BP puts containment dome on gushing oil geyser

The Washington Post ^ | June 4, 2010 | Joel Achenbach

[2ndDivisionVet]

The well has been capped, more or less. BP engineers Thursday night guided a containment dome onto the hydrocarbon geyser shooting from the Gulf of Mexico oil well -- a desperate and iffy attempt to capture the leaking oil and funnel it to a ship on the surface.

It was not an elegant operation. Furious clouds of oil escaped the "top hat." Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander for the spill, called the development a positive step but said, "It will be sometime before we can confirm that this method will work and to what extent it will mitigate the release of oil into the environment."

It was a day crammed with engineering drama. First, BP used robotic vehicles and a pair of giant shears to cut a damaged pipe a mile below the gulf's surface. The result simplified the whole arrangement at the sea floor: Instead of spewing from multiple leaks in a tangle of bent pipes, the oil and natural gas surged in a single plume from what looked like a deep-sea smokestack.

Then came the dome, lowered by cables, guided by robots, illuminated by lamps in a world without natural light, and carrying with it the hopes of countless engineers and pretty much the entire Gulf Coast.

Nothing has gone according to plan in the subsea environment as, on the surface, the oil has hit more than 100 miles of Louisiana shoreline. After brushing a barrier island in Alabama, it is poised to tar the white sand beaches of the Florida Panhandle. The area of the gulf closed to fishing is now larger than the state of Florida.(continued)

[Rainwaves]

It’s interesting listening to all you “experts” but the oil, however much of it, is still flowing into the sea.
I say remove that stupid BP riser, cut it clean off flush with the bottom. The pipe is 20 inches in diameter? Or so i heard.
I do know something about torpedoes, sea pressure, salinity and make up of the ocean’s bottom and its strata. A Mk 50 torpedo is very close to circumference of the pipe. Send an inert Mk 50, with laser GPS at high speed straight down the throat of that sucker.
It could go into or push the pipe well below the bottom. Follow it with a Mk 48 ADCAP (again w/o warhead) straight in behind it. Use underwater concrete to plug the 3o foot deep, 3 foot wide hole. I guarantee there would be less oil flowing than what I see now

[jpsb]

"Malarkey. One million gallons per day would be 24000 barrels per day, which is well outside the maximum estimated flow of the well."

And we all know what a great job BP and Gov are doing at estimating the flow of the well.

There are three teams working on estimating the flow. Two teams have reported flows of 12k-19k. However the third team (the team that actually looks at the flow), will report a minimum flow of at least 25K.

[Cold Heat]

Not sure what method they used to seal or what else they may have sealed via Halliburton. I have worked only shallow water rigs or 500foot and less. This well extends more than 12000 feet below the ocean floor in addition to being a mile deep. The pressures dictate methods for the most part.

I think what happened was that a previously undetected reservoir of nat gas found it's way to the well and began expanding, pushing the oil and anything else in it's way out to the surface. The well went out of spec. They did not catch it in time and likely could not have stopped it anyway. Then the BOP failed and that was that.

[Cold Heat]

The casing is some 20 inches but the drill pipe is only 6 inches.

You can't cut the BOP off the well head as it is the well head. It is nearly 5 stories high and anchored to the ocean floor.

You could put a nuclear bomb under it and all you would get for your trouble after the oil made it's way through the sand and debris, would be a lot of radioactive tar balls to pick up off the beach along with radioactive dead birds and fish.

[Cold Heat]

I think it’s the pipe that cased the BOP to fail.

[Cold Heat]

14 reports of incident in 6 years globally. There were thousands of wells and most of them deep.

There are differing modes of failure for a BOP as well. The most likely failure is when they are engaged electrically via a panic button because of a safety issue and then fail to reset. They have a motor operated valve and you simply give it the green light to reopen. I have heard of long delays when they did not, which is why the operators don't like to push the button.

But even so, that is a very good record of functionality and safety.

[Cold Heat]

The batteries probably were not replaced yet because they have redundancy in the requirements. One battery is not a big deal and the BOP was wired to power from the rig when they actuated it from the control room. The batteries come into play only if the rig is somehow detached from the BOP. It apparently tried to shut off the flow but jammed before it was detached when the rig sunk. At least this is how I see it from after sinking interviews..

This is where the cement job will come into the investigation, and also where the inspection of the drill pipe and casings will be important to determine the root cause of the BOP failure.

[mvpel]

IMHO, Jindal has NOT covered himself with glory here. Instead of asking the feds for permission, he should have just gone ahead and done it, and told the feds after the fact.

Do you think that Holder would have hesitated in the slightest to prosecute REPUBLICAN Governor Jindal for multiple felony violations of EPA regulations and dragged him through a multi-million dollar defense in the hopes of getting a common-sense jury acquittal?

You underestimate the Chicago gang.

[Rainwaves]

Ok, I know I’m still alive when I learn something new each day, but I never meant to use explosives. I just thought you could get down to the pipe at the ocean floor and work with it from there somehow. I didn’t know the BOP was so big, or what it’s function was...just trying to brainstorm...I feel so damn helpless.
I still think if they had gotten the Military and R&D experts from the universities together with the Navy’s resources, they could have stopped this by now...

[Sawdring]

I was just scanning the thread to see if someone would post a get smart picture. I had the cone of silence pictured, but yours is more apt.

[Moltke]

Heh heh, still funny after all these years, isn't it.

From the article:

Then came the dome, lowered by cables, guided by robots, illuminated by lamps in a world without natural light, and carrying with it the hopes of countless engineers...

Yep.

[wideminded]

I think what happened was that a previously undetected reservoir of nat gas found it's way to the well and began expanding, pushing the oil and anything else in it's way out to the surface.

Yes, it sounds like that's what happened, but evidently this did not occur until the mud in the drill string was replaced with seawater. Also, I've read in a number of places that the fact that the gas found its way into the upper levels of the well may be related to improper cementing of the casing lower down.

[Blue Highway]

no but his boyfriend Rachel Maddow is.

[Doohickey]

You made a Get Smart reference in reply to post 99. Coincidence?

[Chaguito]

What Cold Heat said, plus the attenuation of light by the cloud goes up roughly as the logarithm of the concentration of oil in the cloud. Result is that 1000 bpd might attenuate 98% of the light, while 6000 bpd would attenuate 99.5% of the light. The human eye can't distinguish the two clearly.

[lentulusgracchus]

I knew it -- BP has been playing all along for "capture" not "capping".

They want(ed)/want the cash flow. Stopping the blowout is a distant second priority.

Amoco pulled the same play when False River blew out 30 years ago. Capture and sell, not close in and redrill. Cash now, early cash, nearby cash, to top executives is like sex to teenagers. Can I borrow the car keys for sex? I'll make a run to the grocery for sex. Can Cindy come over (and over, for sex)? We're going on a field trip, can I go (for sex)?

Always the money, money, money. People have a right to be pissed at BP management -- putting cash flow before people and collateral damage, again.

[lentulusgracchus]

Ping to my last rant.

BP screwed the public.

[Tainan]

yeah...thats what I was clumsily trying to say....Glad you got it....:)

(heh heh heh...I said..."GLAD"....heh heh heh)

[Sawdring]

LOL, I didn’t catch that one.

[Cold Heat]

There is no known successful way of capping a well at this depth. The cap has worked at shallower depths before and they felt they had to do something besides the relief well which was put in motion immediately after the blowout. The relief well will stop the flow so they can plug it with cement.

BP will turn the relief well into a production platform at some future date, but I doubt it will be within the decade. The politics won't allow it. BP is well aware of this and there is no conspiracy.