BP-Halliburton-Transocean-Well is loosing 60% or 9824psi of oil and gas pressure to the strata

[Joanne98]

For OpEdNews: Chris Landau - Writer

BP-Halliburton-Transocean-Well is loosing 60% or 9824psi of oil and gas pressure to the rock strata in the Gulf of Mexico. Chris Landau (geologist)

The well structure is obviously gushing oil and gas in large quantities. Here is why.

14.7 pounds per square inch equals 1 atmosphere which is equivalent to 32.8 feet of water or 10.3 meters of water. This also equates to an 8.5 pound per gallon mud weight (density) or 0.45 pounds per square inch (psi) per linear foot. The well is 18360 feet deep. If the well was filled with water it would have a pressure of 8262 psi at the base.

If it was filled with drilling mud with a mudweight (density) of 17 lbs per gallon while drilling took place, in order to keep the gas and oil out of the well, it would have had to have a pressure of roughly twice that of water at 16524 psi or roughly 0.9 pounds per square inch increase in pressure per linear foot with depth.

At 5000 feet BP is reporting a pressure of 6700 psi.


This pressure is not even equivalent to that of seawater pressure at the bottom of the well or 8262 psi. We know that when the drilling crew substituted sea water for drilling mud, the blow out occurred. So the pressure in this well is obviously much higher than 8262 psi.

So we know that this well is loosing gas and oil pressure at 16524psi minus 6700psi which equals 9824 psi.

That means a minimum of 9824 psi of gas and oil is escaping into the formation or 59.45% of the oil and gas being generated is being lost. So only 40.55 per cent of the total gas and oil is being held back.

Roughly 60 % of the oil and gas is escaping through the casing into the formation. This oil and gas will be coming up very soon either along side the casing or through fractures in the sea floor.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/BP-Halliburton-Transocean-by-Chris-Landau-100717-770.html

[northernlights]

1. how does one get the title "writer"

without knowing the difference between the words lose and loose? We're talking one syllable here. x(

In any event, supposedly the seismic tests don't show any leakage. Maybe, just maybe, the damaged well is clogged up somewhere. That possibility was offered by one of the experts officially involved.

[voteearlyvoteoften]

2. that one bugs me too

and spell check will not pick up the error

[ladywnch]

3. some of my other favorites:

the differences between:

it's and its

to and too

their and they're and there

I know there are more, but these are the ones that always spring to mind.

[sce56]

4. One big question is where did the extra pipe in the riser come from? Above the BOP or Below!

[Igel]

5. This man is innumerate.

At least I assume "Chris" is a male.

The pressure isn't being measured at the bottom of the well but at the top of the well, at c. 5k feet underwater. The pressure at the bottom of the well isn't very unimportant when you're dealing with effects at the well head.

We have the measured upward pressure at the mouth of the well. We can calculate the water pressure at the mouth of the well if we don't want to measure it. What matters is the difference between these two at the mouth of the well. That would be the top of the well. Notice that the pressure at the bottom of the well doesn't really figure in how difficult it is to cap the well head.

The upward pressure presumes a column of petroleum and gas from the well mouth down to the reservoir; that number accounts for, has built in, the weight of the fluid column in the well shaft. If he wants to estimate what the pressure is at the bottom opening of the well mouth, where the shaft meets the reservoir, he can. That would be the pressure at the upper well mouth plus the pressure exerted downward by the column of fluid. Presumably that would be fairly constant, slowly declining as the pressure inside the reservoir fell. It would also assume a frictionless, turbulence-free well-shaft.

If he really wants to be persnickety, he could calculate the momentum of the columnn of fluid, less velocity loss due to friction and turbulence. He can barely understand multiplication, let's not burden him with fluid mechanics and how you need to simplify the differential equations to yield exact solutions or the vagaries of numerical methods. I wonder if petroleum + natural gas is a perfect Newtonian fluid. And we'll ignore any volume- (and therefore temperature-) induced pressure change or any change in pressure due to a phase transition of the clathrates. Let's make it not just as simple as possible, but far, far simpler than possible, by all means, in the interests of professionalism and accuracy.

"This pressure is not even equivalent to that of seawater pressure at the bottom of the well or 8262 psi" is a foolish utterance. It somehow presumes that all hypothetical seawater in the well shaft would be massless. The column of fluid only has mass when convenient. It must make moving refrigerators and pianos very convenient--now they have mass, now they don't. Cool.

That the reservoir is unlikely to produce a crack through two miles of seafloor seems a safe assumption. There have been cracks from nuclear explosions on land, but I'm not sure any have been deeper than 3000 feet--this well is a lot deeper than that and the pressure and temperatures are much, much lower.

The question for those not trying to feed their obviously mindless panic is whether there's seepage higher up--where the pressure on the well shaft walls is markedly lower but the surrounding medium is likely to be fairly recently deposited sea bottom and therefore softer. The evidence so far says no. Funny numbers don't matter here, either.

Another question would be whether or not the lower-than-expected pressure is due to some obstruction. This matters because obstructions sometimes have a nasty tendency to cease obstructing.