1. They can fish the string out through the stack they have. Provided, of course, they can get hold of it.

2. Unknown. Yes/no/maybe.

3. IF there is still pressure at the bottom, then yes, pipe plus mud to balance it.

4. I would think so. It has to be replaced with something. Mud is the logical choice.

5. If the bottom of the pipe somehow got cemented in, there could be a problem. Otherwise, as long as they watch the balance, nothing should happen. In any case, the pipe has to be removed in order to complete the plug-and-abandon procedure - and it won't get any less risky later.

6. None. The pipe just pulls up through the BOP.

If so, doesn't that make the static situation that exists now into a dynamically stable situation where the weight of the mud plus drill pipe balances the oil below.

No, that would be the case if they had only pumped in mud. But they also pumped in cement, which (as verified by the ambient pressure tests) has effectively sealed the casing. So it's not a straight matter of weight any more. Indeed, without the cement, only having a mud column up to the sea floor (rather than up to the surface as was the case directly after the static kill) would not quite be sufficient to counterbalance the reservoir pressure.

Is there any concern that pulling out the drill pipe will restart the oil flowing from below ... ?

Not really. With an estimated 5000' of cement in the casing, it's hard to envisage another blowout occurring when the drill pipe is removed. Nothing they do down there is completely without risk, but the probability of this happening has clearly also been deemed by the independent scientific team to be negligible, otherwise BP would not have been given the directive to proceed with the operation.

Sconsin ainna-hey?

But if there were a Jonah aboard who wanted to cause problems, it is all to easily done.

Jonah didn't want to cause problems for the crew. He begged to be thrown overboard to save the crew. He wanted to cause problems for Ninevah.

What kind of republican are you, doesn't know the Bible?

Oh, no... I know why leaving the pipe clamped in the BOP would make things difficult, I was just wondering if it would be easier to hook if it were exposed. I only got to see a little bit from the fish tool cam. I did see the DP, squashed nearly flat; is there a chance that wasn't actually a proper fish tool but just a conduit to get the camera in there to see what kind of tool they need to grab it?

I had dismissed the thought they want the capping stack in place during the fish, because it's been stated the BOP swap will take around 24 hours - is that complete start to finish, or the amount of time the wellhead will be sitting there naked?

If there is 3000' of pipe hanging in the well and 5000' of cement in the bottom and the well is ~13000' top to bottom, then, if the pipe is dropped, it can fall ~5000' before hitting the top of the cement. This, IMHO, would be quite a battering ram blow on the cement. Can anyone assure use that the cement would not fail, crack and break under such abuse?

Is it reasonable to assume that the drill pipe, currently hanging from the old BOP, would be the less deformed of the pipes, as depicted in this BP mock-up: http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/in...?

If so, would a die collar effectively work to attach the new DP to the old DP?

Could the deformed DP be cleanly cut off beneath the deformation?

What are the most likely fishing tool options to make that secure connection?

If my questions have been specifically addressed, I’ll take a link. Thanks.

Doug, a true scale diagram would be 10,000 times as long as it is wide and not usable, hence the use of not-to-scale schematics. But from the published casing diagram total measured depth to the bottom of the 9 7/8" liner is 17,168ft, vs. true vertical depth 17157ft. Subtract 5067ft water depth (MD and TVD quoted as being the same at sea bed) gives 12101ft MD and 12090ft TVD below seabed (or mudline if you prefer). From Pythagoras' theorem the farthest the bottom hole location could be laterally from the top is just over 500ft, corresponding to about 2 1/2 degrees from vertical. If you drew it true scale an a 6ft high wall the bottom would be 3 inches offset from the top. You might spot that by eye but I'm no good at hanging pictures and would use a plumb-line.

In practice the well will be slightly S-shaped with a deviation around the bottom-hole location of the Marianas well, so the current bottom-hole location must be closer to the top-hole. If they cared about the 500ft the well could easily have been steered back to a location vertically under the wellhead. I doubt if they'd continue at a tangent because being off vertical makes everything a bit more difficult for running and cementing casing, tool wear etc., as something will always be rubbing on the low side of the hole. Not much more difficult, much higher angle wells are drilled all the time, but why make life even a little bit more difficult when it's trivial to fix? Even if the well was drilled at a tangent, there's no reason to believe that would result in a bad cement job. Thousands (probably tens or hundreds of thousands) of wells are drilled worldwide at higher angles and with good cement jobs.

The turn would typically be made at less than 3 degrees per 100ft drilled, very gentle and have little impact on sand erosion. Surface pipework guys get worked up about right-angle bends and are happier if it's given a gentle profile, say 90 degrees per 10 feet. That's still 300 times tighter than the typical drilling turn.

http://lynxlee.wordpress.com/2006/11/16/colin-hay-overkill-from-scrubs/

Golly, EDM, seems like you should know the most about that. But let's try to 'logic' it a bit. There must be a drill bit on the bottom, no? When the bit hits the mud, the mud would have to just ooze past because the bit is neither turning nor flushing. I think there would be a lot of resistance, and the whole thing ought to act like a shock absorber. I suspect the mud will also have gelled to some extent, and will be more viscous with depth. If those assumptions are anything close to right, I believe the string would be moving pretty slowly by the time it hit anything solid.

Disclaimer: WAG by someone not qualified to make a WAG.

How far do you reckon the drill pipe will spear into 5000 feet of cement. It will have split the production casing long before it gets to the 7 inch collar. But, looking on the bright side. At least we will know if there is any pressure in the annulus and see if it just kicks or whoopee; there she blows!

Is the "stinger" the bit that guides the drill pipe down the hole?

Hmmmmmm..... was sorta wonderin bout that myself. :)

aw hell it slipped ... look out below ... here it comes

.................. whhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaammmmmmm :)

Ex,

The 3 1/2" stinger would make a good shock absorber, but I would hate to be trying to break it out on the drill floor. It would be one big cork screw, setting slips would a challenge to say the least. A set of 3 1/2" elevators would be my dog collar and it would be just as easy to have the welder there with the oxy. I would not worry too much about breaking it out!

Raving. Frikking. Loonatic.

It has been reported that the top kill was only able to briefly achieve 6000 psi at the wellhead (presumably the pressure at the point where the choke and kill lines enter the BOP). The fact that they weren't able to pressure up the well beyond that was interpreted as an indication of lack of well integrity. And it was at the point in time that the speculation that the lack of well integrity may produce the worst case scenario started to emerge from various sources in the public at large.

Moving ahead to today, the condition of the well liner casing string is still in doubt. There is no way to know if it suffered damage and every reason to suspect that the loads imposed on April 20-22 did do some damage.

At this point they still have no way of knowing how much pressure can be tolerated with out blowing out the liner. For all they know if the annulus starts to communicates with the reservoir at this point in time it still could blowout that casing and crater the well.

Neat idea Mike but one catch is that's not how it's usually done, whereas fishing broken drill pipe is a routine, if often slow and frustrating, operation. When working at the limits of technology, trying something different will always carry more risk than doing things the tried and trusted way.

Also, a lot can be inferred about the BOP even after releasing the DP. For example, it was held - I release shear A - now it's loose and I can lift it - tells us about the functioning of shear A. PLus remember, the BOP is not in as-per-blowout condition today. ROVs have actuated controls, modules have been lifted to surface and replaced/repaired. As long as a careful record is kept of everything that was done, the authorities can back-track and reach a best-as-they-can conclusion about its status at the end of the day. Short of a time machine and teleportation technology, that's all they could have done in June or July anyway.

All through the process a balance had to be struck between fixing the problem and preserving forensic evidence. Same in any crime or accident scene. Would a paramedic leave someone bleeding to death after a car crash because (s)he didn't want to release the seatbelt until it had been examined, just in case seat-belt failure was a factor in making a trivial crash near-fatal?

Good plan Mike, but. I don't see the admiral letting them put drill pipe or tools in that well without a BOP, in case the well has a bout of dyspepsia. The only static head you would have available would be seawater, no mud pumps. No one is sure on the integrity of the casing hanger seal at well head. If you pull the drill pipe out would it pull some casing with it; or allow the casing to move. How good is the grip on the drill pipe by the BOP rams. Are the rams locked in there present position. The 48 hour test is supposed to be twice as long as it takes to fit the replacement BOP and move the rigs.

Mike,

If you were going to pull the BOP with the pipe still attached, then the easiest way would be to latch a set of elevators suspended from the secondary derrick of the Enterprise, and latch it onto a tool joint that would be exposed once the BOP was lifted. Cut the drill pipe as close to the bottom of the BOP with the aid of a ROV, then clear the well site to bring in the new BOP from the DDII.

If they can not latch on to the fish, or they can not open the shears, then I feel this is what they will end up doing. I believe they must know they have a tool joint in the BOP that can hang off a set of pipe rams or otherwise the chance of success would be quite small.

If the shears open and a tool joint is available to hang from the pipe rams it should be a fairly easy job. Now remember it is a BIG IF.

I bet there is already a backup plan in case the fishing does not work to do something like you described. I'd also bet that the tools needed for the backup plan have already been constructed and are ready to use.

But why try something new and tricky when a procedure is possible that is being used in the GOM every few days, i.e. fishing, and for which specialists and tools are readily available.

Thanks! This *is* a very interesting article. I've come to appreciate the work that Ben Raines has done down in that part of the world.

These are certainly eye-opening comments from the scientist:

>>It’s some sort of new product coming out of the biological process.<<

>>Overton said that the chemical signature of the material was “unprecedented” in his decades of oil analysis. “Never seen anything quite like it,” he said.<<

It almost looks like the water found in the Dismal Swamp, part of the ICW in N. Carolina, and in the Blackwater River of Virgina. That same murky deep brown that stains everything.

Thanks. This must the brown stuff that Raines reported seeing in pockets a couple of weeks ago.

A key question would be, what is the PAH content?

A couple weeks ago I commented on a previous Raines picture, guessing we were seeing "floc" left over from the oil-weathering process. This was a guess. Still guessing, such floc would be expected to contain plankton poop and the dead bodies of blooming plankton, plus the long-chain hydrocarbons (esp. asphaltenes) that are not readily decomposed by microbes.

This is the material that, under rapid-deposition geological processes, gets deposited in large quantities, is buried under sediment, and eventually is subjected to high pressure and temperature to become petroleum. As I recall it, those conditions normally involved rapid continental uplift, causing rapid erosion and runoff of large amounts of nutrients that fertilized the seas to cause plankton blooms.

To the extent that those depositional conditions are not in place here/now, we would expect this stuff to weather to the extent possible, further consolidate, and join the new mud as it forms but not get buried very deeply or rapidly. I hope the biogeochemists are out there getting data so we'll eventually know what's happening.

Looking into a little. just wonder HOW to trace the result back to the cause which might be benzene. From a little quick search on the dark colored materials from wikipedia–
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_Negro_%28Amazon%29
–its waters aren’t exactly black; they are similar in color to strong tea. The dark color comes from humic acid from incomplete breakdown of phenol-containing vegetation from sandy clearings. The river’s name arises from the fact that it looks black from afar.’ (Talking about a South American river)
This I believe is the same process that makes so many of the swamps in coastal areas have dark "tea" colored water. So..looks like phenol is a residual from oxygenation of benzene. Now..is it possible benzene was in the “HC mixture oil/dispersant”? And if so was it modified by bacterial activity-to phentol which broke down to humic acid? Or is this just too simple?

Speaking of the good Dr. Overton: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DurJI754lPA

In Part 2 of this video, he references LSU "stealing" the grant money from BP. I don't think they're going to like that too much: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHWOgU4qrFw&feature=channel

As was said earlier, slow news day. :)

I've been looking at that too. Is that the vent on top of the BOP? I looks like it. I'm not sure why anything (even if it is only a small amount) should be venting from a system that is equallized, in pressure, with its surroundings. More mystery.

EDITED GRAMMAR

Louisiana probably gets mostly locals on its beaches, and most tourists traveling to Louisiana are probably going to New Orleans, so its strange that the oil spill would have much effect. The Mississippi Gulf Coast gets people from out of state, but they are mostly there for the casinos. Alabama gets many summer tourists from the west: Louisiana, Miss, Tex, etc, because they have the closest Florida type beaches (white sands, reasonably clear water). They also tend to get some "snowbirds" from the Midwest in the winter. Probably coastal Alabama and Florida Panhandle, whose tourism is derived from the quality of the beaches, will struggle most.

We have mid-Atlantic coast beaches 3 hours from us, so we probably would have never have gone to the gulf coast no matter what had happened. It really depends a lot on where you are starting from, I guess..

The short answer is that they were keeping track of how much pipe was down the well as they worked. When the well blew, they had about 8,500 feet of drill pipe down. That, minus 5,000 feet of pipe that was in the riser = 3,500 feet of DP below the BOP. It's not a very technical explanation, but it's the best I can do.

Maybe someone who knows the technical specifics can fill in the meaty details?

Rockman - I believe there was a positive pressure test done. But it was done much too early. The cement in the lab did not held even after 24hours, the positive pressure test was done 12 hours after pouring.

From Energy Training Resources: Part 3 in a Series about the Macondo Well (Deepwater Horizon) Blowout by Paul Parsons July 15, 2010

/quote/
Transocean has disclosed that an April 12th laboratory test of the foamed cement indicated it had not solidified at 24 hours (0 psi compressive strength) and needed 48 hours to strongly solidify (1,590 psi). In comparison, a test of regular cement used on the previous casing string reached 2,100 psi compressive strength in only 15 hours.

Positive Test

For reasons that only BP can explain, the casing was pressured up to 2,500 psi for 30 minutes around 11:00 AM to conduct a “positive test”– only 10-1/2 hours after pumping. A positive test involves applying pressure to the casing string to determine whether it has any leaks or points weak enough to rupture at the pressure applied. The pressure is applied by closing the blind shear rams and pumping mud down the kill line.
A positive test would not likely disturb the cement directly because the only avenues to the cement would be through the casing hanger seal at the top, which had already been tested to 8,500 psi, or through the float collar at the bottom, which was blocked by the top plug, or through a leak in casing joint connections, which are tightly torqued and do not often leak. However, pressuring up a casing string could stiffen and slightly expand a string in a way that could disturb the cement. It is remotely similar to what happens when the faucet is opened on a stretched-out garden hose with the sprayer-end closed. The hose will twitch slightly at first, grow slightly in length, and the hose walls will expand due to the internal pressure. Casing is rigid, so the effect will be relatively minor. However, the process could break cement bonds closest to the casing, creating what is called a “micro-annulus” where pressure could flow even after the cement hardens. If any of the cement around the reservoir area is flawed, it could allow hydrocarbons a path to the micro-annulus, which could possibly provide a route all the way to the casing hanger seals in the wellhead.
It is purely speculation, but there is a possibility that BP wanted to conduct the test before the Schlumberger crew boarded the 11:15 helicopter flight off the rig. If the positive test had failed, the crew would likely have been needed.
/endquote/

They fudged the test ...

Rock,

There was a little bit of discussion of the positive pressure test in Dr Smith testimony. I am not certain and will have to read the full transcript when I have time but my recollection is that they did have a good positive test in his opinion but that could not be taken as completely conclusive in itself for various reasons.

Just done a quick scan of the transcript. Here's one bit of questioning concerning the positive test but I know there was more.

http://www.deepwaterinvestigation.com/go/doctype/3043/56779/

20 Q. Okay. I understand. And then two last
21 questions. If you bump the plug, the positive
22 test is testing the casing; true?
23 A. Yes, ma'am.
24 Q. And it's testing the rams; true?
25 A. No, ma'am.

1 Q. It's not testing the rams?
2 A. No, ma'am.
3 Q. All right. Is it testing the plug?
4 A. Yes, ma'am.
5 Q. Is it testing the cement?
6 A. No, ma'am.
7 Q. Is it testing the casing shoe?
8 A. Only in kind of a mechanical sense that
9 it's there and it's holding the plug.
10 Q. Okay. And is it testing the float
11 collar?
12 A. The same way.
13 Q. The same way, a mechanical sense?
14 A. Yeah.

Petrol, what the gringos call gas (when it is a liquid:)), has been over $5 a gallon for a long time in Europe. We seemed to get along fine.

NAOM

Tin Hat, just be thankful they didn't nuke the well. If they had, the radiation would have caused of sorts of mutations, and you would have been eaten by giant radioactive squid, known as Megacephalopodus Simonis

I found a very interesting report: Oil Spill Summit II: Chemical Considerations (7/29/10)
http://www.gcrc.uga.edu/PDFs/SA_SG_oil_summit2_report.pdf

Here are a couple of excerpts from report:

The DH oil contains approximately 40% methane (by weight) compared to the usual 5% (Kessler 2010). In addition to its effects on the discharge of oil, the transport and reactivity of the methane itself is also of concern. At typical sea-surface atmospheric pressure, methane is a volatile gas. However, at the depth (5,000 feet) and low temperature (approximately 41°F) of the leak site, methane forms a hydrocarbon ice called a hydrate. Hydrates can also form higher order “cage” structures, called clathrates, which can entrain other alkanes. Once they rise to a depth of about 4,200 feet, hydrates melt, at which point the methane goes into solution. In some areas near the failed well, seawater concentrations of methane have been measured at levels up to a million times background (Kessler 2010).

Methanotrophic bacteria (which consume methane) can also utilize the methane in subsurface plumes: M. Joye has measured methane oxidation rates in a subsurface plume at 1-5% per day, which is orders of magnitude higher than normal (pers. comm.). These high levels of activity should result in less toxic material available for transport throughout the Gulf of Mexico and to the Atlantic.

brit--The government estimate is for oil, not total HC. I don't expect BP to accept the figure. They will argue plausibly that the early flow was much lower, owing to obstructions creating pressure drop in the BOP and riser kink. I think the government's spill estimate is a negotiating position rather than what the scientists believe is a fair mid-range estimate.

BP will never agree to that!

BP's position is going to be that the govt. estimate is so laughably and ridiculously flawed and inaccurate and that it cannot constitutionally form the basis for any criminal sanction, let alone one in the billions of dollars.

The pipe only extends about 3,500 feet below the BOP. It is suspended far above the 5,000 feet of cement in the bottom of the well. There's about a 10,000 foot space in the well between the bottom of the hung pipe and the cement plug. [In re: Rockman' post below. I thought the well was closer to 18K feet deep, according to electric logs.]

ericy -- As I recall the numbers the cmt fills the bottom 5,000' of the 13,000' well. The DP is hanging around 3,500' below the BOP. So there's a gap of 3,000' to 4,000', filled with mud, between the top of cmt and the bottom of the DP.

Higgledy-piggledy,
p'liticalboondoggles. . .

Contest rules in the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_dactyl

Get after it, Loris & y'all.

pb - A few details. You don’t buy the BOP…you lease it. BP has been paying the lease for the BOP (and the cost of the rig drilling RW2) from the start. So you're correct: they aren't spending new money for the BOP. They been paying for it every day since RW2 started. The RW2 is still where it’s been all these weeks: suspended waiting to see if it’s needed should they lose RW1.

Bogus - A valid question. First, lets look at the physical layout. There’s a hole about 14” in diameter drilled thru the rocks at the bottom of the well. The steel casing, about 10” in diameter is run into the bottom of the hole. So now you have two spaces down hole: the inside of the csg and the area between the csg and the rocks (the annulus). So there’s only these two obvious places for cmt to go. They could have fractured the rock when pumping cmt and lost some of it that way. But we know what pressure that would take and they didn’t get close to that level when pumping cmt. As far as the cmt going out thru fractured csg it’s good to remember the cmt isn’t pumped down the csg. Drill pipe is run down to the bottom of the csg and the cmt is pumped down thru it. There is back pressured applied to the mud column above the end of the drill pipe so the most likely course for the cmt is down and back up the annulus.

Static equilibrium? Actually at the moment the well isn’t technically in equilibrium. SE implies the mud weight is balanced against the reservoir and thus keeping it from flowing. That’s what they achieved with the top kill mud. At the moment the reservoir appears to be isolated by the cmt they pumped. So the reservoir is plugged off and shouldn’t flow even if they replaced the heavy mud with sea water.

The well bore isn’t “filled with drill pipe”. There is a string of DP hanging in the top of the csg but from a pressure reading standpoint it’s virtually invisible. And yes, at the moment the only pressure readings can come from the sensors in the cap.

When they did the static top kill, they recorded the BOP pressure and volume of mud pumped.

As mud went into the well, forcing the lighter oil/gas mixture out of the well, the pressure at the top decreased in proportion to the height of the mud column.

For a particular volume of mud pumped, the pressure decrease will be bigger if it has gone into a narrow space amd smaller if it went into a wider space.

Since they knew what the diameters and heights of the various possible spaces are, they were able to conclude that the mud flowed into, and only into, the production casing.

Where the mud went, the cement followed. By controlling the volume of mud that then followed the cement they controlled how deep in the well the last of the cement ended up.

That's my understanding anyway, but as a non-oilfield person, I would hope I would be corrected if I've got it wrong.

Frank

The tubular they pumped the cement down is 9-7/8 at the top 7" at the bottom. This tubular is called a production casing it was set and encased in cement just before the blowout. It changes dia. roughly in the middle of its length. On April 20 it had cement plug on the inside and also cement surrounding it on the outside going up the open hole about 800'-1000' from the bottom. That cement obviously failed and it is unknown how much of it survived.

Also 5 million barrels flowed through that area which likely changed the shape of the hole. Something like 1200' from the bottom of the production casing is the bottom of the well liner string. This is the bottom of the outer casing of the well. They don't know much about the current condition of the outer casing. It may be damaged and it may not. Nothing that they have done (that they have revealed to the public) so far can really be used as evidence that the outer casing is intact. They don't know where the extra 200 barrels of cement went that they pumped on Aug 6. All they know is that 300 barrels should be filling the bottom 5000' of the 7" production casing.

There is a high degree of confidence that the production casing will never produce another barrel of oil. But that doesn't mean the well is safe. There is still an open space between the outer casing and the production casing (annulus) that could be open all the way from the reservoir to the wellhead. There is a seal at the top that is normally rated at 15m Kpsi that isolates this space and there may be cement at the bottom that is keeping this space from communicating with the reservoir.

The relief well is poised to intersect in the open hole which on April 20 was above the top of cement and below the 9-7/8 liner shoe (bottom of the outer casing).

Lotus - Hopefully some folks in La can pocket some of these monies…they can use the help. But with re to “Louisiana's coastal wetlands continue to turn into open water at the rate of 25 square miles per year, the result of levees built for navigation and flood protection, and tens of thousands of miles of canals dredged for the oil and gas industries.” Those man made activities have contributed to the loss but the primary cause is subsidence. Subsidence that has been going on for at least 80 million years. How much subsidence? There are rocks buried 50,000’ below the coast line that were deposited in 3’ of water. If they completed eliminate all man made factors the coastline would still continue to disappearing every year. They only way to stop the loss would be to let the Miss R. divert north of Baton Rouge and let it start building a new delta south of Lafayette. Right now all the sediments that could be rebuilding the coastline are be funneled out into the deep GOM by the Corps of Engineers efforts to maintain the existing channel. Every 20,000 years or so the MR changes course: it use to run down the Texas border to the west as well as the edge of Mobile Bay to the east.

replaced it with seawater

Fact not in evidence. Need Q4000 records of what they pumped.

Unconformity, quaking, ROCKMAN,

Thanks for your replies.

Basically my concerns and thinking were the same as "bogustrumper". I was trying to find out what the condition of the sub structure was. If there was or could be leakage through fissures/fractures in the rock at the base of the well leading to the surface of the seabed. Thanks again for your help.

Pretty dang good David IMHO. An excellent post for any newbies trying to play catch up.

David, very good synopsis. There is one technical blooper, however.

"While drawing our the old drill string, which is hollow, and therefore will be less likely to create any significant suction effect, at the speeds at which they will extract it, they can replace its weight with mud via the choke and/or kill lines which are attached below the rams."

Actually, as the drill pipe is removed, it will be an equivalent volume of the pipe that is replaced rather than the weight of the pipe. Normally, the density of the replaced fluid is equivalent to that which is already in the well and which has demonstrated to be sufficient to hold back the pressure from below.

Good summary though.

Gol-lee, a tour de force, Dave. Thanks and congratz.

Thanks for the well-written summary!
As someone outside the oil industry, I had no problem understanding everything written and it passed peer review. I hope a journalist or two reads your post as a guide for communicating this complicated industrial accident to others.

It sounds like bp is just dancing around the pole..Trying to delay everything by saying that they are "fishing" this has to be a joke or something.

So I found this little definition about the "fishing oil tool men" Do you mean this????

fishing tool
1. n. [Drilling] ID: 1391

A general term for special mechanical devices used to aid the recovery of equipment lost downhole. These devices generally fall into four classes: diagnostic, inside grappling, outside grappling, and force intensifiers or jars. Diagnostic devices may range from a simple impression block made in a soft metal, usually lead, that is dropped rapidly onto the top of the fish so that upon inspection at the surface, the fisherman may be able to custom design a tool to facilitate attachment to and removal of the fish. Other diagnostic tools may include electronic instruments and even downhole sonic or visual-bandwidth cameras. Inside grappling devices, usually called spears, generally have a tapered and threaded profile, enabling the fisherman to first guide the tool into the top of the fish, and then thread the fishing tool into the top of the fish so that recovery may be attempted. Outside grappling devices, usually called overshots, are fitted with threads or another shape that "swallows" the fish and does not release it as it is pulled out of the hole. Overshots are also fitted with a crude drilling surface at the bottom, so that the overshot may be lightly drilled over the fish, sometimes to remove rock or metallic junk that may be part of the sticking mechanism. Jars are mechanical downhole hammers, which enable the fisherman to deliver high-impact loads to the fish, far in excess of what could be applied in a quasi-static pull from the surface.

Hank,

They are running the cam inside a drill string from the Enterprise. Nowhere near the BOP or the fish yet.

delete dup

Re: 60 minutes.

They sure are jumping on the rubber in the mud returns story.

The rubber could be from the annular but there is another plausible source. Each time a string of casing is cemented a rubber plug used at the base of the casing. When drilling resumes, this rubber plug is drilled and the rubber is circulated to surface. This is a far more likely rubber source.

That BOP will be on the surface shortly so the validity of the torn up annular story will known.

NU

http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/congressman-credits-obsessed-rov-watch...

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/id/231217

Report Video Issue

C-SPAN | Newsmakers

Congressman Ed Markey talked about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, its impact on U.S. energy policy, and other energy issues. Following the interview, the journalists discussed his answers with the host.

This accident occurred because increasing copper prices made an old abandoned mine economically attractive again.

That is interesting in the context of this web site.

The camera went down the fishing pipe about 7 p.m., but the pipe got stopped at the upper shear ram on the new stack, which was, for some reason, half closed. They opened it, shimmied and wiggled the fishing pipe for a bit, one of the ROVs grabbed it, we saw the lower shear ram on the new stack was mostly CLOSED, then the feed went skitzo and then gray. It was a facepalm moment.

Seems like they forgot to open the rams on the new stack all the way before they went fishing or the rams are malfunctioned or something. The situation is ambiguous, but then, this wouldn't be Macondo if it were anything else.
If the camera is busted, it'll take them at least 55 minutes per trip to raise and lower a new camera to 5,000 feet deep, plus time spent unhooking the broken cam and hooking up the new cam on the ship. 110 minutes, minimum, I'd guess.

Maybe check back down there at about 11 p.m. Or midnight. Or tomorrow.

Maybe the BP folks are having some video conferences regarding the shear rams on the stack.
Maybe the shear rams are not so reliable on the new stack.

But once they open the stack rams, the fished-for DP should be right there in all its glory.
And I use the words, "should be" loosely.

Nice spew of gray stuff around the drill pipe.

They're flushing the stack again.
It's full of crud.

The sparks that were coming from a tube held by Hos 2 makes me believe they were plasma cutting a ram shear... blade, plate, whatever

One of the ROV's late last night was holding a circular saw.

2) The DP is displacing mud. AS the DP is raised the mud level will fall so the pressure created by the mud will fall. If they want to keep the well balanced they need to add mud.

Mixed up some Gatorade the other day. I do it with weighed powder then stir it in. I had the jug of water on the scale and I got curious as to what effect raising or lowering the spoon, in the liquid, would have (you can try this at home). Lower the spoon without touching the bottom or sides the weight increased, lift the spoon and the weight decreased. Now anyone tell me why? ;) I guess the DP will act the same as well as the change in mud level.

NAOM

My apologies for late reply ofb,

Normally there is a flapper valve in the casing shoe which prevents cement u-tubing back up under the plugs. But if it failed (as it apparently must have at some point) then in principle yes the plugs could have been reversed up the casing.

As far as dp removal goes they are not trying to maintain any hydrostatic balance across the cement filled bore so will simply allow sea water to occupy the space it took up. 

They're running it back down the drill pipe string. Don't understand the long pauses though. Guess they just like to look at the inside of the pipe and those occasional droplets that go rocketing down into the void.

Is he going in or coming out? Is he firing photon torpedoes? "It's life Jim but not as we know it".

S'awright. Looks like the reason for stopping the camera is that they're pumping monkey poo down the DP again. Also, Sub C 2 just made a hot-stab on a panel down below.

Is that a depth gauge at the botom right of screen? Depth of what?

How do you know it is the new stack? I have been trying to work out what hight we are at; while you lot were in bed. The camera monitor says 4999 feet. The mud-line is at 5067 feet. Hence how far up the BOP/LMRP/CAPSTACK are we?