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 :
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
A lot of people here are missing some basics on the issues involved. If it were a “normal” situation, they could place a second BOP on top of the first and then shut it off. But in addition to the fact that the drill pipe is still threaded through the BOP, the existing BOP is attached to the surface casing and the leak is also coming out around the surface casing. This also means that a junk shot to further close the BOP could make things worse. The last thing they need is to damage the surface casing.
Pumping mud into the side of the BOP will result in some of it coming out through the riser. They are hoping that there is enough constriction already that they can still get enough mud down-hole to counter-balance the pressure of the escaping fluids. If not, they can introduce small amounts of junk (high-temperature-resistant rubber balls, for example) to improve the situation. This can be accomplished using the same flow lines with the turn of a few valves.
@Tilo Reber: You are correct that the mud should sink around the escaping fluids. That is exactly what they want to happen. The whole purpose of the effort is to get enough mud into the well that the static head of the mud is greater than the pressure in the well. If that means filling the entire well bore with mud, so be it. That was exactly the situation while they were drilling. This mud is a little heavier and should provide room at the top for a solid plug.
The key to all of this is to avoid damage to the surface casing and equipment. It may not be doing a perfect job now, but things could be a lot worse. You can imagine the catastrophe that an intentional explosion could cause.
The deepest of the two relief wells is already below 10,000 feet. They haven’t told us the target depth, but they should be close. From here on out, drilling slows because they have to constantly adjust the direction of the drilling bit to perfect their aim at the well.
I recommend the references already offered, especially http://bp.concerts.com/gom/kentwells_update24052010.htm
I previously posted ‘This mud is a little heavier and should provide room at the top for a solid plug.”
I guess I left the impression that the plug would be at the top of the mud column. Concrete is heavier than the mud. If they do plug it, the plug will be at depth. More likely they will do that work from the relief well where they have much more control of the situation.
If the dome was getting clogged by ice crystals, how about using one of those screws like they use to drill holes for telephone poles to force the ice up into the pipe at the top of the dome.
oboy. finally read to the bottom.
if the oil is flowing through a casing break or casing cement failure, they may not be able to kill it. If the break is high (shallow) enough in the wellbore, the mud and/or cement may not have enough hydrostatic pressure (weight) to overcome the oil pressure. And it would be almost impossible to get, and hold, cement through whatever fracture exists in the casing. Very bad.
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Been watching the live feed. Anyone familiar with this bop, is that a ram actuator valve leaking, looks like it has been bent?
I think BP should contact the producers of LOST and get one of those stone corks like what saved the island the other day in the series finale. And I have a theory that the smoke monster survived and is living in the Gulf of Mexico right now causing mischief. 8^)
Tom in Co. writes:
Reminds me of when NASA changed the asbestos-bearing joint putty on the SRBs to something more “environmentally friendly”. The Result: The Challenger disaster.
White Shepherd Oil Stop-leak
Lessee… at $19.95 for an 8 ounce bottle (I figure about 50,000 gallons for this job) that would be $16 million. Gotta be a good volume discount on an order that size. It’s not like you’d be buying 800,000 bottles of it off the shelf at Pep Boys. Call it $10 million. A mere bag of shells.
This is a fine weather control experiment. What effect, if any, will changing the albedo of the Gulf of Mexico have? Please show your work. 🙂
since the beginning of May, the Iranians have been offering to help, but politics overrides all:
6 May: Foreign Policy Mag: Josh Rogin: U.S. not accepting foreign help on oil spill
When State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley refused to tell reporters which countries have offered assistance to help respond to the BP oil spill, the State Department press corps was flabbergasted. ..
Reporters pointed out that the Bush administration identified assistance offers after the Katrina disaster, so what is this, a new policy? They pressed Crowley, but he refused to budge.
Then they mentioned Iran’s offer of assistance, through its National Iranian Drilling Company. Crowley said there was no Iranian offer of assistance, at least in any official capacity…
Late Wednesday evening, the State Department emailed reporters identifying the 13 entities that had offered the U.S. oil spill assistance. They were the governments of Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United Nations…
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/05/06/us_not_accepting_foreign_help_on_oil_spill
4 May: UPI: Iran offers to help with U.S. oil spill
Heidar Bahmani, the managing director of the National Iranian Drill Co., said his company was ready to help contain the spill, Iran’s state-funded broadcaster Press TV reports
“Our oil industry experts in the field of drilling can contain the rig leakage in the Gulf of Mexico and prevent an ecological disaster in that part of the world,” he said…
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Resource-Wars/2010/05/04/Iran-offers-to-help-with-US-oil-spill/UPI-31871272993408/
23 May: PressTV Iran: Iran renews offer to help on US oil spill
Mehran Alinejad, the head of special drilling operations at NIDC, pointed to the experience gained by Iranian experts in containing huge oil leaks during the eight-year Iraqi-imposed war in the 1980s, and said, “Iranian technical teams have had major achievements in oil well capping and the Gulf of Mexico oil rig is not a great feat in comparison.” ….
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=127487§ionid=351020101
Is it just me or does the leak look many times worse now?
“Dave Springer says:
[…]
Lessee… at $19.95 for an 8 ounce bottle (I figure about 50,000 gallons for this job)”
The WashPost says 50,000 barrels:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/26/AR2010052603800.html
Units vs. journalists. A cultural clash that never ceases to amaze me.
“The Purdue University professor went over the calcs for flow and +/- 20% he was saying 70,000 BPD.”
Frankly, I am embarrassed for Purdue. The professor supposedly calculated this from observing the live feed. That’s preposterous. To calculate the flow one needs to pressure below the minimum orifice in the flow line and the area of that orifice.
The surface casing is 22″. The riser is 21″ ID. We don’t know the size of the BOP opening but we do know that it is obstructed by the drill pipe (6 5/8″?) and the BOP is partially closed. It can’t be too big or they never would have considered a “junk shot.”
Frankly, I’ve never heard of an oil well with an open-flow potential of 70,000 bbls/day. This well may be the exception, but this is not an open-flow situation. All we can know is that it is (or was) something greater than 5,000 bbls per day because they were capturing that much for a brief time. I seriously doubt it’s more than 10,000 bbls. They have captured an average of 2,000 bbls/day since inserting the RIT (riser insertion tool.)
@Patrick Guinness. The Iranian Oil Company wants to help? What an incredible joke! They have no experience in waters this deep. BP has 20,000 people working on this blowout, including the best minds from all major US oil companies and service contractors. No mention of Schlumberger, but I suspect they are involved, too. If anything, the biggest problem now is coordinating all the help and avoiding conflicts in such a small space. Watch Kent Wells’ video.
http://bp.concerts.com/gom/kentwells_update24052010.htm
Iranian propagandists have a lot to learn.
Well I have to say that even we non-oil folks are getting an education here at WUWT that gives us some insight into how complex this off shore oil business really is; for that matter even the on-shore drilling.
Somehow, I still haven’t figured out how the hell you can drill a hole in the ground; line it with some pipe and keep on drilling through that pipe, and then somehow pull all that miles of drill out; and then somehow magically put a faucet on top of the whole thing and then turn that off. Presumably there is some topological arrangement there that makes all that possible. I presume it is something like donning a three piece suit all buttoned up, and the somehow removing the waistcoat without unbuttoning the topcoat.
Anyway; you chaps that are experts on this; you know who you are; all those bad big oil jokers; thanks for giving us some insight into the complexity of getting at the renewable stored chemical energy that Gaia put down there for us to find, and make good use of. Sorry that you get so much flak from some of the primary beneficiaries of your trade.
And when you read some of the “solutions” to this accident that are being offered here; and you reflect on the fact that this site tends to select some of the better thinkers out there; aren’t you glad that it isn’t the Government and their Tenured workers who are running that business; well not yet anyway; but they are working on taking it all off your hands. As Rahm Emanuel says; never let a good catastrophe go to waste.
@Mark Wagner. The surface problems with the casing have no relation to the top kill except that they must hold while the mud is being pumped in. It doesn’t matter where the oil is escaping because they intend to fill the entire well with mud, from the bottom up, until the flow stops. Later they can plug the well at depth.
If you want my opinion, you probably don’t, but here it is anyway. I would cut off the riser pipe above the BOP and clamp another BOP onto the existing one, then run a new riser pipe to the surface. In essence rebuild what was there before, on top of the existing BOP. With that installed the well should be able to shut down normally.
I do think that standard BOPs are made to be easily stacked.
OMG! With all that oil pouring in, has anyone calculated the expected sea level rise????
(yes, it was humor)
tommy says:
May 26, 2010 at 3:27 pm
Looks to me at 4:00 pm that the leak to the far left is getting plugged off.
Keep pumping that stuff in there.
Anthony,
Your title is offensive.
“environmental disaster courtesy of British Petroleum”
It appears to suggest that BP intended this.
Nobody in any industry intends a disaster. This is obviously a terrible event for a highly professional company working in incredibly extreme environments. The complexity of these operations are of similar order to the moon landing. All the contractors involved are highly professional. This is absolutely awful event but please remember that to err is human. By all means criticize BP but please do not suggest that any of this disaster was provided “courtesy” provided by BP.
I think you mean that the “Video link” is provided courtesy.
DCC: your quoting:
“The Purdue University professor went over the calcs for flow and +/- 20% he was saying 70,000 BPD.”
Yeah, I would be embarrassed for Purdue too.
70,000 bbls/day is a nonsense figure. In a 3 phase fluid flow, it would be impossible to estimate oil flow unless you have the oil/gas/water ratio, and the pre and post choke pressures. Which the guy from Perdue would not have had at the time he made his calculation.
According to BP’s web site, the gas flow has been as high as 6000 standard cubic(SCF) of gas per barrel of oil.
Gas at this depth will occupy about 1 bbl of space, with 800 scf of gas. 1 bbl of oil would then equal 8.5 bbls of oil, gas and possibly water. 70k /8.5 = 8200 bbl/day of oil.
Water content would only have to be 40% to get to 5000 bbl/day of oil. Water could be native to the produced oil, or venturied in through the bottom of the riser.
The largest accurately measured well was Draugen, in the North Sea, at 76,000 bbls/day.
BP would love it, if this pool was as prolific.
So would Obama, as only 150 such wells would cut US imports of oil to zero.
A long large diameter pipe lowered over the casing and covering a significantly larger area than the possible leakage could have a smaller pipe suspended within it, through a cap. and as much of the “leaked crude oil” along with whatever seawater got mixed in pumped to one of those huge tankers. I know that such pipe exists. There would still be some crude which escaped, but even a 95% capture would help tremendously.
Of course, it would take a platform about the size of an aircraft carrier to assemble the “rig” on, and high capacity cranes to lower the rig about a mile deep.
So why not call our US Navy into action? Our navy has competent engineers, welders etc., equipment needed and the like, and the troops are well trained for emergency work on a quick-quick basis.
Frittering away time and having a certain real disaster is beyond stupid. This is already a national disaster, and should be treated as such.
What BP is attempting is fraught with uncertainty. Obviously, their “Plan B” failed (and that is even if there was any plan B to start with, which I sincerely doubt). Time to get the “innovative engineers” involved, and there is no time to waste. Nothing ventured, nothing gained!
Call in the US Navy, at flank speed.
@Leonard Tachner. Check the Kent Wells video at 9:40. The problem is sea water. When the gas and sea water mix at that depth, hydrates form. Nothing will capture all the oil and gas unless sea water can be kept out of the stream.
The LMRP cap (lower marine riser package) could solve that. It’s the next option should the top kill fail. It’s not easy; it requires sawing off the riser and drill stem at the top of the BOP. None of this is urgent if they can complete a relief well quickly.
The relief well(s) present totally different challenges. http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6428 is the best reference for understanding them, especially the discussion at http://tinyurl.com/33fmm25 containing the casing diagram at http://tinyurl.com/2wku866
Before the incident, they appear to have completed the production casing from TD to the surface. Best info I have seen is that started with 7 5/8″ on the bottom and changing to 9 5/8″ up hole.
When they near the desired depth, the new well must be almost vertical, aligned with the old. Then, alternating the directional drilling shoe and bit with a directional magnetometer, they zero in on the existing well. When they hit it, they switch to a milling device to penetrate the casing. Once they have entered the old well, they can set casing to seal the intersection.
A recent post at The Oil Drum said they intend to drill the relief well to near the producing zone at 13, 293′.
tarpon says:
May 26, 2010 at 4:00 pm
“If you want my opinion, you probably don’t, but here it is anyway. I would cut off the riser pipe above the BOP and clamp another BOP onto the existing one, then run a new riser pipe to the surface. In essence rebuild what was there before, on top of the existing BOP. With that installed the well should be able to shut down normally.
I do think that standard BOPs are made to be easily stacked.”
Bolted, last I looked. No riser necessary. Holding in place and welding would be impossible under those conditions, perhaps under any conditions another valve needed to be placed over the bop.
It has to be done, unless they can get the drill pipe out and/or get the original bop operating. Till then they have at best an open hole filled with stuff they can not depend on and could lose at any moment. If the old bop or surface casing/cement is seriously compromised all bets are off.
LarryOldtimer says:
May 26, 2010 at 4:42 pm
“Call in the US Navy, at flank speed.”
They know nothing about oil wells. I see part of the problem being too many new young guys in charge that haven’t the first hand experience or the experience of learning from first hand experience of what needs to get done and when. Too much politics, too many rules and restrictions, not enough people left to agree who to put in charge. And there needs to be just one guy in charge. We’ve relied on and been carried by technology, but the practical experience that comes with fixing what is broke has not kept up. But we are stuck with BP. I’d want someone like T Boone to take charge, although I’m not sure of his experience. But here’s what he just said:
“If the legendary oilman were President Barack Obama , he’d fly to the gulf, meet with the top executives of BP and offer his complete support.
“I’d get my boot off their throats and out of their way. I’d tell them we’d assess blame after the problem was fixed. I’d tell them it’s OK to take risks to get this cleaned up – now.”
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-Hallside_26bus.State.Edition1.5c22ada.html