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."

Comments

Amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

It's amazing that BP can drill for oil with no provable solution to a catastrophic failure. It's like operating on a patient and going 'Trust me, I'm a doctor'.

Re:Amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

Find a sufficiently desperate patient and promise to help him, then "trust me" might be all you need.

Re:Amazing

[Lumbre]

It's amazing that BP can drill for oil with no provable solution to a catastrophic failure. It's like operating on a patient and going 'Trust me, I'm a doctor'.

It's amazing that ANY corporation can drill for oil since NONE have stepped up to the plate with a viable solution.

Re:Amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

BP is actually the result of a merger between AMOCO (AMerican Oil COmpany) and the old BP.

Re:Amazing

[MrNaz]

Flamebait?

This is exactly what happened here. A government addicted to petroleum taxes as well as a band of politicians personally heavily invested in the oil industry makes for just such a desperate patient, who needs no assurance and asks no questions about the complex, expensive and dangerous procedures being conducted.

If the government was truly objective about its handling of industry, oil companies would have been required to demonstrate contingencies for all outcomes, including total catastrophic failure of equipment or processes. It's not like the industry operates on the knife's edge of profitability and can't afford to be held to account for their safety and recovery procedures; the oil industry has both the means and the funds necessary to keep such contingencies at the ready. However, they buy political apathy, and can put the money they would otherwise spend on safety into big bonuses for their directors and major stakeholders.

Fuck modern politics.

Re:Amazing

[MrNaz]

There are alternatives to all of those products. If the oil industry wasn't so heavily involved in politics, the absurd regulatory structure that makes oil the best way to do just about anything would not exist, and alternative methods of producing many goods would come about.

Have a look through the dormant patents held by oil companies for a taste of how things could be, but aren't thanks to businesses run amok.

Re:Amazing

[kthreadd]

Instead of simply blaming governments and oil industries we have to think about our own desire to consume oil. Why don't we put more energy and effort into finding and using existing alternatives to oil? We, as consumers, have a responsibility in this situation as well.

Re:Amazing

[nacturation]

Instead of simply blaming governments and oil industries we have to think about our own desire to consume oil. We, as consumers, have a responsibility in this situation as well.

Let's say an apple farmer gives his apple pickers faulty ladders to work with and, as a result, dozens of workers every year fall and break their necks. Are you saying this would be the fault of consumers who purchase apples? Should people reduce their consumption of apples to fix this problem? Or does the fault lie with the farmer and have nothing at all to do with the people who purchase the apples?

Substitute farmer and apples with BP and oil.

Re:Amazing

[forand]

You have made quite a few assertions as to the viability of attempting such a maneuver, could you please provide evidence in the form of a well respected news article or scientific journal? As was noted by another poster the USSR often claimed things worked when they, in fact, did not.

It is also worth noting that your closing statement about Obama makes it appear that he is to blame for all of this, American Presidents, for decades, have been taking money from big oil who have demanded repayment in a variety of ways. This is not unique to the US and certainly not unique to Democrats or Republicans. Trying to make this out to be an issue about Obama alone is short sighted and politics at its worst.

WE have a environment catastrophe on OUR hands and working together is the only way to deal with it. Similarly the only way of ensuring something similar does not happen again is to demand of all of our politicians a break from the status quo.

Re:Amazing

[erroneus]

We don't "desire" to consume oil. We really and seriously don't.

I come from Texas where there is no mass transit to speak of. Before I moved to an area where there is popular mass transit, I would have completely agreed with you. But mass transit is POPULAR with the people here. You don't NEED to take a car everywhere to get by. Many shops are walking distance, the definition of which has increased since the move, and the rest of most destinations are available by train and bus. I don't spend what I used to on gas just going to and from work any more. I spend a fraction of that amount for commuting now.

When there are better alternatives made available, people will use them every time. It has been the auto industry and oil industry that protested the building of rails in most areas and they are still the parties resisting mass transit today. The masses of people who have never had an alternative to POV transportation might also get fooled into protesting mass transit on the grounds that more train and bus stops will provide increased inconvenience to drivers, but I have to say, that too is marginal. For those who have access to mass transit, they will most often report that they prefer it. For those who don't, it is hard to imagine any other way.

Re:Amazing

[IdolizingStewie]

As an employee of one of the companies you listed, do I think we would have handled the cleanup better, probably not. Do I think we would have had better preventative measures and emergency procedures to keep the situation from escalating to the current mess? Absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt. The accounts I have read of what was going on at the times surrounding the incident terrify me. Beyond even the engineering shortcuts taken, the idea that you need permission to hit the Emergency Shut Down was supposed to have died with the 167 men lost in the Piper Alpha disaster 22 years ago. If a lowly galley hand on my platform is the first to see a problem, I expect him to hit the ESD and then call the Control Room, not waste time runnning around in search of the only two people on the platform with the authority, who have to both agree to hit it.

So...

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the proper tag for this is 'now what'

Lets Try

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets try the same thing again, except with BP senior execs

Solution.

[Buzzsaw5]

Why don't they start pumping into the well all the bullshit they've been spouting for the last month. That should plug that sucker up real quick.

Expect repost.... from 1979!

[leuk_he]

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. ;)

You can never get a decent plumber in the UK...

[freddled]

Hmm. The problem here is you are asking Brits to fix a leaking pipe. Queue lots of sucking of teeth, scratching of heads and HUGE estimates. There is probably a guy there right now, using the undersea robot to tap the pipe and go, "well your problem, mate, is its all your own fault see, no offence, I've got a bit of twig I broke off a tree in my van. I'll stick that in the hole and wiggle it around while I think of something more plausible but it will cost you..." Call in the Poles. They have great plumbers: quick, efficient, well qualified. They'll have it fixed in a jiffy and clean up the mess afterwards.

Falacy

[aepervius]

Firstly this is not the same domain of competence and risk, to drill an oil well thousand of feet deep, and to maintain a nuclear plant. Secondly nobody is trusting BP with a nuclear plant, but trusting other company. Finally there are many nuclear plant world wide maintained in a satisfactory state, and only a few major incident, none in the last 20 years with the latest design. There isn't many bulk way to generate energy for a baseline and/or peak electricity generation, fission, coal, gas, oil. Note on how 3 of those release carbon in the atmosphere which was trapped for a long time. Without going into global warming debate, nuclear plant are today the only baseline/peak generation which avoid that. Other generation method do exists, but the possibility are either exhausted (hydroelectric) are not compatible with baseline generation (wind, solar for example).

So carbon or nuclear, by govt or by private, TAKE YOUR POISON. The only real alternative is to go back to a pre-modern society.

How to really motivate them...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Here's an idea for how to really motivate BP - and any other company with the potential to cause such massive havoc...

For every day that the oil continues to gush, the top 10% of their employees, by total compensation, should be required to work for a day on the clean-up crews. Not simply going to meetings and coming up with plans - they are to get down and dirty scraping oil off rocks and washing birds. The kind of work that gets oil under your fingernails and in your hair, with the smell soaked so deeply into your skin that it takes weeks to get it out.

After all, these guys have so much money in the bank that firing them won't hurt, and fining the company will just translate into higher oil prices. If they had some real skin in the game, I think we would have seen them take the problem a whole lot more seriously from day one.

Americans are suckers for BS military language...

[fantomas]

well you can sell the Americans anything if you give it macho BS military stylee language. They get all excited if you use words like "kill". Throw in a cowboy metaphor and you're away. Expect the next solution to be something like "predator total destruction high plains stealth option" or something similar ;-)

Re:It's all for show from now on.

[Genda]

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

1. First replace the entire bozo squad passing for government regulators, in fact jail the lot of them, for receiving bribes, and causing billions of dollars of damage to the country.
2. Next when an oil company installs emergency shut off valves at the well head, make certain they work, BP knew for a fact theirs didn't work and ignored it.
3. Additionally, when your high tech well has special high pressure seals, design expressly for potential disasters, and you know you've damaged or destroyed them, stop drilling, and fix the seals, BP knew they had a problem when they brought huge chunks of rubber and again ignored it to continue drilling.
4. Finally, when some idiot from an oil company tells the folks on the rig to remove tons of drilling mud from the well, now, to shave a few days off of opening the well to pumping later, knowing full well that leaving that mud in the well is a critical safety feature for preventing disasters like... this one, they should be politely shot in the head. Twice.

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.

Re:long history of cutting corners

[bmo]

>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.

--
BMO

Re:Time to invest in renewable energy?

[vlm]

Well, this accident was sort of the worst case scenario in that every fail-safe mechanism failed.

Its worst case in a hell of a lot of other ways:

1) Timing. Wells kick all the time while drilling, but while you're drilling you've got the mindset and equipment to work around it so you don't get blowouts. Cement jobs fail all the freaking time, but thats OK since you've got a hole full of heavy mud. BOPs, being mechanical devices in the ocean, fail on occasion, but thats OK because four nines of uptime, combined with un-used rate of four nines, means no problem for about eight nines. Too bad it all happened at the precise worst time.

2) Geology. Despite whatever the idiots on TV say, this is a hybrid gas/oil well not an oil well. A leaking oil well is no problemo you just suck up the oil at the source. Can't do that on a hybrid well because the methane hydrates from the gas clog up the works. Also oil gushers rarely catch fire and vaporize the platform, TV movies excepted. A leaking gas well is no problemo for the TV newsies because nothing washes on shore. Turning the GoM into a big methane fizzy drink is not an ecological ideal but its not, relatively, as bad. So, if it were a pure oil well, you'd have an intact platform uncontrolably squirting oil into a supertanker tied up next door, or worst case you'd be able to capture about 99% of the oil at the source. Or if it were a gas well you'd probably still have sunk the platform and killed everyone, if not even worse than it was, but there would be nothing floating ashore. Also the geology of the bottom of the GoM is completely unknown to the newsies so you get idiot ideas from people whom refuse to understand that the bottom of the GoM is a thousand feet of muck. They think its like the "little mermaid" movie where its all solid granite, and all their ideas reflect that inaccurate assumption.

Re:long history of cutting corners

[jpyeck]

Of-course this is just of top of the head and maybe stupid

^^ This ^^

30 years ago, drilling a well at this depth was not possible. Drilling technology has advanced to the point where drilling at this depth is now possible. Technology has also advanced to the point where the "same shit they tried 30 years ago" is even an available option at 5000+ ft down.

As an engineer, I take offense when people come up with stuff off the top of their head and assume that teams of professionals haven't considered the same options and rationally analyzed the feasibility.

I can assure you, all the crazy ideas you can possibly consider, and more, are being discussed among the engineers at BP who actually have experience in this industry. Yes, this spill is horrible. No, I can't believe BP doesn't want to have this fixed ASAP. The engineers on the front line simply don't have time to address the media, therefore you are left with execs so far removed from the actual work that they look like incompetent boobs

Re:long history of cutting corners

[Anonymous Coward]

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?