Posted on 07/13/2010 7:37:03 PM PDT by Southnsoul
“The idiot “Nobel Prize Winner” Chu probably had to have his say.”
No one ever got a Nobel Prize that wasn’t a dedicated communist.
There is at least one major flaw with their high pressure test plan. What if the Well Bore is only partially compromised ? It is possible that the high pressure itself could blow out the well bore. Could happen instantly, in a few minutes or a few days. Then it is GaMe OvEr. If they are going to close the valves, they need to have top top kill mud and cement all lined up and ready to go. Every minute could count.
I saw them doing a Sonar Scan of the area. That with some kind of seismic map would tell one a lot about seafloor ‘movement’.
I assume we will be ‘in the dark’ until they decide to tell us.
Yep. This is a National Security issue now. I assume that what they do end up telling us will only hold a small kernel of truth that is obfuscated with a bucket load of lies. The key will be in finding that small kernel of truth.
Freepers are pretty good at that.
BP said it began pressure tests at its undersea oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday after it placed a new containment cap and seal on the wellhead.
If the well can sustain up to 9,000 pounds per square inch of pressure for the first six hours of the 48-hour test, the cap could shut off all flow until a relief well kills the leak by mid-August. But if pressures linger for the first six hours at 6,000 psi or less, then it will not be sustainable. High pressures would indicate the wellbore is intact after the April 20 blowout, but low pressures would be a sign oil and gas are leaking out the sides.
Either way, BP will have a four-vessel oil-capture system in place by mid-July that can handle up to 80,000 barrels a day, he said. If the cap can shut off all flow, the vessels will be in place as a backup according to retired US Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen.
Residents in Houma, Lousiana, are following developments closely. BP's leaking wellhead is a mile (1.6 km) underwater. The new 160,000-pound (73-tonne) capping stack was custom-designed and built for the leaking well. If tests progress as hoped, BP said no oil would flow from the well for the first time since a rig being drilled for BP by Transocean Ltd sank days after an explosion on April 20 that killed 11 workers.
If they detect any leakage, I suspect that rather than work against such pressures, they will let it run, waiting until the relief wells slow the flow and pressure in the damaged line, then plug with mud and cement, including any down-hole breaks.
That said, I don’t know much of what I’m talking about.
If you really want to get a little upset, read the transcript from the BP Tech Briefing from last night.
BP Transcript Tech Briefing July 13th 2:30 PM CST
If the pressure stays low, they could be either filling up other reservoirs underground or the flow will could be coming up through cracks in the sea floor. They will have no idea what is actually happening however. Only that the pressure stays low. How long will they keep testing this ?
That is just the minor problem. The bigger problem is if the pressure does hold. The political pressure to keep the Rams closed will be enormous. Even though that pressure could be undermining the well bore.
Since the Marxist Government Dolts and the Fascists Corporate Freaks all agreed to get a little sanity on Tuesday, probably due to General Thad Allen, I would like to dedicate this song to both groups. Especially since it is now Wednesday.
I’m beginning to think that BP is more inept that the government - and that says a lot!
There are very very deep. Much deeper then that huge sinkhole that recently opened up down south a few weeks ago. The problem however is that oil has been shooting upward with incredible force for close to 100 days now. If the casing was damaged there could be significant erosion. Most likely in the weakly and improperly cemented areas between the casing and the well bore walls.
“There are too many cooks in the kitchen,” said David Pursell, an analyst at Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. in Houston and a former petroleum engineer who conducted pressure tests. “Everybody in this process has said the single and best chance of stopping this flow is the relief well, and now they’ve held up the relief well while they’re figuring out protocol.”
The thing I don’t understand is that the original plan was to get the cap back on for the new collection facility, and then work setting up a 2nd collector (this in addition to the existing Q4000 burner and the Helix collector).
Then the government said they were pushing BP to do a pressure test to see if they could seal the well. Then they said they were delaying that test.
Well, why not continue with the capping? The capping and collection setup shouldn’t interfere with the pressure test, or would it? Maybe cutting off the oil to the collection would mean they’d have to remove the cap and reset it because of ice formation.
Very good questions. Seems like we have too many cooks in the kitchen and they end up flailing around making a mess and not getting anything cooked. At the very least, they should have starting the top collection right after the new CAP was on. The previous CAP put no extra pressure on the well bore. Obviously the Feds, which had approved and modified the plan, did not see any reason at the time to delay the shutoff pressure test. Big. Big. Mistake. This is all about Risk Management. We have been blowing a significant amount of oil out of the top for nearly a week now.
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