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Title: Oil Unleashed Temporarily In Attempt To Contain It
Source:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
URL Source: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie ... AULT&CTIME=2010-07-10-19-46-20
Published: Jul 10, 2010
Author: By TOM BREEN
Post Date: 2010-07-10 19:57:32 by Brian S
Keywords: None
Views: 295
Comments: 12
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Robotic submarines working a mile underwater removed a leaking cap from the gushing Gulf oil well Saturday, starting a painful trade-off: Millions more gallons of crude will flow freely into the sea for at least two days until a new seal can be mounted to capture all of it. There's no guarantee for such a delicate operation almost a mile below the water's surface, officials said, and the permanent fix of plugging the well from the bottom remains slated for mid-August. "It's not just going to be, you put the cap on, it's done. It's not like putting a cap on a tube of toothpaste," Coast Guard spokesman Capt. James McPherson said. Robotic submarines removed the cap that had been placed on top of the leak in early June to collect the oil and send it to surface ships for collection or burning. BP aims to have the new, tighter cap in place as early as Monday and said that, as of Saturday night, the work was going according to plan. If tests show it can withstand the pressure of the oil and is working, the Gulf region could get its most significant piece of good news since the April 20 explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig, which killed 11 workers. "Over the next four to seven days, depending on how things go, we should get that sealing cap on. That's our plan," said Kent Wells, a BP senior vice president, of the round-the-clock operation. It would be only a temporary solution to the catastrophe that the federal government estimates has poured between 87 million and 172 million gallons of oil into the Gulf as of Saturday. Hope for permanently plugging the leak lies with two relief wells, the first of which should be finished by mid-August. With the cap removed Saturday at 12:37 p.m. CDT, oil flowed freely into the water, collected only by the Q4000 surface vessel, with a capacity of about 378,000 gallons. That vessel should be joined Sunday by the Helix Producer, which has more than double the Q4000's capacity. But the lag could be long enough for as much as 5 million gallons to gush into already fouled waters. Officials said a fleet of large skimmers was scraping oil from the surface above the well site. The process begun Saturday has two major phases: removing equipment currently on top of the leak and installing new gear designed to fully contain the flow of oil. BP began trying Saturday afternoon to remove the bolted top flange that only partially completed the seal with the old cap. Video images showed robotic arms working to unscrew its bolts. Wells said that could last into Monday depending on whether the flange can be pulled off from above, as BP hopes. If not, a specially designed tool will be used to pry apart the top and bottom flanges. Once the top flange is removed, BP has to bind together two sections of drill pipe that are in the gushing well head. Then a 12-foot-long piece of equipment called a flange transition spool will be lowered and bolted over it. The second piece of pipe inside the well head came as something of a surprise, and raises the possibility that one of the sections of pipe became jammed in the Deepwater Horizon's blowout preventer, though which the well pipes run. The failure of the blowout preventer, a massive piece of equipment designed to stop the unchecked flow of oil, is partly to blame for the size of the spill. "That will be an important question to ask when we pull the blowout preventer up to the surface and we'll figure out where that pipe ultimately landed," Wells said. After the flange transition spool is bolted in place, the new cap - called a capping stack or "Top Hat 10" - can be lowered. The equipment, weighing some 150,000 pounds, is designed to fully seal the leak and provide connections for new vessels on the surface to collect oil. The cap has valves that can restrict the flow of oil and shut it in, if it can withstand the enormous pressure. That will be one of the key items for officials to monitor, said Paul Bommer, a professor of petroleum engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. "If the new cap does work and they shut the well in, it is possible that part of the well could rupture if the pressure inside builds to an unacceptable value," Bommer wrote in an e-mail Saturday. Ultimately, BP wants to have four vessels collecting oil within two or three weeks of the new cap's installation. If the new cap doesn't work, BP is ready to place a backup similar the old one on top of the leak. The government estimates 1.5 million to 2.5 million gallons of oil a day are spewing from the well, and the previous cap collected about 1 million gallons of that. With the new cap and the new containment vessel, the system will be capable of capturing 2.5 million to 3.4 million gallons - essentially all the leaking oil, officials said. The plan, which was accelerated to take advantage of a window of good weather lasting seven to 10 days, didn't inspire confidence in the residents of the oil-slicked coast. "This is probably the sixth or seventh method they've tried, so, no, I'm not optimistic," said Deano Bonano, director of emergency preparedness for Jefferson Parish. On Saturday he was inspecting beaches at Grand Isle lined with protective boom and bustling with heavy equipment used to scoop up and clean stained sand. "Even if they turn it off today, we'll still be here at least another six weeks, on watch for the oil," he said. "Shutting off the oil is a very important step, but we should not assume this disaster is over," said Larry Schweiger, president of the National Wildlife Federation. "I think it's important to recognize that there's an enormous amount of oil still in the Gulf."
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#1. To: Brian S (#0)
FUCK YOU british peroleum and ALL of your following ilk. From Day 3 we knew that Downhole had exploded and blown at least one section of riser into the BOP. That oil was coming out of the seafloor around the wellhead abd THIS is why bp didn't try to shut in the well head. It would've caused the oil/methane to push even harder out the now non existent casing into the porous rock around the borehole. 162 000 bbls per day now. A VLCC every month at this rate.
Search Results 1. Guest Post: BP Official Admits to Damage BENEATH THE SEA FLOOR ... [Question] What are the chances that the well casing below the sea floor has ... cause of the failure of the BOP could have been damage to the well bore: ... Simmons was an energy adviser to President George W. Bush, is an adviser to ... www.nakedcapitalism.com/.../guest-post-bp-official-admits-to-damage-beneath-the-sea-floor.html - Cached 2. BP Official Admits to Damage BENEATH THE SEA FLOOR [4; Washington's ... Jun 12, 2010 ... Simmons has made the claim that the wellhead with the BOP attached has been blown out along with the casing. You can see it on all of the ... www.georgewashington2.blogspot.com/.../evidence-points-to-destruction-beneath.html - Cached 3. Gulf Oil Spill Sea Floor Collapse and Seabed Leaks May Prevent BP ... Jun 9, 2010 ... Matt Simmons believes that the well casing may have been destroyed when the oil rig exploded and says that oil is leaking from the seafloor ... blog.alexanderhiggins.com/.../gulf-oil-spill-sea-floor-collapse-seabed-leaks-prevent-bp-capping-2/ - Cached 4. Day 49 Simmons says 'OIL LAKE!' Biggest BLOWOUT in the History Of ... 20 posts - 6 authors - Last post: Jun 13 The BOP was blown out of the well bore like a cork, then the casing would pop off too. Simmons says we have an OPEN HOLE SPEWING he guesses ... www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1098419/pg1 - Cached Coast Guard and BP admit "MYSTERIOUS second pipe" stuck in BOP ...46; - Jul 10, 2010 BREAKING!Senator Nelson:Casing Broke...Oil Leaking from Seafloor ...46; - Jun 7, 2010 More results from godlikeproductions.com » Get more discussion results 5. Internal BP Document Confirms Matt Simmons' Worst Case Prediction ... BP must be aware of this, they are mapping the sea floor sonically and that .... The BOP is attached to the 20" casing, not to the drive pipe that is set in ... www.zerohedge.com/.../internal-bp-document-confirms-matt-simmons-worst-case-prediction-spill-rate-100000-barrels-d - Cached And I got banned from Liberty Post AND Peak Oil Forums for posting the same. ;} And a Big Fuck You to Both. The DeepS hit Horizon. The Dragon King. The Greatest Event in the History of Your Life. TEOTWAWKI. The NOGC+ Florida collapse now. Then the US Empire. Then the Imperial City. The Bonnie Blue Flag is being unfurled. ;}
OIL UNLEASHED TEMPORARILY. That could be the Epitaph of Humanity the Last 120 years. LMFAO
And of course par for the course, NOT ONE WORD of this on MSM now. NOTHING. TEOTWAWKI
From GCaptain: Folks on this site have been right on the mark from DAY 1: "Now I am scared." ;} " A Cooke A Cooke is online now Greenhorn is A Cooke is on a distinguished road Join Date Jun 2010 Posts 15 Thanks 7 Thanked 8 Times in 4 Posts Rep Power 0 Default Re: Deepwater Horizon - Transocean Oil Rig Fire 2 First chance to read through since the thread went wrong. Alf like many, including myself is looking for reliable souls to get us out of this jam. I came here and as a petro-chem novice could not understand why you did not put a cap on the top of the BOP and close it in. I educated myself and the findings of those versed in the technology was that the casing integrity was lost and a cap on the BOP/new BOP would mean that oil/gas leaked subseafloor and that was then even harder to control. At least with it squirting out of the BOP you can catch most of it. We looked forward. The technology of the bottom kill appears well thought out, has been used many times before and not like the "gaffer-tape", "make it up each day as we go along", technology of ROV's trying to undo nuts on the sea-floor. I made an earlier post that: on 1 day Kent Wells told us the diamond cutter was the tool of choice for cutting the riser off near the joint and the super shear was not suitable for this application. On the next day, after the diamond cutter failed, the super shears were put into action and the consequent twisting and deformation of the flange has caused all sorts of consequent problems. The conclusion was that the contradiction of the assertion on day 1 and the reality of actions on day 2, were not commensurate with a well thought out plan. Kent is put forward as the senior technical guy of BP. Throughout my whole working life in engineering, albeit not the petro-chemical industry, technically competent people are reserved and careful about what they commit to, on the basis that they know better than anyone else that they are responsible for execution and are familiar with all the pitfalls to that execution. I was shocked because, in my modest book, saying one thing one day and doing something completely different the next, smacks of a marketing man masquerading in technical guise and every time I have come across that little combination, in my life, disaster lurks somewhere not far ahead. Kent clearly stated in an earlier briefing that all attempts at stopping the flow of oil/gas, based on control at the sea-floor, were off. He stated clearly that bottom -kill was the only way of stopping the flow of oil/gas and that from this moment on sea-floor activity was wholly related to collecting as much of the leaking oil/gas as possible. I have just listened to his latest video 10th July. Make your mind up Kent. If now, several months in, you are not sure as to whether the casing retains integrity, and possibly it does and it can be shut in with a new BOP stack then, what they h**l were you messing about for during the last XXX days? Virtually every forum out there had somebody saying "stick a new BOP on top". You told us "no". I am now scared. Would anyone let an industry that cannot determine some pretty basic facts and make sensible decisions as a consequence, be responsible when the consequences of failure are so horrific ? Would they be allowed to run a nuclear plant or run an airline, like this ? I have confidence that BP are doing all that anyone could do right now and have been doing for several weeks. What I don't have, is any confidence that this industry goes about what it does with the level of responsibility commensurate with the consequences. A red hot Alcor, or any number of other competent, diligent and professional individuals, whose heartfelt comments I read here, on the guages every day, every second of every day, making sure that there is no blow out on their rig, is great for that rig, it is not a solution. Somewhere, there will be an idiot that is not awake, not watching. The risk of failure is too close. The capability to interrogate the mode of failure (as we see here - is the casing integrity compromised ?) and take action as a consequence (stick more gaffer tape on the spanner) is not up to the task. Kent - I am not impressed and again, the gulf between technology applied to extraction and technology applied to dealing with failure, is shown as being huge and incompatible with the nature of the task.. "
The Fuckers. I could've done a better job from NW Arkansas. By phone. 8D "Mr Tink was asked about the rig visit on the day of the incident in which BP was stated to be visiting to commend the Horizon for their safety. Mr. Tink said that the visit was a routine regular scheduled visit and was not set up to commend the rig. The BP VIP visitors were Pat Obrien, Drilling VP and David Simms, drilling operations manger. Mr. Tink stated that he is expert in occupational safety but not in marine or emergency safety. The board did not ask why occupational safety outstrips major emergency management in their corporate structure. They did not call the person who is in charge of Major Emergency or Marine response for BP (or Transocean for that matter). Several statistics and spreadsheets where looked out that tracked Lost time incidents but no spreadsheets on marine emergency response figures. Regardless of marine emergencies, Mr. Tink had little knowledge of drilling emergencies, specifically blowouts of the type on the Horizon. Mr. Mathews of MMS asked if Tink knew the dayrate of the Horizon, he didn’t. Mathews continued to extrapolate an educated guess for the vessel’s dayrate out to the lenght of the well. What Mathews missed was that the actually day-rate of the vessel is about half of BP’s total daily cost since it does not include the costs of workboats, helicopters, fuel, food, salaries, 3rd party contracts and the myriad of other costs BP accepts. Steve Gordon asked Mr. Tink, what lessons where learned from the Texas City incident that were put in place in BP’s offshore drilling. Mr. Tink took a long breath and discussed the movement of temporary buildings away from blast zones but did not have an answer for broader lessons learned. BP’s lawyers objected when Steve asked about transfer of knowledge from the Texas City blast stating that this investigation needs to stay on track in finding the reasons for this incident.
Captain Nguyen asked: "What activities are done by Transocean as a company to follow the ISM code? (Rose: In Transocean we adopted the philosophy that we want to operate the entire fleet the same, therefore we structured our policies so they incorporate all facets of the code.) So if you have a vessel where deficiencies are found in multiple areas would you be concerned? (Rose: Yes and we would have investigated such occurrence if we had been aware of it). The END of 26 May... " Coverage will continue tomorrow but with out testimony from the BP Companyman who has exercised his constitutional right to remain silent." and CONTINUES TO THIS DAY to remain silent. Seize ALL bp Assets now. " Have you come across any reports about Corexit inducing rectal bleeding with clean-up workers ? Do you think this is anti BP propaganda or fact ? Any feedback from your buddies appreciated. Have you by any chance ingested corexit ? ..." the above, a guy giving this bp company shill some well deserved shit. 8D
Quote Originally Posted by BLISTERS View Post Scary dare devil stunt perhaps ? Would this not cause surface broaching or underground blowout even if the well is only flowing through casing vs casing annulus, reducing relief well kill chances of success ??????... Perhaps Dudley has no technical background let alone knowledge of well control basics or perhaps he knows something the rest of us don't ? Or perhaps when they say shut-in they actually mean just fixing this new containment cap ? I thought about this all day as I worked to get the wifey's kitchen back functional. 3 weeks without a sink or cooktop as the ol' guy is slower at construction than he used to be... There has to be a lot missing in "translation here", I think. From watching an interview of John Wright, it is clear to me that he is a very talented, calm and measured man. He is the kind of platoon leader I would still gear up for if he called me. Every assessment of his ability that I have found has been positive to the extreme. I do not believe he would allow BP to do something stupid and still remain on DDIII. I think he is the kind of guy that is going to manage this intercept well and if BP is determined to implement something that will compromise his crew's safety or chance of success, I just think he will calmly assemble his team and chopper off. That said, I could see this short stack BOP helping John Wright with the kill by deadheading the WW after he gets some mud column in and while he fine tunes mud densities. Think it would also help tremendously during the cementing phase. From the 16 inch casing burst pressures that I have seen, the dead head pressure would have to be down to a little over 6,000 psi to make the risk of outright deadheading with no mud in the column statistically responsible, and that is with undamaged casing/liners. On a side note, it just doesn't seem 'right' to have Alcor back and not CM1... The 'balance' just doesn't seem in harmony with the universe, sort of like the sun is going to explode... Until the posse finds and frees the good CompanyMan1, perhaps Blisters could temporarily fill the role?
and CONTINUES TO THIS DAY to remain silent. Seize ALL bp Assets now. I'm still reading your stuff, James.
And a Big Fuck You to Both. And it hasn't slowed you down a bit! Good for you. I didn't think the leak was a big deal, for the first couple of weeks or so. And it wouldn't have been if it had been stopped then, IMO. Sure it would have been bad, but not catastrophic. As the estimates increased and the flow continued it became painfuly obvious that it was truly a big F'n deal! The tree huggers forced drilling in dangerous places, and here we are with a disaster. Unintended Consequences! ??? Or a Bush/Gore NWO plot? I'm thinking the later is more plausible.
Hey mcclown, when is the evacuation of millions to begin? How many millions are going to die as a direct result of this disaster? I'm still waiting for your guesstimates. Or should I conclude that you are FOS? Sneakypete, have you ever been married? Said things you later regretted?
Or a Bush/Gore NWO plot? I'm thinking the later is more plausible. These morons are making Extinction Burst(see bf Skinner pigeons) yeast moves. Nothing more. Think this: The body is perfect at mimicking what you want: You pretend to be stupid, that's what your body gives you. Our Imperial City gets more stupid by the day. The NOGC(Surrounding the Gulf of Cheny;}+Florida are the US' first Third Worlders. We thought Detroit was;}. The press needs to be held to standard of journalistic integrity that scolds them for publishing information released by BP without vetting that information first. In my last post, Sea Life Flocks To Coast To Avoid The BP Gulf Oil Spill As Millions of Dead Fish Float Ashore, I did just that. In that post the Associated Press labeled the mass exodus of deep sea life swarming to clean shallow coastal waters in order to avoid the oil, methane and toxic dispersants as both strange and unusual. I find nothing strange or unusual about helpless sea life fleeing toxic waters in order to survive. Now we have the the latest round of lies coming from BP. They are denying the existence of plumes of methane that scientists are now finding all over the Gulf of Mexico in concentrations up to 10,000 times higher than normal. The headlines currently in the press about these methane plumes are smack full of the same story line that was floating around in the media when scientists first reported that they discovered the underwater plumes of oil which where unsurprisingly denied by both BP and the Federal Government." "The circle is now complete: in "saving our financial system," the public borrowed trillions and transferred the money to private Power Elites, who then buy the public debt with the money swindled out of the taxpayer. Then the taxpayers transfer more wealth every year to the Power Elites/Plutocracy in the form of interest on the Treasury debt. The Power Elites will own the debt that was taken on to bail them out of bad private bets: this is the culmination of privatized gains, socialized risk. In effect, it's a Third World/colonial scam on a gigantic scale: plunder the public treasury, then buy the debt which was borrowed and transferred to your pockets. You are buying the country with money you borrowed from its taxpayers. No despot could do better.
The second piece of pipe inside the well head came as something of a surprise, and raises the possibility that one of the sections of pipe became jammed in the Deepwater Horizon's blowout preventer, though which the well pipes run. The failure of the blowout preventer, a massive piece of equipment designed to stop the unchecked flow of oil, is partly to blame for the size of the spill.
#2. To: Brian S (#0)
#3. To: All (#2)
#4. To: All (#3)
#5. To: Fred Mertz, war, mininggold, Brian S, All (#4)
#6. To: All (#5)
#7. To: All (#6)
#8. To: All (#7)
#9. To: mcgowanjm (#7)
Coverage will continue tomorrow but with out testimony from the BP Companyman who has exercised his constitutional right to remain silent."
#10. To: mcgowanjm (#2)
I got banned from Liberty Post AND Peak Oil Forums for posting the same. ;}
#11. To: mcgowanjm (#2)
The NOGC+ Florida collapse now. Then the US Empire. Then the Imperial City.
#12. To: hondo68 (#10)
(Edited)
The tree huggers forced drilling in dangerous places, and here we are with a disaster. Unintended Consequences! ???
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