Updated: Sunday, BP surprised everyone by announcing that now that they had a "capping stack" set, they were not going to actually hook up all the ships they have on station to collect the oil; rather, they were going to run a well integrity test to see if they could shut-in this badly damaged well that has been flowing into the Gulf now for 86 days uncontrolled. My first reaction was What? Well integrity test? I've looked back through all of my notes, blog entries, and reviewed BP's and the Unified Command's communications. I've even done multiple internet searches, and found the first mention of a "well integrity test" related to BP on this past Sunday, July 11. Certainly I could have missed something, but I don't recall even a single mention of what I consider to be probably the most significant (and risky) operation BP has conducted since the much hailed, and utterly failed, top kill procedure that kept the masses enthralled during the Memorial Day weekend.
All of us who are paying attention have been watching ROV feeds, and listening to the briefings by Adm. Allen and Kent Wells that continue to be long on words and short on information. The press continues to let them get away with it, not asking the pertinent questions and holding them to a standard of transparency so we can really know what's going on. Wells is now actually holding 2 "technical briefings" a day, which are also long on words, short on technical, where he basically talks in long sweeping statements talking about safety and "making sure everyone knows what we're going to do", without actually telling anyone what they're going to do. This morning, we learned that, even thought the stack has now been set for 3 days, they actually haven't hooked up the two new valves. He also announced that yesterday, they pulled all of the ships off site to run a seismic survey, and, alarmingly, have stopped drilling the relief well, which is now only 4 feet away laterally from the blowout well. Since Dudley's letter to Adm. Allen last Friday laying out the relief well timeline, they have made little progress and have only 34 more feet to drill before they get to casing point for the last string of pipe. 34 feet, and they stopped. They're just sitting there circulating on bottom at 17,840. Just sitting there. Wells claims that they are doing that for "safety reasons" during the well integrity test. The one they're not going to run for at least another 24 hours. What?
I'm sorry, but I have to ask, What the hell are they doing? We now have an ability to capture all the oil and stop this massive pollution of the Gulf (as well as measure it). We have great weather to get the relief well completed. We already know, without the "well integrity test", that they have severe damage to the BOP and other surface equipment and casing. If that weren't true, the damn thing wouldn't have blown out in the first place. We also know that between the "capping stack" and the old BOP that there is a non-wellhead rated piece of equipment, known as the flex joint, along with the riser adapter, that we've talked about before. This piece of equipment, that normally sits above the BOP, is not rated to those pressures encountered in wellheads. All of the other components in this BOP are rated to at least 10,000 psi (new, off the shelf, and undamaged); this piece is by far the weakest link in the chain, especially since it took severe stresses as the rig sank and 5,000 feet of riser torqued it as it sank. Yesterday, Adm. Allen announced they were going to take the stack, including this flex joint, to as high as 9,000 psi for up to 48 hours. I have been unable to learn the model and rating of the flex joint here, but Oil States advertises their LMRP flex joints to be rated 600-6,000 psi, far below the 9,000 to which Adm Allen said they would potentially go; even with the 2,200 psi of hydrostatic pressure on the outside of the compenent caused by it being in 5,000 feet of water, it's still at least 1,000 psi differential pressure over the rating of the component.
Surely, I'm missing something here, but all of this seems like reckless rope-a-dope in the tradition of Muhammad Ali in his best rope-a-doping days. Either that, or there are so many cooks in the kitchen that the pot is boiling over while the chefs all stand around arguing about spices. Boxing and cooking analogies aside, I don't think anyone is actually in charge, and if anyone is, they are certainly not interested in giving any real information.
More on The Daily Hurricane Energy page.
Update: One of my readers pointed out that the words "shut in" were used in Admiral Allen's letter to Bob Dudley on July 8 and in Bob Dudley's response on July 9. However, there was no reference to "well integrity testing" and not included in any timeline. Thanks to my reader for the heads up.
All of us who are paying attention have been watching ROV feeds, and listening to the briefings by Adm. Allen and Kent Wells that continue to be long on words and short on information. The press continues to let them get away with it, not asking the pertinent questions and holding them to a standard of transparency so we can really know what's going on. Wells is now actually holding 2 "technical briefings" a day, which are also long on words, short on technical, where he basically talks in long sweeping statements talking about safety and "making sure everyone knows what we're going to do", without actually telling anyone what they're going to do. This morning, we learned that, even thought the stack has now been set for 3 days, they actually haven't hooked up the two new valves. He also announced that yesterday, they pulled all of the ships off site to run a seismic survey, and, alarmingly, have stopped drilling the relief well, which is now only 4 feet away laterally from the blowout well. Since Dudley's letter to Adm. Allen last Friday laying out the relief well timeline, they have made little progress and have only 34 more feet to drill before they get to casing point for the last string of pipe. 34 feet, and they stopped. They're just sitting there circulating on bottom at 17,840. Just sitting there. Wells claims that they are doing that for "safety reasons" during the well integrity test. The one they're not going to run for at least another 24 hours. What?
I'm sorry, but I have to ask, What the hell are they doing? We now have an ability to capture all the oil and stop this massive pollution of the Gulf (as well as measure it). We have great weather to get the relief well completed. We already know, without the "well integrity test", that they have severe damage to the BOP and other surface equipment and casing. If that weren't true, the damn thing wouldn't have blown out in the first place. We also know that between the "capping stack" and the old BOP that there is a non-wellhead rated piece of equipment, known as the flex joint, along with the riser adapter, that we've talked about before. This piece of equipment, that normally sits above the BOP, is not rated to those pressures encountered in wellheads. All of the other components in this BOP are rated to at least 10,000 psi (new, off the shelf, and undamaged); this piece is by far the weakest link in the chain, especially since it took severe stresses as the rig sank and 5,000 feet of riser torqued it as it sank. Yesterday, Adm. Allen announced they were going to take the stack, including this flex joint, to as high as 9,000 psi for up to 48 hours. I have been unable to learn the model and rating of the flex joint here, but Oil States advertises their LMRP flex joints to be rated 600-6,000 psi, far below the 9,000 to which Adm Allen said they would potentially go; even with the 2,200 psi of hydrostatic pressure on the outside of the compenent caused by it being in 5,000 feet of water, it's still at least 1,000 psi differential pressure over the rating of the component.
Surely, I'm missing something here, but all of this seems like reckless rope-a-dope in the tradition of Muhammad Ali in his best rope-a-doping days. Either that, or there are so many cooks in the kitchen that the pot is boiling over while the chefs all stand around arguing about spices. Boxing and cooking analogies aside, I don't think anyone is actually in charge, and if anyone is, they are certainly not interested in giving any real information.
More on The Daily Hurricane Energy page.
Update: One of my readers pointed out that the words "shut in" were used in Admiral Allen's letter to Bob Dudley on July 8 and in Bob Dudley's response on July 9. However, there was no reference to "well integrity testing" and not included in any timeline. Thanks to my reader for the heads up.
yes, we know - both my cats are now receiving signals, and the dog is staring up.
you asked for it:
The Atlanteans have already 'dispersed' in large part back to the Pleiades. The remaining advanced spirits are incarnating as I write and trying to warn us about the looming 'methane bubble' among other potential ecological disasters. Please recall that the future is a probability wave so we still have a chance for survival.
hmmm - if this is true:
" scientists aboard the ship voiced their concerns that the widening rift may go down miles into the earth "
will the lost civilization of Atlantis arise from the middle of the GoM, from closer to Florida, or where, and when will the aliens begin tele-porting in ?
My cat is receiving signals from the mother-ship, so we know they're close by.
The crazy tinfoil stuff provides a bit of comic relief to a terribly serious and technical subject.
Remove this crazy tinfoil stuff.
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?
Well integrity test has started , was stopped at around due to a leak in the choke line - anyone folowing this tonight ?
Just listened to your latest update on Count Down. I can't imagine how BP convinced the Feds to let the integrity test go forward. It just seems nuts. One more analogy to add to boxing and cooking. The inmates are running the asylum.
Well now they have utterly destroyed the eco-system from the well-site to the Louisianan shore. What is a day or more to them? The damage is done.
Who wants to bet the next "logic" use will be.
"Hey why ban drilling here? It is already destroyed from the BP well. No point banning these thousands of square miles."
I've looked back through all of my notes, blog entries, and reviewed BP's and the Unified Command's communications. I've even done multiple internet searches, and found the first mention of a "well integrity test" related to BP on this past Sunday, July 11.
FWIW, the integrity test and shut-in plan were mentioned in the Allen and Dudley letters exchanged on July 8 and 9. (Allen discussed the combined capping plan and hookup of Helix Producer in his press briefing on July 8, but didn't refer to the shut-in plan.)
Markey request for well integrity still ignored by bp - wants that data in 48 hours from his 7/13 letter
It is a OilStates gimbal and before it was sanded off, you could read MWP 5,000 psi and the TO PO# and the shipping destination.
http://www.oilstates.com/fw/main/Subsea-Configurations-375C471.html
It is not a Model 6, it is a Model 5 non-standard configuration.
Alan from Rotterdam here. Thank you for the excellent data and opinions. I'm recommending this blog to my network. Best regards, Alan
btw eljefe - your remark on MSNBC about waiting to put pressure on the well by closing vents until AFTER the relief well was drilled and thus taking some well pressure was an excellent idea.
to doug - looks like this item has an answer:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/14/gulf-oil-still-gushing-aft_n_645559.html
haven't heard the POTUS thinks he's much of a drilling engineer or expert in fluid dynamics, so hopefully he has good consultants !
Why don't they just flare the excess oil instead of letting it gush out at the bottom? This would even give them a few more days of no flow measurement (assuming that is really what is driving this nonsense).
The only answer I have been able to get from discussions on The Oil Drum is that it they don't have adequate flaring capacity. I'm not a petroleum engineer, but this just seems like more BP nonsense, repeated by people who should know better. See the discussion in thread "Disposing of Excess Oil" at http://groups.google.com/group/stop_blowout.
so, eljefe - looks like the relief wells were stopped to make sure they did not hit a gas pocket with possible connectivity to a backside blow-out on the flowing well; makes some sense I guess.
once (if?) they start to shut valves on the new equipment and if the ocean bottom surveys they will be doing watching for other leaks/cracks show increased sea-bed leaks as well pressure builds, our points to refute the 'nuke it ' and ' blow it up ' crowd should be ready, as that crowd will become more vocal, AND might even include BP in an effort to ' stop the bleeding '.
Following up on my previous comment. There may be three competing power sources contributing to the decision making, relating to the spill, the faction within B.P. that is looking out for shareholder value, the faction within B.P. that is interested in stopping the leak only, and the Government.
Because the Government came in (explemplified by the Admiral) kind of late on this, that may have upset whatever authority was starting to emerge. Because the Government has not taken FULL control of this operation, it is no wonder that it is resulting in chaos.
I would hope that Obama would step in, and take full control, and use the admiral, and B.P. officials as sources for his decision making. But, I am afraid he is not doing this. I get the feeling that for all of Obama's abilities, he is at heart, not much of a leader.
Perhaps he is constrained by legal issues with respect to B.P.? But if that is the case, this disaster should alone, tell every one who is paying attention, that corporate influence in this country has usurped Government.
If you agree with these comments Bob, maybe you'll make the point next time your on t.v. and hopefully somebody in Washington is watching, and can wake Mr. Obama up.
Although I disagree with a majority of your politics sir, I agree completely with you on this issue. What the hell are they trying to accomplish?
BP had been increasing their risk profile on similar wells by almost a factor of 3 compared to their competitors (since 2003 mind you). Leading up to the blowout they made several decisions that MAXIMIZED the potential for a catastrophic failure (changing the well architecture, stabilizer use, poor cement job, inadequate cement logging, poorly maintained BOP, improper P/A, premature circulation). And given the mud losses during the top kill, one could only assume that the wellbore's integrity is poor at best. So why cap from the top and risk over pressuring an already suspect wellbore? At least they are being consistent.
On a political note... do you see this event as leverage for Cap and Trade?
Not being an expert at all on any of this, I would like to say that if you are right, and there is "too many cooks in the kitchen" that sounds very dangerous. In the absense of hierarchial authority, decisions can be made on the fly, without the wisest choices being made. This is especially true, when all eyes are on them. Given the fact that the oil is flowing freely now, every day that goes on, is only going to increase the pressure on B.P. to do something, with out fully considering the impacts of those decisions.
This is where Obama needs to step in if he has to. He should be in full communication with the Admiral, asking questions all along, so he understands what's going on in detail. Obama himself, may need to make the call, on what procedures are followed. I have not seen any signs that he is involved at all, but instead defers to the Admiral, who in turn is largely just the mouthpiece for B.P. it seems. Obama needs to wake up.
Looks like BP has failed another integrity test -- according to DFA, BP has stated they not only refuse to provide cleanup workers respirators and other protective gear, they will fire any worker who provides his own! Hope the well has more integrity than the company.
But remember, for all his rope-a-dope, Muhammad Ali got the job done.
As for the delay, did anyone else see the video (some time Sunday?) of oil seeping out through holes in what might have been a flex joint? It was a large white cylinder, with text markings on it (sorry I can't remember the text).
What is wrong with our Administration? Why do they appear so impotent? Or even in collusion with BP? I don't want to believe it, but they are an astute group, not idiots! They wonder why the public lacks faith in Obamas leadership! Perhaps they could all use a dose of VIAGRA!
Seriouly, thank u for your reporting. I saw ur interview on Good Morning Joe.Keep up the GREAT work_TRUTH to Power!
My "BP BS master caution light" has been flashing for several days now. Thanks for confirming it's not a false positive!
good points, eljefe -
I am curious if what BP found is the pressure is so much lower than they thought it should be that they want to know EXACTLY where any formation loss is occurring before they drill into side of the hole.
Of course the opposite could be true, that the pressure is so much greater they know darn well they can't shut it in, and the relief well will need to be turned into ' production well ' which will require approval by the old MMS (I would think) as well as making sure enough surface storage facilities are available along with back-ups.
I also wonder about the stability of the BOP stack that Adm. Allen had previously said was leaning 10-11 degrees from vertical, twice the lean of the Tower of Pisa - what happens to that lean when an extra 150,000 pounds of equipment is added ?
Lastly, I hope the commission in New Orleans is asking where the liner/casing used in the original blow-out came from; was it out of BP's 'inventory' somewhere (and was it inspected ?) or was it purchased new ?
If the tubulars came from BP's inventory, wonder if the well design was influenced by what was on hand in a BP yard instead of BP having to purchase tubulars for the joint account ?
I hope SOMEONE asks you to comment on this on national TV. I'm sure they read your blog.
An important 48-minute video:
Shell experts at Aspen Ideas Festival last Friday, July 9, compared their deep offshore drilling methods with those of BP (presentation starts about 4:00; good material at about 13:00; contrast with BP at about 18:00; discussion of BOP at 22:00; Q&A at 25:00 – ownership, risk management, safety assessment, etc). If your time is limited, go directly to well design and operations comparison in the Q&A, starting about 29:00.
http://www.aifestival.org/audio-video-library.php?menu=3&title=639&action=full_info
Drilling for Oil: A Visual Presentation of How We Drill for Oil and the Precautions Taken Along the Way
Marvin E. Odum
Joe Leimkuhler
And there is some new stuff, especially about Thunder Horse, in this NY Times review yesterday of BP’s hubris:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/business/energy-environment/13bprisk.html?ref=general&src=me&pagewanted=all