Slashdot Mirror
BP's Final "Top Kill" Procedure For Gulf Oil Spill
eldavojohn writes "So far every attempted fix has resulted in failure to contain the Gulf of Mexico oil spill with the exception of the riser insertion method that appears to be little more than a mile-long tube sucking up oil. After attempting many options to allow the continued collection of crude oil, BP is finally considering a 'top kill' option that will kill the well. A vessel at the surface will use 30,000 horsepower pumps to slam kill mud and clay into the well's bent riser, allowing them to cap the well off with two relief wells (which won't be ready for several months). If that fails, the vessel will move on to a 'junk shot' that involves spewing larger debris like shredded rubber and golf balls into the lines to gum up the flow and stop it. Government officials acknowledge that while this may provide a solution, it may also worsen the situation if the resulting pressure causes the lines to blow or fail at other points. While this is likely one of the worst environmental disasters to hit the gulf, BP's debacle has caused Shell to pre-build cofferdams into seven wells that it is currently drilling in the gulf. These would drop into place in the event of such a catastrophic failure of a riser under the well."
The mud or junk will not be inserted through the riser pipe.
There are access pipes on the BOP itself for this kind of stuff.
The mud or junk will therefore be inserted BEFORE the riser pipe.
Blocking the riser would be useless given it's bent, cracked at the BOP and could potentially rip off due to the blockage.
I was watching a documentary on this Sunday. They interviewed one of the rig survivors. According to the survivor, pieces of the blowout prevention device had come up the pipe weeks before. They didn't bother to fix the BOP. When one of the controllers on the BOP failed, again, weeks before the accident, they didn't bother to fix the BOP. When Transocean wanted to put 3 cement plugs in the well, sandwiching the heavy drilling fluid, the BP managers said "No, use 2 plugs," so that it would take BP less time to unseal the well when they hooked up the pumping rig. According to the survivor, it was when they took the pressure off the well, with only two plugs, that the plugs failed.
This is people putting money before safety. This isn't an "accident". I would consider an earthquake ripping the BOP off the well an accident. I would consider a jet crashing on the rig and somehow managing to destroy the BOP an accident. This was people cutting corners and getting caught.
(Note well: This assumes the survivor was telling the truth.)
In all fairness, we still have no idea what went wrong. I want BP to be dragged across the coals for this as much as the next guy, but the truth of the matter is that we still don't know why the BOP failed, given that it was designed and certified to protect against this very sort of disaster.
There's at least one survivor who claims that the BOP was punctured weeks before the blast, but that they were pressured in continuing operations regardless because they were running behind schedule and "time is money".
Donate free food here
Related link from Harpers.org April 2009:
On Friday, the New York Times reported that the federal Minerals Management Service (MMS) repeatedly violated environmental requirements when approving oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, ignoring and overruling scientists who noted the risk of potentially catastrophic spills. In the April 2009 issue of Harper’s Magazine, Bryant Urstadt discussed the “culture of ethical failure” at the MMS and its wasteful Royalty-in-Kind program.
It's not very long (a few pages), but a shocking read.
You think Phillip Morris should be allowed to kill babies since cigarette taxes are so high?
Look, it's not like they use the whole baby during the manufacturing process.