I heard today on Fox News that they were going to try and put some sort of dome over the well head area to congregate the oil, with a pipe leading up through which they could transfer the oil into ships on the surface.
I'm not sure I see how that would work. Wouldn't they need a pump down there to push the cil up?
The news report said it could take several weeks to construct that rig.
Well, that's the way I heard it....I could be wrong though.
Jeff
It is actually a plausible elegantly simple idea. A dome over it with any air at all injected into the dome over bottom pressure with a return to surface would create and air lift. As air expands as it comes to the surface, and it would expand MUCHO from 5,000 feet, it would create one huge vacuum.
Salt water is .443 PSIG per foot. 5,000 x .443 = 2215 psig, plus 20 psig over bottom pressure would be 2,235 psig over bottom pressure.
If they do that, from what I know about physics and math and previous air lift experience, it is an elegantly simple solution. It will take care of a very high percentage of whatever is coming off that well. A very efficient, very simple vacuum, and oil will follow the path of least resistance.
Then the problem becomes one of remediation what has come out to date.
That is encouraging to know that someone came up with so elegantly simple a solution to a complex problem.
Just like a drunken Teamster's motto: Give a lazy man a job, and they will figure out the easiest fastest way to do it every time. Whoever thought of this is very smart. Probably a laborer.
Steve
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A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult.
I think I saw that they had tried that and it failed.
Nope, the big funnel is under construction and still several weeks out.
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Really--- It does seem so simple that one wonders why they didn't have one of those domes standing by in the gulf waiting for a disaster to happen. Rather than wait 2 weeks for them to cob something together.
How big is that pipe that is leaking? diameter? Length?
Jim
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WSJ says one they tried in 1979 in Mexico failed.
Think vertical. IIRC, it's the well head that was damaged. A well head sticks up, and is about ten feet tall. Different valves on it, going to different diameters within the whole well, to different depths. The wells we drilled started out with up to a 48" diameter caisson pipe for the first pipe, that being driven down until bedrock was contacted. Then successively smaller diameter pipes inside that, which would not essentially add to the height. What adds to the height is when one depth of pipe goes into an oil bearing strata, and they need to leave the top a little longer so they can put a valve on it. Then the next size smaller has to pass through that and up, and the process is repeated. Oilwells are pipes within pipes, each one getting smaller, and each one going deeper.
Steve
Wow, it failed 30+ years ago, so it can't possibly work today. What a load of crap.
What I remember reading is there are multiple leaks in the pipe from the well head to the surface. Does the pipe still go to the surface?
The story said nothing about failing. Said it was abandoned after damaged by storms. It had been in place for a couple months.
A friend of mine who works in the oil industry sent me this on the particular drilling rig, thought you might find it interesting:
news in the last two days about the Deepwater
caught fire, burned for two days, then sank
of Mexico. There are still 11 men
found.
contractor. The rig was originally contracted through the year 2013 to
was working on BP?s Macondo exploration well when the fire broke
costs about $500,000 per day to contract. The full drilling
helicopters and support vessels and other services, will
$1,000,000 per day to operate in the course of drilling
rig cost about $350,000,000 to build in 2001 and
that to replace today.
technology. It is a
depth. The rig
costly
control powerful thrusters that keep the rig on station within a few
its intended location, at all times. This is called Dynamic
rig had apparently just finished cementing steel casing in place at
exceeding 18,000 ft. The next operation was to suspend the well
rig could move to its next drilling location, the idea being
return to this well later in order to complete the work
well into production. It is thought that somehow
got into the wellbore and were undetected
action. With a floating drilling rig
currents, and winds, all of the
seabed ? the uppermost
equipment ? the
controlled with
emergency,
proportion breaks out. None of them were aparently activated, suggesting
the blowout was especially swift to escalate at the surface. The
visible up to about 35 miles away. Not the glow ? the
300 ft high.before all
this
safety record, has burned up and sunk taking souls with it.
apparently flowing oil, which is appearing at the
have been working with remotely operated
essentially tethered miniature submarines
equipment that can perform work
vessel. These are what were used
Every floating rig has one
case, they are deploying
trying to close the
pumping arrangement
Specialized
one other rig to drill a
pay zone. They
rig,
target radius of just a few feet plus or minus. Once they intersect
target, a heavy fluid will be pumped that exceeds the formation?s
thus causing the flow to cease and rendering the well safe at
take at least a couple of months to get this done,
technology to bear. It will be an ecological
the while; Optimistically, it could
something like this happens to any rig, but even
something on the cutting edge of our
the progression of events over
Think.
The well head is 5,000 feet under water. All oil wells offshore, whether on a platform, or by themselves in deep water like this one, are plumbed to a system of pipes that take the oil from there straight to the refinery. None is loaded on transport ships anywhere in US waters. It all goes through pipelines on the bottom of the ocean to the refineries.
Steve
Thank you. This tells me a lot. I worked in the oil patch for eight years. So, they cased the well, and were just going to cap it and come back. A very common practice. You wait until you get enough wells in the area to justify laying a pipeline to take the product back to the refinery.
Just so everyone knows, these people are professionals and do this every day. But like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, they are humans. And then there are the unexpected mechanical events.
The owner of the mine that blew responded to a government official, maybe the Big O, who said what was needed was more regulation to make the industry safer. The owner said that anyone who had worked a day in a mine could tell you that it is impossible to make them a safe place. Shit happens, even when you do everything right. Good drivers still have accidents with brand new equipment, and doing everything right.
Thank you for that article. I was impressed that the well was 18,000 feet deep. That means that 23,000 feet of heavy drill pipe and everything that goes on the end of one of those strings like collars ........... a 50' long
12" diameter pipe with a 3" center hole which is just put on for the weight, and many of them strung together.......... were dangling from a drilling derrick. I don't know how much weight that is, but I would say into the millions.People think that it is outrageous when these things fail. Try to read up on drill strings, oil well drilling, and the facts, and you will soon realize this is some big heavy stuff. And any time you have that much "stuff", shit happens.
Think about coming back in two years and just FINDING that wellhead under
5,000 feet of water. Now think about lowering a mile of pipe down and putting it in that wellhead to do completion work. It's pretty impressive stuff.Steve
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A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult.
How about having at least 2 separate and totally independent valves that BOTH FAIL SAFE. Meaning they require constant signals from the rig or else they automatically close. That sure sounds better than trying to have a underwater robot locate a valve and manage to turn it off. I've been a proponent of offshore drilling, but I must say, this whole thing is shocking.
Another thing I don't understand is why it's not possible to put aflotation rings around it and contain the vast amount of oil and vacuum it into one or two skimmer type boats? A ring that was about
3 feet high and extended a few feet below the water. You would think that the oil must be surfacing close to the well and a ring of maybe a city block size could contain it before it gets all over. Certainly wouldn't work in a hurricane, but by all indications this is just normal seas.Just saying essentially sh** happens, using Chernobyl as an example is a poor excuse. Chernobyl, in particular happened because it was a poor engineering design without adequate safety. We don't know yet what happened here, but eventually there will and must be a complete investigation. If there are not multiple independent valve systems in place to prevent this kind of thing that don't rely on the drilling rig, then I say BP deserves what it's going to get. Unfortunately, what the rest of us may get could be no more offshore drilling anywhere in the USA.
Thanks for that "air lift" explanation Steve....
The news keeps calling it a "BP" spill, but my understanding is that Transocean (The contractor BP hired and the owner of the now sunken floating drill platform) seems like they should be the responsible party.
But, I supposed that if I hired a contractor to paint my house and one of his guys let a ladder get loose, it fell over a fence and seriously injured my neighbor's kid, I and my homeowner's insurance would probably be involved, especially if the damages were severe enough to exceed the contractor's insurance.
So, realizing that lawyers always seek the deepest pockets, I called my broker this morning and sold all the BP stock in my portfolio.
Jeff
I can understand that BP will not be a favoured stock across The Pond. This has added to the reputation after the Texas City refinery explosion in 2005!
A media report the other day talked about this - redundant valves (?)
The report stated other countries use this method, it is not used in the USA. Stooopid IMHO.
Valves at various depths locations, operated remotely. They mentioned a "sonic (?) valve" but lost me there :-) One is at or near the sea floor.
I heard something about the sonic valve too. Sounded like it could be activated underwater using sonar. I don't know why you'd even need something that sophisticated. Why couldn't you have a valve system at the well head that relies on hydraulic pressure to keep it open that comes from a line that runs back up to the rig? If the rig goes, no more hydraulic pressure and the valve closes. Or altnernatively requires a signal from a cable to hold it open?
I can see from your suggestion that we make mechanical apparatuses double fail safe that you are ignorant of how the real world operates.
I can see from your suggestion on how to rig a recovery and containment boom that you are ignorant of how things work at sea.
Have you ever worked a day on an oil rig or spent one day at sea?
I thought so.
Steve
Why don't you enlighten us as to why it's not possible to have two shutoff valves at the well head that are in series and independent of each other and to have each one failsafe in the sense that they require a constant connection to the rig at the surface to stay open during drilling? If the connection is lost, they close. Also, they should each be tested periodically to ensure that they function correctly. Instead, for some reason, we have an underwater robot trying to shut off the valve. They obviously have at least one valve down there in the blowout preventer at the well head. Why is it not technically possible to have two that work as I described?
Why don't you enlighten us on this point too.
Or do you just want to continue to say, shit happens, and use Chernobyl as an example. Which BTW is perhaps the worst example you could use, because that accident was a classic example of poor design, cheap construction to save cost and failure to employ adequate safety devices.
I've spent many days at sea, but no I never worked on an offshore oil rig. Have you? But, don't worry, I'm sure when the official investigation is done there will be plenty of experts involved to figure out what went wrong here. And I would not be surprised that it will show that things could have been done differently, eg redundancy, but BP chose not to because of cost. Unfortunately, in the aftermath of this one, it may not matter because it could be the end of offshore drilling in the USA.
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