Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by P.G. on June 15, 2010 at 3:01

I saw a program on tv that said the BOP had multiple failsafes built-in and that every one of them failed. Wouldn't finding out how that could happen be the key to finding out if there were operator negligence or would that possibly mean all BOPs in use in all off shore wells flawed?

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Permalink Reply by P.G. on June 15, 2010 at 11:35

On that tv program, they said they are using that relief well, not to retrieve or divert oil, but to get under the main well (intercept it down stream) so they can fill the whole thing with what ever it is they use to plug it (mud, concrete, etc. of some sort). The problem they are having, they said, is fighting the pressure and can't push anything down the pipe against the flow to stop the flow. By drilling down and intercepting the well several thousand feet down, when they start pumping the mud, they will be working with the pressure rather than against it. (ie. plugging it from the bottom up rather than the top down)
It certainly makes sense to drill intersecting lines like that before they bore on down into the high pressure oil in case something like this ever happened again..

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Permalink Reply by John M. Hays on June 18, 2010 at 8:03

So your intersecting well is going to go into the same high pressure formation first? So what's to keep it from possibly blowing out other than the same set(s) of blow out preventers? Blow out preventers don't have the ability to overcome stupidity. And remember it was the BP supervisors who evacuated the drilling mud out othe hole and replaced it with salt water and the salt water could not hold the gas in formation. Somebody needs to send BP back to the North Sea and let them trash the English/Scottish beaches and fishing grounds....as soon as their tresury's cash has been evacuated and stored stateside.

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Permalink Reply by Mac Davis on June 18, 2010 at 9:39

Once the relief well intersects the flowing well, it's connected to the high pressure reservoir.

If I understand the process and physics correctly:

The relief well will be "safe" because it will have its bore full of mud. Gravity will generate enough pressure at the bottom of the well bore to keep the oil/gas from flowing back up the relief well bore. There's a LOT of pressure in a 7000 foot column of drilling mud. There should be no chance of a blowout as long as the drill string is full of mud, even without a BOP, even if they don't cement correctly, use centralizers correctly, etc. The technology of using drilling mud is well understood. It mostly gets dangerous when you start removing the mud from the well bore.

If the blown out well bore had been full of mud, there wouldn't have been a blowout. If they could somehow fill the blown out well bore with mud, it would stop flowing from the pressure of the weight of the mud in the well bore. That was the idea of the top kill procedure, but they couldn't get it full of mud from the top because of the oil flow kept washing the mud out of the well bore.

Presumably, they'll test the BOP correctly this time.

The trick, as I see it, is whether they can actually intersect the first well with the relief well. Then they pump in "A specialized heavy liquid" that will plug the flowing well. I presume this is just a different kind of drilling mud.

What I wonder is how do they keep the oil flowing through the bore of the blown out well from washing the "specialized liquid" out of the first well bore up to the sea bottom? Do they depend on being able to flow mud down the relief well bore fast enough to displace the oil flow? Or do they somehow mechanically plug the first bore with some sort of stopper on the end of the drill string in the relief well and then pump in mud?

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Permalink Reply by Rosebud on June 15, 2010 at 9:09

This article was in today's Shreveport Times.

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20100615/NEWS01/100615006/Do...

I heard a CNN interview with survivors of the explosion who said the "company man" had been heard arguing with Transocean just days before the explosion. I do not remember what terminology the survivors were using to describe what everyone knew was the problem but it had something to do with using salt water instead of something else. I don't recall hearing the men mention Halliburton but they may have. They said everyone knew the well had problems.

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Permalink Reply by Checkmateking on June 15, 2010 at 14:26

Who appointed those MMS officials in the first place? And who just fired those MMS Bush cronies, huh?

Gosh, I am trying to be clear, it was teleprompter in chief Obama who appointed the abject failure and crony, MMS chief Birnbaum, but I am sure you are aware of that.

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Permalink Reply by sesport on June 15, 2010 at 16:13

Nice one, GD. 80)

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Permalink Reply by essay on June 15, 2010 at 15:12

and people wonder why i get worked up at the double standard evident even on this web site.

if i were to haul off and start attacking obama in the same vein i would be called all sorts of names and be told to take it to the political forum, where all the knuckle draggers are free to spout their ignorant political opinions.

you're right about one thing, it's very easy to lay blame... bringing up wmd in this context really chaps my ass... personally i've had about enough, are politics ok on the main page or are they not?

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Permalink Reply by sesport on June 15, 2010 at 16:10

LOL!!! Are you keeping a tally on what appears to be favoritism, too? Let's see, Pipeliner's discussion gets shut down, but Checkmate's get to remain open. I post a topic that gets deleted, and then reposted under another person's name. ( and it wasn't even politically themed ) A special BP Discussions group has been opened, yet new topics appear daily on the front page. How many politically themed discussions do you see currently on the main page?

As for the name calling, uhhhh, hello pot ... or are you kettle? Although I will give you credit for using some discretion & restraint here on the main page. lol

Now, I see that one frequently referred to (by others) as "hall monitor" has appeared online. Bet me this post gets deleted?

Geez, go figure. 80)

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Permalink Reply by essay on June 16, 2010 at 19:46

i make no apologies for my avatar, it was ahead of it's time as far as i'm concerned. i've admitted that he doesn't deserve all of the blame he's getting for bp's mess, and yeah some of what people are saying is patently ridiculous. but that always happens, and as i've also said before, this ain't powderpuff football. talking about honor and fairness and machiavellian lies only makes the irony here that much thicker.

yes my reaction was based off what i saw which didn't include the accusation, but i'm not ashamed of what i said either. i also think neither of you can really prove that the mms was or wasn't complicit, perhaps at some point we'll know. probably not. just like my point about toyota and the ntsb, (i'll see if i can find a link if anyone actually cares that much) monolithic government bureaucracy in general tends to become cozy with the industries it's supposed to be regulating. thats not bush's fault, any more than it is specifically obama's fault.

from my perspective it just looks like the white house got worked over by people inside BP trying to cover their behinds. they didn't realize things like being slow with response ramp-up and not waiving the jones act in order to accept foreign help would wind up looking this bad.

to quote henry VIII "i liked her before not well, but now i like her much worse. i am not well handled, cromwell." change the context and put emmanuel in place of cromwell. this too amuses me... i conclude that lack of experienced real-world industry advice has really come back to bite this administration and does much to explain their lack of leadership.

i can't speak for anyone else, but i have no problems finding legitimate ways to criticize this president in much of what he says and does because, at the root of everything, are basic fundamental philosophical differences in belief structure and overall world-view between us.

obama is locked in a surreal groundhog day scenario that just won't end, and i don't have any problem admitting that i'm enjoying very much watching the left tighten the radius on a classic circular firing squad. there's so much crap piling up on the white house porch right now it's unreal.

people who always attack obama no matter how absurd the angle weary me greatly, but so do people who defend him with equal zeal. thankfully the ranks are declining fast as reality sets in.

p.s., i can't fail to mention my personal obama-outrage-du jour, watching him try to use our current circumstances to advance his carbon tax agenda. more of what we've come to expect from this president.

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Permalink Reply by essay on June 17, 2010 at 14:26

pardon my saying so, but i find your belaboring of the race card to be quite tedious and not very relevant to my response.

i don't see how the ideology angle has been overplayed, after all, it is sufficient to keep such erudite individuals as ourselves from seeing eye to eye. november should tell the tale.

further, calling obama a pragmatist is amazing, as is suggesting that there is a "perception" problem about his administration's disaster response. much like, one supposes, that there was a "perception" problem about obamacare?

perhaps if he were to give another speech or two...

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Permalink Reply by Dorcheated A1 on June 15, 2010 at 11:37

Figured since you deleted your post GD, I'd join you.

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