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]
It sort of surprises me, how many parts of a rig Sound Dirty But Aren’t.
Kelly bushing, shale shaker, choke manifold ...
And I won’t even get into the dog house and the mouse hole!
The ‘earlier’ efforts that BP used were to SLOW DOWN, and try to CONTAIN the leaking oil and gas. Neither the TOP HAT nor the INSERTION TUBE were meant to be complete SOLUTIONS to the spill. They were designed to limit the amount of oil/gas lost to the ocean.
The TOP KILL method has been planned from the very start. It took every second of time from then til now to get to the point where they are pumping ‘mud’ down the hole. Until the cement is pumped in, I would expect the ‘outflow’ of gas/oil/mud to continue (mostly mud, now).
The TOP HAT method was tried first, because it would not add any ‘stress’ to the wellhead, which is damaged, or to the foundation (ocean floor), which is apparently not very solid.
The TOP KILL method requires much more time to enact, and COULD cause more damage to the wellhead, and more leaks, or completely disrupt the integrity of the ocean floor around the wellhead. If it ‘blew’ the wellhead out of the ocean floor, say right where the faulty single cement plug between the liner and bore (annulus), then we would have new meaning for the word disaster.
Peak oil is a myth. The oil is out there. Natural gas on shore throughout the USA is huge due to horizontal drilling in all the shale areas which are in probably 27 states.
The problem is drilling in deep water is tricky and BP rushing this job and not letting Transocean, Cameron and the others do their job properly may have screwed up offshore drilling for years.
They need a better system so in teh future if something like this happens again - they can fix it in 48 hours.
When drunk you can do a great deal with bottom hole pressure, blow out preventer, well head back pressure, rat hole, and on pumper trucks the ever popular opossum belly!
What’s the source for your information, other than some whispers from unreliable sources? Published reports claim it to be a 100 million barrel discovery, which is about average for these deep water prospects.
I tell you what, if I NEVER wake up with bottom hole pressure and heavy mud again, that’ll be too soon.
I believe they still use monkey boards even though most larger rigs now are top drives. The pipe has to be stacked somewhere. Some of the newer rigs are called Super Singles that don’t break the pipe off in stands but in individual joints that are stacked in a box on the catwalk.
That’s called a “show with heavies”.
I hear Ray Nagin has some time available...
Anyone notice the big wrench in the camera right now?
The first offshore rig I work summers on in college was the Glomar II. The stands in the derrick would have made it far too top heavy. They laid down every stand with a little tugger buggie that took the tool joint and pulled the stand out to the end of an auto pipe rack. It was run by the derrickman from a panel just behind the driller.
I saw that !!
I have been working and may have missed it....but didn’t they announce that the Top Kill was successful? It appears to be blowing the same as last night to me....
That’s drilling mud and not oil. They have to keep the pressure up to keep the well from unloading until they pump the cement.
Geez, what’s going on now? Earlier it was very calm but now its spewing. Is that the same location?
O is absolutely taking credit for it!
He must be CONFIDENT it is working, although the BP live feed has me wondering. I’m seeing dark brown liquid in the middle and light brown on the sides.
ohh, I see...thanks!
what is the big wrench trying to do now? Looks like it is sticking a bar of some kind into the mud flow, right?
Wonder what they are trying to do? Any experts here know?
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