Posted on 06/15/2010 9:37:36 PM PDT by CWW
What BP and the Government Are Not Telling Us:
The Deepwater Horizon Well Is Going to Collapse Soon Resulting in an Uncontrollable Oilcano.
The recent failure of the Top Kill ("mud kill") attempt revealed that the well bore structure is compromised "Down hole", i.e., the well pipes below the sea floor are broken and leaking. That's why the Top Kill procedure did not work.
What does this mean?
It means they will never cap the gusher after the wellhead. They cannot. That sort of leak is one of the most dangerous and potentially damaging kinds of leak there could be. It is also inaccessible which compounds our problems. There is no way to stop that leak from above. All they can do is relieve the pressure on it by opening it up (like a opening up a garden hose nozzle to slow a leak in the line). This down hole leak will undermine the foundation of the seabed in and around the well area. It also weakens the only thing holding up the massive Blow Out Preventer's immense bulk of 450 ton.
What is likely to happen now?
Well...none of what is likely to happen is good. In fact, it's about as bad as it gets. I am convinced the erosion and compromising of the entire system is accelerating and attacking more key structural areas of the well, the blow out preventer and surrounding strata holding it all up and together. This is evidenced by the tilt of the blow out preventer and the erosion which has exposed the well head connection. What eventually will happen is that the blow out preventer will literally tip over if they do not run supports to it as the currents push on it. I suspect they will run those supports as cables tied to anchors very soon, if they don't, they are inviting disaster that much sooner.
Eventually, even that will be futile as the well casings cannot support the weight of the massive system above with out the cement bond to the earth and that bond is being eroded away. When enough is eroded away the casings will buckle and the blow out preventer will collapse the well. If and when you begin to see oil and gas coming up around the well area from under the blow out preventer, or the area around the well head connection and casing sinking more and more rapidly, it won't be too long after that the entire system fails. BP must be aware of this, they are mapping the sea floor sonically and that is not a mere exercise. Our Gov't must be well aware too, they just are not telling us.
All of these things lead to only one place, a fully wide open well bore directly to the oil deposit...after that, it goes into the realm of "the worst things you can think of" -- The well may come completely apart as the inner liners fail. The very least damaging outcome, as bad as it is, is that we are stuck with a wide open gusher blowing out a minimum of 150,000 barrels a day (about 6.75 million gallons) of raw oil or more.
All the collection efforts that have captured oil will be erased in short order. The magnitude of this disaster will increase exponentially by the time we can do anything to halt it and our odds of actually even being able to halt it will go down.
The magnitude and impact of this disaster will eclipse anything we have known in our life times if the worst or even near worst happens.
We are seeing the puny forces of man vs. the awesome forces of nature. We are going to need some luck and a lot of effort to win...and if nature decides we ought to lose, we will.
“SpongeBob SquarePants lives in Bikini Bottom. Sheesh, could you please research these important details?”
*snicker*
I got three kids...I know more about bob than I ever wanted to..
Sadly, this is what it looks like to me from all I have read. But there are two things I saw on the cameras that are even more upsetting. I saw a quick flash of a large hole in the sea floor spewing black oil, fire and the other colored stuff like a volcano. That camera went out fast - but I saw it! I also saw junk coming out of the sea floor through cracks directly in the sea bed.
This problem is much bigger than the well failure which is bad enough. They are blabbing about drilling into the current well structure but I think that is just for public consumption. I think Obama knows, too.
I have no idea why they are playing games with information on the ramifications of the situation for the life on the Gulf. It is a crime against the citizens of the United States. We do not deserve to be lied to and harmed any worse than is necessary so idiots can cover for their political careers and court cases. People have to be able to assess the situation and make plans for their families and businesses.
It is going to pollute the drinking water when the first big storm comes in and sucks up that mess and drops it inland. We have no idea how dangerous the air is...I don’t trust the government to be honest.
Yeah, physics is wierd sh*t, man.
For some reason all those formulas haven't changed since they were figured out.
What the writer has failed to notice, is that the rig technology HAS changed, that the bits to drill the well are different (polycrystalline diamond cutters, now) driven by far more advanced mud motors, surveyed by MWD (measurement while drilling) tools which pump up a survey in six minutes or so as opposed to shutting down and running a wireline tool down the drill pipe to get a survey--and pulling it out and developing the film, or the other advances in technology which will enable those relief wells to be drilled in a third of the time the ones were for the Ixtoc 1.
Until the fundamentals change, the basic solutions will not.
Without good casing, the well will have to be killed from below. Some things just don't change.
BTW, there was a 'junk shot' on the Ixtoc well, but they used lead and iron balls, not golf balls.
No apples to oranges involved, they're both oil wells.
All of that sounds very grim indeed. Seems like Anderson Cooper is the only one on TV who is giving lengthy coverage of the situation every night. Maybe he needs to get a link to this information.
Ixtoc wasn’t spilling anywhere near what this one is.
We're doomed with this psychopath in charge. Can an adult step in? Give this loon a snowcone and let him sit in the corner for a while.
The only way to kill/cap this blowout is to drill wells
around it and lay another undersea pipe
line to Port Fourchon,,,
And dump the product on the market...
Those relief wells are to do what in a few weeks?
Are they going to drill into the original well
and plug it, against 14,000 psi? Drill through the
original casing against 14,000 psi. Has this been done
before?
I think there is enough evidence that the well casing is
broken as the Oil Drum writer states, and shouldn’t
we use this possibility of what may happen to depressurize
whole field by drilling 100s of wells and using the
oil. Like filling tankers there instead of in the ME.
And getting connected to pipelines.
Granted either process scares the hell out of the powers
running things now,, powers being the greenies, the
socialists, the oil companies, ildouche and crew, etc.
Like going on as now and a complete collapse putting
an inch of oil all over the Gulf, or using the oil instead
of ME/Chavez oil, with gas dropping to a dollar thus
losing the government a quarter of their tax revenue,
and wells being drilled all over which greens don’t want,
but maybe a good excuse to creat a surplus oil
deal which definated helps all of us, the economy,
and lower pressure stops the chance of a huge disaster.
All these wells can be drilled to regulations, hooked up
immediately, not done with shortcuts like BP did and
ildouches crew allowed.Ed
So, BP will eventually own many major-producing wells in the Gulf from this leak?
Ixtoc daily spill rate was lower, but it took longer for them to drill the relief wells 30 years ago. Oh - today we have downhole magnetometers (GE) to guide the relief wells within inches of the casing on the blown well which should also be a huge help in getting the mud and cement where it needs to go. We are also capturing some of the BP oil. All in all, it may be about the same total spillage.
http://forums.hannity.com/showthread.php?p=74874391
Excerpt:
While Macondo is an environmental disaster, “investors must separate pre-election political rhetoric and sensationalist media coverage from reality and history. Odds are that Macondo will turn out to be far less of a disaster than BP’s most vocal critics suggest,” said Gue.
When will it end?
When Macondo will be plugged and how much oil will have leaked by then are anybody’s guess. As mentioned above, Ixtoc leaked an estimated 3.3 million barrels over a 290-day period, or an estimated 11,379 b/d.
According to recent estimates by the U.S. Geological Survey, the Macondo well is leaking between 20,000 b/d to 40,000 b/d. From the time period of April 22 through June 4, or 44 days, Macondo leaked between 880,000 and 1.8 million barrels of oil.
The LMRP [lower marine riser package] containment cap started capturing oil on June 4, and caught 89,000 barrels over a six and half day period, or about 14,000 b/d. The LMRP was capturing over 15,000 b/d as of June 11, and upcoming additions to the LMRP may enable more to be collected.
Looking forward to the capping of the leaking Macondo well, drilling of the first relief well started on May 2 and had reached 14,000 feet as of June 10, with an estimated 4,000 feet more to go. At that pace, drilling would likely be completed by early July. With further time for actually completing the well, BP’s estimate of 3 months to complete the first relief well looks to be met. With the expectation that the relief well will be able to halt the flow of oil, the spill could be ended by the start of August.
For the 57-day period from June 4 through Aug. 1, Macondo could be expected to leak an additional 1.4 million barrels, assuming a flow rate of 40,000 b/d and that the LMRP continues to capture 15,000 b/d during that time.
Based on the highest current estimates of 40,000 barrels of oil being spilled per day, approximately 3.2 million barrels are likely to have been spilled from the Macondo well by the time the first relief well is ready. That size of a spill puts the current Gulf oil spill very much in line with the Ixtoc spill in terms of total volume.
With the significant efforts underway to control the extent of the spill and with the usage of dispersants, both at the surface and being injected directly into the oil plume, the actual environmental impact of Macondo may be significantly less than Ixtoc. If that is truly the case, the long-term environmental fallout from the Gulf oil spill will likely be much less significant than the enduring catastrophe that many are envisioning.
Compare where Ixtoc was and where this one is. Compare distances to the US major estuaries.
Yes you are right they have killed the
peak oil nonsense, and investors know this,
as that is why the pump price didn’t go up
when it blew out. The money men know, and
soon most of the rest in this country, will
figure it out. After 9-11 with in two hours
there was a hundred cars at the nearest gas pump
out here on an old country blacktop, this time nothing.
Folks figure now that if they can diddle around
and cover the Gulf with oil, we have no shortage, we have
no reason for it to be 3 bucks, we have no reason
for the inflation this high energy price has caused.
“THEY being the gov, greenies, and oil companies.ED
True on the distances - Ixtoc was in the southern gulf away from our shores and we still got it, obviously to a lesser degree than the nearby Mexican shores. But I was responding to the statement that “Ixtoc wasn’t spilling any thing near what this well is”.
The total barrels into the gulf may be close. And it is more to the point of this has happened before (and elsewhere - one in Australia) and the ocean floor didn’t collapse, there weren’t tsunamis, they didn’t spew oil until the “oil cavern” was dry, etc.
And it is obviously an environmental disaster (and don’t forget the 11 lives lost, the economic cost, and probably longer-lasting political cost).
Here’s a link with some comments on the environmental issues observed from the Ixtoc spill. Both nearby the well (Mexico) and far (Texas):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/01/gulf-oil-spill-ixtoc-ecological-tipping-point
Excerpt:
But although Ixtoc was a big disaster, it did not develop into the long-term catastrophe that scientists initially thought was inevitable.
“This is not to say there were no consequences. Just that the evidence is that these are not as dramatic as we feared,” says Luis Soto, a marine biologist from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. “After about two years the recuperation was well on the way.”
Wes Tunnell, now at the Texas Harte Research Institute, took samples before and after the oil arrived in Texas that showed an immediate 80% drop in the number of organisms living between the grains of sand that provide food for shore birds and crabs.
“Sampling a couple of years after the spill indicated the populations were back to normal,” he says. Six years after Ixtoc 1 exploded it was hard to find any evidence of the oil, he says. “It is rather baffling to us all. We don’t really know where it went.”
My point was that the environmental damage is quite related to what part of the environment gets hit. Very little of Ixtoc oil made it to estuaries - mostly hit beaches.
This one is right off 40% of the total marshland of the US.
Second, and new, point. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that either they don’t know the flow and undersea situation or they’re not telling. So comparisons to Ixtoc are premature.
thanks for your reply.
Huh? Are you speaking of the relief wells?
We are going to have to kill FERC before we kill the well. Short of leadership (an obowelmovent executive order), there will be no flowlines. I guess I am being a bit negative.
“Very little of Ixtoc oil made it to estuaries - mostly hit beaches.”
I didn’t know that about the Ixtoc. Yes, the swamps (I have a hard time spelling estuaries!) are more sensitive. I came across some old report that studied oil spills in swamps. I’ll try to find it tomorrow.
If I recall correctly, it was interesting that the grasses and water life came back after a short while (a year or two), but the oil was still stuck in the lower muck years and years later and was a dead zone for the critters that live in the muck. I imagine that would all get stirred back up in a hurricane as well.
Differences also, according to what I have, just for the record:
Ixtoc water depth: 50 meters
Deepwater water depth: 1500 meters
Ixtoc drill depth: 3,000 meters
Deepwater drill depth: 5,500 meters
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