Posted on 08/04/2010 1:00:42 AM PDT by Liberty Valance
The "static kill" procedure to permanently plug the runaway oil well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico achieved the "desired outcome," BP said Wednesday.
"The well pressure is now being controlled by the hydrostatic pressure of the drilling mud, the desired outcome of the static kill procedure," the company said in a statement.
The British oil giant described the news as a "significant milestone."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Cement is to concrete as flour is to bread as bullets are to cartridges............etcetera. When will they ever learn?
Thanks for the info. The whole scenario seems very nonlinear, increase the pressure and we might not just get a proportional increase in leakage, but instead get all kinds of seals giving out or worse. Those would be probably be hard to cap the same way the top of the riser was capped.
I heard the Obummer Admin out taking credit this morning. funny, when things were going bad, they were blaming BP.
NOW LIFT THE MORATORIUM, MORON!!
Was static kill approved by the DOJ lawyers and white house Nobel Prize winners?
The depth of the hole from the sea bottom to the top of the oil deposit is several thousand feet, so the chances of what you are asking about is extremely small, and could only happen if the mud reaches the deposit. They will cap the mud with concrete before that happens.
why wasn’t this done right after they removed the last of the crimped pipe?
What will CNN do now.
Our check is in the mail.
The glop you speak of is not “mud” but a mixture of fluids and cement, which will seal it off.
And I dont believe the stories about all the oil that just disappeared
Knowing the size of that equipment that leaks looks more than 1 BB per hour. I just hope everything holds together long enough to get a bunch of cement down there, bottom to top would work for me.
I am okay with deep water drilling from this field, just not from this well.
I think I have seen that store, or stores lie it anyway.
Why? they tried remember bur they were pumping into stack that was still leaking so all the mud was simply pumped out of the hole.
Agree. They may have gotten a little ahead of themselves by going a little deeper then the technology was able to support, but they have learned quite a bit by this experience. This well from hell, as one of the widowers called it, should probably be left for a future generation.
From a pure technical point of view with respect to minimizing risk, they have made the situation worse. No doubt. Before the Top Kill, we had a couple of minor leaks in the BOP that were of minor concern in the short term. Figured the BOP seals could hold up for days to weeks and that would have probably lasted until the relief well was completed. But they were disconnected from the BOP and it was operating in a stand alone condition. They could leave for a Hurricane threat and return.
Now the situation is that a mud line from a ship at sea level must be connected to the BOP applying pressure to keep the mud column in place. They cannot disconnect and leave due to a hurricane. If they disconnect, the mud column wont have enough weight to hold the oil down. As mud leaks out the seal leaks in the BOP, the oil comes up and the pressure increases inside the BOP. And now you have a BOP with major seal leaks shooting out oil.
So now they have painted themselves into a corner forcing the use of the cement kill pill. Even though the plan going in was to monitor the situation with regards to determining the use of the cement.
That's absolutely true.
No doubt at all about both of those statements
Looks like the new BOP seal leak has stopped leaking. Was leaking oil since the substance that leaked was rising. Drilling mud would have fallen. Do not know if it stopped on its own or if they just cut off the drilling mud pressure from the ship.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.