Kent Wells just completed his morning McBriefing, lasting a whopping 8 minutes, including questions (limit one per customer, follow ups not allowed, no coupons accepted). He said that the test is continuing, and that pressure continues to build, currently at 6,700 psi. Even though Wells said that pressure is continuing to rise, the 6,700 happens to be the same pressure reported by the Washington Post last night, a few hours after the well was shut in. Tom Hunter, a retired Sandia Laboratories director and member of the government scientific team, said the pressure rose to 6,700, and appeared likely to level out "closer to 7,000." Since the pressure is still at 6,700 psi, it looks like it's been level for about 12 hours. In my experience, it would be unusual with a well of this pressure and permeability to rise much more after that number of hours. We could more tell if BP would disclose the actual feed rather than one data point that is completely uninformative.
The reported pressure is at the lower end of the ambiguity range that Adm Allen talked about a couple of days ago. Recall that he said that 8,000 to 9,000 would show strong integrity, 6,000 to 8,000 would be ambiguous, and below 6,000 would indicate a leak. With the pressure now virtually level at 6,700, it's at the lower end of the ambiguity range, so it seems there is a good chance there is leak-off. That makes a lot of sense to me since there is 1,200 feet of open hole from the bottom of the 9 /7/8" liner to TD at about 18,300 feet. That's not to mention possible casing damage up hole. Think of it like a garden hose with a nozzle on the end. As long as the nozzle is open, the hose looks fine. As soon as you close the nozzle, the hose will leak through any pinholes or around the faucet as pressure builds inside. In his statement late yesterday, Adm Allen indicated they were probably going to go back to containment, which means they'll be flowing the well to the various ships they have on station.
Wells did say they were going to run seismic again to see if they can see fluid movement below the surface. Seismic puts sound into the sea floor, and measures the time it takes for those sound waves to return. Different kinds of rocks reflect sound waves at certain velocities, or speeds. By measuring the time it takes for the sound to return from a certain depth of rock, geo-scientists can draw maps of the subsurface. Often you can get an idea of the fluid within the pore space of rocks by the way it returns sound waves. They ran a baseline survey a couple of days ago, and will compare that data to the data that they'll get today to see if anything has changed around the well to indicate fluid movement. But, as one of my geologist friends of mine likes to say, reading seismic for precise conclusions is often like trying to observe airplanes flying overhead while lying on the bottom of a swimming pool. It's difficult to draw definite conclusions, even using high frequency seismic, but it will be another data point.
Oh, the good news? They restarted operations on the relief well. That's the only way to actually kill this well, and at least they are back to work. They have 34 feet to the last casing point, then about another 120 feet to the intercept. Fingers crossed on that.
More on The Daily Hurricane Energy page.
The reported pressure is at the lower end of the ambiguity range that Adm Allen talked about a couple of days ago. Recall that he said that 8,000 to 9,000 would show strong integrity, 6,000 to 8,000 would be ambiguous, and below 6,000 would indicate a leak. With the pressure now virtually level at 6,700, it's at the lower end of the ambiguity range, so it seems there is a good chance there is leak-off. That makes a lot of sense to me since there is 1,200 feet of open hole from the bottom of the 9 /7/8" liner to TD at about 18,300 feet. That's not to mention possible casing damage up hole. Think of it like a garden hose with a nozzle on the end. As long as the nozzle is open, the hose looks fine. As soon as you close the nozzle, the hose will leak through any pinholes or around the faucet as pressure builds inside. In his statement late yesterday, Adm Allen indicated they were probably going to go back to containment, which means they'll be flowing the well to the various ships they have on station.
Wells did say they were going to run seismic again to see if they can see fluid movement below the surface. Seismic puts sound into the sea floor, and measures the time it takes for those sound waves to return. Different kinds of rocks reflect sound waves at certain velocities, or speeds. By measuring the time it takes for the sound to return from a certain depth of rock, geo-scientists can draw maps of the subsurface. Often you can get an idea of the fluid within the pore space of rocks by the way it returns sound waves. They ran a baseline survey a couple of days ago, and will compare that data to the data that they'll get today to see if anything has changed around the well to indicate fluid movement. But, as one of my geologist friends of mine likes to say, reading seismic for precise conclusions is often like trying to observe airplanes flying overhead while lying on the bottom of a swimming pool. It's difficult to draw definite conclusions, even using high frequency seismic, but it will be another data point.
Oh, the good news? They restarted operations on the relief well. That's the only way to actually kill this well, and at least they are back to work. They have 34 feet to the last casing point, then about another 120 feet to the intercept. Fingers crossed on that.
More on The Daily Hurricane Energy page.
Bob has stated that it is not in BP's interest to meter the flow because they can negotiate the fine unless and until the feds have an exact figure. If he is right they will try to manipulate public opinion to put pressure on the feds NOT to start collecting oil. I just notice that a BP exec says "we'll have to let oil into the gulf for awhile if they make us collect it." Bob, is this true? Or is it another piece of evidence that BP will take huge risks to avoid an indisputable measurement of the flow?
Bob has earlier raised the suggestion that it is not in BP's interest to get an unambiguous, metered calculation of the actual flow rate. I see BP's exec claims that they will have to let oil flow into the gulf before they can connect to the surface ships and resume production. If Bob is correct--that their self-interest and their motivation is to avoid measuring the flow definitively--then they will do everything they can to avoid the option of collecting the oil. Let's watch!
Hyperbole. I put all this in the same category as Simmons rantings.
good enuff, eljefe - just wondering what we weren't hearing out here.
A "What If"?
Suppose the well bore is leaking. How much of a leak would it take to prevent a bottom kill due to loss of drilling fluid?
What are the downside factors to being successful with a bottom kill?
Thanks
Bob,
What about the NOAA data that came out in mid June or so. Do you believe it? Never see it discussed or reported much.
NOAA Data Says Cracks In Sea Floor...
Is the following well known?
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/07/ecoalert-could-the-gulf-oil-spill-trigger-a-cataclysmic-methane-bubble.html
A huge ragged gash on the ocean floor hundreds of feet long has been reported by the NOAA research ship, Thomas Jefferson. Before the curtain of the government enforced news blackout again descended abruptly, scientists aboard the ship voiced their concerns that the widening rift may go down miles into the earth.
That gash too is hemorrhaging oil and methane. It’s 10 miles away from the BP epicenter. Other, new fissures, have been spotted as far as 30 miles distant.
Measurements of the multiple oil plumes now appearing miles from the wellhead indicate that as much as a total of 124,000 barrels of oil are erupting into the Gulf waters daily-that’s about 5,208,000 gallons of oil per day.
Northwestern University's Gregory Ryskin, a bio-chemical engineer, has a methane extinction theory: The oceans periodically produce massive eruptions of explosive methane gas. He has documented the scientific evidence that such an event was directly responsible for the mass extinctions that occurred 55 million years ago, when masive combustible clouds produced by methane gas trapped under the seas and explosively released could have killed off the majority of marine life, land animals, and plants at the end of the Permian era—long before the dinosaurs arrived.
If the methane bubble—a bubble that could be as big as 20 miles wide—erupts with titanic force from the seabed into the Gulf, reports Helium.com, "every ship, drilling rig and structure within the region of the bubble will immediately sink. All the workers, engineers, Coast Guard personnel and marine biologists participating in the salvage operation will die instantly. An ocean bottom collapse would follow, instantaneously displacing up to a trillion cubic feet of water or more and creating a towering supersonic tsunami annihilating everything along the coast and well inland. Like a thermonuclear blast, a high pressure atmospheric wave could precede the tidal wave flattening everything in its path before the water arrives."
Is knowledge of the potential methane threat why the U.S. gov't and BP is trying prevent with the reporting blackout?
I completely disagree with Simmons. I know him, and think he's off the deep end with this theory. There's no evidence, of "another hole" that he's been talking about for months, and it defies logic. Fluids always flow to the path of least resistance. Is it going to flow 5 miles through rock, or straight up the well bore? I would posit the well bore. This is bad enough without all this hyperbole.
before success is pronounced, I would like to know more about what Matt Simmons thinks he's seeing as told on MSNBC:
http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/ratigan-mentions-second-hole-spewing-oil-without-matt-simmons-present
to the extent there IS anything coming from the sea-bed, it needs to be seen, especially since the hole data the Coast Guard is in possession of either cannot be released to Sen. Markey, or will not be - the system in this country is different than some 3rd world potentate that has given BP a drilling concession.
the missing pieces to the puzzle need to be dropped into place, and may revolve around the condition the hole was left in following the TransOcean Marianas rig's encounter with hurricane Ida in Nov. 2009 and then the TransOcean Deepwater's drilling of BP's Macondo well begun in Feb. 2010 with such disastrous out-come.
I just ran across this article that makes a lot of sense on the lower 6700 PSI readings.
Don Van Nieuwenhuise, Director of the Professional Geoscience Programs at the University of Houston, says the resevoir may have deflated and it is not capable of producing the 9K pressure BP was expecting.
Full Article:
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/07/professor_low_pressure_reading.html
As I understand what BP said this morning, is that the relief well operation wouldn't actually be drilling just yet. They were to be triping pipe and then going back in with a wireline for directional data. I took this to mean that, the drilling won't actually begin until perhaps the seismic work is completed. It wasn't crystal clear in the briefing, but BP did say that the actual relief drilling would not start up right away.
Regardless, like Bob said there is one piece of good news and that is, with the new cap and riser in place, either A). the well will be shut down completely, or B). the collection ships on the surface will be tapping directly into the riser package and collecting all the oil coming out of this well.
I am also in the camp that the pressure should be holding steady by now, and that they are ultimatley going to go to the collection ships on the surface.
In any event, unless something really weird happens, there shouldn't be any more oil leaking into the Gulf from this well going forward. This crisis may be turning into more of an operational phase instead of an emergency response phase. BP can now focus the nessesary attention toward grueling task of cleanup.
Bob, have you seen the cam clips of 'stuff'
gushing up from ocean floor?
NYT releases statement that pressure has remained at 6700psi.
It's interesting that they've resumed the relief well effort. Ostensibly, they halted said drilling for the duration of the testing. However, the testing is ongoing. So, what's up with that?
Bob , doesn't it make sense to stop their well integrity testing at this point ? After twelve hours and the psi leveling at 6700 , haven't they gleaned what they sought to glean ? Second , if they have restarted work on the relief well , wouldn't that interfere with the quality of the results for the seismic testing , especially if interpreting that type of data can be difficult anyway ? Thanks for any input you can provide.
If BP stops the flow of oil, how will we ever know exactly what the flow has been. Now that they are able to bring 100% of the oil to the surface we can determine how much to fine them, whithout having to haggle, in court, about the amount that has been dumped in our water.
Seems to me BP took a big risk to get an ambiguous answer. Do they approach drilling the relief wells any differently knowing a leak-off is likely? As opposed to definitely a leak-off or no leak-off? Now that the leak is temporarily contained (with dramatic video to back the message up) perhaps some of the political heat is off both BP and the Obama Admin. Video of a cap with no oil eruption looks like real progress, even if it's just a step in the process of engineering a permanent fix. Maybe that was the unspoken motivation of both parties when they agreed to choke the flow. A psychological relief-well for National Gulf Spill Anxiety.