 for several thousand meters and then angled to intersect the original wellbore at about 4,000 meters below the seafloor. It is expected to take another two months for BP to reach this depth, which is just above the oil reservoir, a subsurface pool of crude and natural gas sandwiched between layers of rock.)
RELIEF WELL DIAGRAM: The relief wells are drilled straight down into the sea bottom, parallel to the Macondo 252 well bore (in red) for several thousand meters and then angled to intersect the original wellbore at about 4,000 meters below the seafloor. It is expected to take another two months for BP to reach this depth, which is just above the oil reservoir, a subsurface pool of crude and natural gas sandwiched between layers of rock.
Image: COURTESY OF BP
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BP's efforts to drill relief wells are generally viewed as the company's best, and perhaps only, chance to plug the Macondo 252 well gushing thousands of barrels of oil and natural gas into the Gulf of Mexico each day for the past month and a half. With the first relief well nearly two months away, however, BP has wiped a bit of sweat from its collective brow as the lower marine riser package (LMRP) cap installed June 3 has begun collecting an increasing amount of oil each day, according to the company.
This is a precursor to the two relief wells that BP is drilling on either side of its leaking well. The relief wells are drilled straight down into the sea bottom, parallel to the blown Macondo well for several thousand meters and then angled to intersect the original well bore at about 5,500 meters beneath the Gulf's surface (4,000 meters below the seafloor). It is expected to take another two months for BP to reach this depth, which is just above the oil reservoir, a subsurface pool of crude and natural gas sandwiched between layers of rock. Once the relief wells are drilled, BP can use them to pump heavy fluid and then cement into the main well, clogging the flow of oil near its source.
"When drilling a relief well, you want to get as deep as possible so that you can seal the well close to the [oil] reservoir," says Roger Anderson, an oil geophysicist and a professor at Columbia University's Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y. As an oil well is drilled casings are cemented in place at different depths to reinforce the borehole. If a well is sealed too high, any leaks between well casings beneath the seal could still leak oil out into the surrounding rock and up to the seafloor.
Drilling a deep relief well creates a good news–bad news situation. The good news is that the pipe casing closest to the reservoir is narrower in diameter than it is near the top of the well, so it takes less heavy fluid to close the opening. This also means, however, that in addition to taking longer to reach the desired spot, the relief well drillers are trying to hit a much smaller target the deeper they drill.
Still, a relief well is generally considered a safe bet to stop a leaky well. Anderson says relief wells have a 95 percent chance of working. The fact that BP is drilling two relief wells gives the effort a 98 percent chance of success, he adds.
In the meantime, BP's 1,600-kilogram LMRP "top hat" cap—four meters long and 1.2 meters in diameter—has enabled workers to collect more than 57,000 barrels of oil total through June 8, according to Reuters. This is, of course, a drop in the bucket—the wellhead has been spewing as much as 19,000 barrels per day since the Deepwater Horizon rig sunk on April 22. (One U.S. petroleum barrel contains about 160 liters of oil.)
At this time the LMRP cap's riser pipe is emptying directly into a drill ship at the surface. The arrival of hurricane season on June 1 has forced BP to develop a more flexible oil collection system, Kent Wells, a BP senior vice president for exploration and production, said Monday at a press briefing. By the end of next week, BP is hoping to use the hoses and multi–valve manifold connector that it had deployed for the failed "top kill" operation to take oil and gas from the Deepwater Horizon's idle blowout preventer through a separate riser to the Q4000 multipurpose floating rig on the surface not far from the drill ship, Wells said.
If that is successful—and everything thus far has been a big "if"—BP wants to create a more durable LMRP containment cap system by directing the oil and gas to a new free-floating riser ending about 90 meters below sea level (a flexible hose will be used to connect it to vessels on the surface). This option is designed to permit more effective disconnection and reconnection of the riser if a storm blows in and the oil collection ships need to head back to port, Wells said.
Such contingency plans are far from a luxury for BP; the U.S. government has begun to demand better planning from the oil company. U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. James A. Watson, the federal on-scene coordinator for the cleanup and containment efforts, Tuesday gave BP 72 hours to build redundancies and fail-safes into its efforts to collect oil and gas from the Macondo 252 well now that the top hat containment system has begun to capture and recover some of the oil escaping from the wellhead. "For example, if multiple oil recovery vessels are employed for collection/recovery efforts, redundancies must ensure that the failure of a vessel(s) does not reduce the capacity of the system for continuous recovery of oil," Watson wrote in his June 8 letter (pdf) to Doug Suttles, BP's chief operating officer for exploration and production. "There should be no interruptions of the recovery effort while awaiting another recovery vessel to arrive on scene."
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Add CommentFEMA was stripped to feed HS. It is not as if FEMA was on Mars. Mr Obama has only to issue an executive order to restore FEMA as he has done with other faulty decisions made by previous administrations. The talent of a quarter of a century is available and needed. Not to use this crisis to correct a serious flaw would in itself add to the long lasting damage the country faces through incompetence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother flaw that urgently needs correcting is the revolving door policy of regulatory agencies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt should be stipulated that anyone employed as a regulator, be it for the FDA, DOE or any other agency, upon leaving that agency cannot be employed by any company which fell under the jurisdiction of that agency.
Good comments above.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTwo relief wells is still dicey. It took 5 tries to hit a much shallower well in Austrialia, (see last paragraph)
http://tinyurl.com/2dpfxwd
Ixtoc took two completed wells and three more months after completion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixtoc_I_oil_spill
Therefore, the over 90% success rates are fantasy. 50% at best on each try, though the eventual success rate approaches 100%.
But, as they say, they have never done it at this depth before. What if the other plumes are not coming from BP but from fractures the blowout caused?
Also, why was BP so late in getting tankers there? MSNBC was broadcasting industry experts who said it should have been done at the start. From MSNBC
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://tinyurl.com/344u95y
That link and the one below also states that the plume may be originating from another place, not the BP well head
http://tinyurl.com/35a3kgb
jimmywat - that is scary. Anyone have successful experience sealing crustal fissures at a depth of 5,000 feet?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA bunkerbuster strategically exploded would plug it up fast.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOil is more precious than the environment to many, that's why BP has everyone cleverly convinced that another drill is the only solution.
They know damn well that if they cap it, they'll never be allowed to drill this gold mine again.
Wanton greed by a gigantic corporation...
Beginning to understand why saving the planet's ecosystem that we depend upon will be next to impossible?
BP says that chances of success for the relief well are 98%... I wonder what BP said the chances of catastrophe for the original venture would be. Just saying.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's amazing to watch how effective propaganda can be on people. They have been so thoroughly indoctrinated that government is benevolent and business is evil that their brains have totally switched off and have become incapable of even the least amount of critical thinking.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere's the question to ask: Why was BP drilling in 10,000 feet of water?
Answer: Because the government forced them to. There are deposits of oil just as rich closer in to shore that are much easier to access. BP isn't drilling in 10,000 feet of water because they're greedy, but because government is power-hungry.
@frgough: they're greedy because they knew of the problems on this rig that would lead to exactly this issue and chose not to fix them for the sake of saving money. No leftie believes businesses are evil. What we believe is that when given the choice between making a profit and doing the right thing, every corporation will chose the former instead of the latter. They believe they only have a responsibility to their shareholders and forget the responsibility they have to their employees, their community, the world at large, etc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's not evil, it's just stupid. You, on the other hand seem to think that these poorly-run, over bloated organizations are capable of running things more efficiently than a government organization. Apparently you haven't ever worked for a large corporation.
@Fgrough,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Here's the question to ask: Why was BP drilling in 10,000 feet of water?"
Because that is where the oil is. Having or shortly going to deplete the reserves near the coast.
"Answer: Because the government forced them to. There are deposits of oil just as rich closer in to shore that are much easier to access
Shorter Fgrough why need to drill in every National Park and Refuge so that we can save those environments
"BP isn't drilling in 10,000 feet of water because they're greedy..."
You are right. They drill out of the purity of their hearts. Money and the drive for profit have nothing what so ever to do with it.
."..but because government is power-hungry."
Take a look at the following map that shows THOUSANDS of drill rigs right along the coast. Can we get anymore explicit that you are a liar than with what that maps says?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gulf_Coast_Platforms.jpg
frgough, Trent1492 - BP isn't drilling in 10,000 feet of water - It's drilling in about 5,000 feet of water. The article states:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The relief wells are drilled straight down into the sea bottom, parallel to the blown Macondo well for several thousand meters and then angled to intersect the original well bore at about 5,500 meters beneath the Gulf's surface (4,000 meters below the seafloor)."
I am watching an interesting Discovery Channel program - "Disaster in the Gulf: A Race Against Time". I've learned a few things:
--- Initially the consensus of BP engineers was that the surest way to stop the leak was to activate the BOP. I had asked several times on this site why this wasn't being done, but apparently it was never discussed. Several attempts were made using ROVs to force hydraulic fluid into external valves, but they all failed.
--- Most critically, the BOP failure occurred when its two power lines and two hydraulic lines running to the oil rig, necessary for BOP operation, were severed during the destruction of the oil rig.
I view this as an inexcusable design failure. The BOP was never engineered to operate without control and support from the remote surface rig, when it could have been, at the very least in a backup mode with a local hydraulic supply. IMHO, this failure to properly engineer the BOP is the most critical issue producing the nation's worst environmental disaster.
I did miss the feet/meters discrepancy. Strange though, as every other source I've seen (including the program above) putt the current wellhead & BOP at 5,000 feet...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf Macondo 252 is truly putting out 19,000 barrels of oil a day, it is truly an amazing oil well. Very few wells in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia produce that much oil. Many oil wells in the USA are stripper wells that maybe produce 20 barrels of oil a week.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhich is to say that the Gulf of Mexico is an amazing place for oil. Since Americans have 250,000,000 million vehicles on the road that on average consume one gallon of fuel each per day. Many of these vehicles represent the major property and asset that their owners possess! It is going to be several generations before we replace petroleum with battery technology or anything else.
BP could stop the Oil Well Blow Out today. Based on what I have heard and read the existing Administration has yet to ask for Expert Advice from Retired Oil Well Fire Fighters who have capped many Oil Wells that have blown Out and caught on fire. This well is not even on fire!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLook at the Flange Bolt Circle which is holding the short Riser Pipe to the existing BOP.
Remove the bolts from this flange, and the short Riser will be displaced and fall to the sea bed. Then install a 2nd NEW BOP on top of the first failed BOP using the same Flange diameter and bolt pattern as the previous Riser. Just bolt the NEW BOP into place. Then use the NEW BOP to shut in (down) the well.
Yes there is a lot of pressure at this point that will make it difficult to put place the second BOP over the blot pattern of the first inactive BOP Flange. However 1,400 PSI is not that much pressure. Has the government administration even ask the existing brain trust of retired Oil Well Fire Fighters if this is possible? I believe that the answer is NO! How do you think that Oil Well Fire Fighters put out Oil Well Fires in the past? This Well is not even on fire, it is just a blow out.
The reason that BP continue to try different methods (which any Completion Engineer who has been near a blown well would tell you all of the former BP attempts would not work) to slow down the oil flowing into the Gulf is to delay and delay until the only solution remaining is to drill 2 NEW relief wells for the following two reasons,
1) Perferate the casing at the same depth as the existing Blow Out formation, which will permit Halliburton to Perferate & Fracture into the formation and then pump in Cement at high pressure and Kill the blow out well and stop the oil flow into the Gulf. Sounds good!
2) BP will then either drill deeper in the existing formation, or pull back to a shallower formation, sit a Packer to block any down hole pressure, and complete each of the TWO NEW Wells at a higher level in the same formation. Each Oil Well can then start production of Crude Oil, thus enabling BP's profits to pay for the losses of the previous Drilling Rig and all outstanding liabilities.
As long as we rely on the government administration and the Coast Guard to solve this problem, without ever asking Off Shore Oil Well Completion Engineers and Oil Well Fire Fighters how they would cap the existing Blow Out, the oil will continue to flow into the Gulf until BP have completed their TWO New Oil Wells, in the same exact formation as the existing Blown Out Oil Wel
Well Dog - I'm no oil guy or engineer, but your advice seems generally consistent with established engineering practice.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow that I think I understand that the BOP failed simply because it was designed to operate only with the control and support of topside equipment, replacement of the failed BOP seems like a very reasonable solution to capping the leak. Capping leaks is exactly what BOPs are designed to do.
While it might seem difficult to remove the failed BOP and replace it with a new one (electrically and hydraulically supplied from the surface), this is essentially how the original BOP was installed, correct?
As you mention, the former correction plans attempted by BP seemed to this observer to have little chance of success. I admit that as an outsider any idea involving the fracturing of containing geologic formations scares me, wondering how a, maybe, 100 ft., rupture might be 'contained'!
Caution is necessary not to overlook the additional difficulty of ROV operations, but since the original BOP was installed under nearly identical conditions (sans oil leak), replacement with a BOP that could seal the leak seems quite reasonable. The only fundamental disadvantage I'm aware of is that BP would no longer be able to recover oil for processing...
Have you attempted to contact the government, especially as a guild organization of professionals, to offer your knowledge and experience? I recommend that you do so.
@JtDwyer,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"frgough, Trent1492 - BP isn't drilling in 10,000 feet of water - It's drilling in about 5,000 feet of water. The article states:"
Thanks for the correction.
I wonder why BP is refusing to use liquid nitrogen tankers to be lowered to the point of pipe burst and release about 20 k liters to instantly deep freeze the entire water body of about 8 ft dia and 10 ft deep to act as impenetrable cover for the oil to escape. This in spite of conveying to them as well as the White House . if this works actually within 24 hrs of such accidents we can prevent serious ecological damage. Then supplementary supply of the liquid nitrogen can keep the frozen water mass in position, while alternate relief measures are undertaken.Initially to keep the area of the water mass to be of the size mentioned, we may use flexible strong carbon material layers of fabric surrounding the burst area. In to this we release the 20 k liquid nitrogen suddenly opening the hatchets of the tankers.... Well one may try at least.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEnter Your Comment Here.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEnter Your Comment Here.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIts a shame that BP didn't pay the tiny cost needed for adequate preventative maintainance. They only paid for the work that they were legislated into performing instead of the work that needed to be done. Now they are going to have to pay billions because they went after those few pennies more of profit. I think that there is a lesson here for all the oil companies: pay a little now or pay a lot later.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBoycott bp.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the brits object--screw 'em.
To Kent Wells Team: Now that you have vertical access to the bore through BOP, did you consider inserting a series of balloons through the new attachment and inflating it rapidly, several 100m below BOP ?....perhaps a much tamer option than what US Army bombs ? !!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this...or do you have an option to "crimp" the bore a few feet below BOP using that cutter tool(that was use to slice off the broken pipe)fitted with a good sized crimping tool ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this...or, what about relief well rendezvous of main bore at 1000ft instead of going all the way down to 4000 0r 5000ft to reservoir ?.......yes, the oil may start to leak through rockbed, but perhaps buy you some time...?
Yes, but remember they don't have to re-drill the whole well , they just fill in the lower section with heavy mud and try again.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe difficulty is hitting a target 9 7/8 inches wide with a pipe the same width, 18000 feet underground, whose position cannot be observed and is only known by computer modeling.
There effectively no acceptable margin of error.
BP knows this is the only option, and has from the beginning.
All the other attempts have had tiny chances of success, but they had to be done just in case.
As for "A bunkerbuster strategically exploded would plug it up fast." To what, widen the hole? Did you not read about their top-kill (tm) ? The pressure blew out all the junk they jammed in there. What do you think would happen with the remnants of the explosion?
Walk or bike somewhere you might otherwise have driven. Get your friends and colleagues to do the same. Add up the gallons of reduced demand, and multiply by the driving population, THEN go ahead a buy your remaining gas elsewhere. It's better than a boycott of BP alone. We need to reduce our demand and dependence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSometimes it is nice to walk or bike someplace that you might otherwise have driven, but when government forces you to do that all the time most people would conclude that we have become a Third World country because of a command decision from the White House.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere have been as many as 50,000 bore holes drilled in the Gulf of Mexico and there are 1,600 well heads and oil platforms there at the moment. Only one has been a huge problem and that was because BP top management followed disastrously unsafe procedures.
The six month moratorium on offshore drilling is an idiotic, feel-good piece of political theatre that we can not afford at all in the current dicey economic climate. American has 250 million vehicles on the road that require liquid fossil fuel, about a gallon a day, on average.
Generations from now all those vehicles may be replaced by advanced battery or fuel cell technology, but economically that day can not be justified yet.
The Gulf of Mexico is a tremendous oil bonanza. Monaconda 252 is an amazing oil well if it is truly pumping out 50,000 barrels a day as the wildest scientists claim. It will be capped in a months or so and the two relief wells should immediately tap this oil. MC252 will produce oil for decades and data from other wells indicates that the pumped out formations are actually refilling as stime passes.
China and Russia as a practical matter do not believe that fossil fuels are causing global warming. China already owns 40% of Brazil's offshore oil and if the USA unilaterally out of political stupidity closes down our oil platforms in the Gulf the Chinese will be here in heartbeat pumping out our oil formations with lateral offshore drilling techniques.
The Russians are preparing to do that with ANWAR oil. The Arctic Ocean actually is quite shallow and once an oil platform is engineered to deal with the ice (which may or may not be all gone in the summers) drilling the oil will be not that hard. Russia already is building tankers with ice breaking bows just for the Arctic.
BP's latest attempt is the 'cut riser cap package'. They have capped the BOP exit with a cap that has 4 holes which allows the methane gas and a lot of oil to bloat the gas out the side vents. My back of the envelope calculations suggested that they would save 1/3 of the oil spill. Lately their reports of increasing oil saving claims had me doubting my back of the envelop calculations. However today they announced a doubling of the oil flow rates and my estimates are OK again. Clearly a spill of 2/3 of the oil is not a great solution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo, to solve the problem of separating out the methane gas, I propose to connect a tornado or cyclonic centrifuge to the exit of the BOP.The tornado centrifuge or separator is based on the same principle as the vortex vacuum cleaners.
You can see how it works by going to
www.lifecyclevnv.com
BP's latest attempt is the 'cut riser cap package'. They have capped the BOP exit with a cap that has 4 holes which allows the methane gas and a lot of oil to bloat the gas out the side vents. My back of the envelope calculations suggested that they would save 1/3 of the oil spill. Lately their reports of increasing oil saving claims had me doubting my back of the envelop calculations. However today they announced a doubling of the oil flow rates and my estimates are OK again. Clearly a spill of 2/3 of the oil is not a great solution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo, to solve the problem of separating out the methane gas, I propose to connect a tornado or cyclonic centrifuge to the exit of the BOP.The tornado centrifuge or separator is based on the same principle as the vortex vacuum cleaners.
A fuller explanation on how tornado centrifuges work can be found on my web-site, www.lifecyclevnv.com
BP's latest attempt to cap the oil leak is based on the idea of separating the methane gas from the oil mixture before the expansion of the gas can freeze the oil/sea water mixture. (That caused the 'Top Hat ' process to fail. However to do this they had to leave 4 vents for the gas to escape. By considering the momentum of the oil, a back of the envelop calculation says that this process can capture about 1/3 of the mixture from the BOP. BP's report of increasing oil capture made me question my estimate of 1/3. However recent increased estimates of the oil spill makes my estimate OK again. And clearly a sill of 2/3 of the oil is not a great solution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy proposal to fix this is to attach a tornado/cyclonic centrifuge to the exit pipe of the BOP. This will separate the liquid gas and the oil mixture completely. The tornado centrifuge works on the same principle as the vortex vacuum cleaners. You can see a fuller explanation by going to my web-site, www.lifecyclevnv.com
Not so, BP has acknowledged that they were drilling there because 95 percent of the oil is in deep water. It can be done safely, but it costs more. Since the price of oil is based on demand, rather than cost, drilling safely reduces BP's profits. They gambled and lost on this one, and I predict it will take down BP. There own greed will be their undoing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisanyone notice this occurred on earth day ? ae?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this10,00 feet???
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGet your facts straight!!!
BP isn't drilling in 10,000 feet of water because....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBP isn't drilling in 10,000 feet of water!
At least not at Macondo 252. It's 5,00 feet of water.
And the rig is capable of drilling in over 7,000 feet of water.
Kent Wells Team: Wondering if you could use a much larger diameter pipe from sea surface to BOP and a much bigger pump system to avoid some of these vent related problems ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo Kent Wells Team :
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this...or even a similar top hat with three or four pipes of standard configuration hooked up to similar number of pumps ?...all working in parallel ?
To Kent Wells Team : Now that Hurricane season is upon us, wondering if there is a way to fill tanks a few hundred feet below the surface of the ocean, where it might be safer from the weather ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthat is spoken like a person who watches Fox news! check out your facts before repeating something you hear on a politically motivated / news channel.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only reason BP is drilling in deep water is because, that is where the huge oil reserves are, and hence the profits are huge also.
Of course you are misinformed by watching Fox News, and liars they call newscasters, who are probably also on big oil payroll, much like many of our politicians.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThink for yourself dude, and most of all, don't believe anything you hear on Fox News, without checking out the facts yourself
Well Dog:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is our 2nd Post. Our first post was #14, dated 09:44 AM on 06/11/10.
My Brother was an Oil Well Completion Engineer and I have numerous years of experience in the Oil Well Service industry.
In our first post we predicted that a seal could be made between another flanged BOP or Flanged Riser Pipe. The mating Flange must be the same as the existing BOP Flange. At that time, the existing old BOP Flange was attached to a short Riser Pipe. Once the seal was made, the well could be shut in, or oil could be produced to the surface
According to the Bloomberg media release, as stated in the URL below, the government’s national incident coordinator has just announced today (7-9-2010) that BP should have a new tight seal between the damaged wellhead and surface production vessels, within 4 days.
The Bloomberg Media Release – as stated in the following URL - does not specify the type of connection which will be fitted to the old BOP. However it does state that the short riser pipe will be removed. Now you are looking directly into the old BOP Bolt Flange. This is where we predicted BP would connect to the BOP.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-07-09/bp-aims-to-contain-flow-of-gulf-well-within-days.html
It is amazing that it takes an Oil Giant like BP this long to figure out how to connect a new Flanged Riser or a new Flanged BOP to the old BOP, which will then permit connecting to a surface containment ship(s) or shutting in the Oil Well Blowout.
With this move, BP will convert the existing Oil Well Blowout into a Production Oil Well. This will greatly improve BP's profits. Add to that the additional money from the other two (2) Relief Oil Wells which BP will complete in August. Now BP have triple the amount of money flowing into the BP coffers.
This will enable BP to contribute very large amounts of money to all Governmental Campaign War Chest. And if PB contribute enough money, suddenly the entire event will be washed away. Taxes will not be enacted on Oil Company profits, and the existing Subsidies from the US Government to Oil Corporations will continue. Nothing will change. (See following URL)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/business/04bptax.html?_r=1
What is the Bottom line here! There is no ban against deep offshore drilling for BP.
Please read the entire Media Release which was published today by Bloomberg (July 9, 2010) at the above URL