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Initial Results from Well Integrity Test Are Inconclusive
As Coast Guard admiral Thad Allen has explained,
sustained pressure readings above 8,000 pounds per square inch (psi)
would show that the wellbore is more or less intact, while pressures of
6,000 psi or less would mean there could be major problems:
We are looking for somewhere between
8,000 and 9,000 PSI inside the capping stack, which would indicate to
us that the hydrocarbons are being forced up and the wellbores are
being able to withstand that pressure. And that is good news.
If
we are down around in the 4,000 to 5,000, 6,000 range that could
potentially tell us that the hydrocarbons are being diverted someplace
else, and we would have to try and assess the implications of that. And
as you might imagine, there are gradations as you go up from 4,000 or
5,000 PSI up to 8,000 or 9,000. …
We will at some point try to
get to 8,000 or 9,000 and sustain that for some period of time, and
these will be done basically, as I said — if we have a very low
pressure reading, we will try and need (ph) at least six hours of those
readings to try to ensure that that is the reading. If it’s a little
higher, we want to go for 24 hours. And if it’s up at 8,000 or 9,000,
we would like to go 48 hours just to make sure it can sustain those
pressures for that amount of time.
The former director of Sandia National Laboratories says the pressure readings so far have been ambiguous.
As the Washington Post points out:
The
initial pressure readings are in an ambiguous range, and officials will
have to make a difficult judgment call on whether to keep the well shut
in or reopen it, according to Tom Hunter, retired director of the
Sandia National Laboratories and a member of the federal government's
scientific team overseeing the test.
"If it were a lot higher, it would be an easier decision to make," Hunter said.
***
Hunter, who witnessed the test from BP's war room in Houston, told The
Washington Post that the pressure rose to about 6,700 psi and appeared
likely to level out "closer to 7,000." He said one possibility is that
the reservoir has lost pressure as it has depleted itself the past
three months.
"It's just premature to tell. We just don't know whether something is leaking or not," Hunter said.
We will need to wait another 24 hours or so - and engineers will have
to continue monitoring sonar and visual images (both help
determine if any oil is leaking from the seafloor), and seismic data
(to determine if there are any new leaks below the seafloor) - before engineers can determine how stable the well is.
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conference rescheduled to 4:30pm
BP moves a few pennies higher
and posted elsewhere but always a great source for what BP wants you to think
http://twitter.com/BP_America
If you're looking for instant Beyond Petroleum spin, why not be plugged directly into the BP Matrix?
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For wonks and speculators in BP at aprox 2pm eastern just in time for the daily market ramp up
WHO: Admiral Thad Allen, National Incident Commander
WHAT: Teleconference press briefing to provide operational update on ongoing Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill response efforts
WHERE: Teleconference (only) from Washington D.C.
WHEN: Friday, July 16, 2010, 2 p.m. EDT. The call-in number for press is (866) 304-5784 for domestic callers, and (706) 643-1612 for international callers. Conference ID-8883046
Thank you, George and Cog, we're all running on a bit of steam and pressure. And I'm glad others realize, good news or bad, trying to bring truth is always a hard job!
How do they know the equilibrium pressure should be 8-9,000 PSI? The well has never been in a static state long enough to take a measurement or has it?.
My understanding of how they came up with this number (8-9,000 psi) was simple math. They knew how much mud "weight" (and thus the field pressure can be determined by the mud weight) they needed to control the well. They determined this before they screwed up and released the mud weight but substituting sea water in the well column without knowing for sure the well was truly plugged below. It more complicated than that because they must consider sea water pressure, weight of mud above the sea floor and so on. But this process is how they determined what a "good" number would be.
Remember what was going on before this well blew. The rig had placed a temporary cement cap/plug inside the production column/pipe with the intention of leaving this well and moving on to another job. The Deepwater Horizon was NOT the production rig. It was the rig hired to drill the (exploratory) production well. It had supposedly finished and had placed a temporary cement cap in the well and was moving on.
Another rig was supposed to come back later, hook up to the underwater riser, replace the sea water in the riser with "mud", drop their drill down into the well and drill out the cement plugs like a dentist would drill out a temporary filling and begin bringing the well into limited production.
One needs to understand how a large oil/gas field is developed. Once the oil/gas field is discovered, the company drills one or more (usually many more depending on how large the field is) exploratory production wells to help determine the production capacity of the field. Every field is different and there can/are also differences within a field itself. The Macondo well itself may have eventually become part of the overall production system of the reservoir field but at this point is was really an exploratory well.
Remember also that there is more to oil production than just drilling the well. How do they get the oil from the well to the refineries? This well is something like 40 or 50 miles from the nearest land/swamp and even more from the nearest refineries. You don't just run a garden hose out to the well. Part of a field development (especially deep water field development) is setting up the infrastructure to transport the oil/gas to land.
You don't just float super tankers beside the wells and fill er up. Undersea wells (all wells actually) are usually interconnected with a piping system, which dumps into separation equipment (separating oil/gas and usually water as well as [toxic and corrosive] chemicals/minerals etc) which then dumps into holding tanks, which then dumps into undersea pipelines or some other method for ultimate transportation. There was a long way to go before this field was under full production.
Yes it was at a static state before the blowout. BHP was about 12,500 psi, IIRC. Subtract some weight for the height of whatever is in the well and it shows up lighter at the top.
Thank you GW to keep going, even your comment box is full of professionel comments of hired guys by BP and government.
And also thank you GG, to try to defend a bit. Yes, the different parties are putting in a lot of pressure and time to silence you guys.
Take it as a huge complement!
It was just reported on CNBC that, per the BP/CG morning briefing, pressure is now at 6,700 PSI. Because the well has flowed essentially unobstructed for 80 days, this flow has created a lower pressure area in the reservoir field around the Macondo well where it intersects the reservoir, essentially that 60 feet of "pay dirt". You might ask, why doesn't the pressure immediately go to 8-9,000 PSI in the same way as when I close my bathroom faucet, the pressure in the water pipes returns to it's "normal" pressure? I'll explain.
Now that the well is no longer flowing, the reservoir field pressure equalizes. Higher pressurized oil/gas from further away from the Macondo well field penetration flows to the lower pressure area around the well penetration in the same way high pressure areas in atmospheric weather flows towards low pressure areas in the atmosphere. The pressure in the well bore is expected to slowly rise as the pressure in the local reservoir field around the Macondo well penetration rises and equalizes with the rest of the field.
Remember that the reservoir is not a open space but actually rock/sandstone that has oil and gas in the pores of the rock. This means that this trapped oil/gas moves from pore to pore on its way to the Macondo well penetration. This takes more than just the few seconds it would take for oil/gas to move down a hundred feet of pipe. It's much slower. This is why they wish to wait 40 hours. So there can be pressure differentials the the entire field if the flow was too fast. Flowing a well too fast for too long can actually diminish the actual recovery amount extracted from the reservoir. It "damages" the reservoir field.
This rising pressure will be the tell that is examined for signs of problems. If the pressure continues to rise to the expect 8-9,000 psi, this will be very good news for BP. If this happens, we might eventually hear an announcement that they will open the kill and choke lines and begin again to process the crude on the surface of the GOM, but they won't again open the flow to the sea because they will now have enough confidence that the well can hold the pressure long enough to kill the well. I suspect they've allowed this well to flow unobstructed for this long because of fears of well damage. Finding no damage may embolden them.
This would provide the added benefit of when the relief well does break into the Macondo well and begins the kill operation, BP might try to kill it through both the relief well and through the Macondo well, now that they have a higher confidence that the Macondo well can maintain pressure. Even being able to have some control over the Macondo well will improve the chance of success of the relief well kill. This depends entirely upon a successful pressure test.
I explained that need for a longer shut in yesterday when all the nutters were complaining about it.
They won't necessarily have to pump through the top of the Macondo well. Just being able to somewhat shut it in so that the kill pill is not imediately lost out the top would be great. When they get it full, they can shut in Macondo to increase the pressure with more kill pill material and cement. And I believe I wrote that a couple of days ago also.
Since the Matt Simmons believers have continually written about the 100,000 psi in the formation, it will be interesting to read how they explain where the pressure went. Will it be found on Before It is News?
what's funny is that in his 10am statement today, President Obama specifically referred to the concern of oil seeping up from the sea floor not as a conspiracy theory but as a risk and concern.
His words "without creating new problems including possibly countless new oil leaks in the sea floor"
here is the video of President Obama making those comments
(comments begin at the 40 second mark)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQWxnhN1bxY&feature=player_embedded
Auger, what is your repsonse to the President of the United States on the topic of the risk of countless new oil leaks in the sea floor resulting from the capping of the well?
I don't know about Auger but IMHO the President of the United States is a moron who's never done a thing in his life except fill an empty suit. It has also long been my opinion that he and his advisors think that left-wing garbage floating around the web has some bearing on reality. They are incorrect about that.
He worked at Baskin Robbins. Did you know they have 31 different flavors? On Saturdays I think they let him make milkshakes.
I agree whole heartedly with your comment. When will he make a statement with regards to possible ghosts?
Some things are practically impossible to disprove. the oil leak conspiracy nonsense somewhat falls into that category. Could this blowout be putting oil into another formation? Sure it could, down below the lining level (bottom 1,000 ft or so) it could. any oil going in there is still 12,000 ft below mudline. It is not comming out. It is only there because of the drive from the bottom producing zone. When that is killed, the drive is gone. without the drive the oil will simply stay where it is. So, in that sense it really does not matter. Get the relief well drilled before they have a problem with that by getting pipe stuck in the hole or well bore damage from sitting there circulating in the open hole.
Both relief wells have drilled through the shallow formations that would be concerns of a leak high up the hole. If it was anything with volume, they would have found it as they drilled through it. Remember, it is the Simmons nonsense of a 100,000 bopd leak somewhere seven miles away that is causing the panic. If there is 100,000 bopd flowing through some shallow formation and leaking out, then you can be certain that one of the two wells being drilled only 2500 ft away would have encountered it. It is nonsense.
Note that Simmons has also claimed that the well you seel flowing on the ROV videos is really just a staged event by BP and USCG. So, if you swallow that BS, contemplate how they were able to rig up a new wellhead and bop at 5000 ft subsea, connect oil flow lines to pump 25,000 bopd with a very high gas content down there to make it leak and where they are storing it topside before sending it down to be leaked into the GoM. Now, since Admiral Allen has not denied that they are doing that, you can be sure that they are and are covering it up. It is balderdash.
Thanks for the updates GW and for the explanation CD. Very insightful. So how long for pressure equalization at the measurement point? I had always naively pictured oil reservoirs as liquid pockets, which would have more rapid pressure equalization. Is this the 40 hour process, or much longer? There can be a lot of action between 7k psi and 8-9k psi...
How quickly the pressure rises depends on a lot of variables. While the well may be "capped", meaning no oil is flowing into the GoM, have they completely stopped the flow out of the choke line? If I remember correctly, they were going to gradually shut off that flow to the surface. You don't want to slam shut the well. Too much of a shock to the infrastructure.
And the reservoir field porosity (among many other variables) determines how quickly the oil/gas migrates towards the Macondo well penetration into the field/reservoir, equalizing the local/total field pressure. Think of porosity as you would different (artificial or natural) sponges. Some sponges have large "cells" or "pores" (higher porosity) and can hold more liquid (and that liquid can move more quickly from cell to cell/pore to pore) and some sponges have smaller "cells" or "pores".
I remember reading much earlier in this disaster that the Macondo field has a high porosity, meaning large and plentiful pores, meaning lots of oil/gas and higher migration rates to the well penetrations. This field was (and still is) an oil mans wet dream. BP may have had an "accident" while dreaming of beautiful women/oil but this field and others nearby will be an extremely profitable source of oil/cash for BP for years to come. While they may cap the well, they will not abandon the field.
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