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

[GRG55]

Re: As expected, BP abandons Top Kill approach

On its face Simmons' claim that there must be another "leak" seems actually quite plausible if you accept two things:

1) As evidence he's citing a vast unseen body of oil in the water column that has been reported by government researchers. His argument seems to be that there is no way to account for this volume if you assume that it must have passed through the compromised Macondo well head. (That seems like a reasonable argument, but I wish he'd make it in full form.)

2) By "leak" I think people envisage another well that's blown or something. What I take from Simmons is he's suggesting that the well casing has been compromised and the high pressure fluids have forced a new path for themselves that emerges at some unknown spot and that it is flowing at massive volumes as evidenced by the underwater plume.

(It helps to realise, if any of this is an accurate reflection of the facts or even his argument, that the seafloor surrounding the casing consists of sediments rather than rock. I imagine a straw (well casing) that starts out at the bottom surrounded by something that is rock solid and impregnable but that terminates in a substance that is more like sand for a distance. Given the explosive forces at work it doesn't seem unreasonable to think that the casing was compromised in this sediment zone.)

That is terrifyingly plausible to me. It also means, if true, that all the efforts to treat the well as a discreet, intact entity with one compromised point (top kill, new riser etc...) never had or have any hope of dealing with the problem, and not for the reasons GR is citing.

So, summarising, I would only dismiss Simmons' concerns if you feel confidant that the volume of the underwater plume of oil can be accounted for by reference to the flows coming out of an intact well-bore that is compromised only at the level of the blow out preventer. Has anyone seen any analysis of this? (I can't find it.)

I wouldn't take that bet.

This event really has taken on monumental proportions over the last couple of weeks. It is absolutely devastating.

I continue to be highly sceptical of Simmons' claims.

Here's where his story started:

Background

A team of University of Georgia marine scientists is conducting research on the huge underwater oil plume that was discovered in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion. Throughout a two-week cruise in the Gulf of Mexico, they are posting regular updates and photos to this blog.

The team now on board the R/V F.G. Walton Smith is led by Samantha Joye, UGA professor of marine sciences, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. Joye was a member of the NOAA-supported expedition that discovered the deepwater plumes thousands of feet below the surface in the Gulf of Mexico, about two weeks ago.

The group sailed from Gulfport, Miss., on Tuesday, May 25, on a scientific mission to characterize and visualize the largest of the underwater oil plumes, estimated to be more than 15 miles long, 5 miles wide and some 300 feet thick at depths ranging from approximately 2,300 feet to 4,200 feet. This plume is currently located to the south/southwest of the Deepwater Horizon site.

“Nothing like these plumes has ever been seen before,” said Joye. “This is the first time such a buoyant plume has been document in a cold, pelagic environment.” Ocean temperatures range from 8 degrees C at the bottom of the plume to about 15 degrees C at the top.

Scientists on the UGA-led cruise are using a suite of instrumentation that includes sophisticated sonar equipment and an in situ camera system. The team will sample water throughout the plume for chemical and microbial analyses. They will also conduct mapping surveys in a radial grid around the spill site to document whether other such plumes exist.

In addition to UGA marine scientists, the team includes researchers from University of Southern Mississippi, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, and University of California – Santa Barbara.

The expedition is funded by the National Science Foundation.

You can track Dr. Joye's daily blog here:

http://gulfblog.uga.edu/2010/05/trust-your-senses/

I have not read anything in her reports that indicates that these plumes are sourced from anywhere other than the Macondo wellhead. I really wonder how Simmons concluded otherwise.

[Starving Steve]

Re: As expected, BP abandons Top Kill approach

Don't really have anything smart to add; this just makes me so sad...

Once this is plugged, assuming it gets plugged, does anybody know how long it could take the marine life and coastlines to recover their health? I need a little hope here.

In less than two years, nature will clean-up this spill. The waves in the sea will break-down the oil. Bacteria will eat the oil. Everything will be fine--- except for the law-suits which will last for years, simply because lawyers enrich themselves by dragging law-suits on for years.

Americans need to make a decision now: Does the U.S. economy produce law-suits, or does it produce oil?

[flintlock]

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

I think it is pure politics and buying time. What would have been the response if BP had said we are drilling relief wells and in the interim we will do what we can but we cannot stop the flow of oil into the gulf for 3 months? Yeah right. So you proceed with plan A and then you conduct a media circus. You play the game just like Washington plays the game. You give the impression that you are doing everything possible(and you really are) all the time knowing what you are doing has a low probability of working. If any of your efforts do actually mitigate the spill then that is a plus. It is all a PR game.

I came to the same conclusion.

[flintlock]

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

How long before these robotic subs begin to wear out? Are they normally used to this degree?

[GRG55]

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

How long before these robotic subs begin to wear out? Are they normally used to this degree?

They are like any other machine. Properly maintained they can go for many years.

[Rajiv]

Re: As expected, BP abandons Top Kill approach

Once again I am not trying to underplay or understate the consequences of this disaster, but nobody even remembers the 1979/80 Ixtoc I blowout which spewed large quantities of oil into the Gulf of Mexico for almost 10 months. There's something to be learned from that.

Ixtoc I Wiki

[oddlots]

Re: As expected, BP abandons Top Kill approach

Your skepticism is comforting. We're both wondering how Simmons has jumped to his alarming supposition but only one is conjecturing as to how he arrived at it (me.) Probably not helpful ultimately.

Thanks for the link to the source of the research.

[KGW]

Re: As expected, BP abandons Top Kill approach

Could have something to do with the fact that a few weeks earlier, BP had pushed the drillers to move faster, which they did, but the increased pressure caused the bore to fracture, dropping the drilling tools into the hole, jamming them in place. The drillers had to send down cutting tools to sever the original tools, pull out and close the bore. They then moved and drilled the current hole. I'll try to find the link. . .

Your skepticism is comforting. We're both wondering how Simmons has jumped to his alarming supposition but only one is conjecturing as to how he arrived at it (me.) Probably not helpful ultimately.

Thanks for the link to the source of the research.

[KGW]

Re: As expected, BP abandons Top Kill approach

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/...n6490197.shtml

[GRG55]

Re: As expected, BP abandons Top Kill approach

Could have something to do with the fact that a few weeks earlier, BP had pushed the drillers to move faster, which they did, but the increased pressure caused the bore to fracture, dropping the drilling tools into the hole, jamming them in place. The drillers had to send down cutting tools to sever the original tools, pull out and close the bore. They then moved and drilled the current hole. I'll try to find the link. . .

Getting a bit stuck in the hole is not a normal occurrence, but not that unusual either. It's happened to me more than once in my career, and we weren't drilling wells to anywhere near this depth. Sometimes you can work the bit loose and recover the situation [there's a number of techniques including the use of hydraulic jars] and sometimes you have to cut the drill pipe, abandon the tools and sidetrack drill around them. The decision as to how much time and effort you put into trying to recover the tools is purely economic...what kind of tools are in the hole and how expensive are they compared to the daily rate that the rig is costing to spend time trying to get them out. At a certain point if there is no reasonable progress or prospect of success you cut your losses...the industry rule of thumb is when you've spent half what the tools are worth to try to get them back you quit and move on.

The article states:

...Williams says going faster caused the bottom of the well to split open, swallowing tools and that drilling fluid called "mud."

"We actually got stuck. And we got stuck so bad we had to send tools down into the drill pipe and sever the pipe," Williams explained...

Now I will admit it is truly difficult to find much humour in this situation, but when I read the part about drilling "too fast" causing the bottom of the well to "split open" and "swallowing the tools" in some sort of biblical wrath-of-God scene it had me falling out of my chair howling in laughter.

This thing is now in danger of turning from a disaster into a circus. Allow me the indulgence of making a couple of observations from my own previous experience. First, "everybody" is now a fzcking expert on offshore operations and absolutely everything that BP did was completely wrong according to these so called experts. The media will dig out every single hack and consultant that will give them the sound bite they want, and ask them questions about stuff they know nothing about. And before this is all over most listeners will be left with the impression that BP's real business expertise is running carnival midways and they decided to get into drilling for deepwater oil as a hobby.

Second, some of these consultants are among the worst, because every one of them will claim to "know more than BP" but I can assure all of you with absolute confidence that almost none of them have ever had their own ass or their own money on the line drilling a well. Ever. Although not in the deepwater, I've had both...so I know what that feels like. And when shzt goes wrong it doesn't feel good, believe me.

[Roughneck]

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

Second, some of these consultants are among the worst, because every one of them will claim to "know more than BP" but I can assure all of you with absolute confidence that almost none of them have ever had their own ass or their own money on the line drilling a well. Ever. Although not in the deepwater, I've had both...so I know what that feels like. And when shzt goes wrong it doesn't feel good, believe me.

I'll second that one. You even have to take comments from some of the survivors with a skeptical eye. People have a lot of money riding on law suits and are bound to say anything. Also,you have some people covering their asses too. I heard one roustabout testify in the coast guard hearings that he over heard a Transocean employee and BP execs get in an argument over drilling procedures. The Transocean employee in question later denied those reports.

[lakedaemonian]

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

This was always an extremely low probability of success action. But the political climate is driving everyone to be seen to be trying "everything" no matter how lousy the chances of it working...

Every engineer I know in this business understood early on, once all the efforts to close the BOPs failed, that the only reasonable probability of success method to cap this blowout is the relief well. Talk of "junk shots", top kills, nuclear explosives, sinking a battleship on the wellhead [here's a link to that fantasy suggestion], or pumping cement directly into the blowout wellhead is wishful thinking played out large in the international media.

Wouldn't attempting to scuttle the USS Iowa on top of the wellhead be about as easy as trying to get a hole in one at Pine Valley Country Club's Par 5 "Hell's Half Acre"?

The technical, logistical, and financial challenge of solving this problem fly WAY over my head.

I can't even hold an amateur conversation on this topic, but I will be CLOSELY watching public perception and opinion on this crisis in the coming years.

It will be quite interesting to see how much momentum and initiative environmental lobby groups are able to seize.

I think it could be an epic battle between wallet and heart.

Will a massive environmental disaster turn into the "awkward fart in the room" where temporarily and artificially affluent Joe 6 Pack gives up another piece of his FIRE Economy lifestyle in the form of "**excessive environmentalism"?

**(No offense to environmentalists....I consider myself a real world environmentalist myself, like a for profit farmer.....supporting sustainable ways to profit from our natural resources).

I wonder if NIMBY-ism (Not In My BackYard) could see a reversal......rather than it's current use of being applied to the opposition of local development.......I wonder if it could be applied to SUPPORTING DISTANT DEVELOPMENT, even at potentially greater risk of high environmental cost if it goes someway towards mainataing their attriting FIRE economy lifestyle, standard of living, and quality of life?

If the greenie is unemployed, the solar panel covered house is foreclosed on, and the Prius has been repo'd, who can afford the "luxury" of being a fake vaneer environmentalist?

Could the volume and venom of environmental advocates(or the potential lack, especially private fundraising) be a useful economic indicator?

Will the strength of an "Environmental Inquisition" play a significant role in future energy prices(basically perform as a catalyst for even higher prices due to curtailed and more costly current/future development)?

I know it's not related directly to the topic of the blowout........but I'm a guessin' this story might only be at Chapter 1 of a 13 Chapter saga.

Just my 0.02c

[GRG55]

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

I'll second that one. You even have to take comments from some of the survivors with a skeptical eye. People have a lot of money riding on law suits and are bound to say anything. Also,you have some people covering their asses too. I heard one roustabout testify in the coast guard hearings that he over heard a Transocean employee and BP execs get in an argument over drilling procedures. The Transocean employee in question later denied those reports.

There is a lot of garbage coming out now. Here's another extract from an article posted in this thread:

Mike Williams was the chief electronics technician in charge of the rig's computers and electrical systems. And seven months before, he had helped the crew drill the deepest oil well in history, 35,000 feet...

...The tension in every drilling operation is between doing things safely and doing them fast; time is money and this job was costing BP a million dollars a day. But Williams says there was trouble from the start - getting to the oil was taking too long.

Williams said they were told it would take 21 days; according to him, it actually took six weeks.

With the schedule slipping, Williams says a BP manager ordered a faster pace...

21 days? To drill an 18,000 foot well in 5000 ft of water depth? Either this gentleman is being mis-quoted by a crappy journalist, or he doesn't have a freaking clue what he is talking about...and having apparently just participated in the drilling of a 35,055 foot well [BP's Tiber well in 4,132 feet of water at Keathley Canyon Block 102], you would think he would know better.

At these depths it takes a day just to trip out of the hole to change the bit and get it back on bottom, longer if there's an underreamer in the bottom hole assembly. It takes months to drill these wells, not days. It's going to take 3 to 4 times that duration to drill each of the relief wells and they aren't being drilled to Total Depth.

[strittmatter]

Re: As expected, BP abandons Top Kill approach

Second, some of these consultants are among the worst, because every one of them will claim to "know more than BP" but I can assure all of you with absolute confidence that almost none of them have ever had their own ass or their own money on the line drilling a well. Ever. Although not in the deepwater, I've had both...so I know what that feels like. And when shzt goes wrong it doesn't feel good, believe me.

Especially when it's only one ass and one money - mine.

Getting bit and drill string unstuck can take several minutes or several days. Same with fishing expeditions. My most nerve-racking and expensive episode was around 12 years or so ago. We drilled an 8.5" pilot hole to 1500', ran electric log, reamed the hole with 14.75" bit to 1340' then set and cemented 1340' of 10.75" casing ("Halliburton method - positive displacement through a cement bullnose guide shoe).

After 72 hours, drilled the shoe out then ran Smith under reamer http://www.smith.com/SBEDatasheet?bitID=10926&prod=72 (18") from 1342' to 1500'. Began to remove reamer but it would not pass back up through bottom of 10.75". One of two things had happened - either the wing cutter arms became bent therefore preventing them from falling back into the slots on the reamer body or the fluid jet inside the reamer had "washed out" which would have allowed the piston to drop down therefore blocking the arms from falling back in.

After several days of finally getting as "rought as the rig would get" - Smith's suggestion, it was time to cut bait. We ran the reamer back to the bottom, drilled another 30' of hole, then had the logger come out and "blow the thing off". This involves running primer cord to the connection point at the top of the bottom-hole collar, then you rotate the string slowly in reverse thereby putting enough back torque on the string, then lock the rotary table down. The logger sets his blast charge, at that moment the shock wave friction at the connection point downhole causes that particular connection to un-screw. I lost the one bottom hole drill collar and Smith's rented reamer.

We finished the well, the well was a success, however to this day we'd have still been out there beating a dead horse otherwise.

Daily updated tally sheets along with exact knowledge of every single component that's in the hole is ever so priceless.

[GRG55]

Re: As expected, BP abandons Top Kill approach

Loved your story strittmatter. I wish my worst nightmare had been more like yours. I lost $900,000 of MWD and other tools in a hihgly deviated structural well that we were drilling to a 19,000 foot deep gas target in the Rockies. We were already below 15k in the deviated section when a heavily fractured section of the strata in the hole collapsed. My drillers gave it the best shot they could but I had to call in the cement trucks. The only saving grace is the test was a success and turned out to be one of the best wells in the field ultimately. I figure the stress will cost me 5 years off my life though...