Posted on 04/23/2010 12:50:45 AM PDT by KDD
A drilling rig that burned for more than a day before sinking Thursday has fouled Gulf of Mexico waters with a potentially major spill of crude oil, officials said. The collapse of the oil rig could disgorge up to 336,000 gallons of crude a day into waters about 40 miles off the Louisiana coast. U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry said the sunken rig, the Deepwater Horizon, increased the threat for environmental damage, which previously appeared minimal. With new challenges from the collapsed rig, a growing assemblage of cleanup crews began to work in the area, hoping to stop the oil before the spill were to reach the shore.
Meteorologists predicted a change in the Gulf's current today that would push the oil toward the Louisiana and Mississippi coastlines. But Landry said the spill isn't expected to reach the coast. “We have the ability to keep it offshore,” she said. BP, the oil company that leased the offshore rig, said it had mobilized four aircraft that can spread chemicals to break up the oil and 32 vessels that can recover more than 171,000 barrels of oil a day from the surface. BP officials also expected to have a million feet of boom in place to help contain the spill by today. “We have contingency plans in place to respond to any anticipated situation, and the full resources of BP are being mobilized to implement those plans,” said David Rainey, vice president of Gulf exploration for BP. Even then, federal and BP officials said it wasn't clear whether oil was flowing from the well after the platform sank because they didn't know what was happening underwater.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
First, they’re working on the current blowout preventer. Apparently, they’ve been able to close all six rams on the BOP at the wellhead – but that hasn’t stopped the flow. It appears the rubber parts in the BOP have been chewed up by sand in the “flowback” of the well – that’s what 30,000 psi of oil and gas will do as it flows through the unit when it doesn’t shut down like it’s supposed to – but Charlie Holt, BP’s Gulf Of Mexico drilling and completions operations chief, did say that they’ve managed to repair some hydraulics leaks in the BOP.
You would expect based on that news that the flow of oil through that BOP might be less than it was a couple of days ago. But there really isn’t any way to tell, which is why initially the estimate was of 1,000 barrels a day and it’s now 5,000 – and there are alarmists out there saying the real number is more like 25,000. So BP is trying to install a meter to gauge the pressure on the lower marine riser package (LMRP), which sits on top of the existing BOP; if they can do that, they’ll be able to get a more accurate measure of how much oil is coming out of that hole.
Given what has been printed I am greatly worried about a flow, of some amount, outside the casing, THOUGH I do NOT see it in the few ROV pictures we have.
BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles said interviews with Transocean workers on the rig revealed crewmembers tried to activate the BOP from the rig’s bridge before the fire forced them to evacuate, but the BOP did not close off the well.
Suttles also revealed that BP remotely-operated vehicles (ROVs) had hit “subsea access points” that should close the BOP, but that they also failed to trigger the mechanism to shut.
“We don’t know why the BOP failed to stop the flow,” he said. “Ultimately we will recover the BOP, get it to the surface and find out.”
“I’m sure Transocean, who actually owned blowout preventer, will be interested to find out why it didn’t work,” Suttles said.
An MMS official estimated that the SWAT teams would have all the Gulf’s offshore drilling units inspected in the next seven days.
Having the Rams closed id defiantly a plus for the idea of stabbing another BOP on top of the one already in place.
If there is indeed flow outside the the casing the problems are serious and many.
This is just nutz -- SWAT?! To inspect drilling rigs in the Gulf? Where the hell do they think they are -- Tijuana? Evil Juarez of the Corpses?
It's a blowout, not a shootout!
LG it is a recording of Mark Levin interviewing an engineer who was purported to have been on board when things went to h*ll!
What he said is essentially that they had circulated all of the weight material out of the riser with sea water and tested the BOP in anticipation of pulling off of the well. When the annular rams were reopened after that test everything went to hell very quickly! Given what we already know that just confirms our earlier speculation.
I think they are talking about BOP manufacturer type SWAT teams here rather than law enforcement types.
They might start by going back and looking at why they didn't work last October, when they had to repair 'em the last time.
There's no excuse for their not working. They have to work -- first time, every time, and regular rig visits by federal rig-safety personnel are intended to guarantee that every rig has a working BOP set on every open hole.
Bet they didn't have a TIW valve in their drill string, either. That's a safety check-valve operators usually run. Now they have oil coming from the top tool-joint on what's left of the DP string.
Huh? SWAT is SWAT, or does it mean something else now?
"lg, Bigun, I listened to the Levin tape and it makes good sense. This is the first I had heard that they had displaced the mud in the riser with sea water and it confirms what the kid on the boat said about water rushing down all the below floor/deck pipes. What I thought he had mistaken mud for was in fact water.
It also means that some type of top assembly had been set below the BOP and perhaps that was blown up the bore and lodged in the BOP preventing it from closing." (Emphasis added)
Believe it or not, I am told that the manufacturer’s quick reaction teams now call themselves “SWAT” teams.
"Annular rams" sounds like pipe rams. And they just tested BOP's successfully before the BOP's failed to work under the gun?
??????
Man, they've got me scratching my head now.
The unloading well blew something solid up into the BOP stack so the rams couldn't close?
The final report is going to make interesting reading on RigZone and in Offshore and Oil & Gas Journal. Bet you even the AAPG runs a story in AAPG Explorer, it's a regular Mickey Spillane mystery -- with real dead men, unfortunately.
Bet James Cameron winds up trying to make a movie out of this one.
Yes sir!
They will be talking, and writing, about this one for a LONG time! That is for sure!
Yes, I came to a similar conclusion myself, but I don't know what that top assembly would be, if the casing string is still attached to the riser and they're still in the hole open-ended.
Maybe they'd set a top plug in the 9-7/8" x 7" casing string. If they were displacing mud w/ seawater in the riser open-ended, and suddenly their new top plug came to see them with a bang, that would be the "thud" they heard. But then they tested BOP's after that? Or before? Man, I guess we just need the detailed drilling report from the company man's blotter for the last day and a half or so. And BP and Transocean are now going to be trying to run "tight", with the tension going up between them and BP's mouthpiece dumping on Transocean in his interview with Meredith Vieira:
http://tinyurl.com/2wef377
Lg Here is what I think for whatever it is worth.
I think the well was flowing to some degree all the time they were circulating the mud out of the riser and no one noticed. When they shut the BOP for testing a very big bubble developed and when they reopened... Well, you know the rest.
What it REALLY all boils down to in my mind is that BP wanted rid of that $500K per day rig ASAP!
By "manufacturer's" you mean ..... the manufacturer of the BOP's? If those were Shaffer BOP's, then that'd be National Oilwell - Varco (rig had a Varco top-drive as well as a rotary table). And so on.
Or it could mean Transocean, or even the rig builder, Hyundai?
Could be a BP team, too. It'd be understandable that they'd send a team "on location" (the dock? the boom- and skimmer-boats? the relief rig? ). Makes you wonder what "on location" means now!
What they really need most of all is survivors from the rig floor. And they're going to be sadly short in that department.
That much pressure at surface? I have a hard time believing that -- I might believe 15,000 psi ......
Remember, their MW at TD when they lost circulation was only about 14.4 ppg, tops.
If they had "gas to surface" already in the wellhead and pressure rising on the wellhead below the BOP stack, I should think their instrumentation should have shown them all sorts of alarms and excursions.
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