Keep in mind that the pressure being dealt with is differential pressure; the blowout pressure minus the seawater pressure. Yes, the WTHAYWF approach yields a stonewall, but UNTIL they get it capped, plugged, inserted, covered, the oil will keep coming. That stuff needs soaking-up. The problem is that the subsea equipment is still attached to the wellhead template, and it is quite certainly damaged by weeks of scour from a free-flowing well, which not only blows oil and gas, but abrasive rock fragments. This makes 'stabbing' a valve system into this mess all the more difficult.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
If you look at all the previous disasters, Oil companies got off very lightly monetarily. This has allowed accountants to sway the head, rather than nod, to expensive tests of high-tech solutions to potential problems. $10 Billion plus down the pan this time will ensure they have adequate technology ready and waiting for the next accident. I believe they have been trying to bung the pipe up with golf balls and rubber. Now, it may well be that Golf balls are perfect for the job, but are you with me in suspecting that they don't know what to do and are just giving it a try. What's next? Hard boiled eggs? Pizza? It would be laughable if it wasn't incompetent, and arguably deliberately so. It has been 30 years since a very similar spill in the same area. Welcome to SF, Wellsiteguy. btw What are your opinions on Shale Oil?
It seems that they have not yet used the golf balls. BP said that while it tries to siphon oil up its new insertion pipe, it was also making preparations to "kill" the damaged well at the sea surface by pumping drilling mud at higher pressure and weight than the oil. The mud would be pumped at more than 30,000 horsepower engine through three-inch hoses and through "choke" valves at the bottom of the blowout preventer near the sea floor. He said the valves could shoot up to 40 barrels a minute of mud into the well. "We'll be able to pump much faster than the well can flow," he said. "It's about us outrunning the well." Wells said the company had brought 50,000 barrels of the mud, a mixture of clay and other substances, for the effort, which he said should be far more than needed. He said that the much ridiculed "junk shot," in which golf balls and shredded tires would be fired into the blowout preventer, would only be used if the drilling mud were being forced upward and needed to be blocked. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/16/AR2010051601510.html
I love how newspapers publish watered-down tech-talk, translated by the writer, and then the editor. The above exerpt from the Washington Post is not right in so many ways as to be a complete mis-reporting. I won't get into it much beyond that. The first thing assumed by the article is that the Blowout Preventer (BOP) is still able to be functioned in any normal manner. In order for them to snub heavy mud into the wellbore, the BOP has to be closed tight and proven to be sealed before any such operation can proceed. If that is accomplished, the well will no longer flow, and the 'top kill' envisioned will become more or less redundant, because the relief wells can then be employed to plug the well at the layer responsible for the flow.
Thank you. Without hijacking the thread, Shale Oil is plentiful....but it's hosted in impermeable rock...shale...that requires a heckuva mess of stimulating in order to get substantial production rates. This Bakken play in the Dakotas and Saskatchewan is fairly pie-in-the-shale...It isn't another Saudi.
They are saying now that the drilling mud has a 70% chance of working. It has not been used at this depth before. If anything, it may work much better at depth. The clogging frozen hydrates should help this method, I think. Anyway, here's hoping, or praying, that this works.
Too bad, according to Professor David Hollander of University of South Florida - the oil has started to dissolve in Water. http://www.inforum.com/event/apArticle/id/D9FVDIK03/ I knew water can dissolve in oil about 50 ppm at 20 oC, but this discovery is mind boggling. Either it is junk science or he is a nut job....
I am very confused. How does water dissolve in oil? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
It is almost insoluble, but there is a lot of water for it to dissolve into. Most soluble is Benzene at 1,750 mg/L Out at sea, there will also be places where Benzene in the air is at concentrations way above safe limits. I wonder if the people working out at sea realise that they could develop chronic health problems. It damages bone marrow. If anyone wants to become an expert on oil spills, go here: http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/
The fact of the use of "dispersants" at a depth of a mile changes the equation on this spill. The purpose of the toxic dispersant was to keep the oil away from the surface. The problem now is that large islands the size of Manhattan are now floating subsurface like toxic submarines looking for victims.
The drilling mud operation has failed. Next plan is to attempt to cap the pipe. It will take two months, and might not work either. The wetlands are screwed.
May be not 5000, 1000 might work. No, it is too small. Navy practices these short of thing to destroy submarines. The energy content of an Earthquake is, I am sure, a lot more than a 5000 lb bomb. Actual size need to be calculated by some ordinance expert.
The USSR (sorry, showing my age) has used nukes to cap wells, but never at such a depth of water. Never at any depth of water I think. Plus, the pressure this monster is gushing at is phenomenal. I did express the fear before, and hoped I was wrong, that maybe we just don't have the technology developed to stop this thing. The engineers could have made a system with enough failsafes built in that it was impossible for such a leak to occur. The failsafes used here have failed before. They aren't good enough.
More on blowouts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowout_(well_drilling) A strong and controlled explosion can be initiated with the objective of a shearing force that can easily cap a 20 inch hole - if one really wants to close the well.