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BP Says "Top Kill" Operation Has Failed
MrShaggy sends a quote from a CBC story: "BP has scuttled the 'top kill' procedure of shooting heavy drilling mud into its blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico after it failed to plug the leak. BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles told reporters on Saturday that over the last three days, the company has pumped more than 30,000 barrels of mud and other materials down the well but has not been able to stop the flow. 'These repeated pumping[s], we don't believe will likely achieve success, so at this point it's time to move to the next option,' Suttles said."
This is all deja vu. This has occures before. In 1979 a oil well in the gulf blew and it took 9 months to close the gap, using the same techniques they used so far.
So expect repost of failed attempts for the next 9 months.... in the true /. tradition. If it is important it will be posted again. ;)
I suspect that they always knew their attempts to fix it would fall short, this is all make-busy to give the appearance that everything that could be done is being done. The correct solution appears to be forcing oil companies to drill relief wells for existing exploitation. The idea here is that the relief well is mostly completed so that if a disaster occurs, instead of taking months to connect to the main well, the work can be done within days.
BP's experience is showing us that the relief well is the only solution that will work.
It's why the Canadian government is taking the position that one must be drilled at the same time as a new well is being built. Unsurprisingly, oil companies are already lobbying hard to have these measures curtailed.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-will-take-tough-stand-on-offshore-drilling/article1557095/
"At issue in talks between the oil industry and the National Energy Board on relief wells in the North is whether they must be drilled during the same season as the primary exploration well. The window for drilling in the North is only a few months because of ice conditions. However, allowing oil companies to wait a season to drill relief wells could leave a new well exposed to a potential rupture for a year or more. Mr. Pryce at CAPP said the policy for relief wells was devised in the 1970s, and alternative technology for dealing with ruptures has advanced considerably. "
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
"Mud" is a technical term for all sorts of drilling fluids specifically designed to keep the pressure on an oil well.
In this case, they used a special type of "Mud", even, "Kill Mud".
But it still failed (and the failure has quite possibly damaged the Blowout Preventer atop the borehole further, potentially increasing the amount of oil gushing into the ocean.
BP is actually the result of a merger between AMOCO (AMerican Oil COmpany) and the old BP.
No, really. If Rachel Maddow is right this has happened before and continues to happen in the same way. All same players, all same tactics, all same outcomes.
Kinda WTF, but check this out:
http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/c8sqn/rachel_maddow_finds_one_massive_wtf/
Hhhmmm, I don't know, but I think this would have been a really simple thing to prevent... no need for any new technology whatsoever
There was absolutely no need for this mess. BP played loose and fast with the lives of millions of people. Hell, they virtually murdered the drilling crew. They knew they were engaged in risky behavior, they cut dozens of corners, shaved the rules, lied about their problems, and did anything at all to cut their expense and increase their profit. At some point, when a company creates, literally manufactures a disaster of this proportion, and the only significant cause is a blatant and callous disregard for human life, and environmental safety, I think it's only fair to invite them to leave the country permanently. They've demonstrated they have absolutely no interest whatsoever in being responsible, decent, or even vaguely accountable. We're still the largest consumer of petroleum products in the world. They must serve us, and not the other way.
>What does LaRouche have to do with the TeaParty?
The LaRouchians are within your ranks. Get to know them.
If this is not obvious to you, YOU SHOULD BE MORE OBSERVANT.
>Its rallies have actually be characterized by being peaceful and resulting in less damage to property and shared services than Obama political rallies.
Not when you ransack classrooms when you don't like the New Deal collage on the wall.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joan_walsh/politics/2010/05/14/maine_tea_party_worse_than_you_thought
Posting with no karma bonus, because it's off topic.
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BMO
And the company which was sub-contracted to do this job is the same company which caused the 1979 Gulf Of Mexico oil spill (apparently) Link: http://www.wimp.com/oilspills/
Divide a cake by zero. Is it still a cake?
Probably around 10 billion barrels. Seriously. Undersea wells can produce unbelievable amounts of oil.
10 BBL would be the biggest entire-field discovery of the last half century, at least. I think no oil fields in the last quarter century have been found above single digit billions.
Actual production from a professionally managed well, in a legendarily great field, that undergoes multiple enhancement and recovery operations, would be a world record setter at 100 MBL or so.
Since this is a hybrid gas/oil well, and in a "eh" of a field, and nothing kills future production like overproduction today, I think a high guess for this well would be 5 MBL liquid oil.
Assuming constant production (huge mistake), 5 MBL producible, and a reasonable leak rate of about 10 KBL/day, the well would stop on it's own sometime next summer. If you believe the idiots whom claim its leaking 200 KBL/day (more than any historical well has ever produced under any circumstances, as far as I know), it would have emptied out a couple weeks ago.
However, wells actually produce in an exponential decay, more or less.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_depletion#Oil_well_production_decline
So, the well will never quite go to zero, but once it drops to less than the battleship Arizona leak rate, I think we can stop worrying.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Genda probable got those statements from 60 minutes. This is what they are reporting. There is mounting evidence that at least some of these facts are true. Bottom line - compare what was in the application to drill, with what they did, and they either outright lied or cut corners.
I was about to post the same thing. After reading the LaRouche commentary on the spill, I clicked to see their video, "The Case for Impeachment". At 0:36 in the video: "In characteristic negro fashion, the president went absolutely berserk and demanded that all such senate insubordination be crushed immediately." This, to me, raises some red flags as to the credibility of their other arguments.
Did they think it wasn't racist because the guy they paid to read the script is Black?