3/4 of a billion of capital each sitting idle indefinitely, will bankrupt the drilling firms. Every deepwater drillship that can find an option to drill anywhere else in the world, even at reduced rates, will be gone. A bunch holding out for now because they are still getting paid pending negotiations on early contract terminations.
K3 - These rigs work under long term contracts... often multi-year. The operators are required to pay the day rate ($400,000 - $700,000 ) continuously for that period whether they are drilling or not. But the contracts do have out clauses. The feds calling a moratorium would be one such cause. The down side for the operators should they take this out is that it also voids the drilling contractor’s obligation to work for them. And the drilling companies are not going to let a rig sit in the GOM and earn nothing if they can send it to Brazil or Africa and generate cashflow upwards of $20 million/month per rig. And it’s not likely those rigs shipped over seas will be back soon. Besides those new contracts probably being multi-year also it can cost an operator as much as $30 million to just ship one back.
The report sites the Diamond rig as being the first to ship out of the GOM. I can’t confirm but a month ago I heard reports of at least 4 rigs taking over seas contracts. Even though the moratorium doesn’t include shallow water drilling I’ve had rather reliable reports of a number of those rigs shutting down. While the feds haven’t banned new drilling in shallow waters they don’t appear to be issuing drilling permits either. When an operator submits it’s exploration plan the feds have the legal right to take up to 6 months to approve. And if they find one flaw they can bounce it back to the company and start the clock over.
In general the exodus of rigs and service companies from the GOM will be slower than some are speculating. Their return will likely be even slower IMHO. It will eventually have an impact on oil production from the GOM but that should take a couple of years to make itself apparent.
Exodus has been much slower than I expected, guessing lots of companies were hoping the administration would "see the light" after the court ruling against the moratorium as an excuse to lighten up the restriction, but no such luck. News article from today indicating 4 of the 33 rigs have already left, and 4 more scheduled to leave within next month:
http://www.fox8live.com/news/local/story/Oil-moratorium-ruling/s7AoA9_cz...
Source was Chet Chassion, director of Port Fourchon.
One of the primary constraints on the number of wells being drilled per year is the number of drilling rigs available, I would imagine they are moving them to other locations that they can drill now which may have been the next project they where scheduled for. If I remember right Rig Zone or similar (its in my files somewhere)used to publish a overall schedule of all rigs and support vessels where currently scheduled for, may have been a 2 year look ahead, but know it covered a year. It was very handy in doing up-front planning as you could see what rigs of the type your project would need would be available. McDermott was also keeping this in Primavera format for their own planning requirements.
something something 'Going Galt' something something
I have been reading TOD since April 20, 2010.
You are all amazing. I have learned so much and I thank you.
What you taught me today, with the information on Red methane and yellow methane, is the reason for:
1. The Massive blackout on the oil spill
2. The Massive plans for evacuation. FEMA
3. The countless warnings on the Internet from various sources on the dangers of the gas.
4. The total lack of any government agency helping with the spill.
5. This last bit of BS from Thad Allen.
Last, but not least, Obamas complete lack of sympathy and the appearence that he truly hates America and is orchestrating it's destruction.
It's not the oil that is causing the rampent sickness, its the gas. I live in California and my daughter and hubby live in Palm Harbor, Fl.
They both have been sent your website and if what you are saying is true, you must warn your fellow Americans. Think of all our soldiers in Afghanistan who have family in the Gulf.
God Bless, Moonbeam
Your handle is spot-on...don't trip on the brown acid!
Her's hoping that the BP oil spill cleanup workers do not experience long-term health problems:
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/07/09/09greenwire-new-bp-data-show-20-...
Install Recovery Tools on Pipe Stub / Examine Drill Pipe - OI3
A major element of the containment cap timeline.
Anyone got any ideas what they are trying to accomplish here ?
July 9, 11:53 PM The cap is leaning over more all the time. See Enterprise ROV 2. It is over 45 degrees now. Why? What is going on?
The arm you are seeing in that shot isn't vertical. Look at Skandia ROV2 for a better view.
They should be within hours of taking cap off permanently. See detailed workplan timeline on Attachment A of: http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/posted/2931/Ltr_to_Admiral_Allen...
Note "day 1" should be Saturday, planned to have cap come off as first item -- "Stop Containment - Enterprise moves off station". However, haven't actually seen the blue POD installed yet which was pre-requisite, not sure what OI3 has been pressure testing.
V65-- You might be right, but my reference was the white body below the leak, and the cap guide fins from Enterprise ROV2. Your Skandia ROV2 sure looks different. The guys that really know are those doing it, and I think they have been doing a great job.
I've just been watching the ROVs working, and it occurs to me (not for the first time) how much easier the ROV operators' job would be if they had stereoscopic vision. Does anyone know if any of the ROVs in use (here or in general) have stereo (3D) cameras?
Thanks for offering that, Rockman. I've been wondering about that. It's a significant fact. If the cement was bad, it was bad from the beginning. It narrows the possibilities considerably.
I have a slightly refined answer to your trick question when you're ready.
Another thing I've been wondering about. Thanks, Frontier_Energy. If they cement up 500 feet, before the gap begins, what is the primary risk of that open sapce? Gas migration or collection, or is it the vulnerability at the seals, more spots to fail? (was your Frontier Energy Co. ever in Wyo?)
Syncro:
I am in a totally different drilling environment than the Deepwater Gulf. Yes I have worked in Wyoming as well as most all of the states of the Rocky Mountain West. Primary activity of course is now in North Dakota. My opinion of cement jobs comes from wells that require hydraulic fracturing are subjected to higher pressures after drilling. (around 20k psi). A lot of the grief and finger pointing that is going on now is due to bad cement jobs in my opinion. One area that I worked required cement bond logs after every cement job because of losses encountered.
As a brief background, my specialty is geosteering services with experience in directional drilling, measurement while drilling, mudlogging (onshore and offshore) and in distant past wireline operations/well testing.
Why remove the existing cap now? Why not first check the total flow to Helix Producer, Q4000 and Enterprise? These vessels can handle around 50K B/D of oil. A small leak from existing cap into GOM is more acceptable than a huge leak if there is trouble from the cap change out, of which many things could go wrong. Does BP want to know the accurate well flow rate?
The risk for perfection (no leaks) needs to be weighted against a huge potential (maybe 40K B/D) discharge into GOM. It is better to go slower and safer, than faster and more reckless. I worked on a BP rig once, and solution to all problems was to go faster.
A huge increase of oil and gas getting to the surface could endanger the one thousand plus people working directly above the blowout.
The first relief well has a high probability of killing the well soon. Choking the production flow at surface on Helix, Enterprise and Q4000 can help slow down flow when RW pumps kill mud. I realize the new sealing cap can make a complete closure, but that might put too much pressure down well bore. Better choke control at surface than with new annular preventer on sealing cap.
Hope the government folks are not pushing the experienced oil/gas people into a quicker and more risky course of action, like B.P. pushed T.O..
Was reading earlier that they still fart-arsing around the other choke/kill line to recover more oil and as I understand it they are going to leave the new hat on during the kill attempt. I may be missing something here
(I know Jack all about it.)
My thinking is remove the hat just before Kill attempt.(I Think kill will be successful - so whats a couple of hour oil flow into the sea. (** Waits for Howls of Protest**) And hook up either/or both the kill and choke lines - ready to pump mud. I imagine RW would continue to pump mud after flow stopped to give them as much overweight as they thought was safe (safety margin.)
When RW finally stop the Mud pumping, get a ROV to place a Pre-made Heavy plate across the top of the riser stump, this plate would have a small length of 2" or 3" tube with a Flow-meter attached to it. If the casing has been breached and mud column starts leaking off - the first indication would be the riser stump starting to suck in water, with the flowmeter they could calculate how many Barrel per hour they were losing then they could pump mud from choke/kill lines to match the rate of loss and keep system in balance - I don't know how long the delay is before they are ready to pump cement and then the time it take to set/cure, But I would think during this time you would want to keep system balanced - No movement up or down at hole bottom. Hence the ability to add mud as required would be a handy thing to have.
Could think of nothing worse than watching water get sucked into stack for half an hour then see a sudden change and water starting to flow out, that could tend to screw up your day.
I understand the differences between top kill and bottom kill , Top Kill you fighting against the well all the time, bottom kill, the well is doing all the heavy lifting itself, the column gets heavier, the flow rate slows, and as long as mud is pumped in at same rate the Mud/Oil Ratio at bottom keeps getting heavier - Laws of Physics say the well will lose in the end. The only thing that can really upset this is if the Well has massive damage at the bottom (or you run out of mud.)
No-one really knows where or how much damage done, my personal theories make me think damage more likely in upper reaches of well. So here's hoping they get this sucker killed this time.
Can anyone tell me about these discs near top of well, what are they, whats their purpose, I cant remember ever seeing this type of thing on casings before.
I havn't seen them before, but I did little research. They are small rupture discs mounted in casing collars at various depths. As I recall there were 3 or 4 in the production string of the WW. They make make them in different pressure ratings. The purpose is to act like a pop-off valve if the pressure in the annulus gets too great to prevent casing collapse.
http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/posted/2931/Ltr_to_Admiral_Allen...
Hank - That was my first guess, some sort of pressure pop off set to let go at some pre defined pressure before it could blow out a packer or something, but that made no sense to me.. Relieve pressure to where - another sealed area ???
That's like having a ship with watertight compartments, if one compartment springs a leak and fills up with water, just open the watertight door and let the water escape into the next compartment... Seem a little bit Irish to me.
Maybe I better pull out the well schematic and have another look.
Geeez - I just checked your Bio - That's an impressive Pedigree you got there. But it make me feel better, If you never seen them before guess I can stop feeling Stupid.
Was looking at that Beltbuckle on eBay just last week, was one circa 1948 Unused for about $10, Just rechecked - there one there now circa 1922 Used $19
http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=Hughes+Drilling+Co&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg...