Could BP's solution become "Possibly The Biggest Mistake Humans Have Ever Made 2.0"...?

[Turborama]

They're drilling another hole into it and http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1005/03/acd.01.html">Tom Foreman said on AC360 earlier that they're probably going to try and seal it with concrete....

What this other rig is going to do is it's going to put another drilling line down here, and they are going to try to drill down here into the old well.

Now, the scientists I talked to about this said this is really like threading the needle from a mile away down here to interrupt this. But if they do it, then they have the capability of either tapping that well or putting concrete in here and basically cutting off all this oil altogether.




As the graphic shows, they are planning on doing this actually in one of the world's largest oil reservoirs which, judging by the analysis below, seems like utter madness.

"A 2007 study by three U.S. Minerals Management Service officials found that cementing was a factor in 18 of 39 well blowouts in the Gulf of Mexico over a 14-year period. That was the single largest factor, ahead of equipment failure and pipe failure."

From The Gulf Disaster = Who Knew What When? Firedoglake: http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8249623#8249865

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What More Can Halliburton Tell Us About the Horizon Oil Blowout and Its Risks?

A publicly available http://www.aade.org/houston/study/Fluids/11182009/F%20Tahmourpour%20Deepwater%20Cementing.pdf">Halliburton PowerPoint presentation from last November might tell us a lot about what could have caused the oil blowout, fire and massive oil gushing at the Horizon rig.

Suppose you’re that division of Halliburton that has the dangerous job of "cementing" the drilling hole and the gaps between the hole and pipe. You’ve done this lots of times in shallow water wells, but you’ve learned through previous experience in deep water there’s a particularly difficult problem having to do with the presence of gas that has seeped to the ocean floor and been captured in essentially "frozen" crystallized formations.

The problem is that when you drill into these formations, and then try to inject cement into the hole/gaps to prevent leakage, the curing process for that creates heat. That heat can, if not controlled, cause the gas to escape the frozen crystals. If a lot of gas is released all at once, as could happen during the cement/curing process, it can cause a blowout where the cementing is occurring, or force gas and/or oil up the pipeline to the drilling rig on the surface. And the heat created by the process may be just enough to ignite the gas , causing the explosion and fire.

Posted by Junkdrawer here: http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8258972

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In LBN: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4365325">Spill raises fears oil could reach Atlantic

[OffWithTheirHeads]

1. Just wait till you see fuel prices this summer! guess who will get to

Pay, and pay and pay for this free market fiasco. Too bad the " free market" won't clean it up. That will be left to us commie , pinko, Stalinast, Maoist types called big government. Sometimes known as " We the People".

[Turborama]

3. Seems like tax payers have already paid for it in advance...

Anderson Cooper gave BP quite a good smack down earlier...

TONY HAYWARD, CEO, BP GROUP: This wasn't our accident. This was a drilling rig operated by another company. It was their people, their systems, their processes. We are responsible, not for the accident, but we are responsible for the oil and for dealing with it and cleaning the situation up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, "This wasn't our accident," he says, but they're going to clean it up anyway. He said that on all the networks today.

Now, President Obama and a lot of politicians have been saying BP is going to be paying the bill, no matter what. But come over to the wall and take a look at this.

It turns out, under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, BP only has to pay $75 million worth of damages. Anything more comes out of a fund oil companies paid into over the years with an 8-cent-a-barrel tax, a tax they passed onto consumers.

OK, now, $75 million may seem like a lot, but take a look at this. This is basically $75 million. Now, BP raked in -- get this -- $5.6 billion in profit. And that's just for the last -- for the latest quarter. In other words, $75 million in damages, that's about 29 hours worth of BP profits.

Of course, the law also requires BP to pay for the cleanup, which could top $10 billion, but, again, that's only six months worth of profits. BP is not exactly going to go broke on this.

And this, just to drive the point home, pictures from the Exxon Valdez. Remember, the Exxon Valdez ruined a lot of lives back in 1989. A lot of industries didn't end up paying a penny in compensation. Exxon did not pay a penny in compensation, not one cent, until 19 years later.

And Exxon, which is now ExxonMobil, is now the biggest oil company on Earth. OK? Then take a look at this. This -- this is pretty unbelievable. This is something -- this is a waiver that BP lawyers have been handing out to fishermen and others volunteering to help lay out containment booms and otherwise help in the cleanup.

So, it says on this waiver, "In consideration of my participation in response activities, I hereby agree on behalf of myself and my representatives to hold harmless and indemnify the BP Exploration and Production Incorporated from all claims and damages that I and/or my representatives may have with regards to my participation in the spill response activities."

It's a lot of legalese, but, basically, BP was trying to get volunteers, the fishermen who were going to try to help clean up BP's mess, they were going to trying to get it so that they couldn't sue them if they got injured, they couldn't sue BP.

Well, once it got exposed, the company said, oh, look, this was a misstep, and they have now retracted the waivers. They're not going to make anyone try to sign these anymore.

But all this is making a lot of people very suspicious and very mad at BP.

From: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1005/03/acd.01.html

[DCBob]

2. I keep wondering about this blowout preventer and why it didnt work..

It was also very curious that the BP officials were downplaying the possiblity success of the BOP even before they attempted to shut it off.. almost as if they knew it wouldnt work.

[Barackbaby]

4. BOP damaged

I think they expected it to be damaged, by the computer readouts that they had. I believe the data is sent to an office somewhere. I hope it wasn't the GE equipment that failed.

[DCBob]

5. Do you have any source for that information?

If that's true, it then makes me wonder why the BOP was not designed to withstand an event like this since this is precisely what it is meant to be used for.

[Turborama]

6. It's official, they're going to inject concrete two miles below the seabed.

BP says stemming oil flow will take three months

The fight to cut off the flow of oil feeding the giant oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico could take three months, BP said today.

The oil giant launched a new front in its battle to contain the spill, as engineers began drilling a relief well designed to cut off the leaking oil permanently.

The new well, which is in 5,000 feet of water, is planned to intercept the existing well at 13,000 feet — about two miles — below the seabed. It will be used to inject cement to cap the one that is leaking.

Drilling began on Sunday at 3pm local time, after days of delays caused by poor weather conditions. However, BP confirmed that the operation would take “some three months” to complete.

Full article: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article7115347.ece

ETA I think they mean concrete, not cement.

[Rhiannon12866]

7. K&R! Thanks for another detailed and informative post...

It seems like every "solution" that they try only makes things worse, but we can hope that this one doesn't unleash Armageddon. :hide:

[Turborama]

9. I just read this article in Huffington Post and found myself agreeing with the author's sentiments

apart from the 'bunker buster' bit. The comments afterwards are worth a read, as well.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore/nobody-knows-the-trouble_b_561796.html">Nobody Knows the Trouble We'll See

James Moore

We might be powerless.

The oil flowing out from the seabed in the Gulf of Mexico may be under such great pressure that we do not possess technology to stop the tragedy. Chances are quite good we have no true sense of the dire nature of the situation. The facts that have been ascertained, however, lead to a dark scenario.

We know that the blowout preventers did not work but we do not know why. There are theories, though. The Deepwater Horizon rig was floating on pontoons about 5000 feet above the floor of the Gulf. When drillers struck an oil deposit, the bit was reported to be at about 18,000 feet, which is approximately three and a half miles beneath the platform. Does science even know what kind of pressure can be encountered at that depth, under almost a mile of water and two and half miles of rock?

BP and Transocean, which owns the rig, has said there was a maximum working pressure of 20,000 PSI but the system was able to handle a kickback pressure from gasses of about 60,000 PSI. The breakdown of the blowout preventers can be interpreted to mean the pressure coming up from the hole exceeded 60,000 PSI. Generally, various mixtures of mud circulate up and down the drill pipe to act as lubricants and equalize pressures encountered at great depth, and this process was said to be working at the time of the accident. Does this mean it's possible, even likely, that the Deepwater Horizon encountered pressures current technologies are not equipped to handle?

Although BP and Washington are trying very hard to convince the public that everything possible is being done to stem the flow of crude, there is seemingly little that might be accomplished. 5000 feet below the surface of the water with oil blasting out at tens of thousands of PSI, and wreckage from the giant rig scattered about, fixes are not easy to find. The latest plan is for a special funnel to be placed over the spout, which will then force the flow into a pumping channel. But how does a funnel get placed over the top of anything pushing at that kind of pressure? Consider that story to be an unrealistic solution.

Continues: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore/nobody-knows-the-trouble_b_561796.html

This is what the "funnel" looks like...



Video: http://edition.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2010/05/04/todd.dome.special.access.cn



Thanks for the K&R and the compliment, my friend.

[ihavenobias]

8. # 15. n/t