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 :
“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.”
BP’s 70% success probability for the top kill seems quite optomistic considering the situation. I’m not so sure the CEO didn’t actually say 17%. He was mumbling a bit.
The relief well will pump mud into the formation near the existing bore. The formation pressure will carry the mud up the hole until equilibrium is established and the flow ceases. Then they will likely remove the damaged BOP, and cement the well.
For Xi Chin, who thinks that BP is trying to salvage this hole, you will likely be pleased to learn that that the hole is full of ferrous spaghetti and will not be salvagable by any greedy oil company. You may now toss your car keys, turn off your lights, computer, refrigerator and other electrical appliances in order to assuage the guilt you bear for purchasing energy from such an unscrupulous industry. Oh, and good luck growing your own food year round as well.
Okay, I am really bad at this large machine brainstorming thing so laugh it up silly boy. Here is my idea: Remote maneuver a re-designed sub with a clever hatch built into the bottom of the sub with a pipe inside the sub leading to the hatch at the top of the sub. Have the hatch on top of the sub already connected to a tough flexible tube to a surface ship. Set it down over da hole. Open hatch. Open top hatch. Start pumping through the flexible tube. Tankers can just line up like wheat trucks.
Here is BP’s procedure description.
http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=9033657&contentId=7062095
Brego’s video is better than BP’s diagram, but it misses the fact that the BOP is not fully closed and mud will also come out through the BOP and well pipe.
Apparently they have to pump mud in below the BOP valves fast enough to create a high pressure drop through the partially closed BOP valves as part of the mud tries to flow up and out. This will be hard because the oil leak could be as fast as half to one barrel a second.
IF they create enough pressure in the part-closed valves, that will slow or stop the oil flow so that the heavy mud can either be pumped down or sink down due to its higher density. Once they get enough mud in, the weight of the 13,000 vertical feet of mud below the BOP should seal the pressure of the oil long enough for them to cap the BOP. (If they don’t slow down the oil flow, then I don’t think the mud can sink down because the mud could be entrained up and out with the oil by turbulence and drag forces. Three phase flow, oil/ mud/ gas, is very complex, so it’s hard to know without trying it.)
If they are not able to pump fast enough or the valve passages are too large to generate that “pressure-seal”, then BP will do what they call a “junk shot”, which is to put golf balls and other big solid crap into the BOP so that it tries to flow out of the partially-closed valves. If the “junk” is big enough to jam up the openings, then that should help the top-kill to work.
If not, Plan G? L? N? Which plan are we on?
MA Deluca II – they already tried to cap it with a dome. Methane ices formed and blocked the pipe going up. It would be nearly impossible to balance the flow so that only oil and gas, not water, goes up into the pipe.
Tilo Reber – Like you said, it might not work.
Mesa – crimping pipes makes them weaker. It makes cracks. It stretches and thins the pipe wall in spots. The pressure wants to push the wall of the pipe into a perfect circle and so very high pressure will try to undo the crimp and straighten it out. If it does, the crimp will likely blow out from the new weaknesses. If it doesn’t straighten, it will still leak through the crimp and may blow out the cracks and thin spots anyway.
Evan M Jones – ball bearings. Good thinking. Probably denser than mud. Might work if they could drop them straight down into the well and they were big and heavy enough that drag forces would not push them up instead of down. (Depleted uranium would help. Seriously!) However they have to pump them around through some twisty passages in the BOP and the BBs could settle out and get stuck in the BOP instead of down in the well. It would be a gamble. Also maybe their pump can’t pump ball bearing/ mud slurry. Ball bearings would wreck a lot of high pressure pump designs.
George B- I heard somewhere that the drill string was in the BOP when it tried to close and prevented a complete seal.
Jim Brown says:
May 26, 2010 at 11:48 am
Thank you – that was very, very good.
“Dermot O’Logical says:
May 26, 2010 at 9:41 am
Demonstrating my ignorance, but do oil leaks EVER occur naturally? Perhaps some seismic shock opening up a crack in the ground?”
I can’t find the link but I saw somewhere that about 5,000 barrels a day leak out of the seabed in the Gulf of Mexico naturally, I figured that was why BP said their blow-out was leaking that amount. Wikipedia has articles on both petroleum seeps where oil oozes out of the ground on land, and asphalt volcanos that form from underwater seeps.
For oil experts perspective See: TheOilDrum:
Good press conference at DOD tonight at 6pm Eastern. Speakers were RAdm. Landry of the USCG and Doug Suttles, COO of BP. The stuff I found new included:
Yesterday they skimmed 3700 bbls of oil from the surface. They had removed the riser insertion tool in anticipation of the top kill. They expected, and we have seen, significant amounts of mud exiting the riser since top kill began. So far they have pumped 7000 bbls of mud into the well in the few hours they have been operating. There is some evidence that the flow rate through the riser is decreasing. He didn’t comment on it, but it sounds like “so far, so good.”
There are at least six other countries involved in helping. Equipment from as far as Australia is being brought to the well site.
They recently acquired some pressure data from the repaired BOP control unit and we might expect some flow rate calculations soon.
Asked what would happen if nothing were done, another Admiral on CSPAN said that it would flow until the well pressure dropped to that of the hydrostatic pressure at 5,000 feet. At the moment that’s 9000 psi versus 3000 psi, so it would take “hundreds of days” for the flow to stop. Initial estimates were bottom hole pressure was 13,000 psi.
My take on the estimate that relief wells would take three months is that BP was being intentionally conservative. They are much better off predicting a late date and beating it than predicting a near-term date and missing it.
Paul and Dermot:
This gives the NAS report on oil in the oceans. In US waters, about 60% is from natural seeps. Most of the rest is from boats or land run off.
http://books.nap.edu/html/oil_in_the_sea/reportbrief.pdf
George E. Smith says:
May 26, 2010 at 11:46 am
While you people are “putting” this here, and putting that there; and blowing up balloons (tough ones) did you happen to miss that little footnote somewhere; you know the one that said this well goes 18,000 feet below the seafloor, and the oil pressure is around 40,000 PSI
George, not sure where you are getting your data, but it’s wrong. The is 18,000 ft from the ocean surface, or 13,000 ft below the seafloor. As far as pressures, it is rare to see an oil reservoir over 0.7 psi/ft, which means the reservoir pressures are probably not greater than 12,600 psi. From a rock physics standpoint, it is nearly impossible to see pressure gradients much greater than 1.0 psi/ft – which puts an absolute upper limit on pressures of about 18,000 psi. No matter how you slice it, 40,000 psi is out of the question
Frankly, I’d call in the big guns George W. Bush.
If he can’t suck the oil out, then it’s impossible.
I’d like to thank the industry engineers & experts who are providing some very solid technical information for WUWT readers!
My experience is in natural gas production on the Jonah field of the Pinedale Anticline, so working 5,000 feet below the surface of the ocean is a whole new paradigm! It’s hard to even imagine the challenges these folks are facing, with all the ROVs, surface ships, personnel and materials being deployed…..
Hat’s off to the folks working on this, I know just a bit of how challenging these blowouts are, and I’m impressed that BP is putting their entire effort into this! I agree with the poster who said that the Obama administration should “take their boot off the neck of BP” and work with them to stop this sucker.
It might help if the government would ask the people with the expertise, the oil industry professionals, what help they needed from the government, provide what was requested, and then keep their damn mouths shut. Sheeesh! What goobers!
@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.
Where I was going, DCC, is that it appears that there is oil in the annulus. Assuming casing was set to TD and cemented, then its possible that the casing/cement failed somewhere uphole (either as a result of whatever caused the initial pressure surge or as a result of actions or breakage during shutdown attempts). As such, there may not be enough hydrostatic pressure that shallow to seal the breach. However, it sounds like you think the casing problems are only at the wellhead? I’ve missed that report. That would be good news.
I also hear “good news” if they have slowed mud injection rates. It means well pressures are lower making it more likely that mud is getting to the bottom of the well.
If top kill doesn’t work, the next step will be to remove the riser and attempt to connect a new one. I’m quite sure that this wasn’t their first choice because the damaged riser is probably holding “some” pressure, slowing the leak. Cutting off the riser creates an immediate worse problem with the full well pressure being released (more oil) and staying that way until either they reconnect or the relief wells manage to seal the bore. Since there’s a significant chance that they won’t be able to reconnect, they want to use other methods first that at least won’t result in a worse problem.
And since the damaged riser is blowing off some distance away, releasing oil directly over the work area could hamper visibility. Yeah, I like BP’s approach in spite of what our president thinks. (and that’s all I’ll say about that.)
Hopefully mud kill will stabilize things enough to wait on the relief wells to do the job right.
>Second, that BP is open enough to us to show us the feed.
This is what strikes me about the whole thing.
I can’t foresee a time when a government has a self-inflicted disaster of this size and gives us a live feed. The people posting like these oil industry people don’t care about the environment or fixing the problem need to pull their head in and stop dealing in caricatures. They might not be hemp wearing greenies, but I doubt anyone is pleased about the problem.
I had to stop watching Fox news.The hysteria over the oil spill was too over the top.Tar balls wash up,oh the horror,decades of destruction,oh the horror.Turns out the tar balls had nothing to do with the spill,they never did tell us where those tar balls came from.The subliminal message is don’t go near the place,it’s ruined for decades.It’s economic suicide,tell the people how bad it is,watch them stay away in droves.If they had told the people to come and show their support to the people affected in the area,most would have come.It’s bad,it happened.deal with it,clean the place up.and get on with life.If I was seiing pics of hundreds of oil covered birds I could understand the hysteria,but it seems to me that the area is not as affected as the media is saying.I know the fishermen are the hardest hit,maybe the oil spill will turn out to be good for fish stocks in the area,especially if they hysterically keep them from fishing for years.
Sure looks like the volume/velocity of the leaks are down.
@CRS, Dr.P.H. said “I agree with the poster who said that the Obama administration should “take their boot off the neck of BP” and work with them to stop this sucker.”
Heh, heh. I’m reminded of a post (elsewhere?) saying that’s like keeping their boot on the neck of NASA during Apollo 13 because that would have helped get the astronauts back faster!
Let’s face it, neither the feds nor the MSM have a clue. So where is the extra help cleaning up the mess? It’s been a month, folks. It’s time to stop watching and start working.
DCC –
isn’t the BP leak at 5,000 feet?
some of Iran’s offshore fields are at 7,000, 8,000, 9,000 and even 11,000 feet.
Take semi hardened lava from the volcano and blast it in there or melt metal from the surface and have it syphoned into the hole to see if either one hardens effectively.
Hope the song you’re thinking of is not “There’s a Whole in the Bucket”… that song ends very badly with the hole still in a deliberate state of disrepair.
Perhaps you’ve seen the video by this senior VP on the BP web site. He gives a pretty good overview of what “top kill” method is, although he is no doubt addressing shareholders when he explains how much oil various methods will allow the company to “capture” – a strange “slip” if he intends to disabuse enviornmentalists of their notion that BP is actually just trying to reactivate this well head heedless of the environmental disaster unfolding.
http://bp.concerts.com/gom/kentwells_update24052010.htm (See around 6:30)
In context of your comments about pressure from the fracturing process, it is still a bit hard to imagine how such a method works against the enormous pressures of the emerging gas and oil. Evident in the live video is the large volume of mud spewing back up out of the riser and gathering at the base of the well head. Hard to believe that they expect any of this stuff to sink against the resistance of the oil (George Smith notes 40,000 psi, though I don’t know if that’s the interior pressure of the pipe).
Oops. WRT:
I meant, of course, “hole”. I remember hearing Pete Seeger singing that song. It’s call-and-response, with the deliberately foot-dragging Henry telling his pestering wife Liza why he can’t get a simple hole in the water bucket plugged.
http://www.songsforteaching.com/folk/theresaholeinthebucket.htm
pat says:
May 26, 2010 at 8:51 pm
DCC –
isn’t the BP leak at 5,000 feet?
some of Iran’s offshore fields are at 7,000, 8,000, 9,000 and even 11,000 feet>>
Oh come on. Everyone knows that those are nuclear research stations in disguise.
I’ve been watching the video a few times a day, reading all the suggestions, and I’m thinking it looks kinda like a volcano. Have they tried throwing virgins in it?
Wall St. Journal article with some interesting technical aspects of the event:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704026204575266560930780190.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us
Miamivic says:
May 26, 2010 at 8:56 pm
“Take semi hardened lava from the volcano and blast it in there or melt metal from the surface and have it syphoned into the hole to see if either one hardens effectively.”
Even if possible, that would seriously compromise any chance of a permanent solution.
There’s already enough hard stuff being blown out of the hole that is damaging everything, sandblasting the casing and bop. They need to get the riser off and put another bop or valve on top starting now, and accept any temporary increase in spill.
@Patrick Guinness who said: “isn’t the BP leak at 5,000 feet? some of Iran’s offshore fields are at 7,000, 8,000, 9,000 and even 11,000 feet.”
Really? Where? The maximum depth of the Persian Gulf is 90 meters. 5,000 feet is considered frontier even in this country.