BP MC252 well gushing oil – environmental disaster video courtesy of British Petroleum
Later today, BP is expected to try to reduce the flow of oil from their MC252 well by pumping heavy drilling fluids into the pipe.
Throughout the extended top kill procedure – which may take up to two days to complete – very significant changes in the appearance of the flows at the seabed may be expected. These will not provide a reliable indicator of the overall progress, or success or failure, of the top kill operation as a whole. BP will report on the progress of the operation as appropriate and on its outcome when complete.
You can watch the procedure live on the BP web site:
click here for live video. This is what it looked like earlier this morning:
WUWT has some very smart readers. How would you close the pipe? Hopefully you can do better than this :
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Surely something like a giant rawl bolt would block it off just fine ! Stick it in fully opened allowing the oil to gush through it and then use the oil pressure to force the expander into the RAWL and voila … blocked (sh).
🙂 Simples … it will work honest !
Nuke it like the Soviets did.
I know you can get a submersible to that depth, so I would expect some type of repair operation would be possible.
I don’t know why they haven’t tried to replace the BOP. Of couse, that would mean a totally uncontrolled well flow if they can’t get the new one to seal. Maybe they figure that a (relatively) small leak through the existing BOP into a pipe that they may have some hope of eventually sealing is better than the risk of an uncontrolled hole in the bottom of the sea. (reminds me of a song: there’s a plug in a pipe on a valve in a hole in the bottom of the sea. everyone sing along…)
mud will work, assuming 1) the overpressure doesn’t damage the BOP, worsening the leak and 2) water pressure on the seafloor (and oil bearing rock layer) isn’t so high that they can’t force back the oil.
I would think it would be useful to have on a submersible a self-contained, remote controlled high pressure hydraulic unit which you could attach different tools (think ‘jaws-of-life’) which you could use to cut or crimp piping. I would think you could use a tool like that to crimp off the pipe to stop the flow…which is what the BOP (Blow-Out Preventer) is supposed to do in the first place.
Why not just drop a heavy weight on it?
Actually what BP is doing is the best option. The riser (part of the pipe above the BOP) contains drilling pipe plus the pipe that is visible. The drilling pipe was involved in the well cementing procedures underway when the well blew-out. Drilling pipe (drill string) is significantly thicker and harder than the riser which presents a number of compounding problems for stopping the blow-out. Although there is some confusion regarding the pipe shear rams on the BOP and whether they partially deployed during the accident, removal of the riser above the BOP could result in expelling some or all of the drilling pipe (potentially several thousands of feet) with the real danger that that pipe string could result in significant damage to the remaining surface equipment and well bore. No type of “giant rawl bolt” would work. Blowing-up of the wellhead would accomplish nothing except removing any possibility that any surface control of the blow-out could be accomplished (where do people come up with these ideas!). And BTW – all operations at the wellhead is being accomplished via submersibles (unmanned).
The problem with plugging the pipe in any way (and the reason BP went for a syphon tube instead of a plug) is that the riser pipe laying on the seabed, which the oil is coming out since it is still connected to the top of the bop stack, is cracked and fractured in numerous areas along it’s length. (1800′ if memory serves)
Any attempt to set a plug at the mouth and the confined pressure will certainly burst the riser pipe at some other spot, making an even bigger mess than exists right now.
Drill those relief wells boys, drill, drill, drill. The new leaks are causing me worry. Even if this is successful it may cause more pressure and leaks elsewhere getting worse. The casing won’t last forever and I’m getting nervous. The Purdue University professor went over the calcs for flow and +/- 20% he was saying 70,000 BPD. It could get much worse.
I am hoping they get the thing plugged permanently before the ocean floor becomes unstable. They started drilling the relief wells the first week I believe so we are 2 months away from the solution.
All this when we have centuries of natural gas on land in shale deposits that we can extract and use. We have no “energy” policy. We have an oil policy.
How about a bladder, like a basketball, only tougher. Insert it with a high pressure airline already attached. Have the robot hold it in place inside the pipe. Pump in air until the bladder is wedged against the side of the pipe. Put the bladder 3 or 4 feet into the opening. Once the flow stops, pump concrete in behind the bladder. You could probably carry the high pressure air on the robot so that you didn’t have to pump it down there.
Demonstrating my ignorance, but do oil leaks EVER occur naturally? Perhaps some seismic shock opening up a crack in the ground?
They aren’t being allowed to use standard procedures on this blowout, and anything can happen with this gambit, including the reason why they aren’t being allowed to use standard procedures. The debris field and bop should have been cleared and the riser removed. But that might cause more oil spill. So they think that pumping mud down the riser will reduce the flow, but that might cause increased flow. The problem is that even if the flow is reduced it doesn’t guarantee it will remain so for any given time, may cause an increased flow, and will not help standard procedures (may actually compromise) for capping the well – debris field cleared, the riser removed, a bop or valve installed on top, the well capped below the old bop, and go from there.
We need John Wayne. Is Boots still around?
Please do not refer to them as “British Petroleum”. They changed their name to “BP” to distance themselves from their British origins, and that works fine for us Brits, especially right now.
Mandobob:
“Actually what BP is doing is the best option. ”
Sorry, I don’t understand that operation. Maybe you can explain. As I understand it, they are going to pump heavy drilling fluids into the pipe. But if they can pump it through a pipe and into a pipe, then why won’t the pressure and flow in the pipe pump it out as they are pumping it in?
Hard to stop. Better get it absorbed and used somehow.
Tilo Reber says
“How about a bladder, like a basketball, only tougher…”
That is what BP did with the “siphon”. A pipe with a packer(s) was inserted into the end of the broken riser on the sea floor. The packers were inflated (I think the actually used cement) which sealed off the riser (kinda like an inflatable stopper) allowing recovery of fluids and gas at the surface (I believe estimated to be around 70 % of the ealier flow) . Unfortunately the other sections of the riser have leaks that were not affected by the siphon. The same idea could be used at the top of the BOP but as Mark Wagner noted earlier, better smaller leaks vs complete loss of control and what to do with the drill string still in the hole?
Duct tape.
For this procedure you would need enough good pipe to work with, presumably this would be above the BOP’s (the blow-out preventers in the “christmas tree” stack) , and ROV’s (the undersea remote-operated vehicles) that could do the work.
Drill (or perhaps burn) cross-holes (secant, not just through-center) through the pipe. Insert rods of tough steel, high wear resistance with shock resistance and sufficient thickness for strength, fasten at both ends to the outside of the pipe in a manner that seals the holes. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
You’ll end up with a “nest” that restricts flow, just a little bit with each rod which makes the job possible, too much force from the flow could prevent the rods from being inserted straight. This will basically create a “mesh” capable of catching stuff from below.
I doubt the well is blowing chunks large enough for the nest to catch leading to the well eventually getting clogged up. So before the placing of the nest restricts flow greatly, further down you make a hole in the side of the pipe and attach an access port. While the well is blowing oil and gas under high pressure relative to the water pressure, normal fluid dynamics effects will keep the flow going straight up the pipe thus placing the access port can be done. After the nest is in place, start tossing junk into the access port. Whatever is large enough for the nest to catch that won’t be eroded by the flow, be it rubber balls, chunks of old tires, even hollow steel spheres.
The flow will get restricted as the nest gets clogged up. At some point the pressure seen at the access port will be great enough that high forces may be needed to push in more junk. About then though the available passages through the nest will be somewhat small. Heavy mud can then be pumped in at the access port, further clogging the nest, or perhaps cement can be used.
And along the way, with building the nest and the rest, the flow may drop enough enough that more “normal” methods can be used further up the pipe to reduce or stop the flow. But they better be dang sure those methods will work if tried before the nest is complete with the access port set, to avoid having too much flow outward from the pipe where the nest work is taking place.
That should do it.
No replies when I started, haven’t refreshed. Now I’ll just post and see if anyone else already thought this up. 🙂
Someone has to say it:
Nuke it from orbit, its the only way to be sure!
Tilo Riber – you have pinpointed the exact reason that this procedure may fail. The answer to your question is “yep, that could happen.” The hope is that there is enough of a restriction above that at least some of the heavy mud will go down the hole, not up, and this will build up and kill the flow.
But yeah, it’s like trying to kill a spewing fire hydrant by pumping more stuff into it – odds are you’ll just make it spew faster.
to Dermot o’logical – yep, oil seeps into the bottom of the ocean all the time. But generally not in a single huge, high volume geyser like this one. That’s because the high pressure regions are usually well insulated from the surface, until you stick a 10,000 foot straw into them.
A three stage control valve would reduce the fear of pipe collapse. The suction of the pumps has the power to collapse or fracture the weakened riser, which is why a direct umbilical has not been established. However a three stage approach could work. A pipe with 2 outlets, one direct outlet for outflow and a second for suction. The rig would have a shape like a PVC (y) fitting. The outlet (free flow) pipe could be slowly reduced by the remotes with a valve so the flow could be slowly cut off allowing the suction to take over the flow. The umbilical connection to the pipe could have a set of relief flaps installed to allow excess pressure release as the pumps increase their flow rate. The spring operated relief flaps would be used as a visual indicator (when the outflow and suction is equalized the flaps will close). This would reduce the risk of riser collapse or fracture. There are devices available that could be used to secure the umbilical to the interior of the pipe. It is vital that the equalization procedure be maintained; otherwise one could make the spill much worse by fracturing the riser in multiple locations.
I am for the giant military explosive approach.
Of course, I am all for a company with this record, which includes modifications of the very thing designed to stop this type of thing, being banned from our waters. BP’s seven failures that caused this, by their and Transocean’s admissions:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/energy/7020647.html
Glenn-
Do you have real data showing they are “not being allowed to use standard procedures”? From everything I can find the standard procedures are more likely to fail than even the weak attempt we will see later today.
Blow up the damn thing, and have the CEO of BP sitting on the bomb, Dr. Strangelove style.
Dermot O’Logical says:
May 26, 2010 at 9:41 am
E.G. http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/cleaning-up-the-environment-one-more-reason-to-develop-the-outer-continental-shelf/
Just Google “natural oil seeps” and you find links to more information than you ever want to know.
They could easily stop the leak by blowing up the area around the pipe. They don’t want to do that, however, because it would mean they would have to start drilling again rather than use the current bore to extract oil in the future. Do the sums.
Cost of clean up << Cost of drilling new bore