Serpo
12th June 2010, 01:20 AM
Post here is off another forum
The BP Deep water horizon, Macondo Well Blowout. and what we are facing in the Gulf Part II
Quote
In the first part of my post "BP Deep water horizon, Macondo Well Blowout and what we are facing in the Gulf." I tried to address the mechanics of the general well situation and explain some of terminology of the oil and gas industry. I also tried to lay out some of the various "plans" that were going to happen in the near future at the time of writing. I received a lot of thank you's from people who took away a greater understanding of what was happening which I am very grateful for and hope that many more did gain understanding.
Most if Not all of those plans have come to pass, there have also been several other developments. In this post I will update the situation as I see it and as I can conclude from the disjointed trickle of information that has been released and which has not been made fully clear to the public.
In my opinion BP and our Govt have not been forthcoming about what is really is going on with this well and the situation we will likely face. Understandably they would not want to create panic, but we also need to prepare for this oil leak getting worse, ignoring the reality that there is good chance it will get worse leaves us vulnerable. Just like we shutter up before a hurricane we should be preparing now because we know that if we
don't, we are going to sustain far more damage than if we did.
I'm not going to get into the oil remediation aspect or the control of the already released oil nor the politics involved in the overall situation other than to say we need to prepare for the worst and should be doing that now. I want to cover the mechanics of what is going on now at the well subsea and what has happened and what the results tell us. Since we are not getting very much clear information about what those results or lack of results mean, I think it's important for everyone to know what is happening and the possibilities of what may come.
As you have probably seen and maybe feel yourselves, there are several things that do not appear to make sense regarding the actions of attack against the well. Don't feel bad, there is much that doesn't make sense even to professionals unless you take into account some important variables that we are not being told about. There seems to me to be a reluctance to face what cannot be termed anything less than grim circumstances in my
opinion. There certainly is a reluctance to inform us regular people and all we have really gotten is a few dots here and there...in this post I hope to connect some of those dots and show where we are headed...
First of all...set aside all your thoughts of plugging the well and stopping it from blowing out oil using any method from the top down. Plugs, big valves to just shut it off, pinching the pipe closed, installing a new bop or lmrp, shooting any epoxy in it, top kills with mud etc etc etc....forget that, it won't be happening..it's done and over. In fact actually opening up the well at the subsea source and allowing it to gush more is not only exactly what has happened, it was probably necessary, or so they think anyway.
So you have to ask WHY? Why make it worse?...there really can only be one answer and that answer does not bode well for all of us. It's really an inescapable conclusion at this point, unless you want to believe that every Oil and Gas professional involved suddenly just forgot everything they know or woke up one morning and drank a few big cups of stupid and got assigned to directing the response to this catastrophe. Nothing makes sense unless you take this into account, but after you do...you will see the "sense" behind what has happened and what is happening. That conclusion is this:
The well bore structure is compromised "Down hole".
That is something which is a "Worst nightmare" conclusion to reach. While many have been saying this for some time as with any complex disaster of this proportion many have "said" a lot of things with no real sound reasons or evidence for jumping to such conclusions, well this time it appears that they may have jumped into the right place...I will show you why this conclusion is inescapable and why the real evidence points to it.
TOP KILL - FAILS:
When I said in my first post "Pray this works" I meant it, it didn't work. This was probably our best and only chance to kill this well from the top down. This "kill mud" is a tried and true method of killing wells and usually has a very good chance of success. The depth of this well presented some logistical challenges, but it really should not of presented any functional obstructions. The pumping capacity was there and it would have worked, should have worked, but it didn't.
It didn't work, but it did create evidence of what is really happening. First of all the method used in this particular top kill made no sense, did not follow the standard operating procedure used to kill many other wells and in fact for the most part was completely contrary to the procedure which would have given it any real chance of working.
When a well is "Killed" using this method heavy drill fluid "Mud" is pumped at high volume and pressure into a leaking well. The leaks are "behind" the point of access where the mud is fired in, in this case the "choke and Kill lines" which are at the very bottom of the BOP (Blow Out Preventer) The heavy fluid gathers in the "behind" portion of the leaking well assembly, while some will leak out, it very quickly overtakes the flow of oil and only the heavier mud will leak out. Once that "solid" flow of mud is established at the leak "behind" the well, the mud pumps increase pressure and begin to overtake the pressure of the oil deposit. The mud is established in a solid column that is driven downward by the now stronger pumps. The heavy mud will create a solid column that is so heavy that the oil deposit can no longer push it up, shut off the pumps...the well is killed...it can no longer flow.
Usually this will happen fairly quickly, in fact for it to work at all...it must happen quickly. There is no "trickle some mud in" because that is not how a top kill works. The flowing oil will just flush out the trickle and a solid column will never be established. Yet what we were told was "It will take days to know whether it
worked"...."Top kill might take 48 hours to complete"...the only way it could take days is if BP intended to do some "test fires" to test integrity of the entire system. The actual "kill" can only take hours by nature because it must happen fairly rapidly. It also increases strain on the "behind" portion and in this instance we all know that what remained was fragile at best.
Early that afternoon we saw a massive flow burst out of the riser "plume" area. This was the first test fire of high pressure mud injection. Later on same day we saw a greatly increased flow out of the kink leaks, this was mostly mud at that time as the kill mud is tanish color due to the high amount of Barite which is added to it to weight it and Barite is a white powder. Here is what Barite looks like:
[link to www.ecplaza.net]
Last Edited by SHR on 6/12/2010 at 2:31 AM
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1097505/pg1
The BP Deep water horizon, Macondo Well Blowout. and what we are facing in the Gulf Part II
Quote
In the first part of my post "BP Deep water horizon, Macondo Well Blowout and what we are facing in the Gulf." I tried to address the mechanics of the general well situation and explain some of terminology of the oil and gas industry. I also tried to lay out some of the various "plans" that were going to happen in the near future at the time of writing. I received a lot of thank you's from people who took away a greater understanding of what was happening which I am very grateful for and hope that many more did gain understanding.
Most if Not all of those plans have come to pass, there have also been several other developments. In this post I will update the situation as I see it and as I can conclude from the disjointed trickle of information that has been released and which has not been made fully clear to the public.
In my opinion BP and our Govt have not been forthcoming about what is really is going on with this well and the situation we will likely face. Understandably they would not want to create panic, but we also need to prepare for this oil leak getting worse, ignoring the reality that there is good chance it will get worse leaves us vulnerable. Just like we shutter up before a hurricane we should be preparing now because we know that if we
don't, we are going to sustain far more damage than if we did.
I'm not going to get into the oil remediation aspect or the control of the already released oil nor the politics involved in the overall situation other than to say we need to prepare for the worst and should be doing that now. I want to cover the mechanics of what is going on now at the well subsea and what has happened and what the results tell us. Since we are not getting very much clear information about what those results or lack of results mean, I think it's important for everyone to know what is happening and the possibilities of what may come.
As you have probably seen and maybe feel yourselves, there are several things that do not appear to make sense regarding the actions of attack against the well. Don't feel bad, there is much that doesn't make sense even to professionals unless you take into account some important variables that we are not being told about. There seems to me to be a reluctance to face what cannot be termed anything less than grim circumstances in my
opinion. There certainly is a reluctance to inform us regular people and all we have really gotten is a few dots here and there...in this post I hope to connect some of those dots and show where we are headed...
First of all...set aside all your thoughts of plugging the well and stopping it from blowing out oil using any method from the top down. Plugs, big valves to just shut it off, pinching the pipe closed, installing a new bop or lmrp, shooting any epoxy in it, top kills with mud etc etc etc....forget that, it won't be happening..it's done and over. In fact actually opening up the well at the subsea source and allowing it to gush more is not only exactly what has happened, it was probably necessary, or so they think anyway.
So you have to ask WHY? Why make it worse?...there really can only be one answer and that answer does not bode well for all of us. It's really an inescapable conclusion at this point, unless you want to believe that every Oil and Gas professional involved suddenly just forgot everything they know or woke up one morning and drank a few big cups of stupid and got assigned to directing the response to this catastrophe. Nothing makes sense unless you take this into account, but after you do...you will see the "sense" behind what has happened and what is happening. That conclusion is this:
The well bore structure is compromised "Down hole".
That is something which is a "Worst nightmare" conclusion to reach. While many have been saying this for some time as with any complex disaster of this proportion many have "said" a lot of things with no real sound reasons or evidence for jumping to such conclusions, well this time it appears that they may have jumped into the right place...I will show you why this conclusion is inescapable and why the real evidence points to it.
TOP KILL - FAILS:
When I said in my first post "Pray this works" I meant it, it didn't work. This was probably our best and only chance to kill this well from the top down. This "kill mud" is a tried and true method of killing wells and usually has a very good chance of success. The depth of this well presented some logistical challenges, but it really should not of presented any functional obstructions. The pumping capacity was there and it would have worked, should have worked, but it didn't.
It didn't work, but it did create evidence of what is really happening. First of all the method used in this particular top kill made no sense, did not follow the standard operating procedure used to kill many other wells and in fact for the most part was completely contrary to the procedure which would have given it any real chance of working.
When a well is "Killed" using this method heavy drill fluid "Mud" is pumped at high volume and pressure into a leaking well. The leaks are "behind" the point of access where the mud is fired in, in this case the "choke and Kill lines" which are at the very bottom of the BOP (Blow Out Preventer) The heavy fluid gathers in the "behind" portion of the leaking well assembly, while some will leak out, it very quickly overtakes the flow of oil and only the heavier mud will leak out. Once that "solid" flow of mud is established at the leak "behind" the well, the mud pumps increase pressure and begin to overtake the pressure of the oil deposit. The mud is established in a solid column that is driven downward by the now stronger pumps. The heavy mud will create a solid column that is so heavy that the oil deposit can no longer push it up, shut off the pumps...the well is killed...it can no longer flow.
Usually this will happen fairly quickly, in fact for it to work at all...it must happen quickly. There is no "trickle some mud in" because that is not how a top kill works. The flowing oil will just flush out the trickle and a solid column will never be established. Yet what we were told was "It will take days to know whether it
worked"...."Top kill might take 48 hours to complete"...the only way it could take days is if BP intended to do some "test fires" to test integrity of the entire system. The actual "kill" can only take hours by nature because it must happen fairly rapidly. It also increases strain on the "behind" portion and in this instance we all know that what remained was fragile at best.
Early that afternoon we saw a massive flow burst out of the riser "plume" area. This was the first test fire of high pressure mud injection. Later on same day we saw a greatly increased flow out of the kink leaks, this was mostly mud at that time as the kill mud is tanish color due to the high amount of Barite which is added to it to weight it and Barite is a white powder. Here is what Barite looks like:
[link to www.ecplaza.net]
Last Edited by SHR on 6/12/2010 at 2:31 AM
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1097505/pg1