Gulf Protector at Wild Well Control Inc. in Port Fourchon, La., on May 10. The chamber is the second built by Wild Well Control and will be used in an attempt to contain an oil leak following the April 20 mobile offshore drilling unit Deepwater Horizon tragedy." data-pin-do="buttonBookmark">
"TOP HAT": A pollution containment chamber, known as the "top hat", is loaded onto the deck of the Gulf Protector at Wild Well Control Inc. in Port Fourchon, La., on May 10. The chamber is the second built by Wild Well Control and will be used in an attempt to contain an oil leak following the April 20 mobile offshore drilling unit Deepwater Horizon tragedy.
Image: © U.S. COAST GUARD PHOTO BY PETTY OFFICER 3RD CLASS PATRICK KELLEY
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As BP's initial efforts to stem the flow of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico at its Deepwater Horizon drilling site have fallen by the wayside, the company said Monday it is implementing a plan in the next two weeks to permanently plug the leaking well. If successful, this so-called "junk shot" option—which involves clogging the well's failed blowout preventer with a variety of objects, including golf balls, tires and tennis balls—will be covered with a layer of cement that ensures the well is never used again.
"Our number one priority is how do we shut the flow off," Kent Wells, a BP senior vice president for exploration and production, said in a Webcast posted to BP's Web site Monday. "This is an unprecedented technical challenge. We've never had a blowout at 5,000 feet."
Although the prospect of solving such a big problem by using seemingly miscellaneous objects to do what the more sophisticated blowout preventer could not, "there's some science to this," Wells said. "We're trying to get a mix of different sizes of material that will wedge in…and hold."
The junk, for lack of a better word, will be pumped down into the wellbore and into the flow of escaping oil. From there, BP is hoping that the combination of balls, tires and other objects will follow the oil up to the blowout preventer, clogging it and shutting off the leak. "This technique, by the way, has been used all over the world," including in Kuwait after Iraq sabotaged that country's oil wells, Wells said. The challenge, as with everything else BP has tried to shut down the Deepwater leak, is that it has never been attempted under 1,500 meters of ocean.
In the procedure that BP refers to as a "junk shot," well operators use a solid, deformable sealant or mixture of sized solids to create a seal or bridge to stop a leak, John Rogers Smith, an associate professor of petroleum engineering at Louisiana State University, explained in an e-mail to Scientific American. The procedure is used when there is a leak to be sealed that cannot be accessed directly. "It is like pumping leak sealant into a tire (instead of using a patch or a plug) or putting a leak sealant into a radiator (instead of draining it and repairing the leak)."
When a well is drilled, a surface hole is created and reinforced with piping held in place by cement. A high-pressure connector is placed on top of this threaded pipe. The blowout preventer, a large valve used to control the flow of the gas or oil reservoir that has been tapped, is designed to plug the well in an emergency. The Deepwater rig's crew was unable to activate the blowout preventer after an April 20 explosion that sunk the rig and killed 11 crew members.
Wells said that BP will be able to try the junk shot procedure multiple times if necessary to clog the blowout preventer. If this proves successful, BP will then pump a mixture called "kill mud" down the wellbore to push the oil and gas back into the reservoir. "We'll follow that with cement, and we will permanently abandon this well," Wells said.
Cement is used as a permanent sealant in oil and gas wells. The process is relatively routine if it can be pumped into the leak path and held in place until it hardens, according to Smith. For cement to successfully seal a leak, these conditions are required: it must be isolated from contaminants; it must completely displace all of the other fluids from the path to be sealed; it must be used away from areas where it might complicate subsequent operations (by plugging a path that needs to stay open or cementing a tool into the well); and it must remain stationary in the spot it is intended to seal until it sets.
"Meeting these criteria can be difficult," Smith adds.
The junk shot has become an option only after a four-story, 100-ton concrete-and-steel containment box installed on the ocean floor over the largest leak, where 85 percent of the oil is escaping, failed over the weekend. The box was supposed to funnel oil to the surface but had to be removed after a build-up of gas hydrates resembling ice accumulated inside the device and blocked the exit at the top.
There appears to be a significant amount of natural gas bubbling out of the well with the oil, says Paul Bommer, a senior lecturer in the University of Texas at Austin's Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering. Under the right conditions, with lower temperatures, the water in the gas begins to freeze. "If you put a containment dome over the leaking gas, then it's going to try to get to the top of the dome, where it will expand, cool off and possibly freeze," he adds.
In addition to the junk shot, BP is planning to place a smaller box—called a top hat and about the size of a barrel of oil cut in half —over the leak by the end of the week. The top hat has a better chance of working than the larger containment box because it will cover less seawater. "The volume of hydrate will by definition be much less because the volume of water entering the containment will be much less," BP Group CEO Tony Hayward said Monday during the Webcast. The company is also drilling relief wells to alleviate some of the pressure and provide an alternative route for the oil to flow.
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50 Comments
Add Commentmy question is why aren't there shut off valves along the way on those pipes? would it be really that hard to install prior to pumping out the oil?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismy question is why aren't there shut off valves along the way on those pipes? would it be really that hard to install prior to pumping out the oil?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell I tried to read optimistically, but the article states that the methane hydrates caused the containment box to fail, and listed conditions necessary for the junk shot to work.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Meeting these criteria can be difficult," Smith adds.
Once again, this method seems to have never been used in deep water with methane hydrates present and and unknown amount of methane in the reservoir. It's difficult to be optimistic, but I sure hope it works.
So, apparently, a method of sealing a blowout at this depth in the presence of methane hydrates has never even been tested. I'm sorry, but this incident constitutes criminal negligence!
If it were not for the huge public furor ongoing, and instead all were devoted to solving the problem, other options would appear. For example, a setup involving a two stage option mounted atop the wellhead: closest to the wellhead is a clamp, like the visegrip clamp alluded to in the above posts, intended to squeeze shut the pipe, to be done as Plan B; it is possibly explosive operated with re-loadable explosive charge, if necessary. Above it is plan A: the desirable form where the assembled riser pipe to the surface has a O-ring fitted adapter poised to slide over the existing riser pipe, when the riser is sawn in two just above the Plan B clamp. So the process would be to have the new riser pipe, with its upper exit prepared for methane as well as oil, poised over the original riser; the robot saws the pipe across and gets the rest of the riser moved aside while the new riser is positioned over the sawn pipe and dropped down over it, sealed by the O-rings in the adapter, and up goes the oil-methane, with little time for water to form hydrates with the expanding methane there. If this goes awry, then quickly Plan B crushes the old riser pipe, stopping the flow. This pair of ways enable a new riser to place its weight on the wellhead, designed to support the load, and enables the collection of oil and methane as a producing well. If the load of the new riser pipe were not a factor at least at first, then a different set of possibilities, such as using the original huge "dome funnel" but already attached to the riser pipe to the surface, and the riser and the chamber being preloaded with 95% ethanol to prevent hydrates from forming; this is repositioned as before over the two largest leaks, with the ethanol in the chamber displacing the seawater as it is set in place, so there is little water for the methane to form hydrates to clog the system. There might be use of a whirling impeller, driven by the flow of the oil, to separate the oil from the methane and its hydrates. Or adequately large screw-type hose clamps assembled to a valve and fitting, then robot saws a v-groove in side of bent riser, then rotates the new valve over the v-groove and tightens the clamps, to form a fitting to a new riser - to be somehow supported, however. So if we were not so busy furiously pointing blame, but instead bent on fixing the problem, we could find ways to do it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisjedcline - If you or anyone else has a realistic method of containing this leak I urge you to contact BP and let them know. I suggest you try this number from their website:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBP Gulf Response - Register your professional services: +1 281.366-5511
Otherwise, if you're just posing as a heroic expert on blogs then have a nice day.
It is criminal that deep water drilling was allowed in the Gulf with having tested plans for dealing with all potential catastrophic contingencies. We must immediately take action to prevent this kind of negligence from producing catastrophes of this scale in the future. This is not necessary for retribution but prevention.
Ever hear the phrase "Stuff happens"...you can't always plan 100% for every single possible outcome, doing so would cost far too much money, and oil companies usually tend to care about profit margins.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree that there was a large degree of negligence on BP's part, the loss of life is horrific, and the continuing damage to the environment is terrible but....they are at least trying to fix the problem they created, give them credit for that at least. After this is all over I'm sure the proper people will have their day in court for this whole mess.
In response to Jedcline's possible solutions: Sometimes simple is the way to go with these things; the more complex something is the more ways it can fail. In my opinion they should've tried to activate the blowout preventer first and then if that failed, they should've just sealed off the well head and drilled a relief one. This whole business of building a giant box to funnel the oil or connecting broken risers together seems like a waste of time and money.
Stopping the flow of oil and preventing damage to the local environment should've been their first priority, NOT trying to find a way to save as much oil as they could and then figuring out something with the environment.
AverageJoe24 - Yeah, stuff happens - that why your children will die young. How do 'ya like it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll organizations ultimately act in their own self interest. BP weighed the potential benefit from taking advantage of the new opportunity to extract oil from the Gulf vs. the potential for losing that opportunity if they did not act quickly. Obviously, they never considered this actuality a high percentage risk.
They get little 'credit' from me for working to minimize their stockholder's financial liability for this tragedy: it's now their only option. Their failure was insufficient mitigation of this risk in their original project plan.
AverageJoe24 - Good general assessment of responses, though!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour juvenile anti-American prejudice aside, what makes you think a compressor has a soul? Your suggestions are as bad as your spelling.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Ever hear the phrase "Stuff happens"...you can't always plan 100% for every single possible outcome, doing so would cost far too much money" - joe
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStuff happens... And I have noticed that bad stuff happens disproportionally to losers who are incapable or unwilling to take the steps to prevent bad stuff from happening.
You know. Things like using single walled hulls to transport oil, and not having backup systems in place that can perform the high tech and higly complex task of crushing a pipe.
"Your juvenile anti-American prejudice aside, what makes you think a compressor has a soul?" - Lamorpa
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh, that's easy. I observe Americans on their knees worshipping at the alter of Big Oil every day.
Isn't that why American Republicans limited Exxon's compensatory damages to for the Valdize "disaster" to 75 million?
We must not anger the oil God.
"Oh, that's easy. I observe Americans on their knees worshipping at the alter of Big Oil every day."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisToo true. You got me there. The problem is not BP or equipment failure or inompetence, it the demand and an economy built on cheap oil.
How can you test something like this. When the rig exploded and sank, it has probably left metal bits etx in the blowout preventer, or destroyed hydrolic tanks, thus it does not work. I is interesting to see who instructed the replacement of heavy weight mud with seawater, given the gas shows for doing the final cementing...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDont forget, this was not BP's equipment, Transocean owns the rig and used to be a US company now registered in Switzerland probably for tax reasons.... Haliburton who did the cementing is a US comapny and the blowoutpreventer maker is Also a US company.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDrilling spec/rules are much tighter in the North Sea, I wonder why.....
why does everyone blame BP. The drilling rig was operated by Transocean, a former US company now registered in Switzerland probably for tax resons, Haliburton, the US boys did the cememting, Cameron is charge of blowout preventer as far as I know. Yep BP is operator, let see what went wrong and who is to blame. Every details of info is beamed from the rig real time to Transocean.....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisby the way why are safety standards for drilling in the North Sea so much stricter?
jedcline, Thank you for initiating a higher-level discussion that vectors this blog away from "teleological politically correctness". Thank you again.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@aug1000: So you're say that since US companies can be blamed, the issue is what?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd by the way, the 'rules' in the North Sea are no different. There just hasn't been a disaster there to show this is a dirty business.
aug1000 - It is the contingency plans that must be tested. While testing may be difficult, it is technically feasible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only methods being employed in attempts to seal the leak have never been tried at these depths, in the presence of methane. These conditions should have been expected for deep water drilling in the Gulf.
In all my business activities, I demand any contractor to be held responsible for any subcontractors employed. Otherwise none are responsible or accountable.
I understand that EU regulations are stricter. The US government, all the way up to congress are responsible for their inadequate oversight and technical administration of environmental safety regulations.
I know this will come as a shock to a number of posters on this board who live in fantasy land, but human beings are imperfect. The world is not utopia, and entropy rules. In other words, all the planning and money in the world cannot guarantee bad things will never happen. Adults understand that life is a balance of risk and reward. 11 people died drilling for oil. Hundreds of thousands of people were saved because oil provided gasoline for ambulances.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGrow up.
vendicar9,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere BP has been spending hundres of millions of dollars to try to stop this leak, when all they needed to do was hire you as a consultant. You and your vastly superior intellect are exactly what is needed to stop this leak. But, rather than offer your services to save the world, you sit in front of your computer screen sniping at their efforts. Step forward sir! Join the good fight! Don't let your considerable talents go to waste.
So, I don't question your talents. They are obviously grand - you have told us so yourself. I do question your character and motivation since you have not yet stepped in to save the day.
frgough - Absurd argument, given the gravity of this situation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAdults go to jail for inadvertently causing the deaths of innocent people.
BP is voluntarily paying for this cleanup not entirely out of the goodness of their heart, but because they acknowledge complete legal responsibility for all damages.
Adults are responsible and accountable for their actions in the real world. Forgiveness and retribution are entirely separate matters.
why not scuttle an old tanker, after having blown away the bottom of just one hold, and sit it right above the well, then use the corresponding deck tubing and valves to pump away
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisfirst the water and then the oil to awaiting tankers afloat .
This may work for a long while, or until better idea is found.
To all of those trying to apologize for BP's role in all of this, bear in mind several key points:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1) They chose to drill in the Gulf in the first place. I'm sure many of us are aware that the Gulf supplies a large portion of our national stock of fresh fish.
2) The EPA granted BP a free pass regarding a thorough investigation of their proposed method and facilities. The amount of oversight for contingencies relating to disaster was negligible. If you don't believe me, the article was posted right here on SciAm just days ago.
3) Even if TransOcean was the actual supplier and operator of the equipment, the fact remains that they were in the Gulf under contract with BP. That means it was BP's authority and responsibility to provide the necessary oversight to avoid just this kind of catastrophe.
4) Anyone trying to claim that the benefits outweigh the potential losses in this situation - No. You are wrong. Destroying the environment is NEVER an acceptable tradeoff to technological advances or benefits.
@tomiskus: "why not scuttle an old tanker..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExcellent idea if the sea floor suddenly rises up 4900 feet (1470m). I'm sure you'll hear about it if this happens and you can put in your suggestion...
Shorter Frgough: As long as my $1100 dollar ambulance ride is $5.00 dollars cheaper I really do not care if the Gulf Coast is painted in petroleum products.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTry http://www.theoildrum.com/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisfor good information from the experts.
It is just too easy to blame and fustigate. BP is probably one of the oil companies with the best safety record in the world, and certainly one of the most respectable and responsible one. No one can provide for the totally unpredictable (it would be economically unsustainable), and our world would not exist without a certain level of risk taking.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSubcontracting is also current practice in the Oil industry, and - believe an ex-oil-man - subcontractors are carefully selected and carry their share of responsibility, which no one seems to care about in this accident.
What remains unexplained in this article is : why did not the "blowout preventer" operate in this particular instance ? I would be most surprised BP had not provided for a failsafe equipment - which shuts down on lack of energy to keep it open.
Where is the real cause ? SCIAM please provide valuable technical explanation. This is your job !
Here I am sitting in a nice warm room , resting on my bum , thinking about what BP should done to stop the oil leak.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn reflection , I have decided that I am as ignorant as the people here are about what to do to solve the problem at a depth of 5000 feet .
Someone made a derogatory statement about BP
and a reply accused them of being anti-American.
A bit strange as BP is British Petroleum - a rotten British company.
"I know this will come as a shock to a number of posters on this board who live in fantasy land, but human beings are imperfect. " - Frgough
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd that is why competent people have redundant systems and methods to backup the function of primary systems and methods.
But all too often in the self deluded land of America we see corporations given the green deregulatory light to maximize short term profits by minimizing safety standards, quality, and competence.
In this instance we are talking about the need to build and install a device that can crush a pipe.
Apparently crushing a pipe is damn near impossible to imagine by most Conservative Americans, and the rest are just not bright enough to begin to wonder if that could possibly be a solution.
Fools typically manufacture their own disasters, and Corporat Slave - Uncle Sam has become an expert at it.
the first try containment "dome" should have been to seal the "leak"....so should the next one...no slits up the side...just a big heavy cover......when i see the golf balls and tennis balls and tires i just laugh(or is it cry)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Here BP has been spending hundres of millions of dollars to try to stop this leak, when all they needed to do was hire you as a consultant." - Soccerdad
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBP is spending hundreds of millions trying to put humpty dumpty back together.
Sorry, but the Yolk's on you, and the northern shores of the Gulf.
"You and your vastly superior intellect are exactly what is needed to stop this leak." - SoccerDad
Yes, my vast superiority allows me to think of dozens of ways to reliably crush a pipe.
The vast inferiority of American Engineers given the task has resulted in the inability of their manufactured device to perform as designed.
It's called incompetence.
Salines - I've never worked in the oil industry (although I lost an uncle I never knew in a blowout in Oklahoma), but in my experience subcontractors are carefully chosen to be responsible to the primary contractor, who remains responsible for the project.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGood question about the 'blowout preventer' (BOP) failure. Apparently the entire device will have to be brought to the surface for testing to determine the cause of failure.
If I recall correctly, the oil platform caught on fire when a massive methane release exploded in the atmosphere. The crew was apparently unable to remotely activate the BOP shutoff valve. Subsequent attempts by repair crews also failed. The best discussion I’ve found is a May 4, 2010 DallasNews.com article, “Offshore well blowout preventer was supposed to be fail-safe”:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-blowout_04bus.ART.State.Edition2.636fd.html
For those who wish to applaud BP’s safety record, a May 4, 2010 SciAm article disagrees, citing their primary responsibility in several of the nation’s worst oil and gas related disasters during the past five years. See “BP Suffers Multiple Lapses in Years Leading to Oil Spills”:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=bp-suffers-multiple-lapses
By the way, if the leaking pipe is by chance partially obstructed by slushy methane hydrates, efforts to seal it by filling it with material and capping with concrete may be less than successful... How well does concrete set in an amorphous slush?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thislamorpa at 09:34 AM on 05/12/10
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere was a production rig called Piper Alpha in the North Sea that had an explosion and fire on
6 July 1988
There were 59 survivors and 167 killed.
That is a bigger disaster than your present one in the Gulf.
That did invoke some changes to improve safety.
I like that idea. Fill the hold with alcohol first, to keep water out and to prevent methane hydrate formation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAny idea how to control the descent of the tanker through a mile of water, and have it settle on the spot?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSteven Brown - So, can we count on you to follow up on that?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm not in a position to do that. You're not trying to get personal with me here, are you?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSteven Brown - I thought it was kinda funny, but I'm a little out of line. Sorry - nothing personal. I just think it's a bit pointless to bring up all our ideas about fixing this critical problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn a much earlier comment I suggested that anyone who can seriously help should immediately contact BP directly; others should spare us their imaginative ideas.
I just saw some BP video of the leak on the local news - very similar to this video link:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://bp.concerts.com/gom/crater_plume.htm
Oil is obviously flowing from the lower part of the mangled pipe while something much lighter in color (methane?) is bubbling from the top. It looks like it'd be a difficult job to pump anything in there, even if it was at the surface. Again, this 'junk shot' may or may not work under these 'gassy' conditions - I hope it does.
Well am not an expert in this field however this kind of accident ,from what I understood,is not the first time that it happens..so maybe dojng an internet/archives search of all recent similar accidents & reading how they technically solved those may give some ideas on how to block the spillage.For sure time is an issue here....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems that BP wanted to save their well bore and so instead of using the junk shot right up front they jury rigged the "dome" which did not work and in the meantime, instead of sealing the well first off, they polluted and continue to pollute three states. It is all about profit and it is my suggestion that the U.S. government make their bottom line hurt a great deal so that they nor any other oil corporation ever considers this profit over environment ever again. One billion dollars in confiscation would make them sit up and take notice all right...cash to be used to clean the environment and then an additional one billion in penalties. Further, no more off shore drilling until there is an investigation to see if there is a safe way to do this. Further, it is time for those who oppose the oil sands mining in Canada to shut up about dirty oil. I note the oil lapping up on the shores of Mississippi is high quality light crude but light crude killing wildlife vs heavy crude safely refined is a no brainer as to what is environmentally safe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy can't anybody comment constructively without insulting everybody else's post? Geez, everybody is so concerned about being kind to the environment but what about to one another?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have had some thoughts on the GOM blowout & I thought I might get your input on the matter.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey are talking about a "top shot" using golf balls (BP exec is a golfer) & or shredded tyres to bridge off the riser pipe.
This tells me they have the capabilities of pumping into the riser.
We know that metal cuttings make an excellent bridging agent. Eletromagnatize the wellhead or riser & begin pumping metal cuttings of various sizes. the metal swarf will adhere to the inner walls of the casing or riser (due to the magnet attraction) & rapidly build up a perfect plug!! then send me the billions of $$$ for the ingenious idea!!!!
Well so now we have more technical details...let's review those;
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1) This kind of accident( or similar) has already occured (as mentioned "the sabotaged Irak 's oil wells...).So this is a positive piece of news,in the sense that a "patch strategy exists"....
2) The bad news,on the other hand, is that the leak is at 5000 feet (ie about 1524 meters);we are all aware of the
fact this sea depth presents many challenges to human intervention (notably related to very high pressures,this involves probably not only relying only on robotic-telea-ssisted means,but also with such high pressures the materials used to stop the leak,will probably behave in peculiar unpredictable ways.An other problem may be visibility for camera-controlled devices ..):
in short we may assert that a totally comparable accident has never occured before.In my view this calls for a new interdisciplinary approach (experts of the oil companies,oceanographists,engineering specialists of associations used to deal with environments with extraordinary environmental [esp for pressures] characteristics-eg NASA,or similar agencies...Help from international associations should be welcomed...emphasis should be put on stopping the problem first (in a serene/mature discussion atmosphere without thinking too much about who to blame..after all the problem hasn't been solved yet--) .The solution will most probably be a combination of a good evaluation of the accident's basic parameters, smart engineering skills,focused solving efforts
related to the deep-sea "high pressure" environment,and lastly some sort of innovative solution-"high pressures-related" that somehow clogs the leak..Let me post a link of wiki (I hope interesting..)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_engineering
All those speculating about visibility & other immediate conditions at the leak site, please review the video posted May 11 by BP:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://bp.concerts.com/gom/crater_plume.htm
It sure looks to me like this 'junk shot' idea will be extremely difficult, since there does not appear to be a length of exposed pipe available to secure as seal against the high pressure flow. Since much of the flow is methane gas, successful pumping into the high pressure will require a secure seal.
I heard two blips on the TV news last night about proximity siphoning the leaking oil (and methane) to a ship for recovery. This is illustrated as sticking a 6" pipe into the end of the leaking pipe. It's recognized that not all of the oil could be recovered in this way. This does seem like a positive step that does not require a mechanical coupling with the blown pipe. I'd guess that recovered methane would likely be released into the atmosphere, but it is a positive step... However, I suspect the siphon hose could be susceptible to clogging from methane hydrate formation.
The second blip was that the junk shot idea was being abandoned. Again, it had looked technically suspect to me. However, the replacement plan was said to be threading a seal coupling joint onto the end of the pipe, to be sealed with a rubber plug (if I heard correctly). I can't seem to find this described elsewhere. If it truly is the current plan to stop the leak, I'm concerned. This idea, if successful at sealing the pipe end, would likely only find the next weaker spot in the damaged pipe to blow.
I think that all efforts should be focused on closing the blowout preventer, which was designed to accomplish exactly this task. If the component preventing closure can be identified or even guessed, a successful seal seems quite possible.
Jury rigging something else to accomplish a seal with highly compromised mechanical components seems like a highly suspect approach.
By the way, if any idea of mine is successful, please send your money to the cleanup efforts.
WARNING ABOUT JUNK SHOT---- BIG RISK OF DISASTEROUS FAILURE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTHESE "EXPERTS" SAY THERE IS NO RISK IF THIS FAILS >>>>NOT TRUE<<<<
Avoid potential disaster, Need help. The Gulf Oil Spill "Junk Shot". If BP uses this junk shot method and the junk gets stuck in the Riser instead of the BOP stack it has the potential to blow the riser apart with no way then to stop the oil.
I have been trying for BP to hear these 2 methods that I have to stop the leak.
Method 1 Will allow a new riser to be put into place without affecting the pressure on the OLD riser and possibly causing a blow out of the seals or riser.
http://www.wehdeinteractive.com/Deepwater/BestSolutionBypass.html
Method 2 will cap the well by hydraulic means and seal the well 100%
If they do choose a junk shot and the riser blows out Method 2 is the only way to repair the damage but MUST BE IN PLACE BEFORE JUNK SHOT IS ATTEMPTED.
http://www.wehdeinteractive.com/DeepwaterSolution3.html
Please hear this and help get this to the right people. They say they have the best minds on this but after almost a month we know this is not true.
I will be posting this warning where ever I can for it to be public knowledge and if anything goes wrong the blood is on BP's hands.
"Oil is obviously flowing from the lower part of the mangled pipe while something much lighter in color (methane?) is bubbling from the top. It looks like it'd be a difficult job to pump anything in there, even if it was at the surface." - JtDwyer
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLooks pretty trivial to me.
As I said. send down a pipe, stuff it up the hole and then inject fast setting epoxy into the thing to permanently seal the thing. Or just inflate a o-ring to seal the interior and pump the stuff to the surface.
It ain't rocket science people.
A possible solution to stop the BP oil gusher: A 3 meter length of extra thick wall, 21" pipe (or of similar diameter as the damaged pipe), place two high-pressure valves (with electronic remote control), Cut existing drill pipe with robot (plasma cutter), fit extra heavy pipe w/valves onto or over (a larger diameter will make a sleeve) the prepared oil well pipe. Weld the new piece with robotic plasma welder while both valves are open, close remote control valves and the leak will be stopped. I have 40 years experience with Fluor Corporation as a Chief Engineer and Senior Construction Manager. (Retired) The previous "Rube Goldberg" attempts were not well thought out nor well designed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHuge operations like these call for the highest quality in parts and equipment. Sure not everything can be accounted for, but that sure doesn't mean every effort can't be made to check. Anything, from a screw to a <a href="http://www.pacifichose.ca/en/accessory_summary.html">hydraulic hose clamp</a>, that can be quality tested, should be.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this