BP delays key test on Gulf of Mexico oil well

BBC ^ | 14 July 2010 Last updated at 23:03 ET | BBC Staff

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

BP has delayed a key test on a newly installed well cap aimed at stopping the flow of oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP and US Coast Guard officials said further analysis was needed before pressure testing could begin.

If it proves successful, the well will be kept "shut in" and the leak halted until relief wells plug it entirely.

The blown-out well has been spewing oil into Gulf waters since April. The US administration has sent BP and other parties a new bill for the clean-up.

The administration says the latest bill is for $99.7m (£65.8m).

The oil giant has already fully paid the last three bills totalling $122.2m (£80.6m) for costs related to response and clean-up of the spill, according to the Obama administration.'No promises'

The test in the Gulf of Mexico, which was supposed to begin on Tuesday, will determine whether BP's new cap can contain the oil.

Coast Guard chief Admiral Thad Allen said the extra analysis would continue into Wednesday.

This latest move to stop the oil comes a day after the containment cap was placed on the leaking well.

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The sealing cap system never before has been deployed at these depths or under these conditions”

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Work on the permanent relief well solution continues.

BP Vice-President Kent Wells said no promises could be made about whether the new cap would work.

"It's not simple stuff. What we don't want to do is speculate around it," he said.

Shutting in the well would provide a temporary solution to the leaking oil. BP is continuing work on the relief well that is expected permanently to stop the oil.

[GOPJ]

You’re reply was plenty - I had just never heard of it before... Thanks for sharing.

[Marine_Uncle]

I sense those UTUBE vidoes where a month old when they where ripping stuff up in the process of installing all the new sea floor piping and equipement to be used in the planned recovery system. The oil coming up looks like it was coming out of the end of one of the yellow pipes sitting on the sea floor. And a carefull observation makes it clear it was no where near the main well bore.
If there where sea floor leaks we surely would be seeing all kinds of stuff at this point.
As for the time frames for the set of tests. The admiral made it clear yesterday in his conference. The testing could easily take two or three days or more. He probaby should not even have made a guess of six hours for the first step in the four valve shutoff proceedure as a potential estimate (if they saw 9Kpsi level readings), before proceeding to shutting off the next valve.
Why rush the analysis of the seismographic test at this point. Get it right this time. The data gained from this exercise will not only determine if they want to attempt cutting off the well completely, or just cut off the top leak using the three ram BOP, thereby allowing the two lower valves to be reopen and extract oil/gas etc..
The data is supposed to help guide them as to how best to finally kill the well using the bottom kill in a few weeks via. the first RW.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Later thread :

Setback: BP cap in limbo over gov't questions

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Same article,...more discussion:

Setback: BP cap in limbo over gov't questions (Obama stops plugging the leak and relief wells)

[SaraJohnson]

Here is what they are working on.

http://www.helium.com/items/1889648-bp-preparing-super-weapon-to-avert-escalating-gulf-nightmare

[SaraJohnson]

Here’s clinton breaking you in for the bad news, Ernest. They are going through the “cap it” and “relief well” gyrations for your “hope” and to logically lead you to the final solution. As we see each “attempt” fail, we need to clear out before they do a mass herd evacuation, or worse, leave us in place to see how it all works out with their “expert” assurances it is all hunky dory.

http://www.helium.com/items/1889648-bp-preparing-super-weapon-to-avert-escalating-gulf-nightmare

[SaraJohnson]

Say ten hail marys and four our fathers before wishing that an explosion touches that methane. ;)

[SaraJohnson]

If the seabed and bedrock are already fractured/compromised, then nuking it would be a bad idea.

---

The smart people know better and the uneducation, ignorant masses.

They are gonna do it and they know that now.

[Marine_Uncle]

If the testing and the relieve well bore drilling is not continued soon then perhaps some of the fears echoed that Obi's gang is deliberatly stopping what could have been a clean fix is warranted.
Let us consider there have been many times the relieve bore drilling is stopped. Half day plus periods where they add new sections of casing, drop the magnometer into the well, take measurements etc..
I am not discounting what some are echoing as to the sinister behind the scene moves Obi's gang may have planned. It is so easy to agree with many of the grave concerns Freepers are echoing from the political view point.
We will not get a clear picture until a few days pass and we see what will continue or be suspended.
What may become interesting is that if BP discovers the main well has not been compromised and all indications are that the original BOP and associated plumbing is capable of handling a full shutdown from the top, and they are not allowed to do it... they start to cry "foul play" from the Feds..

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Obama and his followers just naturally generate a lot of conspiracy theories.

[Marine_Uncle]

Yeah. Know what you mean.

[SaraJohnson]

A lot of knowledgable people would disagree with you about what happened in that video. BP switched the camera so fast it was hard to study it, though.

As I recall, weren’t you the one who jumped on me for writing about the leak entering the Gulf stream? If not you, someone who knows everything on this site claimed BP had that all under control with the slick blocked off from the Gulf stream. LOL!

https://www.cstars.miami.edu/Media/photo-gallery?func=detail&id=538

[Red_Devil 232]

That was not me who jumped on you!

And the tin foil hat crowd who think that is a rock on the sea floor leaking oil, in that second video, need some very heavy duty foil! The whole floor around that well is nothing but layers of silt until you get to depth. It is nothing more than a piece of the riser laying on the sea floor that they cut off a few days earlier.

[Smokin' Joe]

You talk about methane filling mined cavities? What sort of mining? What type of rock?

You have yet to provide a source for any of your information.

Perhaps you could tell me what geological formation stretches contiguously from Texas to New York?

I did not claim to be an 'expert' on methane deposits in North America, but a petroleum geologist.

You want links to five years of formal geological education and thirty one years of experience in the oil industry?

LOL!

How do I give you a link to a Westburne Drilling Co. Rig in Montana in 1979? Or a Cardinal Rig in Nevada? Or an Adcor Rig in Colorado? Or a Nabors Rig in North Dakota? or any of the two hundred wellsites I have worked on over the decades?

To save time, just google the Geological Surveys of those states and more (add in Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, for starters), and don't forget the Appalachian states, either. At least some of the data will be there.

I reckon if your life can be put up in links on the internet, you haven't been out there much--but you claim to have done geological research, so I figured (since you are not a geologist) the research you did was at least partly on the web.

You are the one making assertions which don't have any evidence to back them. You tell me you did research, but won't provide your sources.

Getting snarky with me doesn't prove squat.

[Red_Devil 232]

Hey Joe! Geology degree here. 22 years in seismic exploration in the Gulf States and the Gulf of Mexico. Sara has been very misinformed by visiting tin foil hat sites

By the way they have started the testing of the well! No longer spewing oil from the top! They have closed that top hydraulic valve. Now spewing out of the side.

[SaraJohnson]

Sorry, I was in a snarky mood. I am not going to get into a pissing match with you. We will just watch to see what unfolds.

[SaraJohnson]

We’ll see, Red Devil. Are you the man wearing the blinders or am I the woman with the tin foil hat. :)

[Red_Devil 232]

If you actually believe those videos you posted and believe there are rocks on the sea bed surface, at this well's location, leaking oil then you need heavy, heavy duty tin foil!

[Smokin' Joe]

We will just watch to see what unfolds.

I'll go for that.

[GOPJ]

bump