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)

[Bellflower]

This solution seems like a no brainer. I thought of this and about 5 other solutions in the first five minutes. Maybe they should consult with Joe the plumber. What they need, it seems, is common sense approaches.

[Wonder Warthog]

"I guarantee there would be less oil flowing than what I see now.."

Yeah, right. Another "nuke the well" idiot. The probability is quite high that an explosion would actually make things worse.

[Wonder Warthog]

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

And you know they're wrong how?? Are you an expert in flow measurement??

"There are three teams working on estimating the flow. Two teams have reported flows of 12k-19k.

Which range is what I am referring to.

"However the third team (the team that actually looks at the flow), will report a minimum flow of at least 25K."

Yeah, a bunch of idiots who look at video-cam footage and think they can tell something from it. Like moron from Purdue.

[Wonder Warthog]

"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?"

Yes, I think precisely that. Holder would be tarred and feathered if he tried that.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Amoco pulled the same play when False River blew out 30 years ago. Capture and sell, not close in and redrill."

WHERE did you dig up THIS tidit?? I'm from Pointe Coupee parish (which is where False River is located), and lived there when the blowout happened. There was no indication of any such attitude at that place and in that time.

[mad_as_he$$]

After Chomp was done there was not enough clean stub left to get a grip on the pipe.

[jpsb]

Sure are a lot of apologists for BP and the Obama admin on this issue.

[jpsb]

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

Could very well be true. I've read that BP only put in 4 things that center the casing in the hole, Drillers and cementers wanted 3 times that many since this was a "problem" well. Might very well turn out that casing failure resulted from poor drilling practices by BP.

I've followed investigations into airline crashes. It almost always turns out that a series of small mistakes, poor practices and a little bad luck lead to a catastrophic failure. I'll bet dollars to donuts the same will be true here.

[JustaDumbBlonde]

"Let’s hope this thing is sealed."

There is no expection that this leak is going to be sealed for months. The best that we can hope for here is that they capture a good percentage of the oil. Estimates have been less than 50% will be captured by this operation.

A relief well is the only thing that is going to allow this flow to be stopped.

[deport]

Sorta late to your discussion and I'm not sure what the correct data is as we all know it is being gathered or at least attemtps are being made to gather data. Here is a little info from a posting on FR a few days back that came from 'The Oil Drum'. These clips indicate that apparently several things may have been potential causes or at least impacted the final results of this blowout.

From the following posted article: Congressional Testimony and the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (Best summary yet - Technicals )

• The next bullet says: “After 16.5 hours waiting on cement, a test was performed on the wellbore below the Blowout Preventer.” BP explained to us what this means. Halliburton completed cementing the well at 12:35 a.m. on April 20 and after giving the cement time to set, a negative pressure test was conducted around 5:00 p.m. This is an important test. During a negative pressure test, the fluid pressure inside the well is reduced and the well is observed to see whether any gas leaks into the well through the cement or casing.
  
  According to James Dupree, the BP Senior Vice President for the Gulf of Mexico, the well did not pass this test. Mr. Dupree told Committee staff on Monday that the test result was “not satisfactory” and “inconclusive.” Significant pressure discrepancies were recorded.
  
  As a result, another negative pressure test was conducted. This is described in the fourth bullet: “During this test, 1,400 psi was observed on the drill pipe while 0 psi was observed on the kill and the choke lines.”
  
  According to Mr. Dupree, this is also an unsatisfactory test result. The kill and choke lines run from the drill rig 5,000 feet to the blowout preventer at the sea floor. The drill pipe runs from the drill rig through the blowout preventer deep into the well. In the test, the pressures measured at any point from the drill rig to the blowout preventer should be the same in all three lines. But what the test showed was that pressures in the drill pipe were significantly higher. Mr. Dupree explained that the results could signal that an influx of gas was causing pressure to mount inside the wellbore.
  
  Another document provided by BP to the Committee is labeled “What Could Have Happened.” It was prepared by BP on April 26, ten days before the first document. According to BP, their understanding of the cause of the spill has evolved considerably since April 26, so this document should not be considered definitive. But it also describes the two negative pressure tests and the pressure discrepancies that were recorded.
  
  What happened next is murky. Mr. Dupree told the Committee staff that he believed the well blew moments after the second pressure test. But lawyers for BP contacted the Committee yesterday and provided a different account. According to BP’s counsel, further investigation has revealed that additional pressure tests were taken, and at 8:00 p.m., company officials determined that the additional results justified ending the test and proceeding with well operations.
  
  
• Congressman Stupak: Our investigation is at its early stages, but already we have uncovered at least four significant problems with the blowout preventer used on the Deepwater Horizon drill rig.
  
  First, the blowout preventer apparently had a significant leak in a key hydraulic system. This leak was found in the hydraulic system that provides emergency power to the shear rams, which are the devices that are supposed to cut the drill pipe and seal the well.
  
  I would like to put on the screen a document that the Committee received from BP. This document states: “leaks have been discovered in the BOP hydraulics system.”
  
  The blowout preventer was manufactured by Cameron. We asked a senior official at Cameron what he knew about these leaks. He told us when the remote operating vehicles (ROVs) tried to operate the shear rams, they noticed a loss of pressure. They investigated this by injecting dye into the hydraulic fluid, which showed a large leak coming from a loose fitting, which was backed off several turns.
  
  The Cameron official told us that he did not believe the leak was caused by the blowout because every other fitting in the system was tight.
  
  We also asked about the significance of the leak. The Cameron official said it was one of several possible failure modes. If the leak deprived the shear rams of sufficient power, they might not succeed in cutting through the drill pipe and sealing the well.
  
  Second, we learned that the blowout preventer had been modified in unexpected ways. One of these modifications was potentially significant. The blowout preventer has an underwater control panel. BP spent a day trying to use this control panel to activate a variable bore ram on the blowout preventer that is designed to seal tight around any pipe in the well. When they investigated why their attempts failed to activate the bore ram, they learned that the device had been modified. A useless test ram – not the variable bore ram – had been connected to the socket that was supposed to activate the variable bore ram. An entire day’s worth of precious time had been spent engaging rams that closed the wrong way.
  
  BP told us the modifications on the BOP were extensive. After the accident, they asked Transocean for drawings of the blowout preventer. Because of the modifications, the drawings they received didn’t match the structure on the ocean floor. BP said they wasted many hours figuring this out.
  
  Third, we learned that the blowout preventer is not powerful enough to cut through joints in the drill pipe. We found a Transocean document that I would like to put on the screen. It says: most blind shear rams are “designed to shear effectively only on the body of the drillpipe. Procedures for the use of BSR’s must therefore ensure that there is no tool joint opposite the ram prior to shearing.”
  
  This seemed astounding to us because the threaded joints between the sections of drillpipe make up about 10% of the length of the pipe. If the shear rams cannot cut through the joints, that would mean that this so-called failsafe device would succeed in cutting the drillpipe only 90% of the time.
  
  We asked the Cameron official about the cutting capacity of the blowout preventer on the Deepwater Horizon. He confirmed that it is not powerful enough to cut through the joints in the drillpipe. And he told us this was another possible explanation for the failure of the blowout preventer to seal the well.
  
  And fourth, we learned that the emergency controls on the blowout preventer may have failed. The blowout preventer has two emergency controls. One is called the emergency disconnect system or EDS. BP officials told us that that the EDS was activated on the drill rig before the rig was evacuated. But the Cameron official said they doubted the signals ever reached the blowout preventer on the seabed. Cameron officials believed the explosion on the rig destroyed the communications link to the blowout preventer before the emergency sequence could be completed.
  
  In other words, the emergency controls may have failed because the explosion that caused the emergency also disabled communications to the blowout preventer.
  
  Still, the blowout preventer also has a “deadman switch” which is supposed to activate the blowout preventer when all else fails. But according to Cameron, there were multiple scenarios that could have caused the deadman switch not to activate. One is human oversight: the deadman switch may not have been enabled on the control panel prior to the BOP being installed on the ocean floor. One is lack of maintenance: the deadman switch won’t work if the batteries are dead. The deadman switch is connected to two separate control pods on the blowout preventer. Both rely on battery power to operate. When one of the control pods was removed and inspected after the spill began, the battery was found to be dead. The battery in the other pod has not been inspected yet.
  
  And one appears to be a design problem. The deadman switch activates only when three separate lines that connect the rig to the blowout preventer are all severed: the communication, power, and hydraulic lines. Cameron believes the power and communication lines were severed in the explosion, but it is possible the hydraulic lines remained intact, which would have stopped the deadman switch from activating.
  
  These are not the only failure scenarios that could impair the function of the blowout preventer. The Cameron official we met with described many other potential problems that could have prevented the blowout preventer from functioning properly. Steel casing or casing hanger could have been ejected from the well and blocked the operation of the rams. The drill pipe could have been severed successfully, but then dropped from the rig, breaking the seal. Or operators on the rig could have tried to activate the shear rams by pushing the shear ram control button. This would have initiated an attempt to close the rams, but it would not have been successful. The shear rams do not have enough power to cut drill pipe unless they are activated through the emergency switch or the deadman switch.
  
  end snips

  Another article I've read indicated that the BOP is believed to have been manufactured in the Cameron International facility in Beziers France.

  We may never know the actual facts but seems a lot of info is still needed to get a better handle on the events.

[mvpel]

Yes, I think precisely that. Holder would be tarred and feathered if he tried that.

Given he wasn't tarred and feathered for dropping the case against racist thugs outside a polling place, I'm not sure what convinces you he'd be tarred and feathered for enforcing the letter of environmental law and regulations against a Republican.

[gunsequalfreedom]

The Saudis have a supertanker that can scoop up and process the water. There is a solution but nobogy wants to pay for it.

[JustaDumbBlonde]

If the Saudis are such “good friends” of the U.S., why aren’t they sending the tankers on their own dime? It is not as if they can’t afford the cost. When a disaster happens anywhere in the world, the U.S. is the first there with physical assistance and aid. Look what we get in return.

[gunsequalfreedom]

If the Saudis are such “good friends” of the U.S., why aren’t they sending the tankers on their own dime?

What makes you think they did not offer? I heard early on that many nations have offered to help and their offers were refused. I agree with you about the rest of the world stepping up for us once in a while - don't get me wrong on that.

[21twelve]

Thanks for the detailed testomony on the BOP. Their were problems before that thoguh, and the company man saying something like “that’s what the pinchers are for”. (The BOP).

I liken it to the guy doing the driving (the driller) telling his passenger that he’s going as fast as he can but he has to drive slow as it is raining, his tires are bald, they’re on a mountain road, and the brakes aren’t vey good and the seatbelts are crap. But the passenger tells him - “Step on it. I’m the boss, and that is what the airbags are for”.

You know you’re in a bad situation when your method of last resort kicks in. But to rely on that.....

[JustaDumbBlonde]

If you heard that the Saudis offered a tanker to suck up and separate the oil and we refused the offer, I’d really like to read up on that. Do you remember where you heard this?

[gunsequalfreedom]

You should be able to find it in a google news search under super tanker scooper of some variation of that. I see if I can find it.

[gunsequalfreedom]

From an article at this link...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/24/tech/main6514382.shtml

“Former Shell Oil president John Hofmeister and former Saudi Aramco manager Nick Pozzi told Fast Company that 85 percent of oil from a massive offshore Saudi spill in the early 1990s was cleaned up using supertankers to suck in seawater and oil - millions of barrels at a time - and discharge them in port where the two substances could be separated and treated.

Hofmeister and Pozzi each said they'd tried suggesting the solution to both BP and government officials, and have heard crickets.

Perhaps, as Pozzi tells Fast Company, it's the downside to the plan: “You tie up oil tankers” - tankers that could be carrying crude above the Gulf's waters to customers.”

The article explains that with the plumes of oil far under the service, as with the present spill, the supertanker will not work.

It is also very, very expensive to operate. A supertanker is used to transport oil. Divert from that use and you still pay what it would have been earning and then some.

I have to think, though, that had it been called in, a lot of the coastline would not be oiled.

Here is the link to Fast Company

http://www.fastcompany.com/1646820/could-the-gulf-oil-spill-could-cleaned-up-by-supertankers

[lentulusgracchus]

WHERE did you dig up THIS tidit??.....There was no indication of any such attitude at that place and in that time.

From the horse's mouth, neighbor. From an Amoco manager who was giving a talk about False River and the "sombrero" to an industry group. Memory dims as to exact circumstances now, but the talk was given before either the New Orleans Geological Society or maybe a local chapter of the American Petroleum Institute; or the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies, which latter is a subgroup of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, with which most local geological societies like NOGS are associated. Both GCAGS and the AAPG hold annual conventions at which papers are presented on current topics, and False River was one of those topics, being a major trend discovery. The local societies have talks like that, too, at their monthly luncheon and/or dinner meetings, the talks being less formal and "things said" which would not be said in a more-formal setting where the press might be present.

The speaker, as I recall, was an Amoco manager (no, he was not a dewy-faced young geologist or engineer, this was a hooking-bull company man), and his comment was, as he discussed the eventual closing-in of the wild well (which would entail expensive repairs before it could again be turned to sales), that he almost didn't want to close the well in, cash flow from the well was so high that it was going to hurt his monthly/quarterly results.

It was a "tell" -- it told us what guys at his level were (and typically do continue to be) thinking about. There's cash flow, and then there's cash flow. On the other hand, you have cash flow, and then there's cash flow to consider, too. And did I mention cash flow?

As a major-company division manager once told me, when I was barely two years in the industry, "We aren't drilling for oil, we're drilling for dollars."

[lentulusgracchus]

"But lawyers for BP contacted the Committee yesterday and provided a different account."

Beware landsharks bearing gifts of new information.