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BP's Blowout Preventer is Leaning and Might Fall Over
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As I have previously
noted, it is now clear that there is damage to BP's well beneath
the sea floor.
Recently-retired Shell Oil President John
Hofmeister told MSNBC yesterday:
The question is
whether there is enough mechanical structure left at the base of the
reservoir to hold the cement when they start pouring cement in [from
the relief well].***
The more oil we some coming out,
the more it tells you that the whole casing system is
deteriorating. The fact that more oil would be coming
out rather than less oil, would suggest that the construction
within the pipe is offering no resistance whatsoever, and we’re
just getting a gusher.
Newsweek gives
a balanced view regarding the risk of a total structural failure of
the well:
The likelihood
of a complete collapse is difficult to assess, in part, engineers and
legislators say, because BP hasn’t shared enough information to
evaluate the situation. But a handful of clues suggest that the company
is concerned. On Friday, BP spokesperson Toby Odone acknowledged that
the 45-ton stack of the blowout preventer was tilting noticeably, but
said the company could not attribute it to down-hole leaks. “We don’t
know anything about the underground portion of the well,” he said.
But, the stack “is tilting and has been tilting since the rig went
down. We believe that it was caused by the collapse of the riser.” The
company is monitoring the degree of leaning but has not announced any
plans to run additional supports to the structure.
As many
have speculated ... concerns over structural integrity are what led BP
to halt “top kill” efforts late last month. When it was digging this
particular well, the company ran out of casing–the pipe that engineers
send down the hole–and switched to a less durable material called
liner. This may have created several weak spots along the well that
would be particularly vulnerable to excessive pressure or erosion. So
instead of sealing the well, the company has been focused on trying to
capture the oil as it flows out the top.
At this point, some
experts say, additional leaks wouldn’t matter much. “It’s very
possible that there are subfloor leaks,” says [Roger Anderson - an oil
geophysicist at Columbia University]. “But that doesn’t change the
strategy moving forward.” The linchpin of that strategy involves
drilling relief wells that would absorb all possible leaks, both at the
top and the bottom of the hulking, teetering structure. Relief wells
are drilled straight down into the sea bottom. After running parallel
to the existing well for a few thousand meters, they cut in and
intersect the original well bore. BP is drilling two such wells, one on
either side of the main well. Once they are complete, the company
will use them to pump heavy fluid and cement into the main well,
stopping the oil at its source. The approach usually has a 95 percent
success rate.
But to work, the well must be sealed as far down as
possible–if it’s sealed too high, oil could still escape through any
leaks beneath the seal. In this case, relief wells will have to drill
down to 5,500 meters, and that takes time, at least until August. The
real question now is whether the entire structure can hold out long
enough.
One of the dangers which the relief wells are racing against is that
the blowout preventer (BOP) is leaning ... and might fall over.
The well casing itself is attached to the
BOP. And - as discussed below - the BOP is very heavy. So if the BOP fell over, it would likely
severely damage the structural integrity of the casing.
As Think Progress points out:
In a press teleconference Monday, National Incident Commander Thad
Allen announced that the riser package is tilting “10 or
12 degrees off perpendicular,” twice the 5.5 degree tilt of the LeaningTower of Pisa:
The entire arrangement is kind of listed a little bit. I
think it’s 10 or 12 degrees off perpendicular so it’s not quite
straight up.
As the
Times-Picayune notes:
The integrity of the well has become a major topic of
discussion among engineers and geologists.
"Everybody's worried
about all of this. That's all people are talking about," said Don Van
Nieuwenhuise, director of geoscience programs at University of
Houston. He said the things that BP has being doing to try to stop the
oil or gain control of it have been tantamount to repeatedly hitting
the well with a hammer and sending shock waves down the pipe. "I don't
think people realize how delicate it is."
"There is a very
high level of concern for the integrity of the well," said Bob Bea,
the University of California Berkeley engineering professor known to
New Orleanians for investigating the levee failures after Katrina, who
now has organized the Deepwater Horizon Study Group. Bea and other
engineers say that BP hasn't released enough information publicly for
people outside the company to evaluate the situation.
***
When
wells are drilled, engineers send links of telescoping pipe down the
hole, and those links are encased in cement. The telescoping pipe,
called casing, unfolds like a radio antenna, only upside down, so the
width of pipe gets smaller as the well gets deeper.
The cement
and layers of casing are normally quite strong, Van Nieuwenhuise said.
But with the BP well, there are several weak spots that the highly
pressurized oil could exploit. BP ran out of casing sections before it
hit the reservoir of oil, so it switched to using something called
liner for the remainder of the well, which isn't as strong. The joints
between two sections of liner pipe and the joint where the liner pipe
meets the casing could be weak, Van Nieuwenhuise said.
Bill
Gale, an engineer specializing in fires and explosions on oil rigs who
is part of Bea's Deepwater Horizon Study Group, said the 16-inch wide
casing contains disks that are designed to relieve pressure if
necessary. If any of those disks popped, it could create undesirable
new avenues for the oil to flow.
Bea said there are also
concerns about the casing at the seabed right under the blowout
preventer.
Van Nieuwenhuise said he's never actually heard of
oil from a blown out well rupturing the casing and bubbling up through
the ocean floor. He would consider that an unlikely, worst-case
scenario.
A more likely problem, he said, is that oil could find
its way into open spaces in the casing string, known as the annulus,
and travel up the well in areas where it isn't supposed to be. This
scenario could be one reason why more oil than expected is flowing at
the containment cap that BP installed earlier this month to collect the
oil.
Bea is more concerned about the worst-case scenario than
Van Nieuwnhuise. In an answer to a question, Bea said, "Yes," there is
reason to think that hydrocarbons are leaking from places in the well
other than the containment cap.
"The likelihood of failure is
extremely high," Bea said. "We could have multiple losses of
containment, and that's going to provide much more difficult time of
trying to capture this (oil)."
Meanwhile, observers monitoring
the video feeds from the robotic vehicles working on the sea floor have
noticed BP measuring a tilt in the
40-ton blowout preventer stack with a level and a device called an
inclinometer.
***
Bea said BP isn't sharing
enough information for others to know. If there is oil and gas
escaping from the sides of the well, it could erode the sediments
around the well and eat away at the support for all the heavy
equipment that sits above. Bea said
reports that BP is using an inclinometer is significant news. "It
tells me that they are also concerned," he said.
Here are videos of BP measuring the tilt of the BOP.
While
the BOP weighs 40 tons, the riser package as a whole weighs over 450 tons. If the BOP and
riser package fell over, it would inflict severe damage to the attached
well casing.
The Houston Chronicle reports:
Money-saving measures
BP took while designing the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico appear
to have dogged efforts to bring the massive oil spill under control.
Documents released
by congressional investigators show that modifications to the well
design BP made last year included a reduction in the thickness of a
section of the casing — steel piping in the wellbore
The modification
included a slight reduction in the specified thickness for the wall of a
16-inch-diameter section of pipe toward the bottom of the well,
according to a May 14, 2009, document.
***
The condition of the well also limits how much oil and
gas can flow into containment systems now being used successfully to
capture some of the flow. Even if a vessel could capture all the
hydrocarbons gushing from the well, some would have to be released to
keep well pressure under control.
Marvin Odum, president of Houston-based
Shell Oil, the U.S. arm of Royal Dutch Shell, told the Houston
Chronicle last week that the integrity of the well casing is a major
concern. Odum and others from the industry regularly sit in on
high-level meetings with BP and government officials about the spill.
If the well casing
burst it could send oil and gas streaming through the strata to appear
elsewhere on the sea floor, or create a crater underneath the wellhead -
a device placed at the top of the well where the casing meets the
seafloor - that would destabilize it and the blowout preventer.
The steel casing used
in oil wells is strong, said Gene Beck, petroleum engineering professor
at Texas A&M, but pressures deep in a well are powerful enough to
split strong steel pipe or "crush it like a beer can."
The strength and
thickness of casing walls are key decisions in well design, he said. If
the BP well's casing wasn't strong enough, it may already be split or
could split during a containment effort.
BP spokesman Toby Odone said the decision
to reduce the pipe thickness was made after careful review. The company
said it doesn't know the condition of the well casing and has no way
of inspecting it.
BP is drilling two relief wells to intercept the Macondo
well near the reservoir and plug it with cement. A rupture in the
Macondo well casing probably wouldn't affect that effort, said Donald
Van Nieuwenhuise, director of geoscience programs at the University of
Houston.
"When
they start the bottom kill the cement will try to follow oil wherever
it's escaping, so it would actually hide a lot of sins in the well
bore," Van Nieuwenhuise said.So far there are no signs that the section of the pipe
below the sea floor is leaking.
The blowout preventer
has been listing slightly since the accident, but officials believe
that may have happened when the Deepwater Horizon sank while still
attached to the well via a pipe called a riser.
***
But the longer the well flows uncontrolled
the more likely it is that the well casing could be damaged or the
blowout preventer damaged further. Sand and other debris that
flows through the pipes at high velocity can wear through metal over
time, said Van Nieuwenhuise.
The chances of
the well eroding from underneath and
the blowout preventer tipping may seem unlikely.
"But everything about this well has been
unlikely," said David Pursell, an analyst with Tudor Pickering Holt
& Co
Indeed,
oil industry expert Rob Cavner says that he wouldn't be surprised if
the BOP ended up falling over entirely:
- advertisements -
The BOP is mounted ON the well casing. While it is NOT entirely supported by the well casing, as it could never hold the weight, the majority of the weight is supported somewhere below the sea floor, which for several meters is basically mush.
If the BOP falls over it will not "crimp" the well casing, but rather open the well with full-force relief.
It will be difficult for anyone, except BP who has the actual sea floor specs, to determine what angle will be critical.
If that BOP falls over we will see a catastrophe unlike anything that modern man has witnessed.
Don't think that the GOLFER has not been briefed about this for many weeks.
__
Allan: That's quite a lovely Jackson Pollock, isn't it?
Museum Girl: Yes, it is.
Allan: What does it say to you?
Museum Girl: It restates the negativeness of the universe. The hideous lonely emptiness of existence. Nothingness. The predicament of Man forced to live in a barren, Godless eternity like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void with nothing but waste, horror and degradation, forming a useless bleak straitjacket in a black absurd cosmos.
Allan: What are you doing Saturday night?
Museum Girl: Committing suicide.
Allan: What about Friday night?
__
The one thing that comes through in this article in how much everyone is guessing. No one really knows because BP isn't saying anything-or if they are sharing information, it is not being shared with the general public.
If there was such a thing as karma, we'd all be dead by now. Probably hunted by a giant mechanized Dick Cheney.
You mean the real Dick Cheney isn't mechanized? I just always assumed that he was. Isn't that why his face is twisted to one side (broken pulley), and why they keep having to change the batteries that power his mockup of a heart every year or two?
MechaGodCheney
I have been posting about this for two weeks plus...Where are all THE DEGREED LOUDMOUTHS that trashed every post? Where are the two CLOWNS in particular who MOCKED people who are "not as technical as them", with one ARROGANT CLOWN going so far as to say that he "really should not waste his time".
I guess that it once again proves that ARROGANCE is not INTELLIGENCE.
Always look on the bright side of life...
(whistles)
__
Allan: That's quite a lovely Jackson Pollock, isn't it?
Museum Girl: Yes, it is.
Allan: What does it say to you?
Museum Girl: It restates the negativeness of the universe. The hideous lonely emptiness of existence. Nothingness. The predicament of Man forced to live in a barren, Godless eternity like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void with nothing but waste, horror and degradation, forming a useless bleak straitjacket in a black absurd cosmos.
Allan: What are you doing Saturday night?
Museum Girl: Committing suicide.
Allan: What about Friday night?
__
good night
M M maybe if it falls over it will pinch off the well pipe?
I can see it coming, they are going to end up nuking it.
If it pinches the pipe, that would be the same as capping it, no? That would redirect all the pressure down the pipe into the areas where it's leaking through. That's why they UNcapped it in the first place.
Hopefully they can stop it. We can pray. If it does not stop this summer at the latest, I think we are all in very big trouble.
On a serious note, I think your post is very intelligent; you say the correct thing "If it does not stop this summer....
Thats right Mr Gekko, its called karma. Unfortunately America's karma account remains very much in debit.
War is upon you! Prepare to suck the cock of karma!
I only like burgers. No sausage. But thanks for the offer.
Did you know that Obama likes burgers? He took the tiny Russian puppet out for burgers today. I hope Obama will take me out for burgers one day soon. I don't like Obama much, but I really like burgers.
Obama and Geithner would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today!
that is it in a sentence. started about the time these two were born: federal deficits throughout a business cycle; really got going under reagan and bush/bush. makes counter cyclical policy very hard when needed most. thus we have the lovely policy choice indicated by markets and pundits currently: austerity in a deflationary depression. classic beyond words.
Popeys rule, I yam wad i yam!
Fur burgers are the best!
Ever try a bearded taco?
I am not surprised. This well will leak (make that gush) for a long time. If relief wells actually work I will be amazed. This is a catastrophe, with long term consequences, that we have to learn to live with.
Some good engineer give me a % incline that takes 450 tons and exceeds the riser strength causing failure.
Good question, if it were a guessing game I would say 15 degrees. However, if it did cause deformation...what if it crimped the pipe and dramatically reduced the flow?
As I understand it, that would be terrible. Restricting flow at the BOP by bending the pipe increases the pressure in the leaking casing under the seabed.
In other words, the chances of seabed-erosion/explosive opening of a fissure to the oil-source below becomes much more likely...
OK, the planet weighs 6.6 sextillion tons. What percent of that is oil? I'm guessing the Macondo deposit is only a fraction of that. Hope that puts things in perspective. Now lets turn our sights on something truly fucked up. Remember the summer before 9-11 there was a rash of stories about shark attacks? Here we are again.
You, sir, ask an excellent question. Someone should post your question over at TheOilDrum.com
Considering the number of innocents America killed for oil, SERVES US RIGHT. It is our national punishment.
Didn't I read here on Zerohedge that British Petroleum had their beginnings in the coup in Iran that John Foster Dulles started in 1953? If the US secret government never did that there might never have been a British Petroleum Company and hence no leak in the gulf.
Can anyone here explain this history?
Operation Ajax, a CIA operation authorized by Eisenhower (funded by Sec. State John Foster Dulles, and headed by CIA director Allen Dulles, carried out in 1953; Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of Teddy Roosevelt, conceived of the overthrow idea/plan). Overthrew the democratically elected prime minister Mossadeq, who had nationalized their oil resources and basically tossed out the predecessor company of BP (who up to that point had essentially been exploiting those resources and the domestic labor without enough compensation for it to be worth it for Iran, unlike the 50/50 deal Saudi Arabia got as far as profit sharing).
After we installed the Shah (dictator), their oil resources were split up amongst British and American oil interests. Hence why neither the Brits nor the Americans really have a leg to stand on as far as convincing Iran to bend to our will regarding issues such as nuclear arms. Or why we can't really bitch about their human rights record when their police/military tactics were US trained (SAVAK secret police).
Thank you. Nice response. Loos like a lot of problems started with that coup besides the creation of BP. If there was no Shah installed there would have been no Khomeini.
I read years ago that the people in Iran who knew the truth just could not believe the USA would do such a thing. That the USA was what it said it was, the good guys. But I guess I would have thought so too then.
Ummmm, the US will deflect most of the negative consequences of this oil spill on other (non US citizens) people.
Plus the US will definitively use this event to push up their best interests.
Cannot be seen as a punishment.
ROTFLMFAO!
How many die per ten cents of fuel price reduction? In the U.S. actuarial value of a life is already shockingly low, so what are we really talking about for a few thousand more Darfuris (if there are any left)? Curious commuters want to know.