BP Claims Gulf Well Has Been Stopped 601
An anonymous reader writes with word that BP has announced the Gulf oil spill has been stopped.
Another reader adds more detail: "The last valve on the new cap has been closed, and the flow of oil and gas into the sea has stopped. That doesn't mean it's over. It is unclear whether the steel casing deep in the well can contain the pressure. The risk is that it could burst, which would eventually cause a rupture on the sea floor that would make things much messier to deal with. However, they're monitoring the pressure buildup carefully and if the pressure holds over the next 48 hours (indicating there is no leak below the sea floor), they'll assess what to do next. If it doesn't hold at the expected readings, then they'll re-attach the pipe used for producing to the surface and start collecting again. Regardless of what happens the relief well still has to be completed to permanently plug the well with cement, which could take a couple more weeks."
Not a permanent solution. (Score:5, Informative)
Let's hope the fix holds.
Actually, this isn't meant as a permanent fix at all. This cap is a temporary solution to prevent excessive leakage in the event that a hurricane prevents them from collecting the oil that does escape. They are still going ahead with the relief valves which are intended to be the permanent solution. That said, I do hope the cap holds the oil for as long as necessary.
Re:Picture or it didn't happen! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Whew (Score:5, Informative)
The collection of oil was to prevent that oil from going into the water, and also gave them something positive to report on.
In addition, the collection effort required some stops that made the capping of the well possible at all. As part of the capping process the cut the riser of the well (and eventually removed the riser cap) which is where this cap is installed.
I'm sure that no one wanted to stop this well leak more than BP.
Re:Whew (Score:2, Informative)
Well... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not a permanent solution. (Score:5, Informative)
Not even close to permanent. The current plan is to monitor "for up to 48 hours before reopening the cap while they decide what to do".
Re:BP Claims Gulf Well Has Been Stopped (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Thar's oil in them oceans . . . (Score:5, Informative)
They weren't abandoning it, no producer in their right mind would abandon a well that can pump out 60,000+ barrels a day, that's a fucking gusher!
The accident actually occurred while they were capping it with cement - which is done when the exploratory drilling is finished and they want to bring in a production rig.
Granted, it's the exact same procedure to permanently abandon a well (because they never really abandon them permanently), but a well like that they definitely would produce. The average well in the gulf produces something like 1,800 barrels of oil a day, for a comparison.
Re:Whew (Score:5, Informative)
The well was a write off from the moment the thing started leaking. Everyone knew that. I mean seriously, they can barely cap the thing, how in god's name do you expect them to repair all the damage that was done to it?
It's orders of magnitude cheaper and easier to just drill another well, they're not some magical things that suddenly shows up in the middle of the ocean, we can make more of them.
Re:Whew (Score:5, Informative)
Before I did that though, I did a little digging to find out how many other projects BP has in the Gulf of Mexico just to see if maybe they have a high percentage rate of success and this is just one of hundreds or something,
It turns out BP has only 9 (admittedly huge) projects in the Gulf of Mexico. Source [archive.org]
(count the number of projects in the ride hand column)
I had to find that in the way back machine because BP took down the page listing their Gulf of Mexico projects. They even still link [bp.com]
to it (again, look at the column on the right "Gulf of Mexico Facilities) but they broke the link. It's funny, when I peruse that page (via the way back machine) BP brags about their "new and untested" tech that they use to go to "unprecedented depths". It looks like their a little ashamed of it now.
Anyway, after seeing that they only have 9 facilities in the Gulf maybe this well is better sealed off. I went looking for a reason to trust BP with reopening this well and getting the oil and gas they went there for but a 1 in 9 failure rate is not impressive. Seal that sucker off.
Re:Picture or it didn't happen! (Score:5, Informative)
It starts all feeds on load, click on the videos themselves to get a decent fullscreen res look at each..
Re:Thar's oil in them oceans . . . (Score:5, Informative)
That's not really how it works. Yes, the well was 'exploratory' in that they were not sure they could get oil out of that particular place. But what they were doing before they fucked up big time was 'closing' the well: Sealing it off until they could bring out the production crews who would place pipelines to the feeder system (they have to collect it somehow and just spilling it into the ocean appears to have a bunch of problems associated with it) and the various bits and pieces that make up a production well.
But if the relief wells [bp.com] go as planned, they will pump mud down to stop the flow and then cement the thing closed. Theoretically, there isn't anything that would prevent BP (or somebody else) from drilling another well into the same formation and starting the process over, but that seems politically unwise.
Re:Whew (Score:5, Informative)
And they'll still charge us $3 a gallon for it.
Haha I wish.
Signed,
The rest of the world
Re:Back to business as usual then... (Score:1, Informative)
And you'll still want to drive your car/truck/suv and want cheap gas. You'll want fresh produce brought from far away places via vehicles, boats and planes using the petroleum. Farmed by farm equipment running on petroleum.
And you'll probably still vote for the people doing this all of this in your name, because thay are better than the other guy. You'll reject tort reforms so the lawyers will still win, or you will support Tort reform and keep victims from suing for bazillions they are owed. You'll own stock in the very companies you hate in your 401k equity funds.
Yeah, you're right. Back to business as usual.
My point? We ALL are to blame for this one way or another. Some more so than others. I'm not passing the buck pass BP at all. They surely deserve a lions share of the blame. But so does all the people who are STILL getting in the way of cleaning up this mess. Bill Clinton was right when he said there will be enough time later to play the blame game, and we should have been focusing on the problem 100%.
On a side note, I'm happy for the relatively good news. Let us hope that it holds.
Re:Whew (Score:3, Informative)
According to this you are wrong:
http://www.ufppc.org/us-a-world-news-mainmenu-35/9627-background-gulf-disaster-recalls-ixtoc-1-blowout-in-1979-1980.html [ufppc.org]
This would be the 2nd time a BOP has failed.
Re:How long (Score:5, Informative)
For better or worse the Federal Government doesn't have the experience or the resources to deal with a problem of this nature.
Very true. But they refused the help of those who did (the Dutch). Their boats could only get out something like 98% of the oil and EPA regulations say you can't discharge water back into the Gulf that's less than 99.998% pure or whatever, so they've been trying to pump the Gulf of Mexico into ships and bring it on shore into storage containers for later processing.
It's so asinine I can't go to 'incompetence' on this one.
Re:Not a permanent solution. (Score:5, Informative)
here's what I heard:
1. they capped it.
2. they closed the cap
2a. if the pressure suddenly drops, they know the pipe is ruptured below and they are forcing oil into the sea floor, where it will seep up into the sea, meaning the cap is not preventing a leak, just shifting it to the rupture. they will open the cap immediately and work to start pumping oil to the surface.
2b. if the pressure is high and holding, they will monitor for up to 48 hours it to determine if it is dropping slowly.
2b(1). if it is, then there is likely a leak below and they will work to start pumping oil to the surface, to keep the pressure in the pipe low while they wait for the relief well to be completed.
2b(2). if it is not, then the pipe is stable and intact
2b(2)(i). they may keep the cap in place and wait for the relief well to be completed
2b(2)(ii). they may work to start pumping oil to the surface while they wait for the relief well to be completed.
3. when the relief well is completed, they will open the cap, or remove the pumps, and pump concrete into the pipe to cap this wellhead permanently. the relief well will in any case be the production wellhead for this shaft.
what's really shocking about the whole deal isn't that they had a faulty blowout preventer, it's that they always knew that the pipe and the rock surrounding it were at points not strong enough to contain the pressure in the well. they knew this either before they started drilling or shortly after, and still they drilled all the way to the oil. they knew that there was no way ever to completely cap this well. as soon as they hit the oil, they would have to allow it to flow to keep the pressure low, or it would eventually rupture the pipe and vent the entire oilfield into the seafloor and then to the sea. and, for some reason, they foresaw no reasonable circumstance under which that plan might fail. they believed it not possible that they wouldn't be able to complete the well and pump it continuously, without a problem, without ever having to stop the flow. and they apparently suppressed knowledge of the entire consideration, because anyone looking at the concept would immediately say they were not only courting disaster, but raising it to a high probability of occurring.
frankly, i think it makes the deaths of those 11 men nothing short of murder.
Re:Whew (Score:2, Informative)
Do you drive a car to work? No.
Do you buy reusable shopping bags? All bags are reusable if well treated. Yes, I bring my own bags and reuse them all I can.*
Do you throw recyclable materials in the trash? No.
Do you use air conditioning? No.
More questions?
*By the way, now 'round here we have to pay a couple of cents even for common plastic bags, to reduce waste. I think it's a great measure.
Re:Whew (Score:5, Informative)
More than that. Blow out preventers have something like a 40% failure rate according to recent statistics released.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100713/ts_csm/313442 [yahoo.com]
(I honestly don't know if it has the 40% figure, but dig for it, it was all over the news if you need a citation that badly)
Common practice is to have a backup BOP to eliminate the single point of failure. The BOP is not nearly as reliable as oil companies would like to make it out to be.
Re:Not a permanent solution. (Score:5, Informative)
This is correct. The cap WILL be reopened in any case. If the well pressure does not build to about 8000 psi they will reopen the cap because this would indicate a bore containment problem. Even if the pressure does build to the proper level 'they' want to perform seismic tests without pressure in the well bore after 48 hours. Finally, if they then decide the well bore and/or formation does not have sufficient integrity the cap will then remain open permanently, otherwise they'll close it again.
In all cases the cap will be reopened and gush into the Gulf for some period of time, so don't be surprised when it happens. The best case is that the conclusions made from the seismic tests will allow the cap to be closed again relatively quickly.
If the cap cannot remain closed for whatever reason another containment plan is then used; four different ships are attached to the new cap in various configurations (kill lines, floating risers, etc.) to attempt to recover and/or burn the entire flow from the well.
A thoughtful reader may ask; why risk the "shut in" (closing the cap) and possible well bore/formation damage when 'they' can just collect/burn all of the flow without closing the cap? The answer is that ships, even big ships, have to escape hurricanes; if a cane blows through and the collection ships have to leave then the well will, once again, flow into the Gulf until the storm passes and the entire multi-ship apparatus can be reconnected. This could take weeks if the storm is uncooperative.
More "Oh Noes !1!!" noise - Article is wrong. (Score:5, Informative)
Debunking requested? Sure! :)
Interesting link, albeit woefully flawed. The beginning, emphasis mine:
Here's [scotese.com] a pic of the world's land masses around 255 mya, and another [scotese.com] of around 237 mya. Here's [scotese.com] a pic from close to the 55 million years later mentioned in the article above, around 195 mya.
In none of these scenarios is the current Gulf of Mexico a body of water. This would seem to rule out any sort of clathrate-based "sea fart", at least from that specific region.
Moreover, the two events the article mentions aren't quite right. The first is the Permian-Triassic extinction [wikipedia.org], indeed around 251 mya, but the cause is still debated, with one of the leading explanations being a combination of factors that include one or more impact events.
The second event is dated in the article at 55 million years after the Permian-Triassic extinction, or around 196 mya. However, the Paleocene didn't even begin until around 65 mya. What the article author was probably thinking about was the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum [wikipedia.org], dated to around 55 mya. One of the theories for the cause of the PETM is indeed that methane clathrates may have destabilized, causing a runaway greenhouse effect, until the poles were warm enough for palm trees and sea turtles. However, the PETM isn't associated with any mass extinction -- the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction [wikipedia.org] happened 65 mya when the geologic K-T boundary [wikipedia.org] was laid down in the rock, and is again theorized to be due mainly to one or more impact events. Note in the pic here [scotese.com] that the Gulf of Mexico is indeed a body of water by this time, but rather than being the source of any clathrate fart, it is instead noted as the location of the Chicxulub crater [wikipedia.org], theorized to be the kicker that killed the dinosaurs.
So basically, as disruptive as any sustained "sea fart" might be, the article you linked is full of bunkum and misinformation. And that's just in the intro.
Cheers,
Re:Whew (Score:3, Informative)
There was plenty wrong with the BOP and at least the managers above the workers knew about it.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1676466&cid=32474200 [slashdot.org]
Re:Unreadiness for Spills (Score:5, Informative)
"The reasons for why this failed" are not so unknown, since it's known that the welhead's blowout preventer had gone under repair and maintenance works that were identified as inadequate, exposing to the risk of BOP's failure, in a note that a BP's contractor sent to BP management.
There were also internal notes about the probable inadequacy of the wellhead cement casing, and various reports about dangerous shortcuts took in the operations of the drill in the days preceding the incident, which were protested by the drill workers.
:/
Re:How long (Score:3, Informative)
Don'tcha know? The only suitable replacement for "Big Government" is an Unregulated Free Market, since BP clearly would have spent billions of dollars fixing everything if there was no one to hold them accountable. No way they simply would have walked away and disavowed all knowledge.
Re:Whew (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Unreadiness for Spills (Score:3, Informative)
I didn't see any of the other large multinationals drilling in the area jumping in and offering their solutions.
Well, you can't really offer to build the well correctly after the fact, now can you?
Other countries require safeguards to already be in place [wsj.com] before the well goes into production. We could have required an acoustic dead-man switch, or relief wells to be in place, before the well went into production. If they had been in place, we would have already had the solution when the wellhead blew.
Brazil and Norway require these acoustic switches. If the oil companies don't want to do it on their own, we can just require them to do it.
Re:Whew (Score:4, Informative)
Corporations aren't the uncaring robot beasts you seem to be convinced they are. Corporations are still run by people. And there's no way that the people running BP would have allowed themselves to continue pumping unthinkable amounts of oil into the ocean without putting up a real effort to stop it, bad press and huge fines or none.
I'd hate to burst your bubble but oil companies don't give a rats ass. Here's an excerpt from this article [guardian.co.uk]. Take note that the article is a bit old though.
In fact, more oil is spilled from the delta's network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico, the site of a major ecological catastrophe caused by oil that has poured from a leak triggered by the explosion that wrecked BP's Deepwater Horizon rig last month
Re:Whew (Score:3, Informative)
Pumping "as much out as possible" -- you mean depleting the oil field? It'd take a couple of decades at best through that single well...
Re:Unreadiness for Spills (Score:3, Informative)
And I don't know how long you've been involved in farms, but in the Midwest if you want to continue farming (and turning a profit) after more than one crop, you need to till the soil and replenish the nutrients such as nitrogen using fertilizer and crop rotation. If farmers didn't do that, the world would have run out of Wheaties and Cheerios back in the 50's.
Re:How long (Score:2, Informative)
As you wish...
The 4th:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized
We have probable cause. 11 people are dead. 15 were killed in Texas. They continue to have other "accidents". And please note the word "unreasonable". There's nothing unreasonable in my demand. They have a worse safety record than Air France. They are a clear and present danger, possibly to the whole planet. They have repeatedly shown blatant disregard for human life. Ah, but the money...
The 5th:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Well, the government failed to call a grand jury, not for lack of evidence, but for economic clout. All these things could have been accomplished a few short days after the rig sank. You never heard me say this authority shouldn't be used. Remember those 11 dead folks? They're still quite dead. And nobody's been called to answered for it. You and me would have locked up tight. You're only showing yourself as an apologist. And pretty blatantly... Very typical with folks of your persuasion...
Put that in your bot and smoke it...
Re:Whew (Score:4, Informative)
Dear USA,
high taxes on gas cause reduced consumption via more efficient cars and less driving. That leads to less pollution and less money for the a-holes of the world.
That's a good thing in my book.
Signed,
most of the rest of the world
Re:Unreadiness for Spills (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Whew (Score:2, Informative)
The BOP stack is generally the last resort - it's the fluid in the hole and the skills of the drillers, derrick-men, mud loggers, mud engineers and tool pushers that keep wells (relatively,) safe.
WRT stack safely, a scheduled pressure test cannot replicate a kick or other loss of well control. In fact, a BOP can't shear pipe arbitrarily. Generally, pipe joints are landed in the stack's pipe rams before the shears are operated. If you have a collar or joint across the shears, they won't close properly. You can't operate the brake on the drill floor if the derrick has been engulfed in flames.
Re:Unreadiness for Spills (Score:4, Informative)
I'm happy to be proven wrong with a credible link that deals with the actual events...
How about this [cbsnews.com]? In that story, a survivor of the disaster is interviewed. He talks about how several components of the blowout preventer were damaged by accidents in the weeks preceding the explosion. Rather than stopping to repair the blowout preventer, though, British Petroleum chose to continue drilling. They did so because the rig was already behind schedule and over budget. If this witness' allegations are substantiated, it'd be a damning indictment of British Petroleum. They deliberately chose to sacrifice safety in the pursuit of profit. They did so over the warnings and objections of their own employees.