Posted on 05/27/2010 5:53:57 AM PDT by dennisw
Edited on 05/27/2010 6:12:15 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Reporting from Houma, La. Engineers have succeeded in stopping the flow of oil and gas into the Gulf of Mexico from a gushing BP well, the federal government's top oil spill commander, U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, said Thursday morning.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
At first I was wondering why Carville was so livid, but isn't he from Louisiana? I suspect he has beach front property on the gulf coast.
I don’t believe it was “utter incompetence of Obama and his administration” — I think it was totally on purpose.
ROFL!
I forgot about the riser, thanks for the insight.
If it was Clinton, I could see the mistake...
Wrong. What has changed is that no more oil is coming out. BP can tell this by measuring the amount of oil/gas that is reaching the surface through the "pump and capture" line.
They are undoubtedly continuing to feed in "heavy mud" to drive the oil and gas further back down the drill hole to a point below wherever it is getting through the well casing.
Once that is done, they will test to see whether the weight of the mud column is sufficient to continue to hold back the oil and gas. If so, they will pump in cement to block the casing completely.
See my post #155 immediately above this. I’ll be a bit nicer to you though - BP was working on topkill right away. It takes much more time to get things together for topkill than it took for the other attempts first. They have been working on topkill efforts almost from the first day. The ROVs have been preparing the environment and making the connections for at least two weeks now, cutting, tearing, polishing, welding, etc. BP had to get many other pieces of equipment on site - like vessels with nearly 100,000 barrels of specifically designed “mud” to feed to the 16,000 psi, 5000 gallon per minute pumps (One heck of a power sprayer)... not to mention at all the hoses, connectors, powerlines, hydralics, etc needed to accomplish this Herculean feat.
I did hear that if this didn’t work, they do have plans to cut the damaged riser off so that they can put a better containment vessel over the wellhead.
The rest of the leaks are all further down the broken riser pipe. BP has stopped the leak "at the source", so those are stopped as well.
Good analogy. Its a whole different world down there at 5,000’.
At those pressures and more methane becomes like solids, and minerals will precipitate right out of the water.
Its easier to operate on the surface of the moon than it is down there from what I have read.
No doubt. (Aside: Carville looks like a nut on TV, btw.)
What we need is a Haley Barber watch. He’s a real independent, leadership kind of guy and Mississippi is quiet and their Biloxi coast is beautiful. I’m betting he’s already taken the bull by the horns, and is simply getting the job done.
‘A great day for america, mexico - the whole gulf coast. Private enterprise working to solve a problem it made’. something like that?
They worked on several fixes simultaneously. For the TopKill alone they had to run fluid analysis, design the manifolds and hardware, build it, move it into place, test it and then get permission to attempt it. If Topkill fails, they would try the Junk Shot, if that fails they will attempt to cut and cap the riser.....all while drilling two relief wells. All in all, absolutely stunning engineering in record breaking time.
Not THIS WELL!!
Not true. The rig sank well off to the side. This is not a "stand on legs" rig, but a free-floating rig, held in position over the well site by water thrusters. The probability of it sinking directly on top of the BOP is essentially zero, given the currents in the Gulf.
//the 16,000 psi, 5000 gallon per minute pumps//
What, are those things Saturn V F-1 engines?
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