This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Has the Oil Well Really Been Capped?
Everyone is saying that the well has been capped.
I hope so.
But even the government's spokesman, Thad Allen, isn't saying that it's been capped.
Here's an interchange from yesterday's press briefing:
Joel
Achenbach: Yes thank you Admiral, I’m sorry if I’m a little bit
confused, is there some concern that there are hydrocarbons in the
annulus or is there some kind of reading or was it a model that someone
examined and decided this was a concern? Can you explain that just a
little bit better?…
Admiral Allen: … We do not know the status of
the annulus, OK? It, there could be nothing in it or it could be full
of hydrocarbons. It could be full of hydrocarbons that are being
pressured up from the reservoir, there could be hydrocarbons that are in
there that have been sealed off because cement actually did that from
the top kill.Or there could be a way that because of the seals
at the top of the annulus between that and the well head there could be a
path for hydrocarbons to go forward. We’ve never known that from the,
from the beginning…
Oil industry expert Bob Cavnar notes: "It's pretty clear they have pressure on the wellhead when they shouldn't." Cavnar translates Allen's comments as meaning:
BP
continues to have pressure on the wellhead from down below and have
been letting me believe for a week that the well is static.
On August 8th, Cavnar pointed out in a must-read article that it is impossible to say whether or not the well has been capped given the available information:
The problem is that there are lots of questions that remain unanswered. Here's what I want to know:
- Is the well dead?
- What is the pressure on the well? Now?
- If the well is open to the surface, what is that pressure?
- What was the pressure during the "static kill"? Did it change at any time? What was total volume pumped?
- What
was the pressure during the bullhead cement job? Did you do the
"hesitation squeeze" that Kent Wells mentioned in passing? What was
displacement volume?- How do you know all the cement went down the casing?
- What was the pressure on the well after the job?
- Why is the flex joint flange leaking?
- Why are the ROV feeds no longer provided in a decipherable resolution?
- Why are some ROV feeds not being provided?
- Has the well kicked since the bullhead cement job?
- What pressure did the bullhead cement job test to?
- Have you had to pump mud into the well since the bullhead cement job? How much?
- Why are clouds of debris continuing to obscure the view several days after the well was supposedly "static"?
- Were the rams of the old BOP opened for the static kill or bullhead cement job?
- If so, could you tell if the drill pipe fish stuck in the BOP dropped into the well?
- Can you close the blind shear rams now?
- What is the damage to the rams in the old BOP?
Until
these questions are answered by BP, we have no real information to
tell us that the well is dead, or even safe. As long as they continue
to stonewall critical data, I'll only continue to believe that the well
is not "static" or safe.
- advertisements -
Oh man GW, I thought your BP threads were dead and buried like the Macondo well. Now you've gone and listened carefully to what (civilian) Thad had to say and are taking him at his word. Meaning they don't really know what's going on in the well and that their pronouncements that the well has been top killed might not exactly mean "killed", as in no hydrocarbon blood pressure, no pulse, dead as a door nail, toes up and thousands of feet under the deep blue sea.
I can't wait for the comment section to explode in delirious joy that you've once again exhumed the (formerly known as) dead BP/Macondo corpse. I do know one thing for certain. That corpse is positively ripe on this wonderfully hot and sticky GOM summer day.
BTW "static" doesn't necessarily mean "safe". Static (at least in this case) simply means no flow, that the pressure exerted by the hydrocarbons has been offset by another pressure of an equal amount, be it mud or a cap. It will be safe when it's completely cemented top and bottom to the point where they can remove the old BOP and see what little gems it reveals.
I'm in delirious joy that they keep using the word "annulus".
LOL
The 5 year old in me always does a silent chuckle (when I'm not pushing crazy conspiracy theories) whenever I hear the word "annulus", particularly when spoken by adult men. I so wish I was alive when the word was coined by (hopefully) intelligent and serious men.
"So gentlemen, it appears unanimous that we shall call that pipe the "annulus" because of it's resemblance to .......well, let's not get into that discussion again. All those in favor say Aye. Collins, your right to vote has been suspended because you still haven't stopped snickering. In fact, I think you should leave the room immediately. All those in favor of sending Collins home without supper, say Aye."
deleted for lack of humor
JESUS GOD. The fucking grassy knoll gone wild. THE GULF IS DEAD? Credibility no mas if ever.
Ask Matt Simmons.
Dead men tell no lies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoKSh14l_Ko&feature=related 8:06
Meanwhile Jindal put LA on alert as Danielle Tropical Depression vectors
may cross Deepwater Horizon and NO with Corexit Crude that has in fact not 74% disappeared as reported by BPCGDCEPA.Guv...
http://www.abbevillenow.com/view/full_story/9064891/article-State-monito...
This guy obviously has an agenda.
Kettle...
My thoughts, too. The problem with GW -- and others such as the late Mr. Simmons (watch your back George) -- on the whole BP thing is that they have been so egregiously pessimistic throughout that, even when they make good points, they are lost in the larger sea of unjustified invective. Pass the carrots.
The problem with the level-headed scientific crowd (and I do always make a very clear distinction between Science, and Scientists), is that they never factor in 'shenanegans'.
When you are working out the distance to the nearest star, you don't have to deal with shenanegans. You work with facts, and Occam's razor is your loyal friend.
When you are dealing with human affairs however, it does not work. IT DOES NOT WORK. You have to assume some of the 'facts' are deliberate attempts to divert, to steer, to manipulate outcome. It is a basic human trait to lie, and an attractive one.
I have watched machines which have learned to lie, it is such a basic and fundamental weapon in a population of competing organisms. Butterfly wings lie when they pretend to be a leaf, or a predator.
Why Scientists never get this when dealing with human news flow, I do not know.
I consider myself a Scientist, but one who can factor in shenanegans, and knows when to do so. For this reason alone, I encourage GW to remain the active skeptic until we know for certain that the well is dead.
</rant>
In my experience, scientists do have to deal with 'shenanigans'. Almost all, if not all, good science builds on the cumulative efforts of others. Many of the "facts" and claims made in journal articles, which must be used to guide research, are not taken at face value by practicing scientists. There is too much incentive to publish a novel or surprising result, and too few consequences if it's misleading or incorrect. Trust me, it happens a LOT, and that's only an example 'shenanigan'. Maybe I've just never encountered the level-headed scientific crowd that you speak of.
I would tend to keep self delusion and deliberate manipulation in separate categories, requiring separate treatment. The differences are subtle but important. However I do take your point. A good scientist can filter properly, including stuff from other scientists which may be faulty. Especially relevant for something like scientific research which is really part of a strict 'vetting pipeline' by its very nature.
It begins to get interesting when you look at the consequences of deliberate manipulation of data, versus faulty interpretation of data. You can produce more than one interpretation of any data, a subset of which are presumably the correct or useful ones. You can't however do much with non-facts, without an alternate route to verify them.
No matter how careful a scientist may be when it comes to interpretation of data, if the data has been seeded as a result of wargaming between organisms (individuals, corporations and governments all fit in this category), then no amount of care will lead to accurate conclusions.
This is why I consider manipulation a separate phenomenon from faulty interpretation, and considerably more problematic.
This guy has been posting his wild eyed allegations for the last four months and every one of them has proved to be false. He has no credibility. Pass the soap so we can wash his mouth out with it. Government propaganda is only half the story. The other half is the anti oil crowd.
Call me a kook (<you're a kook.... stop it .. what... I mean it .. well, OK KOOK!), but I do not think it is anti-oil or greenhouse gas fanatics. I think it is "We do not trust the lying c*cks*cking parasite club" that either thinks we are totally moronic or that we are so powerless that what we think does not matter (which may be true).
After getting snippets of what "we" as in the country USA WE have done to move forward the empire and our profit objectives, I find anything possible... and the people who are feeding us the AP/Reuters/government/banker crap completely unTRUSTWORTHY!
But that is just the obscenely obvious.
Here come the boys to try to shift attention away from what Thad Allen and Bob Cavnar are actually saying and instead they'll try to discredit anyone who questions BP as tinfoil ... in 3 ... 2 ... 1
I manged to find a picture of "da boyz" loaded for bear and ready to do battle with all those nasty ZH tin foil hat wearing, conspiracy theory spouting, swimming-in-GOM-oil-plume idiots that "da boyz" talk about so much. Thought you wanted to see.
Of course, they all have over sized "weapons" that would make Freud roll over in his grave. I think the scope on top is a nice touch considering the "size" of the weapon. Ghostbusters anyone?
Heh heh. Camouflage onesies that don't even match. "Dude! Are you going to Dragon Con this year?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rrs1DW0QcM
Hey Jim and Augustus! I like your taste!