Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

[charliebrown]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

The nuke things seems silly, but could one surround the well with strategigically placed dynamite, and attemp to collapse the
well with a well timed explosives charge? Sort of how they use concentrentic charges in mining to startegically fractue rock.

Sorry if this is silly.

and what is drilling mud? Do they actually use "mud" to drill the whole? It it was is expelled during drilling? What is under the sea bed in this area is it limestone, granite? basalt?

[Shakespear]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

This is exactly what I suggested to them but to use a series of explosives in a vertical direction so as to collapse the string over a long distance (like a vice).

One problem is this requires a relief well to be drilled parallel to the flowing well.

[don]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

BP’s Effort to Plug Oil Leak Suspended a Second Time

By CLIFFORD KRAUSS

HOUSTON — BP’s renewed efforts at plugging the flow of oil from its runaway well in the Gulf of Mexico stalled again on Friday, as the company suspended pumping operations for the second time in two days, according to a technician involved with the response effort.

In an operation known as a “junk shot,” BP engineers poured pieces of rubber, golf balls and other materials into the crippled blowout preventer, trying to clog the device that sits atop the wellhead. The maneuver was designed to work in conjunction with the continuing “top kill” operation, in which heavy drilling liquids are pumped into the well to counteract the pressure of the gushing oil.

If the efforts succeeded, officials intended to pump cement into the well to seal it. But the company suspended pumping operations at 2:30 a.m. Friday after two junk shot attempts, said the technician, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the efforts.

The suspension of the effort was not announced, and appeared to again contradict statements by company and government officials that suggested the top kill procedure was progressing Friday.

On ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Friday, Admiral Allen said the top kill effort was continuing, and that BP engineers had been able “to push the hydrocarbons and the oil down with the mud.”

But the technician working on the effort said later Friday that despite the injections at various pressure levels, engineers had been able to keep less than 10 percent of the injection fluids inside the stack of pipes above the well. He said that was barely an improvement on Wednesday’s results when the operation began and was suspended after 11 hours. BP resumed the pumping effort Thursday evening for about 10 more hours.

“I won’t say progress was zero, but I don’t know if we can round up enough mud to make it work,” the technician said. “Everyone is disappointed at this time.”

Investigators also continued their efforts to understand what caused the explosion of the rig, which killed 11 workers.

At a hearing Thursday in New Orleans, the highest ranking official on the Deepwater Horizon testified that he had a disagreement with BP officials on the rig before the explosion.
Jimmy Harrell, a manager who was in charge of the rig, owned by Transocean, said he had expressed concern that BP did not plan to conduct a pressure test before sealing the well closed.

It was unclear from Mr. Harrell’s testimony whether the disagreement took place on the day of the explosion or the previous day.

The investigative hearings have grown increasingly combative. Three scheduled witnesses have changed their plans to testify, according to the Coast Guard. Robert Kaluza, a BP official on the rig on the day of the explosion, declined to testify on Thursday by invoking his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself.

Another top ranking BP official, Donald Vidrine, and James Mansfield, Transocean’s assistant marine engineer on the Deepwater Horizon, both told the Coast Guard that they had medical conditions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/us/29spill.html?hp


Slide Show: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...o-gallery.html

[bpr]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

Deep inside every tragedy is a comedy.

Every time I read this I laugh out loud.

BP engineers poured pieces of rubber, golf balls and other materials into the crippled blowout preventer, trying to clog the device that sits atop the wellhead.

[we_are_toast]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

Deep inside every tragedy is a comedy.

The NYT is now reporting a 40 mile long plume of rubber, golf balls, and other material is now washing on shore in Louisiana. Governor Bobby Jindal is complaining to Federal officials that they should have prepared by sending a large contingency of golfers to protect the Louisiana beaches.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has issued a warning that a level 4 hurricane with it's accompanying 20 foot storm surge could wash the golf balls miles inland with catastrophic consequences. The catastrophe could come without warning as the hurricanes high winds would make it impossible to hear the customary FORRRRRRE! alarm issued by the golfers.

link not available.

[don]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

Deep inside every tragedy is a comedy.

I couldn't post the picture (NYTimes- protected?) but it showed a line of people, holding hands and facing out towards the Gulf, praying for Divine Intervention to stop the oil spill.

A half-step away from tragedy lies farce.

[Minion]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

I liked the original "exhaust hood" idea. Airplane wings have deicers on the front. Perhaps microwave emitters mounted inside the hood could keep the ice from forming?

It seems 2000 psi coming out a broken pipe is a tough cat to bag.

*edit* to the post above: The death of 1/3 of the oceans is predicted by a certain Book, after several earthquakes, wars, and rumors of wars.

[Rajiv]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

*edit* to the post above: The death of 1/3 of the oceans is predicted by a certain Book, after several earthquakes, wars, and rumors of wars.

Is there a link to that?

[Rajiv]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

I think people in BP need to see this

Also The Marshmallow Challenge

Transcript of the TED talk

MARSHMALLOW CHALLENGE TRANSCRIPT

TED 2010 TALK

Several years ago, here at TED, Peter Skillman introduced us to a design exercise called the Marshmallow Challenge.

Its goal was simple: in eighteen minutes, teams of four must build the tallest freestanding structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow. The marshmallow has to be on top.

Though the task seems simple, it's actually pretty hard. It forces people to collaborate quickly. So I decided to run it as part of a design workshop. And it was huge success. There was something about the exercise that reveals the true nature of collaboration.

Since that first workshop, I've conducted over 70 Marshmallow challenges with designers, architects, students - even leadership teams of the Fortune 50.

Most participants discovered deep lessons on how to successfully they personally innovate. And I'd like to share some of these lessons with you.

LESSON 1:

PROTOTYPING MATTERS.

Normally most people begin by orienting themselves to the task. They talk about what the finished structure might look like, and who does what.

Then the team plans. They sketch, lay out spaghetti sticks and describe the best ways build the structure.

Next, they assemble the sticks and tape them into ever growing structures.

And finally, just as the time is running out, someone takes the marshmallow and gingerly places it on top of the fragile structure. They anticipate that they stand back

'ta-dah!!!' .

But usually, the 'ta-dah' turns into an 'oh-oh!!' The weight of the marshmallow causes the structure to buckle and collapse .

Some teams consistently have more 'oh-oh' moments than others.

Among the worst are recent graduates of business school. It's actually amazing to watch them: They fight. They cheat. They produce lame structures.

Some teams consistently have more 'ta-dah' moments. Among the better teams are recent graduates of kindergarten. Not only do they consistently produce taller structures, theirs look like trees, and elephants and spiders.

But why? Peter likes to say that none of the kids spend their time trying to be CEO of spaghetti inc. But there's another reason.

Business students are trained to create a single right plan, then execute on it. When they put a marshmallow on top and the structure topples over, there's no time to fix it and that creates a crisis!

Sound familiar?

Kindergardners work differently. They build a little structure, add the marshmallow. They play around and add some more spaghetti stick. Again and again, they build prototypes each step of the way, always keeping the marshmallow on the top.

Designers recognize this type of collaboration as the essence of the iterative process - which is central to design thinking. With each version, the kids get instant feedback of what works and what doesn't. Through play and prototyping, they instantly adapt to what's in front of them.

LESSON 2:

DIVERSE SKILLS MATTER

The capacity to play and prototype are important skills for innovation. But there are others too.

+ The average height for most teams is just over 20 inches.
+ Business students average about half.
+ Lawyers do a bit better. But not much better. Like business students, they spend too much time seeking power and making plans.
+ Kindergartners, as we've seen, do better than most adults.

+ And who does the very best?

+ Thankfully - Engineers and Architects - create the tallest stable structures. So far, the largest I've seen is 39 inches. Architects and Engineers have specialized skills and experiences. They know that triangles and self-reinforcing geometrical patterns produce the most stable spaghetti towers.

+ CEOs are bit better than average.
+ But here's where it gets interesting. If an executive administrator works with the CEO team, that team almost always wins. It seems that the admin's skills of facilitation makes a big difference. Any team member who pays close attention the process of work - encouraging timing, improving communication, cross pollinating ideas - increases the teams performance significantly.

Winning teams are specialists. But the next best are those with facilitation skills.

LESSON 3:

INCENTIVES MAGNIFY OUTCOMES

In management theory, there's a popular concept that incentive always improves performance. The marshmallow challenge tells us something else.

Here's a typically performance curve for ten teams competing against each other. On average, six teams build standing structures and four fail.

Some months ago, just as I was about to start a marshmallow challenge to a group of 40 design students, I thought, "Why not up the ante?" So I offered ten thousand dollars of software to the winning team.

And so what do you think happened?

Here are the results:

Not one team had a standing structure. Every tower collapsed. If anyone had built, say, a one inch structure, they would have taken home the prize.

Four months later, we tried again. This time the students knew about the value of prototyping.

The teams went from being the very worst to among the very best. They produced the tallest structures in the least amount of time.

So the lesson here is that incentives alone are not enough.

High incentives with low skills can actually kill performance.

But high incentives with high skills - specialized or facilitation - can lead to high success.

WHY CONDUCT THE MARSHMALLOW CHALLENGE?

So why would anyone actually spend time running the marshmallow challenge?

I help create digital tools for teams who create cars, bridges, consumer products, movies and videogames and much more. The marshmallow challenge helps them identify hidden assumptions lurking within their real projects.

Every project has its own marshmallow!!!

The marshmallow challenge provides teams with a shared felt experience, a common language and a solid stance to find the right prototypes to build their real projects successfully, to avoid the oh-oh moments and have real ta-dah moments.

If you're interested in running your own Marshmallow Challenge you can visit a blog called Marshmallow Challenge dot com - one word. You'll find instructions on how to run the challenge, strange and bizarre solutions, the results of challenges from around the world. And if you conduct a challenge, you can share your experiences with others.

The fundamental lesson, I believe, is that Design is a contact sport. It demands that we bring all of our senses to the task and applying the very best of our thinking, feeling and doing to the challenge. Sometimes a little prototype of this experience is all we need to take us from oh-oh to ta-da.

Thank you.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

Is there a link to that?

I'd guess that Minion is referring to the Bible, Book of Revelations, given the way he says "a certain Book."

[Rajiv]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

Ah! I see! - Yes you are right - Book of Revelation

[GRG55]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

...How does the releif well work? I assume it lowers the pressure in the resevior and the hole in ground will stop spewing oil.
How close to the actual well do they have to get to lower the pressure? How sure of a thing is this?

"Relief well" is actually a bit of a confusing misnomer. A relief well is not designed to "relieve pressure" from the existing blowout wellbore. Quite the opposite actually.

A relief well is drilled in a similar way to a conventional well but it targets to intercept the blowout wellbore above the producing formation [using directional drilling techniques]. In this case the blowout well is roughly 15,000 feet deep [measured from the wellhead on the ocean floor] so the relief well will be targetted to intercept at perhaps 8,000 - 10,000 feet sub-seafloor depth. As the relief well is drilled the crew will have to carry out substantially the same procedures as during the drilling of the original well...for example setting and cementing intermediate steel casing at intervals on the way down. Until they get near the intercept point there normally won't be any significant differences in the drilling procedures.

A little dissertation on drilling mud might be worthwhile here. The "mud" isn't a mixture of soil and water like the stuff we played with in the back yard as kids. It's actually a complex chemical soup that has a specific gravity greater than one [e.g. it is denser than fresh water] that can be controlled by changing the chemical mixture and water content. It serves several purposes. In addition to holding back the formation pressure as the well is being drilled the drilling mud also cools and lubricates the drill bit, and picks up and holds the rock cuttings from the bit in suspension to carry them back to the surface during drilling operations [the drill cuttings have to continuously be removed from the well or the bit risks being jammed in the bore]. The higher the density of drilling mud the greater the margin of safety over formation pressure but also the greater the viscosity. The greater the viscosity the slower the rate of drilling [think of it as turning the long drill string and bit in a thicker "sludge"]. This is one dilemma facing BP now - do something quick dammit, but make sure you don't have another screw up.

For this reason normal mud weights will be used to drill most of the depth of the relief well [contrary to some reports BP really would like this nightmare to end sooner rather than later]. I do not know the details of BP's relief well drilling program, but typically a relief well is not drilled all the way into the blowout wellbore. As it approaches the intercept point, but before actually hitting that target, drilling is often suspended and the relief wellbore is circulated to the "kill fluid", which in this case is likely to be a "weighted up" mud [sometimes in shallow, lower pressure wells, salt water alone is enough to kill the well]. The combination of the hydrostatic head from the heavy kill fluid and hydraulic pressure applied to the relief wellbore from surface is used to fracture the rock creating a pathway from the end of the relief well to the blowout wellbore, through which the kill fluid is forced at high rate in an effort to overcome the blowout formation. This is seriously complicated by the fact that the original wellbore is cased and cemented all the way down...so they may have to use shaped explosive charges to make the connection from the relief well to the blowout bore.

A relief well is the only reasonably high-probability-of-success way to kill a blowout like this one. That is the reason that starting the first relief well was done as quickly as possible by BP. So reliant are they on the success of this technique that for back-up a second relief well is drilling about one week behind the first one...just in case something goes wrong with the first relief well [stuck drill bit, hole collapse, etc.]. They simply cannot afford to wait to start a second relief well until after they have any sort of problem with the first one. If the first attempt with a relief well fails, then there will be a second attempt, and if necessary a third and a fourth...because there is no other better option to stop the blowout.

Hopefully the above description is reasonably clear...if not let me know and I'll try again [for you drilling engineers out there, I know I have had to make some simplifications in the interests of clarity].

Finally, for those who still think that blowing up the well or dropping something big on the wellhead is a good idea, I would suggest you reconsider. No engineer in his right mind would ever do anything to deliberately risk the integrity of the wellhead. If explosives are used to try to collapse the well casing and pinch it off and it destroys the wellhead in the process, then the ability to actually secure the well is seriously, seriously compromised. I would not be willing to depend on a pinched off casing to contain the well forever. If such an attempt failed to pinch off the well then the risk is an absolute open flow blowout...and if you think they have problems now... ;-)

In Kuwait after Gulf War I, many of the wellheads had been sabotaged by Saddam's retreating troops. Before many of those wells could be secured the damaged wellheads had to be cut off, new casing bowls secured to the casing stubs and new wellheads installed...all while the wells were spewing flammable hydrocarbons immediately above the workers. Try that in 5000 feet of water.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

Thanks for the update, GRG55. It makes sense (dang -- I don't get to use the phrase "clear as mud" ;).)

[Andreuccio]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

The third of the oceans part is Revelations. I think the "Wars and rumors of wars" is from Matthew.

[Shakespear]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

As the relief well is drilled the crew will have to carry out substantially the same procedures as during the drilling of the original well...for example setting and cementing intermediate steel casing at intervals on the way down. Until they get near the intercept point there normally won't be any significant differences in the drilling procedures.

GRG55, I suspect you know it already, but BP WILL be changing the "drilling procedures" a LOT so as to over design this well for safety and not skimp on using "too much" cement when cementing the different sections of the completion ;)