Deepwater Horizon - Transocean Oil Rig Fire

[tengineer]

Wrong.
BP America runs its own show in accordance with the lack of rules and guidance.
If you could open your eyes you'll find that of all the majors operating in the GOM this disaster could only be covered by BP, because of its worldwide operations. BP world are bailing out BP America.

All the oil majors have worldwide operations, even the little guys like Exxon, Shell, Chevron, Total etc.
BP world is BP period unless BP world doesn't derive any income from BP America.
It almost sounds like what you're saying is BP started drilling in the USA and employed a bunch of hayseeds to take advantage of the lax US regulations thinking they could blame it on the hayseeds and the lack of regulations if they screwed up. As long as the going was good they'd pocket the profits but when the oil hit the fan they'd blame it on the locals and lax regulations. You may be right, perhaps Royal Dutch Shell is doing the same thing.

[tvhawaii]

TV, you're a damn good contributor, but your pieces really, really get my blood boiling.

I've tried to make it easier for the people here who know this stuff, to get the information. Plus, I share a kinship with the Industry and those brave hands on DWH.
35 years ago (I'm 67 btw), I was living on my sailboat in Sausalito and fixing IBM 360/370 mainframes in San Francisco. It seemed like everyone, including me, was way too heavy into cocaine and had been way too long.
Since I had developed an interest in using Hot Water/Steam as a renewable resource, I quit the computer biz and moved North to Cobb Mountain, in the heart of the Geysers Steam Field, where I stayed for 1 1/2 years. I wasn't much of a hand, but I sure know how to push-em-back, make-em-bite. And I'll never forget standing on the BOP hammer-wrenching the annular apart so we could change the rubber and having the soles of my boots start to melt.
(We were drilling ahead on a live well, ~500 deg./500 psi., had shut it in and waited 'long enough' for the BOP to cool down.{g} We used a 'modified' BOP with a blooey line diverting the steam to a muffler 300 ft. away and stripped through the annular...wasn't much fun on the floor when the rubber wore out.)
It worked, by the way...the last thing on my mind was cocaine.

[Anchor Guy]

"I've just realised why you're being so shitty! You didn't think Hayward would do as well as he did today, and now you've lost some face."

Alcor, what were you watching today? I've learned much from your input throughout this thread. Sometimes you even swayed me with your thoughts but now you've gone and done it. Tony did about as well with his comments (they certainly weren't ANSWERS) today as you just did.

[company man 1]

I realise that you are affected by the environmental disaster, but it's as if you take a personal position in this. Have BP, AMOCO or ARCO ever sacked you in the past?
And, your irrational comments on me being an employee of BP are stupid.

\
You're a typical BP hand. The further you get away from what you know the more of an expert you become. It was nice to see how Uncle Tony was so knowledgeable about how many failures of the BOP occured. He even knew how each diagnosis of the BOP was arrived at, but didn't know jack shit about his own well. Couldn't tell you if 6 or 66 stabilizers were the norm. It's funny how much he forgot about cementing failure since he foundout Halliburton totally covered their asses by WARNING his people DON"T DO THIS OR YOU WILL FAIL! It kind of sounds like a guy who has never set foot on US soil that knows all about the cowboy mentallity & the corruption in the federal government, but doesn't know jack shit about how the criminal element operates in London. Like AIG representatives in LONDON writing out over a trillion dollars in credit default swaps on money the company didn't have & nearly bankrupting the whole freaking world. As I remember, the US taxpayer had to bail out a few British banks because of the mess your people caused there too.

[alcor]

Alcor,

I did read every word of dougr's long post @ theoildrum, and alvis' synposis was a fair summary, capturing most of dougr's salient points. Then John weighed in (@ #2840), pretty much putting dougr on the team on one of the relief wells, thereby seemingly adding to his credibility. Maybe it is a load of rubbish, but in what respect?

Dell,
You can be sure of one thing. BP tried to kill the well from surface. I think they knew that the pressure required to kill the well would be so vast that the integrity of the casings, particularly the 16", would not stand up to the pressure. And, there's a very good chance that the casing had already either burst, fractured or leaked. How would BP know this?
When you start pumping at a constant rate you establish a stable pressure. This pressure would be of the magnitude of anything up to the formation pressure plus the pressure losses to force the hydrocarbons back into the Reservoir. The pressure should decline in a linear form due to the fact that the well is vertical.
The pressure may have reduced initially, and then became constant. This would suggest that something in the casing has been compromised, and flow is now channelling up around the wellhead. Simply put, another leak was introduced.
BP, have known from day one that the best solution is a relief well. All Gov't agencies knew that this was the case in the case of a serious accident. What BP have attempted to do is put a 'hat' on top of the leaks and produce this to surface. The major problem with the GOM deepwater drilling operations is that at 5000 ft hydrates form, and these hydrates prevented any containment at the seabed.

[MikeDB]

<snip>
June 17 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc was struggling to seal cracks in its Macondo well as far back as February, more than two months before an explosion killed 11 and spewed oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
It took 10 days to plug the first cracks, according to reports BP filed with the Minerals Management Service that were later delivered to congressional investigators. Cracks in the surrounding rock continued to complicate the drilling operation during the ensuing weeks. Left unsealed, they can allow explosive natural gas to rush up the shaft.
“Once they realized they had oil down there, all the decisions they made were designed to get that oil at the lowest cost,” said Peter Galvin of the Center for Biological Diversity, which has been working with congressional investigators probing the disaster. “It’s been a doomed voyage from the beginning.”

<snip>

On Feb. 13, BP told the minerals service it was trying to seal cracks in the well about 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast, drilling documents obtained by Bloomberg show. Investigators are still trying to determine whether the fissures played a role in the disaster.
‘Cement Squeeze’
The company attempted a “cement squeeze,” which involves pumping cement to seal the fissures, according to a well activity report. Over the following week the company made repeated attempts to plug cracks that were draining expensive drilling fluid, known as “mud,” into the surrounding rocks.
BP used three different substances to plug the holes before succeeding, the documents show.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=abB4SRejx7Po

[company man 1]

I've tried to make it easier for the people here who know this stuff, to get the information. Plus, I share a kinship with the Industry and those brave hands on DWH.
35 years ago (I'm 67 btw), I was living on my sailboat in Sausalito and fixing IBM 360/370 mainframes in San Francisco. It seemed like everyone, including me, was way too heavy into cocaine and had been way too long.
Since I had developed an interest in using Hot Water/Steam as a renewable resource, I quit the computer biz and moved North to Cobb Mountain, in the heart of the Geysers Steam Field, where I stayed for 1 1/2 years. I wasn't much of a hand, but I sure know how to push-em-back, make-em-bite. And I'll never forget standing on the BOP hammer-wrenching the annular apart so we could change the rubber and having the soles of my boots start to melt.
(We were drilling ahead on a live well, ~500 deg./500 psi., had shut it in and waited 'long enough' for the BOP to cool down.{g} We used a 'modified' BOP with a blooey line diverting the steam to a muffler 300 ft. away and stripped through the annular...wasn't much fun on the floor when the rubber wore out.)
It worked, by the way...the last thing on my mind was cocaine.

You've been awesome at uncovering the facts. I really a ppreciate what you've done, but every time I thought I could get over this comedy of horrors, you unearth new even more incriminating evidence against you know who.

[alcor]

\
You're a typical BP hand. The further you get away from what you know the more of an expert you become. It was nice to see how Uncle Tony was so knowledgeable about how many failures of the BOP occured. He even knew how each diagnosis of the BOP was arrived at, but didn't know jack shit about his own well. Couldn't tell you if 6 or 66 stabilizers were the norm. It's funny how much he forgot about cementing failure since he foundout Halliburton totally covered their asses by WARNING his people DON"T DO THIS OR YOU WILL FAIL! It kind of sounds like a guy who has never set foot on US soil that knows all about the cowboy mentallity & the corruption in the federal government, but doesn't know jack shit about how the criminal element operates in London. Like AIG representatives in LONDON writing out over a trillion dollars in credit default swaps on money the company didn't have & nearly bankrupting the whole freaking world. As I remember, the US taxpayer had to bail out a few British banks because of the mess your people caused there too.

Are you an example of the type of person put in a very responsible offshore role, the role of a Co Man? Your comments are verging on the ridiculous. I'd love to tell you how world banks failed because of all the heavy investment in US mortgages, but that would fall on deaf ears.

[alcor]

<snip>
June 17 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc was struggling to seal cracks in its Macondo well as far back as February, more than two months before an explosion killed 11 and spewed oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
It took 10 days to plug the first cracks, according to reports BP filed with the Minerals Management Service that were later delivered to congressional investigators. Cracks in the surrounding rock continued to complicate the drilling operation during the ensuing weeks. Left unsealed, they can allow explosive natural gas to rush up the shaft.
“Once they realized they had oil down there, all the decisions they made were designed to get that oil at the lowest cost,” said Peter Galvin of the Center for Biological Diversity, which has been working with congressional investigators probing the disaster. “It’s been a doomed voyage from the beginning.”

<snip>

On Feb. 13, BP told the minerals service it was trying to seal cracks in the well about 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast, drilling documents obtained by Bloomberg show. Investigators are still trying to determine whether the fissures played a role in the disaster.
‘Cement Squeeze’
The company attempted a “cement squeeze,” which involves pumping cement to seal the fissures, according to a well activity report. Over the following week the company made repeated attempts to plug cracks that were draining expensive drilling fluid, known as “mud,” into the surrounding rocks.
BP used three different substances to plug the holes before succeeding, the documents show.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=abB4SRejx7Po

Three weeks ago, a well we drilled took 320 Bbbls of losses due to a fault being drilled through. No big deal. We pumped Lost circulation Material, and the well eventually sealed/cured. It happens in one in every 5 wells you drill.

[SEDCO445]

I'm not qualified to give a synopsis of the article but will anyway. All things stated are from the perspective of the author.

BP is being secret and isn't releasing technical details that would allow us to follow along with what's happening. So we have to infer what's going on with the well through their actions. A lot of information can be gathered from the top kill attempt. This process, by design and if it works, should not take days to complete. By nature, it happens quickly within a matter of hours. BP taking so long is an indication they wanted to test the structural integrity of the well by slowly increasing the pressures and rates. They floated a reason top kill failed to WSJ because of a malfunctioning disk inside the well about 1,000 feet below the ocean floor. There are no disks in the well, all there is is well bore. This means the casing is ruptured and oil is leaking into the surrounding formation 1,000 feet below. Which means if BP restricts the flow of oil coming out of the riser, this means more pressurized oil enters the surrounding formation and erodes it further. BP want's to eliminate some of this back pressure from the well by letting more oil flow out of the well because they know if they don't, the surrounding formation will erode to the point where it takes away the support of the sea floor and either starts leaking through channels to the sea floor or caves in the sea floor. They were doing inclinometer readings because they know the surface casing is starting to lean/tilt more after they cut the riser off. As the formation starts to erode around the casing, the support structure that helps support the weight of the bop becomes weaker and susceptible to collapse allowing full oil flow from the reservoir.

Because of what I have just stated, all roads lead to one destination. A fully wide open well bore directly to the oil reservoir. We're screwed. We couldn't top kill it and we won't be able to bottom kill it. The oil will flow until the reservoir runs dry some 2.5 billion barrels later.

If I misinterpreted anything or left anything important out, feel free to add.

This is a very valid possibility that is being discussed by industry well kill experts I know and have met with this week. Also bottom kills from a relief well have to pump at a rate and pressure / density to overcome the flowing oil and displace it with a heavy mud or eventually cement. There is serious doubt that this is now possible with the high flow rate and a larger diameter eroded wellbore.

[tvhawaii]

Quick Observations from the monkeyboard.

Cutting the riser apparently is leading to the tilting of the BOP.

Is the Flex Joint introducing this perceived tilting? Does anyone know the actual inclinometer readings and exactly where they were taken?

[alcor]

When are TO to attend the Hearings?

[alcor]

When are MMS attending the hearings?

[domer]

Today Thad Allen said "It’s the same point Development Driller II, which is the, drilling the relief well is proceeding at pace and they are 9,000 feet below the sea floor right now and starting to close in on the well bore itself. We anticipate over the next three to four weeks they will close in and be able to tap into the well itself. At that point, they will pump mud down it and attempt to the, what we call, the bottom kill and actually cap the well. Development Driller III is the platform that is drilling the second well or the backup well, the risk mitigator well a mere currently 4,500 feet below the sea floor and continuing to drill ahead."

But I thought the DD3 was suppose to be the first to tap in??

[john]

Domer... also of interest is this comment from ADM Allen:

Q: Yes, hi. Thanks, Admiral. Do you believe the well pipes themselves are broken or leaking at all? And do you have any concerns about the integrity of the blow out preventer, the well borer, the sea floor that’s holding up the blow out preventer? Thanks.

ADMIRAL ALLEN: That’s a terrific question. Let me kind of take it in sequence. We have some idea of the condition of the blow out preventer and lower marine riser package. In combination, they call that the stack that sits above the well head itself. We know from some sonic testing that was done based on radiography equipment from the Department of Energy we have a partial closer of some of those rams but not a complete closer. And that was a problem for the top kill operation because we could not get enough pressure on top of the blow out preventer to force all of the mud down into the well bore to allow us to top kill it, if you will.

So we know that the, that there is, there is, and we also know that there is product rising up through the blow out preventer through the, where we cut the lower marine riser pipe. We’re not going to know the exact condition of that blow out preventer until we’ve capped the well, can remove the blow out preventer and bring it to the surface.

I’ve said on several occasions, I consider that blow out preventer almost the equivalent of this incident of the black box we would be seeking to find after an aviation accident because it can reveal a lot of information related to what happened at the time of the event. And the blow out preventer was key to that.

As you move below that and you go down into the well bore, I think that one thing that nobody knows is the condition of the well bore from below the blow out preventer down to the actual oil field itself. And we don’t know, we don’t know if the well bore has been compromised or not. One of the reasons we did not continue with top kill at higher pressures, there was a concern that if we increased the pressure too hard it might do damage to the casings and the well bore. What we didn’t want was open communication of any oil from the reservoir outside the well bore that might get into the formation and work its way to the sub sea floor and then result in uncontrolled discharge at that point. That has not happened and that’s the reason they’re taking such precautions and did not proceed any further with the top kill.

What we are doing is going down the very bottom of the well bore for this intercept and hopefully at that point they will start pumping mud in. And mud will first go up all the way and fill the well bore and then it will be forced down over the oil into the reservoir and then put enough weight of the mud to hold the oil in the reservoir. And then allow them to put a cement plug in after that.

So what I would tell you is we don’t know exactly the condition of the well bore. And that’s one of the unknowns that we’re managing around in terms of risks. And that’s the reason we didn’t go, didn’t go to excessive pressures on the top kill and decided that we’d deal with containment and then go for the final relief well.

[jmccaski]

Today Thad Allen said "It’s the same point Development Driller II, which is the, drilling the relief well is proceeding at pace and they are 9,000 feet below the sea floor right now and starting to close in on the well bore itself. We anticipate over the next three to four weeks they will close in and be able to tap into the well itself. At that point, they will pump mud down it and attempt to the, what we call, the bottom kill and actually cap the well. Development Driller III is the platform that is drilling the second well or the backup well, the risk mitigator well a mere currently 4,500 feet below the sea floor and continuing to drill ahead."

But I thought the DD3 was suppose to be the first to tap in??

Here's what I saw... but I am not vouching for anything I see that even the numbers he reports are not consistent.

http://markimoore.com/relief-well-st...-june-16-2010/

Relief well status as of June 16, 2010

The primary relief well is currently at a depth of more than 15,000 feet. The relief well is beginning to angle at 23 degrees to intercept the MC252 well shaft. The well is being drilled by The Development Driller III and is approximately 11 days ahead of schedule.

The secondary or backup relief well , being drilled by The Development Driller II, has drilled the second relief well to a depth of 9,774 feet.

BP Oil Response Quick Reference Data

# Relief Well Depth (DDIII) - 15,000+' (16June10) primary well
# Relief Well Depth (DDII) - 9,022' (16June10) secondary well
# Daily Oil collected - 18,600 barrels (16June10)
# Total Oil collected - 180,737 barrels (4June10-16June10)
# Daily Gas Flared - 40 mil. standard ft3 (16June10)

[dell]

Alcor,

Re your #2964: alvis was summarizing this: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6593/648967 Now, is that rubbish, or not? Is the likely outcome, at this point, what dougr says:

"What is likely to happen now?

"Well...none of what is likely to happen is good, in fact...it's about as bad as it gets. I am convinced the erosion and compromising of the entire system is accelerating and attacking more key structural areas of the well, the blow out preventer and surrounding strata holding it all up and together. This is evidenced by the tilt of the blow out preventer and the erosion which has exposed the well head connection. What eventually will happen is that the blow out preventer will literally tip over if they do not run supports to it as the currents push on it. I suspect they will run those supports as cables tied to anchors very soon, if they don't, they are inviting disaster that much sooner.

"Eventually even that will be futile as the well casings cannot support the weight of the massive system above with out the cement bond to the earth and that bond is being eroded away. When enough is eroded away the casings will buckle and the BOP will collapse the well. If and when you begin to see oil and gas coming up around the well area from under the BOP? or the area around the well head connection and casing sinking more and more rapidly? ...it won't be too long after that the entire system fails. BP must be aware of this, they are mapping the sea floor sonically and that is not a mere exercise. Our Gov't must be well aware too, they just are not telling us.

"All of these things lead to only one place, a fully wide open well bore directly to the oil deposit...after that, it goes into the realm of "the worst things you can think of" The well may come completely apart as the inner liners fail. There is still a very long drill string in the well, that could literally come flying out...as I said...all the worst things you can think of are a possibility, but the very least damaging outcome as bad as it is, is that we are stuck with a wide open gusher blowing out 150,000 barrels a day of raw oil or more."

If not, why not? dougr's piece is very well argued, and seemingly, well substantiated. I would expect a response, if your answer is negative, of equal quality.

[dougr]

I like the discussion and TOD closed the comments to my piece so I reposted it here - Deepwater Oil Spill - A Longer Term Problem

I am looking forward to reading more of your thoughts.

[dell]

Alcor,

Re your #2967: well, at least you're consistent. Your explanation of the financial crisis is as simplistic and (in the main) wrong-headed as your efforts here to divert 100% of the blame to anything whose initials aren't B or P. (Umm, what sunk RBS--U.S. sub-prime mortgages? I think not, and I recollect that the inquiries over there showed not.)

[jmccaski]

Here's a good excuse. Wonder why I never thought of it

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-sp...orced_blo.html

BP says MMS never enforced blowout preventer law

BP acknowledged in a recent letter that it has routinely failed to comply with a federal regulation requiring drilling companies to certify that their blowout preventers are able to block a runaway well.

But that's because the Minerals Management Service, the government agency charged with overseeing offshore drilling operations, never asked the company to comply, officials wrote.