Spill baby spill, slippery politics

Did someone plug the hole yet?

BP PLC is pushing to fix its runaway Gulf oil well by July 27, possibly weeks before the deadline the company is discussing publicly, in a bid to show investors it has capped its ballooning financial liabilities, according to company officials.

At the same time
, BP is readying a series of backup plans in case its current operations go awry. These include connecting the rogue well to existing pipelines in two nearby underwater gas and oil fields, according to company and administration officials.

Much of the additional planning has been pushed by the U.S. government, which has urged BP to develop what one official called the "backup to the backup plan." Both BP and the federal government
are concentrating on their next steps, particularly because of uncertainty caused by the imminent hurricane season and the protracted political and financial damage caused by the endless spill.

Both BP and the Coast Guard continue to state publicly they're aiming to have a fix in place in early to mid-August. BP has discussed its backup plans only with administration officials, who in turn have briefed President Barack Obama.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/07/08/bp-pushing-fix-leak-weeks-deadline/

Good thing Obama has been briefed.

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Today in the news I saw a statement that made me take notice. The information comeing from BP has been sparce but they said that they were suspending operations for 24 hours while the GOVERNMENT makes a decision. BP looks to me like its about to bail out of the situation and do what I thought it would from the start. It will go to court and a U.S court will claim that poor BP cant afford the compensation it owes all those people who have lost thier livelyhood in the gulf. Remember the valdieze?

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@rabel22,

Quote:

NEW ORLEANS – BP's work on capping the Gulf of Mexico gusher was frozen Wednesday after the federal government raised concerns the operation could put damaging pressure on the busted well that could make the leak worse.

An administration official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the talks with BP, said the government was acting out of "abundance of caution" and didn't want potentially dangerous pressure tests on a tighter containment cap that has been placed over the well to go ahead until BP answers questions about possible risks.

At the same time, BP on its own halted the drilling of two relief wells that are designed to be a more permanent solution to plug the well.

The delays were a stunning setback after the oil giant finally seemed to be on track following nearly three months of failed attempts to stop the spill, which has sullied beaches from Florida to Texas and decimated the multibillion dollar fishing industry.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100714/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill

this pretty much validates the expert that I linked to a couple months back who said that BP's actions indicated that the well is more damaged then BP is letting on. We also now know that BP never figured out why top kill did not work, where all the mud was going. We know that the casing is damaged, but increasing it looks like the rock formation around the reservoir is fractured.

The reason this matters is that if it is even bottom kill might not work, the potential downside is now that all of the crude in the reservoir is going to flow into the gulf. This is why the concern today about this pressure test, which could further damage the well.

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@hawkeye10,

How will this factor with the relief wells do you think? Could the combination of the two potentially be the end of this mess?

A
R
T

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@failures art,

the relief well drilling has been stopped. The act of drilling could destabilize what remains of the geologic containment of the oil in the reservoir, I assume that they are concerned enough about this that they are currently trying to figure out what the geologic situation is before they do anything more. Something must have happened in the last few days to set off alarm bells, probably something related to the relief well drilling, like maybe oil is coming up out of the relief well where there should be no oil, indicating the the rock formation has fractured and oil has invaded the cracks....that would be my guess, but of course as usual we the public get told nothing.

The reason bottom kill might not work in that case is the there might be too many places to go for the mud to stop the oil from coming out of the well, and also the increase pressure from pumping mud into the bottom of the well might collapse the well. We already now know that they have concluded that the added pressure from the top kill attempt did further damage the well, it has been reported yet strangely this point has not grabbed peoples attention. It was always a concern, but the fact that it did indeed happen proves that the well is more unstable than we had been lead to believe.

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Anybody who still has faith in BP is Looney Toons

Quote:

updated 7/14/2010 6:19:29 AM ET
HOUSTON — U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a memorandum that problems were identified "in recent weeks" with blowout preventers on BP Plc's relief wells, which are seen as the only proven way to kill the Gulf of Mexico oil leak.

In a 29-page memo to Michael Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) dated Monday, Salazar said "performance problems" with the blowout preventers were found when new testing requirements were imposed after the April 20 blowout that preceded the gushing leak.

.
.
.
Pardi said the first round of tests on the blowout preventers showed leaking or failed valves, a shuttle valve that shouldn't have been installed that caused another test failure and a broken connection that stopped a casing shear ram from closing.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38238904/ns/disaster_in_the_gulf/

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Quote:

New Orleans, Louisiana (CNN) -- The man leading the federal response effort to the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster is expected to announce Wednesday that an "integrity test" on the ruptured oil well will go forward, barring any last-minute objections from government scientists, a BP source told CNN.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/07/14/gulf.oil.disaster/index.html?hpt=T1

So, they must be satisfied. This test is big, they don't know what shape the well is in, but they will soon.

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The European Union's top energy official this afternoon suggested a temporary ban on new deepwater drilling for oil.
What do you suppose triggered that?

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@realjohnboy,

It could be that heavy investment in oil production on land might think it could stop deepwater drilling and thus have the market to itself by playing up lurid stories. I'm not saying that is the case but you did ask us to suppose.

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@spendius,

You dont think oil spewing into the gulf for 3 months might have something to do with it?

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@rabel22,

We were asked to suppose. What's the point of offering an answer that everybody already knows to such an invitation. And I had included a "could" and a "might" and an "I'm not saying that is the case."

One should try to make the threads more interesting not less.

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@spendius,

One should be truthful if possible.

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BP claims that the well has been capped this afternoon after 85 days of spewing oil into the Gulf. This is a temporary fix until the well can be shut down completely. It remains to seen whether the cap will hold up under pressure.
Shares of BP on the NYSE rose 7.5% late in the afternoon.

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@realjohnboy,

I guess this will also finally prove or disprove the assertion by Matt Simmons that there is a much bigger leak from a hole 5 or 6 miles away.

1 Reply

@Butrflynet,

GROAN

1 Reply

@roger,

ROTFGMAO

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@realjohnboy,

It appears that their technology for sequential string blowout gear was successful. My cynical little mind is a bit disquieted . I dont believe that they had been working diligently along this path, until the relief wells were shown to be close to their target. NOW, instead of a successful shutdown, they are gonna have three pumping wells from the same borehole.

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@farmerman,

You don't know what cynicism is fm. You're in the infant's department on cynicism.

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@farmerman,

I have no idea what you are talking about, of course. Are you suggesting that production will resume at some point?

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@realjohnboy,

I believe that will be their method of attack. Im just being a kvetch . I believe they coulda easily capped the well bore with a string of blowout valves and dome the same thing several months ago. (That maybe woulda, IMHO, stopped the drilling of the relief wells)

Did anyonwe report on whwether there was any hint of pressure drops in the borehole after the valves were being closed?

That would be of concern, since this whole particular fault system is a long banana shaped area in the inner Gulf

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Spill baby spill, slippery politics

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