"OK people, I'm feeling a little pressure to do something. Where's this damn leak they're talking about?"
Posted on 05/26/2010 1:49:19 PM PDT by Positive
I would NOT want to try a "nuke". One of the older ways to SPEED UP production of formations used to be to set off an explosion in them. This opens cracks in the rock so oil can flow more freely.
At one time, it was thought that nuclear explosions would "be perfect" for this, and it was actually tried on a gas formation somewhere out West (in the days of "Project Plowshare". It worked, and production was significantly increased, but it turned out that the gas was too radioactive to use.
An increase in production is NOT what we want here. If the "Top Kill" doesn't work, we'll just need to be patient until the relief wells get done, which is slower but surer.
The following is from "The Oil Drum" (sent by my sis-in-law who is a geophysicist in Houston):
"........the larger numbers that have been quoted in the press, of 70,000 to 100,000 bd are purely sensational and not based on science. Unfortunately they also serve to increase alarm and suggest threats to the tourist industries of Alabama, Mississippi and Florida that do not realistically exist."
This doesn’t look good to me. You pump a liquid into a moving liquid it wants to get carried along with it and out the leak. It would take a massive pumping operation to overcome the natural flow of the leak with a heavier fluid.
They have eight 30,000 HP pumps and that's just on one rig.
As I’ve been watching, it appears as though it’s mud coming up now. Which, I think, is a good sign.
The entire key to this current process is to be able to pump mud into the well faster than it can be carried out by the fluids flowing out of the well. If they can’t do that they are wasting their time but I believe they CAN do this.
The well is flowing at something like 3 barrels per minute. if you can pump in 4 barrels per minute you will eventually kill the well assuming that the well is structurally intact downhole and doesn’t allow the mud being pumped in to flow out into the formation.
I think once the mud is flowing downhill they could begin lowering the pumping pressure then send down cement kind of like achieving balance against the formation pressure? just my 2cents.
Once they get enough mud in the well to overbalance the formation (stop any upward flow of well fluids) they will be able to pump in a big slug of cement and plug the thing off. If they don’t wait until that point the cement will likely be gas cut and will not work!
Once they get enough mud in the well to overbalance the formation (stop any upward flow of well fluids) they will be able to pump in a big slug of cement and plug the thing off. If they don’t wait until that point the cement will likely be gas cut and will not work!
It certainly looked like more than 3 barrels a minute in the video
thanks Positive.
"OK people, I'm feeling a little pressure to do something. Where's this damn leak they're talking about?"
3.5 BPM is a little over 5000 BPD. It’s just a guess at any rate but whatever that rate is they need to be able to pump int the well at a higher rate for this to work. The first several hours will be the most critical and they have to be careful so as to not damage anything downhole with overpressure.
Likewise Firefox. I need a grammar checker :-)
Is it just me or has the discharge gotten darker over the last hour or so? Looks like more oil may be mixing in with it.
Heheh
It looks to me like it is slowing down.
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