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No, the Oil Gusher has NOT Been Stopped Yet ... But There Still May Be Some Good News
Blog
Contrary to widespread reports
that the oil gusher has been stopped, the live feed below from ROV 2's
BSkandi camera shows that it is still gushing out of the pipe which has
been connected to the new containment cap:
| BSkandi - ROV 2 (456854) bkup=45684 |
It
is still encouraging that the cap seems to have a better fit as far as
what I can see on the underwater cams. If the system of pipes, cap and
well can handle the pressure - BP may be able to connect the pipe all
the way up to the collection vessel at the surface.
Updates as they arise ...
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We all remember that we were told that the top kill process was terminated early by order of the government because of fears that the process might/could/may/has/did/will damage the well casing. This was the reason given for not placing a second BOP on top of the first or pursuing any other efforts to stop the flow from the top of the well.
From that point on, BP and the Coast Guard consistently told us that their efforts would be containment and capture until the relief well(s) can hit their target and begin a bottom kill process. This was repeatedly told to us via all parties involved.
So why is it now OK to shut the well down for 6 to 48 hours to pressure test the well? This implies they will shut in the well from the top and then measure the pressure. They are saying that if the pressure rises to an expected level and stays at that level, there will be a high degree of certainty that the well casing is intact and hasn't been breached. If the pressure never reaches the expected level or does and then falls, they will assume a well casing breach.
Isn't this as dangerous or even more so than top kill? If they will soon have the capacity to process nearly all of the oil and gas coming from the well using various methods/ships on the surface, why even "pressure test" the well and risk doing further damage? Are they risking damage to the well casing now because the relief well is close to penetration? Was the worry of a damaged casing simply a political excuse used to not even try what they couldn't try, meaning shutting in the well from the top for 2 months until equipment was readied?
Try to remember where you got your info. That came from the blogosphere not from BP or the government. I have not seen (could have missed it) where anyone in a position to know has suggested the casing is burst. They couldn't try this before because they had to engineer the solution and techniques to install it. It's amazing how easy people seem to think this all is.....
I will look for the info but there was a press briefing by the Coast Guard a few days after top kill was stopped and the commander said that there had been a concern that if top kill had continued it might have damaged the well casing further. He then said there was evidence a "disc" was damaged 1000 feet below the surface. This came from the Coast Guard.
I never said this was easy nor did I infer it. There has been consistent discussion by BP, the government and the news organizations that the reason BP doesn't just cap the well is because of their fear of damage to the well casing at some point. This is why they didn't place the second BOP on top of the first BOP. They didn't wish to obstruct the flow.
So why do they now feel it's OK to obstruct the flow and test the pressure? The entire point of my first comment was that they didn't do so because they didn't have the equipment to do so. And to admit this would mean they had to admit they were never ready or capable of dealing with a blowout at 5,000 feet. This would kill them legally. And it would make the government look bad because the government accepted their application declaring they could deal with the blowout without ever making sure they could.
I did not intend to suggest that YOU had said it was easy - was referring more the general tenor of comments. I read the briefing you mention and did not believe the CG really intended to convey a casing failure although many people jumped to that conclusion. The damaged 'disc' was in the context of 'explaining 'why' the top kill didn't work (truth is it was always a low probability). The 'disc' is not related to a casing burst. They didn't place a BOP on the other because that's too difficult at this depth. This took so long because all this material had to be engineered and they had to figure out how to get a fit that would work.
The reason they feel it's okay to obstruct the flow now is this - that was never the reason behind the things it was ascribed to be. Getting a pressure reading at the top is also helpful for the kill procedure with the relief well, it will allow them to calculate exactly what mud density is required.
There is also a lot of misunderstanding of what it would mean to have a leak in the casing but I've probably rambled too long anyway.
Reuters article with a list of the deepwater projects now on hold. Some pretty impressive discoveries.
FACTBOX-Gulf projects hit by drilling moratorium
http://www.reuters.com/article/idAFN1615194420100709?rpc=44
In Matt Simmons' most extensive interview on the disaster, recorded on 6/28, he said that BP had snowed the government and that the Feds had only figured out they weren't doing anything about 10 days earlier. This sudden flurry of "progress" fits nicely with that timeline.
Matt Simmons is full of shit.
The only thing this fits nicely with is drilling and the relief well. They are actualyl doing better than expected. There is no conspiracy here. The relief well is the only thing that actually works, it was always the only thing that was pretty much a sure thing, and it can't be done in a week to satisfy everyone just because its important. It takes weeks and mopnths sometimes to drill a well. ie this one
Though far away from the Gulf, we got many inches of rain from Katrina.
This season could carry some surprises for many in the Southern states.
That will put BP and the Gulf back on the front pages -- where it should be.
But, this little thing they are capping is just a sideshow. As GW said before, the bigger story is, is this drama the magician's distraction technique, while the mess builds elsewhere? This whole drama is such a fascinating micro-cosm of so many things that are both terribly wrong and somewhat right with the world. Not over by a long shot in my book. Other surprises await us. ORI http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com
Thank you indeed. I was in the oil drilling biz as a youngster about 1980, even did a couple of hitches offshore. Even then we had to be very careful.
OK, sleazy companies like BP are going to cause BAD things to happen.
But, it's criminal to try to keep this from being documented. Violates our First Amendment.
Rarely Seen Pictures Of The Devastating Consequences Of The BP Disaster
All photographs and text are copyright of their respective owners. They are being reproduced under the Fair Use exception to copyright law, 17 U.S.C. § 107, as it is for educational purposes and is intended as political commentary on important social events of the day.
In addition, use of such images is also protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Specifically, reproduction is protected under the "Mai Lai/Zapruder line of cases", since:
Thanks for posting...this is great information.
After watching the video in the link and reading about other instances of reports being controlled by BP, what I don't really understand is how BP is allowed this amount of control over the media. As far as I now, BP has no authority to do any law enforcement and the government cannot delegate law enforcement to BP. So how can someone from BP tell the media that they cannot take photos?
Now I understand the Obama signed a law that limited the distance from which photographs can be taken. How is this not in direct conflict with the 1st amendment? And why isn't the media (MSM or otherwise) challenging this by violating the order, getting arrested and raising the issue in the courts? If the level of capture by the politicos goes this far, we are in deep trouble.
BP has the authority because they have been allowed to have the authority. When BP and a few other companies have the ability to fix the problem and the "authorities" don't, BP suddenly gets wide latitude to do what is "reasonable" in the eyes of a government that doesn't want to handle a hot potato.
And Obama never "signed a law" regarding 65 feet. It was a bureaucratic decision by the Coast Guard, who is given wide latitude during times of emergency to do what they consider as correct. So they "do" and then those who are affected by what they "do" can try to undo it.
The "Mai Lai/Zapruder line of cases" is a very interesting point. By any standards the events in the Gulf are historical. By logical extension does not this put BP and the USG in flagerant violation of this concept as well the First Amendment in their collective effort to block historical photographs being taken in the Gulf?? Any legal scholars wish to comment??
Incredible photographs. Thank you.
Boy, I hope they can pull this off...
But if they pull this off... you'll be out of a job...!
As do we all.
But a question, arising solely from a lack of knowledge in this particular field (mine being finance and economics) which I'll bet will be repeated many times, particularly if the effort is successful.
Why could this particular method which seems to be suggested to have a relatively high probability of success have not been attempted/accomplished earlier?
This particular method requires drilling a well almost as deep as the original well. Some wells take days, some wells take months and even years to drill. It all depends on what you are drilling. ie Shale gas wells take 2 weeks max, lots of them at 5-7 days and can be almost as "deep" as the macondo well. Where as if you drilled the same well in the foothills in a tight sand or carbonate rock you would take 1.5-3 months to drill the same well profile.
BP started drilling the relief well immediately. There was little to no delay in this effort. The reason it took so long is they had to drill through 18,000 feet of rock first.
It is hard to appreciate the size and strength of the components when looking at the ROV cameras. this stuff has to be designed, approved by the US govt., then built and tested with a darned high standard. I woul guess that they have pulled in a lot of stuff from projects all over the world to get what they have connected to work. General lead time for some of this deep water stuff can be a year. It is not on the shelf at True Value, I don't care what the guy on Youtube shows. I think I remember that the LMRP that they pulled off to replace with this new top was 12' tall and weighed 500,000#.
A lot of people are learning a whole lot from this experience. It would be great if they can get the leak undercontrol with this. I still doubt that they will be able to shut it in though. Pretty risky to try it with the unknown condition of the bottom of the hole. If they can have a bit of good luck with a weather window and keep collecting it with the vessels at the surface.
Many thanks, enlightening.
As you noted, many people are learning a great deal from this. What I do not want to see happen is for this learning to go to waste. Somehow the lessons from this accident need to be captured for future reference. Further, the MMS needs to start demanding that the oil industry be both better prepared and for the MMS to resume serious inspections of Gulf drilling platforms and require compliance to given standards. The fact that the 2004 MMS report indicated that something over 80% (I think it was 88%) of all rigs inspected in the Gulf were not in compliance for the depths for which they were drilling highlights how long this has been an issue.
I am a very free market guy but as the banks have proven, there needs to be a regulator with balls to regulate as well as common sense regulations that must be followed. This should probably apply to every industry out there. Regulations for safety of both workers and the environment are not a bad thing.
Note: I do, however, think the US should not grant MFN trading status to other nations that refuse to meet the levels of worker safety and environmental safety that we require of our own companies. That's not to say that such companies could not do business in the US, just that such companies from such nations would not receive MFN status and perks in terms of trading.
One of the problems in neoclassical economics is the tendency to overlook (sometimes deliberately) costs that can be dumped back on the commons (i.e. the taxpayer). If we cannot direclty incorporate these costs into a transaction, then we must use regulations to force such costs to be considered within the context of a given transaction. TANSTAAFL - There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. Someone always pays. The trick is to ensure that the responsible party is the one that actually does the paying.
Immediately after the blow the MMS went on an inspection tour of all the rigs in the GoM. IIRC, they did find three rigs with minor safety violations. No real problems. They were all back to drilling withing a few days on the shallow water wells.
This well blowout resulted from the failure to properly check the cement job. There is nothing particularly unusual about the pressures, depths, temperatures, or anything else in this well that should have been a problem. No red methane, no photon absorbing oil, no caverns larger than Mt. Everest, the well did not cause the floor of the GoM to rise thirty feet and will not cause a methane trunami. They just had a bad cement job and did not test for it correctly. The fact that the well was flowing was evident on the mud return charts for a few hours before the blowout.
Not entirely true. There were well design issues and a very long list of operational decisions that led to this disaster. The cement job may have been the initial catalyst and a problem, but there are overlapping layers of safety systems in place to prevent a catastophic blowout. Only by screwing up at so many levels was this type of disaster possible. I have had many bad cement jobs and never burned my rig down. But then again, I never worked for BP.
You're right OB but I think the point is that FUNDAMENTALLY there was a bad cement job. The reservoir pressure surprise (lower than expected) which should have led to a casing design change, centralizer issues, and lack of circulation of bottoms up all contributed to the bad cement job. Ignoring the casing pressure test results and canceling the bond log meant they didn't know they had a bad cement job and therefore couldn't remediate. Ignoring safety issues on the BOP (low hydraulic fluid pressures, dead battery, test rams) meant the last line of defense to the bad cement job was weak. Displacing to seawater knowing that all these "most risky" decisions had been made (especially the pressure test) was utterly crazy - but it basically removed the confining pressure off a bad cement job. My point is NOT that all these things didn't matter nor that Halliburton was at fault (BP design & drilling desicions caused the bad cement job) but that at it's core this was a bad cement job.
exactly. and even after all of that they were displacing the riser to SW and transferring to the boat at the same time. How many things can they possibly do wrong at the same time because I lost count. This is drilling 101 and they violated about 15 golden rules.
Perfectly said sir.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/ns/msnbc_tv-countdown_with_keith_olb...
Countdown with Keith Olbermann, July 12, 2010 Story # 5:
Oil industry expert Bob Cavner talks a bout the crucial 6-48 hours following BP’s new 150,000 pound cap on the well head. Near the end of the segment Mr. Cavner repeatedly says he can’t understand why it took 2 months for BP to start a standard procedure for capping.
He mentions that typically a large contractor keeps spares of the components required to build the cap and that there could not have been a shortage of equipment either with BP or other operators in the Gulf. He wonders why it took 10 weeks to build the device and emphasizes that he questions BP’s ultimate motivation in such a delay.
Both he and Keith concur that it was only with the Coast Guard taking charge of the repairs was any constructive repair realised.
"General lead time for some of this deep water stuff can be a year."
Kinda conflicts with your assessment there Augie
That's because 'Augie' is describing how things work in reality. Olbie operates in "lefty loon land" where facts are whatever you feel like they should be. Bob Cavner has a great deal of industry experience and his technical explanations are quite solid. However he has made a cottage industry out of appearances in loony left land (Maddow, MSNBC, Huff) because he can be counted on to accuse BP of wanting the spill to go on and claim that if the government would just take over everything would be just hunky-dory.........you can get some sense of his world view from the $140 K he bundled for Obama's election.......
I'll just bet Keith has this stuff in the kitchen cabinet.
Sealing Cap Installation Animation with Kent Wells - 9 July 2010
http://bp.concerts.com/gom/sealingcapinstallationanimationwithkentwells070910.htm
Gives a better view of the size of the materials used and how they were put together. Hope the collection operations get going again and the tests work out.
There is not a spare for the stuff they are using as it has never been used before. Carver is not the first expert thas has been full of nonsense on this event.
So, you and Olberman believe that either BP or any of the other oil companies have had the components available and just would not use them? Smoking what?
Several of the smaller E&P companies I've been following for a while have some discoveries in the GoM announced on deep wells, more complicated than Macondo. They are waiting in line for completion and production materials for over six months now.
I can confirm the lead time for many types of DW equipment is indeed 8+ months. And these 'caps' are not off the shelf. The last thing BP wants to do is to send something down there that fails catastrophically, so the testing regime for these massive pieces of equipment must be fierce and that takes time. I don't give BP much slack on creating this problem, but on this part I do.
On a side note, I was recently back in Houston and found there are a large number of companies that are lending their guys to the collective effort to get the well capped and so this is not just a "BP problem" and they are not working the issues on their own in isolation. So there is alot of horsepower and smart people working on this. With the pressures and temperatures involved at a mile down, it really is rocket science complicated.
Here is the link to all of the live ROV videos http://www.bp.com/sectionbodycopy.do?categoryId=9034366&contentId=7063636
Then next step is to test the well integrity.
"The company said once the testing starts it doesn't expect any oil to be released into the ocean."
If any html gurus know how to center the video, please let me know...
Try {div align="center"} {table} ... {/table} {/div}.
That is, wrap a "div block" around your table and then put align="center" into the div.
But use "<" and ">" for "{" and "}".
You can replace that whole table mess with this:
{div align="center"}{div style="display:table-cell; background-color:black; font-size:xx-small; width:300px; height:200px;"}{embed type="application/x-mplayer2" width="321" height="240" src="http://mfile.akamai.com/97892/live/reflector:45683.asx?bkup=45684" pluginspage="http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/Downloads/Contents/Products/MediaPlayer..." name="MediaPlayer"}{/embed}{br /}{a href="http://mfile.akamai.com/97892/live/reflector:45683.asx?bkup=45684" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"}{strong}BSkandi - ROV 2 (456854) bkup=45684{/strong}{/a}{/div}{/div}
Again, use a text editor to replace { and } with < and >.