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The "Well Integrity Test" Is a Sham: "This Bet Is Against The Citizens Of The United States Of America Being Smart Enough To Figure Any Of This Out"
Yesterday, I pointed
out that two oil industry experts - Robert Cavner and former Shell
CEO John Hofmeister - said that the "well integrity test" should not be
conducted because there is no benefit, and it could very well blow out
the well.
Cavner thinks
that the well integrity tests are really an attempt by BP to
underestimate the amount of oil gushing out - and so pay lower fines
under the Clean Water Act (fines are calculated by the number
of barrels leaking into the Gulf) - by waiting to "test" the flow
until the flow has been reduced. In the real world, of course, BP could
have tested the flow from
day one.
Today, an oil and gas industry veteran with 30 years
experience who goes by the alias Fishgrease says
that the well integrity test is a PR stunt meant to fool the American
people:
Yesterday, Our Government bought in to BP's
lies and maneuvering. Yesterday, Our Government approved the Integrity
Test. That test is now underway.***
We later
received information that the Oil States FlexJoint actually in place is
a Model 5, and therefore has a MWP (maximum working pressure) of 5000
psi. So now, the pressures Our Government has signed off on applying,
are at least 2,000 psi differential pressure over the rating of the
component!
***
I've been battling comments that, surely, this component has a
"safety allowance" well above its rating. Boomers, this is pure
horseshit. When you're pressuring up against metal with hydrocarbons,
the "maximum" in "maximum working pressure" fucking means MAXIMUM.
Purposefully exceeding MWP is, in fact, criminally actionable. MWP is
enforced in the Oil & Gas industry with perfect vigor. There is no
tolerance for exceeding MWP. None. Never. Ever.
You. Don't.
Fucking. Do. It
BP is PLANNING on doing it! They would not and
could not do it without the U.S. Government taking full responsibility,
in the name of Thad Allen, for the consequences of over-pressuring the
FlexJoint.***
That's alarming enough, but there are many
bad things that can happen when you're just sitting there circulating
on bottom at 17,840... FOR DAYS. Now that they're having problems with
the choke on the capping stack, it might easily be DAYS AND DAYS. You
can lose circulation and get stuck. You can lose a mud pump for a
matter of minutes and get stuck. You can lose the section of un-cased
hole you just drilled (which is at a critical point for the intercept)
and make directional control much more difficult getting it
back. There are more, and worse things that could happen, but I
won't mention them because the crew and equipment on that relief well
are the absolute best, and none of those worse things will
happen.
But why take these risks? For what? The first relief
well is SO close (now stopped)! They have the ability to capture and
measure ALL the oil! We already KNOW there is damage downhole! Why
would the Government of the United States of America sign off on, and
take responsibility for this foolishness?
***
I need to include here that I think this "test"
is probably a good political and public relations bet for both the
Obama administration and BP. It's really not a test at all and has no
chance of actually testing anything about the well, except their
ability to shut it in with no surface leaks. They want to shut in the
well and get it off the nightly news. They want that so badly they're
willing to risk anything for it. That's both BP and Our Government.
They shut in the well and Thad Allen is a hero. They fail and he's no
more of a moron than he has been for the last three months. If they
succeed in shutting it in or not, any damage they've done in the "test"
that makes the kill operation more difficult, or even impossible, will
be a matter of opinion. This bet is against the citizens of the United
States of America being smart enough to figure any of this out. It's
not a bet on actual physical outcomes. It has nothing at all to do with
what's the best plan for stopping this disaster.
Politics. Public Relations.
Indeed, the well integrity test is exactly like the stress test for the
banks: a meaningless PR stunt devised by the industry itself with the
blessing of government. See this
and this.
»
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Super easy, Dude. About a 300 megaton aspirin right down the relief well channel and Voila! no more gusher. No more sea floor either, so what. No more gulf states. Let them eat crabcake. The leak/spill/gusher/volcano will be off the news. Man, try thinking outside the box like the losers in DC.
perhaps that is how we get to an era when a large amount of usa is submerged as predicted by cayce. might this location have been chosen due to its potential to create maximum geological calamity? there are recent reports of seismic activity in arkansas.
http://www.demongov.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/42...
http://www.greatdreams.com/madrid.htm
Reading this just creeps me out. Time to go home, and re-watch Orwell's 1984 again.
Yes, I know Daily Kos is a left-wing rag.
But I doubt Hofmeister or Cavner are knee-jerk liberals.
This is not a partisan issue. "Left" and "right" are just concepts to try and divide and conquer us.
The ONLY question is how can we stop the oil gusher as quickly as possible?
The ONLY question is how can we stop the oil gusher as quickly as possible?
We can't. It is an oil volcano. Man tapped into a power that we cannot control. The pressure is too great for modern science to manipulate. The effects of nukes are too unpredicable, and create a radioactive oil gusher, as opposed to the non-radioactive one we now enjoy. We either need to invent new technology quickly, or need to get help from a higher power.
Man tapped into a power that we cannot control. The pressure is too great for modern science to manipulate.
Do you actually know what caused the blowout? The well was easily under control until they did the thing that led to the blowout. Do you really believe what you post?
Do you actually know where the real oil gusher is?
Even MSNBC gets it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Txb5ufjqQqs&feature=player_embedded
Dylan Ratigan Show, MSNBC, July 15, 2010:
The BOP exploded? Quick George! To the presses!!!
.
[Since Hansel deleted her comment, I am deleting my response]. If she re-types something, I'll try to re-respond.
tee hee...Hansel is a man, albeit an effeminate-looking one, from the headshot of the male-model from Zoolander.
Don't judge a poster by his avatar, I suppose....
Does that mean you're not really the Chairman of the Federal Reserve...and I'm not really a cartoon platypus?
Wait, hang on, that must mean I'm not a wookie throwing pancakes from a baseball diamond. SHIT!
They have no intention of stopping the oil gusher.
I think they actually do. If things are the way I think they are, the cap on the well will magically work as soon as the relief well is linked up. BP won't want to stress the already weakened casing in the wild well until their max chance of success, which will occur when they can pump mud at both ends. I hope it works...
.
gulp kill rope a dope the masses says you're right!! Keep the milk machine running while the final few pennies collected from the taxpayers! I hear air force one warming up on the tarmac for places unknown!! Nothin but body doubles left in CONgress/SINate! Most likely the doubles could do a better job governing than the dead head fed goons!! I say we nuke the gulp kill seas floor while the 545 rat bastards make a clean get away under that massive smoke screen!!
Thanks for all you do GW. Always enjoy your stuff.
two cents:
This guy must be an engineer who's never done anything in the real world. In the real world theres all sorts of fittings and unions that are used on rigs every day that are not rated for the pressures they are run at. Yes, it's a risk - However the sky is not falling, the chances of this happening are nill. Do you actually believe they are going to risk blowing up "mount everest" (LOL) just to cap the well a couple days earlier?
If they cap the well in 2 days after this test - This is much fast than pulling out 18,000 feet of drill pipe, running in 18,000 feet of casing, then cementing that casing, then waiting on cement before drilling again, then drilling ahead, then weighting upt he mud and killing the well. But hey no one's talking about that. That makes too much sense.
OK - First off. Whenever you have pipe or casing or anything in the hole, you will always have a risk of getting differentially stuck, or having lost circulation etc... Circulating off bottom is the safest thing you can do (besides doing it in the shoe). This guy is ranting and raving about risks that aren't risks. It would only be a risk if they stopped circulating - which they wouldn't do. Secondly, this is a high pressure high temperature well. You must maintain circulation to build upa proper mud cake and ensure the rheology of the mud doesn't break down under the pressure and temperature. To do that sometimes we will circulate for days until we are satisfied the mud is safe and the well is under control.
Losing a section of uncased hole? What the hell is this guy talking about. Lost circulation? Are they drilling through coal or salt? Is this surface hole? no...
Because it takes a long time to pull pipe run casing and cement, and this takes less time.
Again, do you actually believe they are going to risk an even bigger environmental catastophe just to make thad allen a hero? The reasoning here is pretty weak I'd say.
The thesis here is that BP and the US government are both risking an environmental catastrophe for a PR stunt. And your response at the end is, "Do you really think they would do that?" Clearly, the author does think they would do that.
I don't have the expertise to comment on circulation or well casing and the like, but I will say that anyone who would say:
about one of the most dangerous jobs on this planet must be a "field engineer" (LOL) who's uttered the phrase "close enough" way too many times.
"Yes, it's a risk, but..."
"The chances are nil..."
"We do this all the time..."
If I had a dollar for every time a stuttering fuckneck used one of those phrases or something similar to explain why he was taking a short-cut, or why his project experienced a failure or setback, I would be sitting pretty.
And I don't even need industry-specific expertise to decipher this comment:
Do it the quick, "easy" way, because the correct way takes longer, costs more, and is more difficult? Yep, definitely a "field engineer" (LOL).
Way to decipher the obvious - As if somehow my field experience doing the actual job all of you people are just theorizing about discredits what I am saying?
No no, lets trust the ramblings of anonymous deepthroat "oilfield" experts. All you have to do is type in some of the terms discussed in these articles into google and get a brief description of what those processes actually mean. But why do that? It would help yyou actually understand whats going on, and thats way less fun than dreaming up conspiracy theories about completely normal oilfield processes and procedures.
Seems like BP and the gov't fucked everything else up until now why should I think that is going to change overnight ? Their track records are shit and it is understandable just about everybody has lost faith in everything they do .
+ a trillion for outing the Hegelian dialectic.
and + a trillion for your work.
I have said this before, and I will say it again; you are doing the best work by any one person concerning the GOM Oil Spill. You deserve a Pulitzer, if you would care to accept it.
They won't give Pulitzers to any of the Founding Fathers.
They give Pulitzers to bloggers who lie about the death statistics of Exxon Valdez Oil Spill workers? Who'd a thunk it?
I quote Ripped Chunk:
My problem is that George Washington is the pied piper of idiots and y'all want to give him a pulitzer.
Perhaps a Nobel then?
+1,000
I have a problem with his phrase stating that BP is trying to hide something from the American people. His thesis is actually that BP is trying to hide something from the American government. Not the same thing.
Watch Angel rat you out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNjv35DfSo4&feature=related
Jimmy boy - That article is long in the past and GW has admitted his errors in the past as he tries to figure out the truth . As for you , you seem to pull up some kind of argument theat just becasue GW was wrong on that everything he writes is wrong when in fact the majority of his work is on the money . If you have a problem with anything in THIS article please inform us becasue you are really the one making an ass out of yourself here .
He admitted his errors in the past? Really? Never saw them.