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United States News Title: BP Says Gulf Well Pressure Rising, No Sign of Leak BP Plc is “encouraged” after a pressure test that halted the flow from its Gulf of Mexico well indicated no sign of an oil leak after the first 17 hours. Pressure in the well built steadily to about 6,700 pounds per square inch and is still rising, indicating no leakage from the wellbore, Kent Wells, BP’s senior vice president for exploration and production, said on a conference call with reporters today. Pressure of at least 8,000 pounds per square inch is needed to confirm the integrity of the well, he said. “We’ve had no negative information,” Wells said. While the test hasn’t yet confirmed the well’s integrity, “we’re encouraged by those results,” he said. The disaster, the biggest oil spill in U.S. history, followed an April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. The well had been spewing 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil a day, according to a U.S. government-led panel of scientists. “This is great news,” Darryl Bourgoyne, director of the petroleum engineering laboratory at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, said today in an e-mailed message. “Pressure of 6,700 pounds per square inch indicates that if there is any leak, it is probably deeper than 4,500 feet (1,372 meters) below the seafloor and won’t reach the ocean.” BP rose as much as 6.2 percent in London trading, reaching a five-week high. The shares were up 5.85 pence, or 1.5 percent, to 407.6 pence at 3:21 p.m. ‘Made Progress’ President Barack Obama said the new cap BP put in place to stop the flow shows “there’s no doubt we have made progress.” Even if the cap isn’t able to prevent the leak for the long term, it will allow the company to connect more oil-collecting ships to the well to prevent crude from entering the Gulf, he said. “When the oil stops gushing, everyone feels like we’re done, and we’re not,” Obama said today. “The data is not all still in, and it has to be interpreted by the scientists.” Final decisions on when the test is complete, and whether BP can safely stop oil and gas from flowing into the Gulf, will be made by National Incident Commander Thad Allen, Wells said. BP expects the test to last 48 hours. The company then will run a seismic survey looking for any well leak, which will take about 24 hours to analyze, Wells said. Some leaks probably will resume as BP opens at least one valve to the sea at the end of the test, he said. Killing the Well It “remains likely” that BP will have to reopen the flow of oil from the well, Allen said yesterday in a statement. The new cap gives the company the capacity to collect as much as 80,000 barrels of oil a day, more than the estimated flow rate, until the well can be permanently plugged, he said. “We won’t be done until we actually know we have killed the well,” Obama said. BP resumed work on a relief well to plug the leak with cement, permanently ending the risk of further oil escaping, Wells said. The relief well is within about five feet of the leaking well and about 100 feet from the planned intercept point, according to BP and Allen. The well may hit the leak this month and permanently plug it by mid-August, BP said earlier this week.
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#1. To: Brian S (#0)
Pressure in the well built steadily to about 6,700 pounds per square inch and is still rising, indicating no leakage from the wellbore, Kent Wells, Like I posted elsewhere here. 6700's been the reading for the last 12 hours. Lower end of ambiguity range. Best case. Well's been blowing out. Meaning the gas has been going first. After the first 3 months, now, the pressure drops off the field. Just like Thunderhorse. We're saved because the field's Only got 10 VLCC's worth of oil to recover. The Final 5 thru water injection. And/or there's a leak into the sub sea somewhere.
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