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Confusion As to New Oil Cap ... Relief Wells Halted
Don Van Nieuwenhuise - director of geosciences programs at the
University of Houston - gives the best summary of what is happening with
BP's new effort to stop the oil gusher.
Van Nieuwenhuise points
out:
- There is probably damage to the well bore under the sea
floor
- BP is performing acoustic tests (bouncing
sound waves down beneath the seafloor) to try to detect any leaks in the
subsurface
- BP will gradually close more and more
vents to gradually increase the pressure within the well bore (like
gradually covering more and more of your garden hose, so that more
pressure builds up in the hose)
BP
will perform a "well integrity test", shutting off the oil flow out of
the cap, and then seeing how much pressure builds up below.
The
more pressure the better ... because that would mean that there are no
major leaks beneath the seafloor. By way of analogy, a good way to see
if you have any leaks in your garden hose is to cover up the nozzle and
see if water goes shooting out someplace else.
The government
official in charge of the response to the oil spill - Coast Guard
admiral Thad Allen - confirmed today that:
- A 1.5 mile
“seismic run” was conducted to detect “anything that might happen with
the sea floor” from the well integrity test
- You
“could make the case that there’s some structural integrity issues with
the casing of the wellbore”
Oil
industry expert Rob Cavner - who previously explained
that there is damage in the oil well beneath the seafloor, and that BP
has to let the oil spill keep on gushing to avoid further damage to the
well bore until the well can be killed with relief wells (subsequently confirmed
by BP) - says that he is worried that the well integrity test could
further damage the well bore and could blow out the entire well:
So
how are things going so far?
how are things going so far?
BP has delayed the well
integrity test.
As the Wall Street Journal notes:
The
start of BP PLC’s (BP) crucial integrity test of the leaking Gulf of
Mexico oil well has been delayed until at least Wednesday, the U.S.
official leading the disaster response said.
Adm. Thad
Allen, the
former U.S. Coast Guard chief, said he had taken the decision to delay
the test after meetings with Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a Nobel
Prize-winning physicist, and other top experts.
“As a
result of
these discussions, we decided that the process may benefit from
additional analysis that will be performed tonight and tomorrow,” Allen
said in as statement.
AP also
notes that engineers are mapping subsurface dangers like gas pockets.
Rather
than a one-day delay, as was being reported yesterday, AP notes that
this
is an "if-when" situation:
"Our basic
position was, if you can give us the answers we need ... then go
ahead," the [anonymous government] official said. Until then, "they
can't go forward."
The official
stressed that the
government was acting out of "an abundance of caution" and still hopes
the temporary cap can be placed on the well.
Hopefully,
today's delay does not mean that
substantial leaks have been found below the level of the seafloor, and
hopefully Cavner's fears that the tests will blow out the well bore are
unfounded.
But because BP has consistently suppressed
information as long as possible, we won't know for some time. Remember,
BP suspended the "top kill" operation for 16 hours - because,
according to numerous experts, it
was creating more damage to the
well bore - without
even telling the media, local officials or the public that it had
even delayed the effort until long afterwards.
Indeed, even BP
hasn't been sounding all that confident about a well
integrity test. From another AP story:
"Everybody
hope and pray that we are seeing high pressures here," said senior BP
vice president Kent Wells.
***
The
integrity test,
however, was not without danger and Wells admitted that pressure caused
by closing the valves too quickly on the cap could send oil shooting
up from a new leak on the sea floor.
"The
worst-case scenario is that it could actually broach back to the sea
floor," Wells said.
But perhaps most importantly,
work on the relief wells has been halted during the pending completion
of the
well integrity test. As CNN notes
:
Work on two relief wells — seen as the ultimate
solution to the oil disaster — was suspended.
Wells said work on the first relief well, expected to be
completed
in August, was delayed while officials prepare for the integrity test
out of an abundance of caution. It is possible, though unlikely, that shutting in the
well
as part of the integrity test could cause the back side of the relief
well to be blown out, Wells said.
“It’s a good
precaution to take at this time,” he said. However, the delay will set
the relief well progress back by one to two days.
Bloomberg
quotes the frustration of an oil industry expert:
“There
are too many cooks in the kitchen,” said David Pursell, an analyst at
Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. in Houston and a former petroleum
engineer who conducted pressure tests. “Everybody in this process has
said the single and best chance of stopping this flow is the relief
well, and
now they’ve held up the
relief well while they’re figuring out protocol.”
MSNBC
correctly notes that this raises a lot of questions:
If BP
and the government had been forthcoming about the oil spill, we
wouldn't have to guess about what's going on, and we wouldn't worry that
something bad is happening behind the scenes.
But BP and the
government have done everything in their power to cover up the facts. BP has tried to cover up its
blunders by lowballing spill estimates, keeping reporters out of areas hardest hit by the oil
(and see this, this, this
and this) and threatening
to arrest them if they try to take pictures (and see this), hiding
dead birds and other sealife, and using dispersants to hide the
amount of spilled oil (the dispersants are only worsening the damage caused by the spill).
The government is aiding and
abetting the cover-up. See this
and this.
So
we may only know what is going on right now long after the fact, when a
whistleblower spills the beans.
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When any well blows out there is a concern about the condition of the hole, generally the bottom section where the casing failed. In this case with the high pressures there are concerns about how the casing in the upper part of the well were affected, particularly after the pressures of the junk shot. Then there is the unknown affect of what may have been a dropped string of drill pipe that may have gone down hole.
There really is not much risk of problem if there is a casing leak several thousand feet down the hole. A sand absorbs what ever leaks and takes it and spreads it out. When the well is killed and the driving pressure source is stopped, whatever is there will stay there. The two kill wells are about 2500 feet away from the blowout and have drilled through the shallow zones. They would have been able to detect communication with a 10,000 psi drive if it was encountered at 2,000 ft as they were not mudded up to control that pressure. they would not have been able to get through it.
If there is some casing breach down the hole, it will require a different mud weight to control the blowout with a lesser column height of mud. that is an adjustment that can be done and not that big a problem. It is very important, IMHO, to get the casing set in the relief well before thay start screwing around with some academic science experiments with lasers and light sabers.
I saw the baseline seismic idea floated at oildrum. One person suggested that BP would most certainly have already had a baseline of the area. It's hard to imagine that they could have just called the seismic boat in at the last minute so it must have been part of the plan for at least a few days. We'll maybe learn more once the 5pm briefing gets underway.
They certainly have 3D seismic over the area. The baseline would be to compare how things exist "right now" with a second survey run with exactly the same parameters after the shut-in. Both could then be compared back to the original pre-drill. Point is that the only logical reason I can think of for this line NOW is to compare before/after the shut-in.
We're getting lot's of mixed signals here - hopefully 5 will shed some light. It still seems logical to me that if the well bore is compromised the last liner string is the most likely place for that to have happened.
just now from Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65O5TA20100714
All they did was put a riser on the well stub. This takes the oil plume out of the camera's view, so anyone looking at it would react "They capped it !".
Future scandal in the works.
posted in the other thread
follow the boat that's doing the seismic survey of the bottom of the gulf (it was supposed to have only been out for a 3 hour cruise yesterday, a 3 hour cruise...
http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/default.aspx?mmsi=352923000
Wang, I'd be grateful if you can provide a link showing that the Geco Topaz is the ship they're using for acoustic sounding.
GW, it's in the first minute of the Thad Allen briefing video you posted, @ ca. 0:40.
Thanks, I'll take another listen...
+100,000 BPD
From Rense?
No, other way around. Dees lets Rense use his images for free (I know, because Dees sent me and others a call for donations, and he said so).
+1000 powerful stuff
Is Lindsay the maniac on the left or the right of the TV? Psychologically, politically and physically I mean. :>)
Lindsey is like, so f***in hot, I mean, she is too pretty for people I think. Why does everybody hate, for real? Thats why everybody talks about her, cuz she is too f***in' hot! Jealous much?! LOLz! I mean, its her f***in' business, you know? So she likes to party! Who doesn't?
Did you hear what the Cavs owner said about LBJ? Oh...my...gawd!
...............................................................................................
I have to say, and this may sound funny, but my heart breaks for what they did to Lindsey. Same for Britney. They broke those girls down, and continue to do so, for the sake of entertainment. It is sick and wrong, this mind/soul abuse for the sake of the industry.
.............................................................................................................
If they system crashed, how long would it take for anyone to care??? Notice???
So now the actual players involved admit there may be structural damage below sea floor level of the well. And yet this was repeatedly downplayed by other so-called "expert" posters over the last few weeks. Curiouser and curiouser. Of course, many so-called "experts" sided with BP when BP claimed a maximum of 5000 BPD early on too. There was "no way" it could be as high as 20,000 BPD. Yet in the end it turned out to be more than double that. That raises lots of doubts about forum posts by these so-called experts, doesn't it?
Psy-ops or counter intelligence, your bailout money at work.
Just watch the video of Coast Guard admiral Thad Allen and check out his body language in the first 30 seconds. He looks as if he has seen a ghost! They are finally starting to come to grips with the fact that this situation is worse then they ever imagined. I'm sure we will see the president giving another speech pretty soon now.
I was thinking that also but then he kept saying 'we' are doing this and 'we' are doing that. Big time alarm is when he starts saying BP is doing this and 'they' are doing that IMO.
Thanks for the observation.
Chatter on the 'net around this topic has for a while suggested that they might be losing a critical battle for time, and that the window of opportunity was measured in weeks not months. That if things did not line up just right, they could lose control entirely. Then we might be talking nukes 4 realz.
Something wicked this way comes. Bitchez.
Like you, I have a technical background, but not an expert in offshore drilling. As you say, there has been speculation that things are much worse than they are admitting, and as time has progressed, the "official" line starts looking more like the "crazy" talk from a few weeks prior. Perhaps in the near future we will see "official" discussion on the possible use of a nuke.
The problem is that an off the shelf nuke could not be used. One would have to be custom designed for this specific scenario. A nuke is not something you just bolt together. There would be extreme amounts of work to just handle the logistics of deploying a nuke. If they started today, it would be an extreme stretch to consider that one could be ready a year from today. I think it was a mistake for them to categorically take a nuke off the table at the start. DOE should have started a contingency plan, and preliminary design, just in case the worst case happened with the well.
From the second or third day BP has stated that the only solution was a relief well. While that was being drilled they tried a few other things that could work but were not successful. Should they ahve tried those, or not?
Now, when they get near the end of the relief well program, we get the OBammie team that wants to sun some "experiments" for the science class. That only adds a few days of unrestrained flow to the deal as the collection vessels hae to be disconnected. Thank your OBammie for the delay and no progress.
They will turn to the Russians.
I'm sure they already have.
Americans will need a lot of lead time to accept this solution. You'll know they have the device in hand when the talk turns to which is worse, a permanent oil slick or an underground nuke with minimal radiation exposure and we promise to monitor coastal communities yadda yadda.
It's all about framing.
If they do decide to nuke, whose nuke they would use is an interesting question. In the end, it will be a political decision, not a technical one. DOE's primary mission is nukes. If anyone is going to use a nuke, DOE would apply incredible pressure that it should be a good ol' USA one. In either case, my prediction remains . . . it will be at least 1 year from when they decide to do it until it is used.
One year sounds about right if they don't do a modern Manhattan Project on us ... but that would place any non-conventional solution deployment well after midterm elections.
What to do, what to do ... ;)
much has been made of the of the book of revelation's reference to the seas turning to blood. more scary, however, is the description in rev. 18 of a place that is the center of unprecedented commerce, power, wealth, corruption and sin, whose destruction is total and comes about in one hour. now click below to see an article describing how this could happen as a result of attempting to seal the oil leak with a pulse nuclear weapon, which could possibly ignite the methane contained in the gulf oil of mexico. i'm not saying this potential incident is the one predicted in rev. 18, but the parallels are frightening. please read both and see for yourself.
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/july122010/gulf-nighmare-ta.php
Methane would only burn in the presence of oxygen, of which there is exactly none at depth.
A nuclear blast would be calibrated to not break the surface of the seabed in any case, and even then it's still under a monstrous water column.
Methane is a poor fuel for an open air fuel/air bomb. Really need gasoline or kerosene for that. At the bottom of the sea, fugetaboutit.
End of story. Vaguely entertaining, for about 3 seconds, but quite silly.
read the article. look at the sources noted at the bottom. are you a geochemist or nuclear physicist?
I am none of those things. Simply a classically trained scientist who recognizes a crock-o-shit when he reads it (not what you wrote, but that link resource).
Whether the weapon being mentioned would work or not for closing the well, the references cited are meaningless to the methane argument. The crisis managers might or might not deploy a nuke to close the well, they will certainly not ignite the GoM or the air above or anything else with said weapon. I would be more worried they might make a bad situation worse, but only in terms of creating a greater release of oil with even less chance of controls.
The likely "worst case" is well understood and really, really bad. No need to set one's hair on fire concerning other outcomes that skirt fundamental physical limits. Reality here is enough to kill us, we should stick to that.
The religious slant is very sad story, 2/3rd of all living things in the sea die and all sea vessels cannot float anymore. Does Methane change the density of water? If this thing leaks for 50 or 100 years at 15,000 psi who knows.
there are theories that disappearances in the devil's triangle are the result of methane bubbles rising from the sea floor coincident with the ship's location. scientists have been alarmed at methane levels in the gulf miles away from maconda, and the US navy has recently evacuated 46 ships from the gulf all the way to costa rica.
"...and the US navy has recently evacuated 46 ships from the gulf all the way to costa rica."
This is new. Link please to cross reference? Thanks.
Here's a link
http://www.welovecostarica.com/public/46_US_Warships_Plus_7000_US_Marine...
The 7000 marines are required to pull the ships thru the jungles in pursuit of drug smugglers. Plus their are mucho Norte Americanos in CR who are not paying income tax. The navy will begin shelling their haciendas soon. Nothing to do with the imminent detonation of the GoM.
Ah. So business as usual.
Never mind then.
of course the reason may be to protect the 7,000 marines and navy personnel from tixic waters and air in the gulf, much unlike BP's and the govy's lack of interest in keeping cleanup workers and coastal residents safe.
No, I'm sure the reason is what they read in Rev. 18. You remind me of the religious whack jobs down here in New Orleans who were convinced prayer would turn Katrina away. Then after the storm they started showing up at my door claiming it was God's punishment on the sinners. Most of the ones who stayed waiting for God to save them had to be pulled off their rooftops by the Coast Guard. Please take your religious BS to some other forum.
sorry i did not respond to your inane post earlier, as i was out to dinnner with friends discussing the nag hammadi and bhadavad gita, you monomaniacal simpleton. i'll bet when those poor bastards showed up at your house in NOLA, you slammed the door in their faces rather than help them, because that would have required that you delve into your spiritual side.
Enjoying your hatred with impunity? What about your spiritual side? Don't do this, friend. The ocean is dying. We gotta stop.
are you for real? go back and read the post from archie bunker to see where the hate is. i posited ideas and wa attacked. you joined in on the dark side.
I am not on a side. I'm on his side, your side, my side, our side.
I'll give that an AMEN!
speaking of amen. someone once suggested to
me that spiritual text, bible etc., has been mostly
misunderstood throughout history in that the texts
never refer to historic events or professed future
events but pertain to states of mind or consciousness
and the evolving spirit, or man, or humanity as
a conscious experience of I. just a thought.
if you need help let it be known. that is what
humanity does, imperceptibly sometimes. there is
a spirit behind every narrative, a voice that you can hear.
transparent and identifiable. no?
oui, check this out, it's interesting to say the least --->
http://www.thechronicleproject.org/
nice link, from this reading can you imagine
what was being refered to that they claim is
properly termed "arch", i think it was, that has been
called the adams "rib"?
thanks for the link.
Or, perhaps we should extend the same courtesy to those with an interest in prophecy, that we do to those who would suggest we kill bankers and jews. These forums do not orbit a universe at which you are the center.
I have never suggested that we kill all bankers and jews, and I certainly hope you are not painting me with that brush. I wish those people would find another forum as well, and I am certainly free to suggest that they do, just as they are certainly free to ignore me and keep right on posting. But I don't think most of us here are here for prophesy and rantings about genocide. If I am incorrect in that assumption, then I stand corrected.
for one who does not want to be painted with a brush you are quick to get out your pallette of colors for others
And can you make room for someone who has been through a hell of a lot, who may be biased against a group unfairly, to work it out? Do Christians do that?