Posted on 05/27/2010 2:03:28 PM PDT by moose2004
HOUSTON — BP had to halt its ambitious effort to plug its stricken oil well in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday afternoon when engineers saw that too much of the drilling fluid they were injecting into the well was escaping along with the leaking crude oil.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
And everyone: you can stop taking about BP pumping cement into the hole to plug the well. I know it’s difficult for most to envision what’s going on down there. But this isn’t a simplification of the situation: you have a pipe sticking straight up the air and it’s flowing 10 gallons per minute out the top. You stick a tube down the pipe and start pumping cement. Question: how long for the cement to harden? Answer: never. The cement is going to mix with the water and flow out the end of the pipe. Honest...I didn’t dumb down this example. That’s exactly what would happen if the pumped cmt down the blow out if it were still flowing. No one has ever set a cement plug into a flowing well in the history of the oil business. But you can shove a packer down a producing csg string and stop or at least slow a flow considerably. But can’t shove a packer down this hole: can’t get it through the BOP. And if you could there’s drill pipe in the way.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6516
I’ve been following the discussion over here:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6516#more
Some real problems it sounds like...
Joe, your post literally brings tears man, everyone, everywhere wants this to work. We all know what happens if this beast goes uncontrolled for the next 3-6 months.
Obamie claiming credit jinxed the whole thing.
You mean it could take up to 6 months to stop the oil and gas? I thought the relief wells would be done by the first of August.
LOL! Serves him right.
I have a question, is that all/mostly oil that we see coming out of the pipe on the live feed?
The tube is spraying the dispersant again(right corner of feed) so the oil is still leaking and it appears to be coming out at an increased rate.
And every engineer/oilfield hand knows you can't pump cement on an active well. Unfortunately, every socialite from new york to la are now all oil field engineers......if we are to believe the ny times.
Is that oil or is it mud?
Probably 75-80% of the watchers think you can just plug it with cement before it’s killed.
I have a question, is that all/mostly oil that we see coming out of the pipe on the live feed?
Well since you’re the expert here on FR, :) what do you think? Did the top kill fail? Is there another leak elsewhere and how did they underestimate the amount of oil leaking for one solid month? Or did they just choose not to admit it? Did you work on rigs in the ocean that were under a mile of water?
so the hole is not plugged right?
is the media now saying it is not if true?
sorry not been up to date on this as I have been busy on another tonka toy and his troll pal.
The ocean is 100’ out my back door. Hurricane season is approaching. I was just sitting out there looking at the turquoise water and watching the Snapper, tropicals and lobster, wondering what is going to happen. I desperately want it fixed but I’m not going to pretend it’s ok if it’s not. I just want the truth so if they can’t stop it until August, let us know so we can begin NOW to attempt to prevent it from reaching the shores and to protect the coral reefs.
another question, hope you don’t mind pal
is this has failed then how long could we be looking at as it will destroy our state and I guarantee that bozo will be crapping it seeing as we are a massive state and a swing state , infact he can’t win without our state and he knows
you’re further south than me so I assume you’ll see the damage before me too.
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