A good find. Thorough and well laid out. The idea that the BOP was somehow going to fall over is simply ridiculous. Folks need to remember that it was strong enough NOT to break or tip when the riser pipe (and the TWO side-by-side segments of smaller piping inside it) were bent through an angle greater than 90 degrees. The force needed to do that was enormous, and yet the BOP and its anchoring well-string structure stayed solid.
H. Rider Haggard on June 25, 2010 - 10:38am
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Excellent post, shelburn. The well diagram is the best I've seen and I need to study it.
Point of interest: It's been pointed out elsewhere that dougr's alarmist comment of June 13 on TOD (http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6593#comment-648967), given publicity in Mother Jones (http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/06/worst-already-true-BP-well-no...), largely duplicates one at http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1097505/pg1 by "SHR" on June 12. So we can assume that "dougr" and "SHR" are one and the same.
Unlike dogur's comment on TOD, SHR's posting at godlikeproductions includes some photos, one of them of an inclinomoter of unknown provenance. I haven't figured out how to put pictures inline in a comment here, so I've posted that photo to http://imgur.com/j4j4C for your viewing pleasure.
Incidentally, to put another recent alarmist meme to rest, I ran through the numbers to see what thickness of sandstone it would take to cap a methane gas bubble with a pressure of 100,000 PSI. If my numbers are right the answer is 18 miles of rock. So I don't think we have to worry that 100,000 PSI may be trapped only 1.6 miles beneath the seabed at the bottom of the Macondo well.
The picture is a "bullseye", one of several the ROVs have been checking since the videos were available. They are standard equipment on subsea wellheads, BOPs and LMRPs.
The inclinometer that DougR referenced was a "black box" the ROVs have been pressing against the side of the BOP/LMRP/riser.
I was thinking about the methane bubble. It seems all we have to do is drill 100,000 feet into a 100,000 psi formation and then we should have all the NG necessary to sustain our lifestyles and BAU for the next hundred years.
Lets spud tomorrow - drill, baby, drill.