Fun Fact: The water pressure is about 2400 psi At 1 mile deep (assuming an increase in pressure of 1 atmosphere (14 psi) every 33 feet.) A firehose can burst at 1200 psi and take out brick walls.
What’s really happening in the Gulf Oil Spill
I appreciate all of the concern with the disaster in the gulf, but there is an awful lot of ignorance concerning the mechanisms both on ATS as well as the myriad of so-called experts in the MSM. I am posting this thread, since I have been in the oil business for over 30 years working as a petroleum engineer and have actually designed drilled and operated oil & gas wells. This explanation may get too technical, but at least it will expose and dissipate myths concerning this disaster.
Any oil well is drilled starting with a large diameter that at certain points in the process the large diameter holes are cased off with pipe and cemented in place for various reasons and the drilling is continued with smaller diameters until it reaches its objective. I will not go into all of the reasons pipe is run and a smaller diameter is initiated, take my word for it happens & is necessary.
The Horizon Explorer had several strings of pipes until the final 7” pipe was run (probably the 7” was run in 9 5/8” OD casing). The well is blowing out of the annulus between the 7” casing & the 9 5/8” casing. There is no flow inside the 7”. This casing has tools & check valves that prevent anything from flowing into it. The 7” was supposed to be cemented in place, but the well was starting to blow out during this process. So the cement was being diluted with oil & gas where it could not solidify and shut off flow from the reservoir @ 18,000+/- feet below the seafloor.
I will not go into the failure of the blowout preventer. Let is suffice to say it didn’t work as designed and with the flow coming out, the oil & gas flowed up the riser (the pipe that connects the wellhead to the drilling rig) and it was game, set & match.
When the rig sank the riser was still attached to the wellhead and fell over & split in a reported 3 places. It w as reported that 16.5 #/gallon drilling mud was in the riser and the well blew out when it was replaced with seawater. To understand the physics I will try to explain hydrostatic head. The pressure created from a column of fluid in an oil well is identical to the reason you have water pressure out of the tap at the kitchen sink. Water which weighs 8.33 #/gallon is put into a water tower 100’ up in the air. Fresh water has a hydrostatic head equal to .433 psi per foot of height. Therefore you get 43.3 psi at your shower head. If water weighed 16 #/gallon then you would have 86.6 psi in the shower. Similarly as an oil well is drilled there is a fluid known as “drilling mud” that is pumped into the drillpipe, through the drillbit & circulated back to the surface where it is screened to remove the soil dug out of the well. This “mud” is carefully monitored to make sure that if encounters oil or gas it is heavy enough to keep it from flowing into the wellbore. The well in question had to have 16.5 #/gallon mud weight to keep the oil & gas from flowing. The hydrostatic head of the mud of this weight as opposed to fresh water is .86 psi/ft. This means that the pressure in the oil reservoir encountered must be nearly 20,000 psi. ((18,000 + 5000) X .86). As the oil replaced the column of mud that would offset this bottomhole pressure it began flowing faster & faster into the annulus with more & more force as the weight of the 23,000 foot column of fluid became lighter & lighter. When the “company man” (the BP guy in charge) removed 16.5 #/gallon mud from the riser with 8.4 #.gallon sea water he immediately reduced the hydrostatic pressure 2000 psi & it was over.
Now BP is trying to recreate this heavy mud column to offset the bottomhole pressure to balance the well using the “top kill”. A “top kill” entails pumping weighted fluid into the top of the well and forcing the oil & gas back into the reservoir and filling the annular space with heavy mud creating a hydrostatic head equal to the reservoir pressure. The oil & gas are not flowing from a void in the earth it is flowing out of the tiny spaces between sand grains. There is a limit how fast the fluid will reverse & flow back into the formation sand. If the mud is pumped at a higher rate than the formation can absorb then the pressure increases and even the heavy mud may be inadequate to hold back the bottomhole pressure and when the pumps stop the mud starts flowing back. In addition, if the injection pressure gets too high it may exceed the burst strength of the casing in the well. If the casing splits & starts blowing out into the ocean bed the party is over, there is no way to control unless the flow in contained inside pipe. So the top kill is a precarious balancing act. To further complicate this situation it appears that 90% or more of the mud is not going down the hole, but is being spewed into the ocean. To get more down the hole one needs to pump at higher pressure which means increased rate which means more escapes instead of going down creating increased hydrostatic head to decrease the flow from the reservoir. The junk shot (rubber, golf balls, etc) is not to solve the whole problem; it is only to try to reduce the amount of mud that is escaping from the holes in the riser. They shut down periodically, to measure pressure to estimate how much is going down the hole & how much is being wasted. If the well initially flowed at 5000 psi & after a day of the “top kill” it’s flowing at 4000 psi then we have offset 1000 psi of the oil & gas with mud. If the mud weighs 16.5 #/gallon with a hydrostatic head of .86 psi/ft then we have successfully gotten 1200’ of mud column in the well if we assume only gas in the wellbore. It’s actually not this much. Having done “top kills” on land with varying degrees of success I can assure that its not easy under any circumstances much less those out here.
A “bottom kill” is vastly easier and is what the relief wells are about. Unfortunately for that to work the relief well must intersect an 8 ¾” diameter well bore 3 miles underground in the dark. It has been and can be done, but the deep intersection is necessary so that the enormous bottomhole reservoir pressure can be offset with heavy drilling fluid. The drilling mud will then displace the oil and gas from the bottom rather than try to force somewhere it doesn’t want to go. Once the heavy fluid balances the bottomhole pressure then cement can be put into place that once set up will end the need for the heavy fluid.
Link follows:
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread576723/pg1
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Oil Rig Disaster + No new drilling in Gulf = 2 new relief wells for BP
If there is no new drilling allowed in the Gulf and BP is drilling 2 new wells that may or may not work, then... Have they at least indicated how they would stop those new wells from becoming gushers as well?
Is there a possibility that we could eventually have 3 disasters instead of just 1? Yes. Maybe they'll at least put an acoustic switch on the relief wells?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100601/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill_872
Is there a possibility that we could eventually have 3 disasters instead of just 1? Yes. Maybe they'll at least put an acoustic switch on the relief wells?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100601/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill_872
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Scripps Institution of Oceanography chips in to help study Gulf oil spill
Friday, May 28, 2010
While British Petroleum scrambles to stop the worst oil spill in U.S. history, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography is shipping an undersea glider to the Gulf Coast Friday to study currents and conditions and try to measure oil in the water.
The glider, also called Spray, that Scripps is sending to the Gulf Coast was scheduled to be deployed in the Pacific to study the effects of climate on California's coast -- but, said Scripps oceanographer Daniel Rudnick, in "national interest" the Scripps team is redirecting it to the Gulf. (Photo by Robert Todd, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego)
Conservative estimates say more than 20 million gallons of oil have leaked into the Gulf waters since the Deep Horizon oil well ruptured April 20.
The glider, also called Spray, that Scripps is sending to the Gulf Coast was scheduled to be deployed in the Pacific to study the effects of climate on California's coast — but, said Scripps oceanographer Daniel Rudnick, in "national interest" the Scripps team is redirecting it to the Gulf.
"This is a national effort and we're collaborating with our colleagues at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; we're just trying to do our part by taking some of the assets we have and devoting them to something that is of great national interest," Rudnick said.
The irony is BP — the energy company responsible for the spill — has funded Scripps' studies to track ocean currents and conditions in the Gulf since 2004.
Using GPS and a remote control system, the glider's operator can chart its path. The Spray moves to a testing location and drops more than 1,600 feet underwater. At that point, it glides in the water, scanning horizontally for distances up to 2 miles. The test lasts about three hours, and operators can retrieve data at the end of every test. Using the data, they can redirect the glider from a laptop and sometimes an iPhone.
Some data is transmitted immediately online, and the glider's path and some measurements can be monitored at spray.ucsd.edu.
"It's going to give us data on oceanographic conditions and currents, and that's very valuable information to the folks trying to model the flow and make predictions about where the currents are going. The reason we care is we'd like to know where the oil is going to go," said Rudnick.
When the oil leaks from the ocean floor, teams use dispersants to keep it from creating a huge surface slick that eventually reaches land. Oil that reaches the surface is the slick you see in photos; but dispersed oil gathers in a subsurface slick. Studying the subsurface oil is also critical to knowing where the oil will move.
"We're doing something we've never done before; we're trying to measure and detect the oil in the water," he said. "This is new territory for so many of us. In principal, though, we should be able to measure the oil in the water using the same sensor we use to measure chlorophyll. And, if we're completely successful, we'll be able to see where the oil subsurface is."
Rudnick said the data provided by the Spray is "fundamentally valuable."
"Having this capability to observe the ocean does have value, especially when we have very urgent problems like the oil spill," he said.
Researchers in Scripps Whale Acoustics Lab are also deploying a high-frequency acoustic recording package (HARP) to the Gulf to record marine mammal and other sounds to document which marine mammals are in an area impacted by the oil slick.
Tags: BP Oil spill, Daniel Rudnick, Deep Horizon oil well, Scripps Institution of Oceanogrphy, SDNN, Spray underwater glider
Read more: http://www.sdnn.com/sandiego/2010-05-28/business-real-estate/scripps-chips-in-to-help-study-gulf-oil-spill#ixzz0pMotj97p
TOP KILL OPERATION FAILED
ROBERT, La. — BP admitted defeat Saturday in its attempt to plug the Gulf of Mexico oil leak by pumping mud into a busted well, but said it's readying yet another approach to fight the spill after a series of failures.
BP PLC Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said the company determined the "top kill" had failed after it spent three days pumping heavy drilling mud into the crippled well 5,000 feet underwater. More than 1.2 million gallons of mud was used, but most of it escaped out of the damaged riser.
In the six weeks since the spill began, the company has failed in each attempt to stop the gusher, as estimates of how much is leaking grow more dire. It's the worst spill in U.S. history – exceeding even the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989 off the Alaska coast – dumping between 18 million and 40 million gallons into the Gulf, according to government estimates.
"This scares everybody, the fact that we can't make this well stop flowing, the fact that we haven't succeeded so far," Suttles said. "Many of the things we're trying have been done on the surface before, but have never been tried at 5,000 feet."
The company failed in the days after the spill to use robot submarines to close valves on the massive blowout preventer atop the damaged well, then two weeks later ice-like crystals clogged a 100-ton box the company tried placing over the leak. Earlier this week, engineers removed a mile-long siphon tube after it sucked up a disappointing 900,000 gallons of oil from the gusher.
Suttles said BP is already preparing for the next attempt to stop the leak that began after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in April, killing 11 people.
The company plans to use robot submarines to cut off the damaged riser from which the oil is leaking, and then try to cap it with a containment valve. The effort is expected to take between four and seven days.
"We're confident the job will work but obviously we can't guarantee success," Suttles said of the new plan, declining to handicap the likelihood it will work.
He said that cutting off the damaged riser isn't expected to cause the flow rate of leaking oil to increase significantly.
Story continues below
Experts have said that a bend in the damaged riser likely was restricting the flow of oil somewhat, so slicing it off and installing a new containment valve is risky.
"If they can't get that valve on, things will get much worse," said Philip W. Johnson, an engineering professor at the University of Alabama.
Johnson said he thinks BP can succeed with the valve, but added: "It's a scary proposition."
Word that the top-kill had failed hit hard in the fishing community of Venice, La., near where oil first made landfall in large quanities almost two weeks ago.
"Everybody's starting to realize this summer's lost. And our whole lifestyle might be lost," said Michael Ballay, the 59-year-old manager of the Cypress Cove Marina.
___
Thursday, May 27, 2010
The River Will Provide -- Oil Flow Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico Has Created the Opportunity to Restore Coastal Louisiana
I knew a worst-case scenario was unfolding as soon as I heard that the Deepwater Horizon rig blew over one month ago. True to our namesake, we quickly discovered that there is a lot going on below the surface. A growing consensus among scientists estimates that over one hundred million gallons of oil have poured into the Gulf of Mexico so far. Oil booms are ineffective, dispersants are creating a toxic-stratified chemical cocktail throughout the Gulf of Mexico, and BP is still calling the shots while simultaneously dropping the ball.
Our exploration team, from Below the Surface, had plans for a cordial rendezvous with our friends and partner organizations in Louisiana as a follow-up to an expedition we launched down the Atchafalaya River this past February, which is chronicled in the June/July issue of Reader's Digest
Instead we found ourselves in a much different scenario--defense as opposed to offense. As our crew motored in the warm, turquoise waters off the Gulf Coast National Seashore, a National Park, with a pod of 20+ bottle-nosed dolphins, I knew that their fate had been sealed. I did all I could to keep my tears hidden from the other guys onboard behind my aviator sunglasses. The damage has been done; we need to recognize that the disaster has occurred! When I first arrived, I expected to see scores of oiled-birds being taken to the triage centers and thick goo lapping up on the beaches--I was conditioned to the images of the Exxon-Valdez spill.
However, this travesty is completely different from the one that occurred in Alaska over twenty-years ago. That was a spill of a finite amount. This is still flowing, and marine life is taking the brunt of the impact. We've found dead dolphins and dead sea turtles and countless jellyfish (a staple for sea turtles) washing up everywhere despite the fact that the alluring greenish-blue waters and white-sand beaches appeared to be clean. This makes the dispersants a prime culprit. The dispersants in and of themselves are toxic, and the compounds they create when interacting with oil make them even more toxic. Worse yet, dispersants spread oil throughout water column contaminating a higher percentage of the ocean instead of concentrating oil on the surface.
It is fairly safe to say that most containment methods have been for aesthetic purposes. Oil continues to flow, and BP's several attempts at containment have all failed. The contingency techniques and their names offer little assurance: top hat/top kill, junk shot, and insertion. How about a shot in the dark? After all, that's exactly what this is. BP has repeatedly claimed that this type of recovery operation has never been done in 5,000 feet of water. Why then were they allowed to take such a calculated risk by scraping the bottom by the barrel for oil without a response strategy?
Had we invested more in our oceans, this travesty may have been averted or quickly resolved. On the contrary, we know very little about our oceans; in fact, about 90% of our oceans remain unexplored. It is disturbing to think that we have better maps of Mars than of our own oceans. NOAA and other marine exploration institutions are desperately underfunded relative to other fields. For instance, NASA's annual budget would fund NOAA's budget to explore our oceans for 1,600 years. It is time to focus on the reality of issues faced by our planet and America's waterways.
Many feel that this disaster has been worse than Katrina, and the impacts will be felt for a much longer period of time. This man-made disaster has been and will be destructive to the Louisiana coastline for the exact same reasons as Hurricane Katrina--the vanishing wetlands.
What's the Solution?
This solution runs parallel to the discoveries we made while underway on the Atchafalaya expedition, dubbed Gaining Ground. Louisiana loses about one football field of land every hour, which equates to land loss of about 30 square miles per year and is approximately 2,300 square miles since 1930 gone! This is because the highly managed, dredged, and leveed Mississippi River no longer provides sediment to replenish coastal wetlands. In contrast, we found that the Atchafalaya River has the only two growing deltas in Louisiana. This is because the river is allowed to exist in a more natural state and sediment slows down and settles to form new coastal marshland known as accretion (the opposite of erosion).
When we leveed rivers, we lost the resiliency of the entire area; the best thing we can do is open up substantial and strategically placed diversions that flow around 100,000 cubic feet per second to provide the sediment necessary for rebuilding the coast. The river can do the work for us and reverse the damage done relatively quickly!
The hasty, man-made creation of barrier islands off the coast is panic-based, not science-based and may be more destructive to the coast long-term. I spoke with a number of leaders spearheading Gulf Coast conservation efforts and they believe that dredged up barrier islands will be expensive and will fail. They will certainly fail from a hurricane surge and hurricane season begins the first of June. Selectively breaching the levees to let the Mississippi River naturally reconstitute the wetlands is likely cheaper and offers a permanent benefit. Seemingly irreparable damage to wetland marshes has ensued, but nature will rebuild if we rebuild the natural conditions that make it all possible.
With all of the conservation work going on in the Gulf Coast, it seems to me that if it were easy to just build these islands, it would have been done decades ago. Repairing this disaster is beyond our control; the Mississippi River brings over 200,000 dump-truck loads of sediment to the Gulf of Mexico every day. Unfortunately most of that is sent over the continental shelf. We need to match power with power by following nature's model; the river will provide!
To minimize collateral damage, we must stop the use of any and all dispersants. Our public servants must raise the liability cap retroactively and through the roof! In addition, politicians should pass the Bingaman Baucus Senate Bill to provide $900 million per year for conservation from oil revenues. To guarantee transparency within the Unified Command we must create an NGO Representative position to serve as an ombudsman to for a more coordinated front of the well-established and experienced groups in the area. Last, but certainly not least, it would be prudent to focus on the often-overlooked issue of actually stopping the oil flow instead of allowing BP to try to salvage the well.
Southern Hospitality
I returned to the south to help my friends from various organizations and universities because of the care and generosity they have shown me. I believe that they are conditioned to be so hospitable because they are survivors. The ever-giving people in the South are in need of help. Despite all of the adversity bestowed upon the South our fellow Americans are in trouble, their true voices are not getting heard, the truth is not being revealed, and there are still a lot of questions that remain unanswered.
Remember, the only way to solve an environmental disaster is to work with nature. In the words of my dear friend and legendary outfitter and guide, John Ruskey, "May the river be with you."
Kristian Anders Gustavson, Co-Founder of Below the Surface.
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