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Abandoning the Capped Oil Well: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
What could possibly go wrong?
One
expert warns
that increasing pressure might have an unintended danger:
Bill
Gale, a California engineer and industrial explosion expert who is
a member of the Deepwater Horizon Study Group, said… that gas
hydrate crystals could be plugging any holes in the underground
portion of the well, and they could get dislodged as pressure
builds.
(Gale was formerly Chief Loss Prevention
Engineer for Bechtel in San Francisco, obtained his undergraduate degree
in Chemical Engineering, Masters in Civil Engineering and PhD in Fire
Safety Engineering Science from the University of California,
Berkeley. Gale is a registered professional engineer in both
mechanical engineering and fire protection engineering, and has more
than forty years of industrial loss prevention, process safety
management, and fire protection/fire safety engineering experience.)
In
other words, there may have been a destruction of a portion of the
steel well casing which was temporarily
plugged by methane hydrate crystals. Leaving the well cap may
slowly raise the pressure in the well to the point where the hydrate
crystals are dislodged, in which case the well might really start leaking.
Sound farfetched?
Maybe.
But
remember that the top hat containment dome failed because it got plugged
up with methane hydrate crystals.
And remember that there's a lot of methane down there. Indeed,
while most crude oil contains 5% methane, the crude oil gushing out of
the blown out well is 40%
methane.
Although even less likely, scientists say that the
methane could disturb the seafloor itself. As the St. Peterburg Times points
out:
Disturbing
those [methane hydrate] deposits — say, by drilling an oil well through
them — can turn that solid methane into a liquid, leaving the ocean
floor unstable, explained [Carol Lutken of the University of
Mississippi, which is part of a consortium with SRI which has been
conducting methane research in the Gulf of Mexico for years].
***
Generally
the oil industry tries to avoid methane areas during drilling for
safety reasons. But the U.S. Energy Department wants to find a way to
harvest fuel from those methane deposits, Lutken said. [I've previously discussed
that issue in detail.]
So what's the bottom line?
I
am not predicting that anything bad will happen. Hopefully, when the
storm is over and the underwater ROV submersibles return to the spill
site, everything will be peaceful and stable.
But there are many variables such as methane hydrates which - in a
worst-case scenario - could complicate matters.
- advertisements -
that original chart, phase diagram, was a diagram
of the sublimation of methane hydrate in water.?
but, not really.
http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/oil-gas/FutureSupply/MethaneHydrates/about-hydrates/conditions.htm
.
see this relink,
Hi CD, Gasmiinder and some others,
Next to GW, it is great to see your work, thx for it.
After all this technical discussion, what shows clearly that hardly anyone knows what is going on under the cap(like under the permafrost), it is great that you guys keep on biting the prey, even so many helpers have come out.
As you sit back and reflect later on the discussions it is more easy to see how many guys worked for government and BP .
For many i think it was great to see how they could not imagine, their own initiated technical discussion, would end up with replies, which cleared up, their is really not much knowledge around, what is going to happen. And rational, theoretical discussions, cannot clear up it either.
Fact stays, that on the bottom in the GOM is an waiting vulcano.
Thx, hope you have some good weekend!
BTW, before the feed disappears, does anyone notice an uncharacteristic haze developed in the view of the BOP/cap assembly, and any other ROV feed with a light source shown?
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h450SSldjIc2H9IswDj7vc-luPogD9H4T6982
I realize I've been having a monologue here over the last hours, but the sound of crickets from Augustus and friends (and there are a lot more than is immediately obvious, even to me) is becoming overwhelming... especially after the last days/weeks of 24/7 meaningful contributions. Too busy checking in with... Mother Hen?
I have been planes trains and automobiles all day. I can send you my ticket stubs if you wish. Gasmiinder is on a 10 day campout with his son. Augustus posted something above, which was overlooked apparently. I think you are getting paranoid or something. Maybe Cog Dis will share some of her meds with you, they seem to have worked for her.
You keep lumping yourself with these supposed shills, I certainly did not allege any such thing. I know Gasmiinder is camping. Auggie did not post anything here, he dropped his authoritative statements bearing no argument a few days and several threads back.
I too have other stuff to do sometimes besides reside here on ZH, so 'hotline' response is of course unreasonable to expect. Yet this group of dedicated experts was so heatedly disabusing the plebs of their inane, wild-eyed, unreasonable suppositions and hypotheses, if was I must admit sort of a letdown when I didn't get a round smackdown of the one proposed above.
None whatsoever, as yet, except in my own mind. But glad to see that cheap ridicule is the only tool left available to you. If you do not see an issue with a previously undisclosed, never covered, never explained 15-20K feet deep wellbore in an unknown condition, with undocumented level of 'abandonment' procedures completed within a few hundred feet of the formerly spewing, currently capped well -- I can't really add anything that would ruffle your feathers, so won't bother trying.
Has the cap blown off the top of the well since BP abandoned it to the storm? I don't see it mentioned in the news.
I think you credit me with "cheap ridicule" where none existed. I was only trying to summarize in order to achieve clarity. I guess you won't/can't explain it to me.... ditto in regards to the CBS 60 Min source necessarily being part of the coverup.
Oh it just ocurred to me that maybe my comment about paranoia was taken as ridicule. Not so. Cognitive Dissonence taught me that it is acceptable (she is the ZH rhetoratican after all, AND a ZH Contributor) to speculate as to your conversation partner's mental afflictions. That's why I threw that in. I was trying to add to the discussion. I think you are the third person I have diagnosed since she showed me the way. You're welcome.
Now you're just being a jackass on purpose, but I'm glad you're having fun.
None of the points you mention were brought up by me. I cannot make the points I am making any clearer, for this perhaps you can rightly call me IQ-challenged. To which I would respond by suggesting your reading comprehension skills are on the wane. But do try to read through my posts above, if you really are interested. In addition to the 2 relief wells being drilled, there are 2 'original' wells. 1 with the capping stack, the media darling of the last 3 months. Another in disgraceful anonymity, not worthy of even page 12 of the tabloids. We don't know where it is, why/how it was abandoned, does it have a cement plug or merely drilling mud, etc. It was conveniently left out of all media reports and congressional testimony, with the exception of the stray reference in the 60 mins. report. Even currently there are articles out there talking about 'problems with well in February' -- none of them seem to realize it was a different wellbore being drilled in Feb 2010, NOT the one currently on display.
As for amateur 'diagnosis' over ZH comments, it is a fool's game when CogDis does it, and is no more mature or helpful when you do it. But by all means, go wild, if that makes you feel better. It was meant as an insult the first time, and I see no reason to treat it otherwise here. So I'll be a little clearer: you're being a jackass.
How do you know Gasmiinder's whereabouts?
Because I put a tracking chip under his skin of course, dumbass.
Pay attention Wang. #484819
A BP executive stated that they were removing 3000:1 gas to oil at the well before the explosion. (thats 3000 barrels of gas for every barrel of oil) The amount of oil leaking into the gulf is 50,000 to 75,000 barrels.
at 3000:1 this would mean 75 - 210 million barrels of gas per day being released.
There is 5.64 cubic feet of gas per barrel.
That would mean there is 13.3 to 37.2 million cubic feet of gas being released or 188,000 to 527,000 metric tons of hydrocarbon gas being injected into the deep water gulf each day.
Can anybody say Dead zones?
In the spirit of transparency, please take a look at the bottom coordinates of all wellbores in the fabled ole' Miss Chasm block two hundred and fifty two, courtesy of the Mineral Mismanagement Agency:
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/pubinfo/repcat/well/pdf/Borehole%20by%20A...
It's all there in black and white. Four boreholes in 2010. Oh wait, except their bottom locations are all: #######################
Pages 1159-1160
Start dates:
08-MAR-2010 (presumably location B)
09-APR-2010 (presumably location A)
03-MAY-2010 (presumably relief well #1, Development Driller III)
20-MAY-2010 (presumably relief well #2, Development Driller II)
As a corollary to the above, if a well spudded on March 18th got to a depth of 18K+ feet (the BP relief well diagram referenced above actually shows the well reaching a depth near 20K feet) and THEN blew up on April 20th -- 32-33 days of drilling, how deep did the well spudded on 07-OCT-2009 go?
A secondary question -- if the blown-out DWH well needed only 30-odd days to reach the depth it did before it blew up -- WHY was the stated timeframe required for the relief wells repeatedly put at 2-3 months? The cynic in me wonders if BOTH relief wells have not already reached their interception points A LONG TIME AGO -- it's just that their efforts at killing and cementing the wild well(s) isn't as yet bearing fruit...
that's a 3000 page PDF
also here are the plans for relief wells C and D
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/PI/PDFImages/PLANS/30/30979.pdf page 21
here are the plans for A and B
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/PI/PDFImages/PLANS/29/29977.pdf page 3
note that the coords for the relief wells use the same survey assumptions as on the plans for wells a and b which are different than things like google earth or marinetraffic (see my post above)
Your link to the relief well plans is dead.
My mistake, the dates in my post above are TD dates (anyone know what that means?), the spud and STAT dates (anyone know what THESE mean, exactly) for the same bores are as follows:
SPUD#1: 07-OCT-2009
Stat#1: 18-MAR-2010
SPUD#2: 18-MAR-2010
Stat#2: 18-MAR-2010
SPUD and Stat dates for #3 and #4 are as indicated (03-MAY-2010 and 20-MAY-2010, respectively)
The CBS 60 minutes source said that they were told the well would take 21 days and it actually took 6 weeks (42 days). If they started Well A on 07-Oct-2009, that would make the CBS source another member of the coverup. wouldn't it?
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/PI/PDFImages/PLANS/30/30979.pdf
summary from both plans based on NAD27
a lat 28 44 17 277 N
a lon 88 21 57 340 W
b lat 28 44 16 027 N
b lon 88 22 00 581 W
c lat 28 43 51 588 N
c lon 88 21 45 589 W
d lat 28 43 53 402 N
d lon 88 22 17 790 W
An interesting little tidbit from BP's submitted plan for drilling relief wells C & D (kind of tacitly hinting there are also wells A and B):
MMMWWHHAAAHAAHAHHHAHHHAHHAHHHAHHHAAAAAAA....
With all available oil containment and response crews in the Gulf region ALREADY responding to the exising, acknowledged spill? Yeah, that one is a true classic.
Also, in light of all of the above, this makes little difference, but is nonetheless interesting:
Transocean Enterprise IS (or was) on location, yet it is claimed NOT to be one of the rigs drilling the relief wellls (DD II and DD III are supposedly doing that). Any thoughts on that?
based on NAD83 (which should be closer to current maps)
a NAD83 lat 28 44 18 128 N
a NAD83 lon 88 21 57 362 W
b NAD83 lat 28 44 16 877 N
b NAD83 lon 88 22 00 603 W
Still doesn't answer the question: what about the wellbore started in March? Has anyone seen ANY discussion in MSM with the exception of the 60 Minutes interview?
What depth did it go to? What casing/liner was used? What were the cement jobs (if any) done? Why was it abandoned? How was it abandoned? What were the specific procedures used in leaving it? Isn't this information perhaps just a wee bit pertinent to anyone trying to make sense of what happened, how, who did what and when?
I calculate the difference in longitudes to be less than 300 feet, meaning the drill platform was not moved. the difference in latitude comes out to 111 feet.
Therein lies the problem, doesn't it?
WHAT IF location B was drilled, bore fractured, bit lost, well temporarily abandoned, filled with mud (if that), then location A started?
WHAT IF there are porous, oil-containing strata between the two locations (kind of a given, since both locations were intended/expected to produce oil originally)?
WHAT IF concerns over an open annulus much touted in the beginning (see discussion about centralizers, type of casing used, etc.) and now rather slipped in the background were better founded than we think?
Where is this proof you speak of, T-F? I got on the marine map, but no sign of the ROV's. And where did you get the coordinates for the wells? Finally, how likely is it that two wells, assuming they are some distance apart (can you translate L-L coordinates into an actual distance in yards or miles?) would blow out at the same time? I have never heard of a well blowing out after it has been abandoned; this process requires that the well be cemented in its entirety. This situation seems to grow in complexity and confusion by the day.
Ummm... You say "requires"? Since when have the rules applied to the 'big boys' in the game? And even if they did, how would MMS CHECK on a well at 5000+ feet depth? Assuming they had enough time (not attending snow-dusted parties) and personnel?
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_GULF_OIL_SPILL_ABANDONED_WELLS...
I'm confused. Is a new claim emerging - that the first, abandoned, well was drilled close enough to the oil field that it blew also?
GW is the -worst- crybaby whiner on the entirety of ZH.
NOT ONE OF HIS DIRE PREDICTIONS HAS COME TRUE.
whine whine whine bullshit bullshit bullshit
anyone who keeps sucking up his baloney is a fool and there are plenty of them here.
nice batting average ya loser. -> 0.000
A whole slew of facts have been made public here because G.W. is posting his predictions here. I think that is a good thing. It is about the conversation, not the predictions.
"conversation, not the predictions."
THANKS - YOU GET IT.
Ummmm.............What happened to the 100,000 psi number that had been floated regarding the pressure in this well? Suddenly it is less than 7k?
A lot of what the MSM and FedGov have been feeding us is contradictory and maakes no sense.
A little truth now and again would be like a fresh breeze.
You do know that BP successfully drilled the well, right? The drill-bit dug through the earth down to the oil-field. The hole it left behind was filled with mud. The weight of the column of mud was calculated to be heavy enough to keep the oil from coming up the well when the drill bit finally broke through into the oil field. And it was calculated correctly, as the psi weight of the mud did keep the oil from coming out. The actual psi number has been posted here and at theoildrum.com a number of times. I'm not going to look it up - but if memory is correct, the psi was somewhere in the neighborhood of 12,000, give or take. And it successfully counter-acted the upward psi pressure of the oil. The problem came when they took out the column of mud and replaced it will a less-heavy column of water before the cement at the bottom of the well had a chance to cure. Common sense will tell you that a column of anything that has a psi less than 12,000 is not going to hold down an oil field that does have a psi of 12,000. The oil pressure will overwhelm whatever is in the pipe less than 12,000 psi - and it did. There may have also been a gas burp that complicated this situation even further.
What I have just said here has been common knowledge since the investigation into the blowout became public. I don't know of any reputable source that ever floated a 100,000 psi number. I do know that some have thrown the 100,000 psi number around. But that is only because they did not understand the truth of the previous paragraph. The oil-field was successfully controlled with a psi of 12,000, give or take.
PROOF that the "new cap" BP installed in the Gulf was NOT over the well that exploded and destroyed the New Horizon Rig.
PROOF -- BP Deepwater Horizon Drilled TWO Wells That Blew Out on FEB 13 and APR 20
PROOF the "new cap" is on the FIRST well that BP blew up in February...
WELL #A
Latitude 28.738132500000003
Longitude -88.36592777777777
WELL #B
Latitude 28.73778527777778
Longitude -88.36682805555554
Check this out
Use the above decimal mapping coordinates on the live marine traffic map linked below (as you move the map around, the coordinates change). You will see where the ROVS are in relationship to the TWO well blowouts:
http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/defa...
It appears the SKANDI NEPTUNE, which has been showing images of the "new cap for the BOP" is at the location of the FIRST well that blew, and NOT the second well (that destroyed the rig).
How do you know that the first well to "blow out" was at A and the second at B?
Isn't it possible that the second group of ships was clustered around the RELIEF WELL started after April 20th, and not a second blowout?
because A was the first well
Further to using the various coordinates that you see on the maps and the ROVs or other map sites like marinetraffic.
The lease map is based on NAD27 (1927) using the the Clarke 1866 ellipsoid (in feet).
The ROVs would be based on a more modern datum e.g. NAD83 (2007) / WGS84.
The difference alone between the same location with NAD27 and NAD83 (2007) could be 100 feet.
The plans use the UTM projection system. When the survey is undertaken they convert the source coordinates back to the NAD27 format.
You will see some sites that offer a conversion tool. I don't how they can do this unless they have the assumptions for the ROVs the same way we have the assumptions for the plans.
and GW you asked about block size - usually but not always 3x3 squares e.g. ST247 and ST252
The above summary is in more detail at this site
http://www.hydro-international.com/issues/articles/id826-Surveying_the_G...
check out these sites ( you will quickly discover that it's not straight forward)
http://www.franson.com/coordtrans
http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/faq.shtml#Software
http://www.geomatix.net/datumpro/index.html
http://www.rcn.montana.edu/0resources0/tools0/coordinates/aspx
and this does a good job of providing an overview of deepwater drilling in the GOM
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/PDFs/2009/2009-016.pdf (a bit of large PDF)
see post below
Which one of you is "DailyBanana"?
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1140895/pg1
By the way, when the BOP top line was cut off, there were two pipes in it. But they were both drill stem diameter, not casing diameter. In fact, the second pipe was probably the previously 'stuck' drill bit, which BP had to cut off and abandon. When enough gas got into the mud to lower it's density and initiate a BLEVE, the velocity of two-phase fluid shot up to near sonic, and the pipe went with the flow until it hit the internals of the BOP, where it stopped, preventing the BOP from shutting off the flow.
The previous "stuck drillbit" comment of yours makes no sense to me.
The gas did not get into the mud to lower its density .... the casing was full of seawater.
The stuck drillbit is described here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/16/60minutes/main6490197.shtml
But the guy and/or the reporter makes another, thoroughly overlooked, claim as well.
Okay, trying to follow the logic train based on your comments above and comments below.
Are my statements above accurate? I am fixing to get on a plane for about 14 hours so I will dwell on it at altitude, but will be unable to see how many junks I have accumulated until at least 24 hours from now. BTW, TD is getting on a plane also. Coincidence ???
Junk away you bastards, don't make a mess of it!
I keep asking this question, but despite frequent, almost regular, engagement from the 'expert users' on the site, I have yet to receive an actual answer beyond what could, if viewed from an uncharitable, conspiratorial viewpoint be construed as repeated blatting of the BP/.gov party line: our best experts are working on it, it's under control, you are delusional to propose anything not currently in the script.
There was some interesting commentary by Fishhawk regarding possible cross-flow from the reservoir at the bottom of the blown-out well upward to other oil-containing porous strata encountered by the well on its way down, and it is exactly in this direction my own pondering is pointing.
I would urge you to check out the pg 16 map of the 'Initial Exploration Plan' from BP. Note the locations and distance of the two proposed wells.
Also note the interview from 60 Minutes referenced in GW's post about
"Government [Agencies] Have Been Sock Puppets for BP In This Cover Up".
Is there any available documentation on HOW DEEP the first drill attempt went?
Then take a look at pages 24 & 25 of the mission report from the NOAA vessel Thomas Jefferson, which went to see if it could measure the quantity of oil underwater.
I am curious as to whether anyone thinks there may be a common thread here...
I am also curious to find out more, if there is documentation or press that discussed the topic, please share. I am aware of the previous drilling rig being seriously damaged by a hurricane (Ida, I think it was) -- but that was in summer/fall 2009. The drill attempt the electrical tech is talking about is implied to have occurred this year, as the process to drill the existing (though now not exactly up-to-spec) well was set back by several weeks and lots of budget overruns due to the drill failure/breakage.
I am asking if there is a scaled diagram or drawing in circulation of what it looks like. Also, as many coordinates of the wellhead as I find, they are all off from both each other and the originally proposed well locations by several (5-10) seconds in both directions, and I am just curious if there is an OFFICIAL value provided. The proposed well locations were only a few hundred feet away from each other to begin with.
All else aside, if there truly were 3 distinct drill attempts to reach the current well bottom, it would be interesting to see how this set of downward tunnels looks, because it sure doesn't sound like the straight vertical pipe everyone seems to take away from the official illustration of 'How a relief well works' on the BP site. Which, curiously, was recently removed -- see for yourself. There was a hi-res diagram showing the well and the progress of the 2 relief wells with depths and distances -- currently unavailable (no reason this is strange, but they removed the entire section previously entitled 'Response in detail'). It seems they forgot to take down the actual PDF:
http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/in...
or remove the Google cache:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:s6r4tQsqmUIJ:www.bp...
Jim, you say:
The ONLY way to currently have a first-hand account of what is actually happening on and near the seabed of the GOM is through the feeds provided by BP, and the statement regarding the pipes in the top of the BOP rests on an article of faith that BP reported the findings as they actually occurred. Very few in the world have the technical capacity to even GO there, and .gov has blocked access to ALL who would attempt to look. Even the NOAA research vessel tasked with trying to image the amount of oil under the water was NOT given permission to breach the 5-mile exclusion zone around the well. Think on WHERE all of the available 'objective' information about the situation is coming from.
@ CD - okay, so assume that there are 2 drill pipes in the BOP? Where does that get you? Other than BP went to a lot of trouble to conceal that 2 pipes are sticking up in the flex joint ... what other conclusions follow?
I don't know, Jim, for a smart guy, you are surprisingly slow. The number and exact thickness of pipe(s), if any, in the BOP is an interesting detail, but there is a much better question you are NOT asking.
I'm curious to know what you are thinking. But I can't know if you don't answer Jim's question. And why be coy about the question Jim is not asking? Out of the many possible questions that he is not asking, which specific one are you thinking of? I'm not trying to set you up here. It's just that I can't read your mind.
see further below
All this drivel about methane hydrate possibly plugging holes in the failed casing is malarky. Oil has been blowing through the casing for weeks, viz the casing is 140*F; no hydrate is plugging anything at that temperature, even at pressures up to 7500 psi, which our publicity admiral tells us they are not achieving, slowly. What BP/CG decided, when the pressure nearly came up to reservoir pressure, is that some oil is moving up the outside of the poorly cemented lower casing, creating a path for oil to move into a higher porous formation. The question then is will the higher formation take the pressure, or will it blow out through unconsolidated rock formation to the sea floor. Since the pressure held for several days, the BP bet is that the upper formation will probably not blow out, ie, at some future time it will reach a stable pressure and oil will quit moving up the outside of the casing. At that point bottom kill through cementing from the interceptor well will be possible. So we wait for the storm to pass; by then the well should be stable enough to try bottom kill.
Two wells were drilled. Well "A" and Well "B"
Well A was abandoned in February because it was the gas pressure was kicking the drill back. Obama authorized shutting in the well. BP then drilled Well B. This was the Deep Horizon well that exploded. The videos you are watching are of the first well, NOT the Well "B".Well "B"is an open gaping wound that nobody can stop.
PLEASE SEE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_-dlsvO4AI&feature=related sorry for yelling. I've double checked the coordinates from BP's well drilling application and the under sea rovers. We are in fact watching the first well; Well "A", NOT Well "B" (Deep water Horizon). We are being lied to. The evidence is overwhelming. This is your smoking gun.
Cheers.
The relief well was in a perfect position to kill the blowout. The weather was perfect. For some strange reason, the decision was made not to kill the well and leave a uncertain, dangerous well unattended for 7 to 10 days. Interesting. Tadd Allen has to praying that nothing happens.
Maybe because, if I were a conspiracy nut, the relief well really won't kill the blowout because the sea floor is already in collapse.
But I'm not. Yet. Anyway. Or. Maybe...
You are obviously an amateur when it comes to conspiracy.Before reading further you are warned to put on your 2 ply aluminum foil hat.Nickle foil works better btw.
The reason they stopped is obvious.When they return they will find the BOP blown out of the hole, along with everything else.This is because Matt was telling the truth.
Imagine the possibilities.The blamefest would be epic!
I have check coordinates as follows:
W,"Deepwater Horizon explosion",28.736667,-88.387167
W,"Skandia? Neptune", 28.738?, -88.36868?These two positions are over one mile apart !!!!!!! Mathew Simmons is right.