Posted on 07/12/2010 11:17:14 PM PDT by Cardhu
BP has successfully placed a new cap over the leaking Gulf of Mexico oil well.
The success was revealed on murky live pictures from an underwater camera and broadcast on BP's website.
They show the "Top Hat 10" device hovering and then lowering completely over the well that had been gushing a mile (1,600 meters) beneath the surface.
The valve has been designed to be a much tighter fit than its predecessor, so as to completely contain the oil.
Once it is screwed into place, BP plans to perform an "integrity test" lasting between six and 48 hours. The US government and BP are due to decide by Thursday whether the valve can stay in place to seal the well shut.
The company's share price, which has taken a battering since the disaster happened three months ago, rose around 5% yesterday as hopes for a solution increased. The oil company has used 46,000 staff and 6,400 ships so far in the clean-up effort.
The operation began after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank on April 20 and crude oil began spewing into the ocean.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.sky.com ...
“These are old shots...why are you posting them?”
Those were taken in conjunction with the new capping. Note picture three taken from BP provided video at link.
http://gazettetimes.com/news/national/article_c5bd4e22-91f6-549b-8536-465d85b13ae0.html
No argument from my end. I saw the pictures that you posted on a tape that they showed on the news last night. The report said that they would be tightening it today while they checked the pressure.
Everybody in my area is keeping everything crossed that this makes a decided difference in cutting the oil flow.
They are not old shots. The first one is the top of the new capping device as the oil flows out of it. The second is the new cap clamping flange being paced over the newly added (this past weekend) riser spool. I watched them take the snipped pipe flange off the BOP, remove the alignment pins and then add the spool. It took them about 8 hours to tighten the new flange with the hydraulic ratchets to a hyderaulic pressure of 7000 psi.
This new capping device will get connected to an array of hydraulic controls placed on the ocena floor and starting today they will start closing off sections of the device after connecting something to the top outlet.
With all of that said, this new capping system just did not spring up as a result of the explsion. This system has been around for a while so consider all of the stupidness we have seen in the previous efforts and how reasoned this effort appears. I beleive this is what they wanted to do from the beginning but were prevented from doing so because Odummer wanted to be the one who took credit for it, and most likely still will.
I know, I just copied you in as you had already pointed out what was the reality.
“Bout frickin time.”
Says Grim speaking from his many decade of experience in the oil drilling industry.
Looks like something much bigger or much more dangerous is about to happen. They are taking a big time gamble. The experts over at TheOilDrum cannot figure out what happened. A few weeks ago the structure of the main well bore was deemed very critical. Obama's Chu even came down on the throat of BP during the last time they tried a top kill. Worried about the wellbore integrity back then, according to the Chu. Now, they are throwing caution to the wind and taking big time risks. My guesses are that the upcoming elections and the poor state of dimwit polling are forcing Obama to gamble. It is either that, or they now suspect that the Relief Well has a very poor chance of success. For understanding the concerns of the well bore integrity and how Obama's Chu has taken a major unexplainable turn in direction, see the OilDrumThread comments linked below.
BP's Deepwater Oil Spill - Capping Stack Installed - and Open Thread
Found that thread through this freeper link.
BP's Deepwater Oil Spill - Capping Stack Installed - and Open Thread ( July 12, 2010 Thread 2)
From my view as a mechanical design engineer, this thing is not just to “cap” the well but to provide the ability to take the main flow to a production platform while also allowing occasional overpressures to be re-routed to prevent what happened on April 20th. If you notice the valving and lines at the top (where the oil is now gushing) there is a bypass of sorts with an open vent tube.
I feel this is what transocean was wanting to place on the riser before the BP exec made them throw caution to the wind and go without it. The reason I say this is because this aparatus is purpose built and it is not the first one. All of the equipment on the “cap” in addition to the hydraulic controls now placed at various places on the ocean flor below are components of a complicated designed system to do exactly what it will once everything is all hooked up. All of the pieces have rover grip handles all over them and the controls all have the t-handles added to them for the ROV’s to manipulate. Add to it the many, many indicator gauges to provide feedback for controls tuning.
This was not conceived and/or built as a stop gap, especially in the last 90 days. It has taken a long time of design and development to get it to do a very specific and production orientated task and it was meant to be there for a long time.
Nope,, one hurricane. About 2 days.
Now the non-participants, such as Obama, will be lining up to collect all of the credit and the ones who solved the problem and significantly advanced the industry will be at best ignored and at worst, blamed.
True. And that is what most people at TheOilDrum were thinking. The new CAP was going to be used to collect almost all the leaking oil, along with the Helix Producer and Q4000. But now they have changed all that in midstream and are going to try to stop the flow with a top kill via valves. These valves (three rams) are on top of a BOP that has an unknown structural integrity which is itself connected to a well bore with an unknown structural integrity. Very risky. The original plan was good, as you pointed out. Why the change ? Why take the risk of increasing the pressure when their are so many unknowns ? It is almost as if Obama and his Chu want to destroy the well bores integrity. Very disturbing to say the least. Later.
if they start pumping it into ship it will keep pressure down
Any further reports on oil leakage down the hole and coming out in other areas of the sea-bed?
Pemex/Ixtoc in 1979 was a larger spill that ran for nine months. It coated the same coastline as the Deepwater spill.
All the spilled oil disappeared in under two years.
He’ll tell us that he stopped into the bathroom while his daughter was shaving to let her know that Daddy plugged up the hole.
June 28 was the low at 27.05. Today’s close was 36.76, up 36% in 2 weeks. The week before it declined, an error by a prior post that said there have been three weeks of steady increase.
They do not want to lose all that oil.
Anyone have any idea what the pressure increase will be at the well head as the hole gets squeeeeezed smaller and smaller?
Just a quick and hopefully intelligent question:
Does the Gulf's hot climate cause the oil eating bacteria to work faster than it could in Alaska?
The answer is to place multiple wells into this reservoir and pump it dry!
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