Is BP Doing Enough To Clean Up The Oil Spill?

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

Also, if the estimates of 15% of the Exxon Valdiz spill still fouling the coastal areas off Alaska are to be believed, why is there cause to hope that this cleanup will have a better rate of success? Simply due to warmer temperatures, or has their been significant advances in the way we clean up oil spills since the late 1980's?

This spill is much larger than that one, will cover a larger area and there's the threat of currents distributing it all over the place as well as the possibility of hurricanes creating storm surges that send the oil further inland.

I guess what I'm asking is why is there more reason to hope this cleanup will go better than any other recent one?

[Magiver]

Originally Posted by Tapioca Dextrin

The only realistic way of doing this would be raze (not raise) the levees on the Mississippi downstream from at least Baton Rouge. I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen.

Or they could stop dredging the Mississippi into the gulf and let it silt up so it naturally flushes through the marshland. Of course, all transoceanic shipping will cease on the river. I suppose they could cut a shipping channel at a diagonal to NO and lock everything through. That would probably take 10 years and a king's ransom in public funds.

An interesting consideration to the marsh oil problem is the deliberate activation of the Bohemia Spillway system to flush the marshes with Mississippi water. The article was written a month ago so I don't know if it was tried.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

Originally Posted by Magiver

The casing underground burst?

This article says that it has. The basic claim:

This down hole leak will undermine the foundation of the seabed in and around the well area. It also weakens the only thing holding up the massive Blow Out Preventer's immense bulk of 450 tons. In fact?...we are beginning to the results of the well's total integrity beginning to fail due to the undermining being caused by the leaking well bore.

The first layer of the sea floor in the gulf is mostly lose material of sand and silt. It doesn't hold up anything and isn't meant to, what holds the entire subsea system of the Bop in place is the well itself. The very large steel connectors of the initial well head "spud" stabbed in to the sea floor. The Bop literally sits on top of the pipe and never touches the sea bed, it wouldn't do anything in way of support if it did. After several tens of feet the seabed does begin to support the well connection laterally (side to side) you couldn't put a 450 ton piece of machinery on top of a 100' tall pipe "in the air" and subject it to the side loads caused by the ocean currents and expect it not to bend over...unless that pipe was very much larger than the machine itself, which you all can see it is not. The well's piping in comparison is actually very much smaller than the Blow Out Preventer and strong as it may be, it relies on some support from the seabed to function and not literally fall over...and it is now showing signs of doing just that....falling over.

The consequences of that are essentially a naked, unobstructed well bore which leads to the reservoir.

Note: The article is not an official document, see the Editor's Note at the top.

All righty, see you in a few days folks!

[LonghornDave]

The Flow Rate Technical Group has revised their estimates of the leak again. They now estimate the leak at 35,000 to 60,000 barrels per day. Approximately 15,000 of that is being captured per day, so the remainder is obviously 20,000 to 45,000 barrels per day. Plans are in place to increase the ability to capture to 20,000 to 28,000 per day I believe starting today. It would then be increased to 40,000 to 53,000 by the end of June and 60,000 to 80,000 by mid July.

[Magiver]

Originally Posted by LonghornDave

The Flow Rate Technical Group has revised their estimates of the leak again. They now estimate the leak at 35,000 to 60,000 barrels per day. Approximately 15,000 of that is being captured per day, so the remainder is obviously 20,000 to 45,000 barrels per day. Plans are in place to increase the ability to capture to 20,000 to 28,000 per day I believe starting today. It would then be increased to 40,000 to 53,000 by the end of June and 60,000 to 80,000 by mid July.

this just dawned on me, why don't they drill 50' from the current well head and pour concrete from there instead of the 3 month drilling project going on now? Obviously there's a good reason for it but I'm curious.

[Oredigger77]

Originally Posted by Magiver

this just dawned on me, why don't they drill 50' from the current well head and pour concrete from there instead of the 3 month drilling project going on now? Obviously there's a good reason for it but I'm curious.

It really wouldn't change anything in terms of time the depth is the challenging part not the lateral distance. While it might save a couple of days to drill next to the well it would still take months due to the rate of penetration and other operations that must be done to drill a well to that depth (casing, BOP pressure test, changing drill pipe, etc. ).

It would hamper any remediation efforts to have the rig directly on top of the spill.

[Magiver]

Originally Posted by Oredigger77

It really wouldn't change anything in terms of time the depth is the challenging part not the lateral distance. While it might save a couple of days to drill next to the well it would still take months due to the rate of penetration and other operations that must be done to drill a well to that depth (casing, BOP pressure test, changing drill pipe, etc. ).

It would hamper any remediation efforts to have the rig directly on top of the spill.

I'll re-ask the question. why does it have to go down so far versus pouring cement at say 300 feet below the ocean floor. What is the reason for the depth? It seems to me that 2 intersects at 300 feet would immediately relieve the pressure on the current well head.

[Squink]

Satellite image of spill on June 19.
Looks like a steady state has been achieved in which everything from Louisiana to north Florida is under constant threat.
Compare June 12 image.

[Terraplane]

Originally Posted by Magiver

this just dawned on me, why don't they drill 50' from the current well head and pour concrete from there instead of the 3 month drilling project going on now? Obviously there's a good reason for it but I'm curious.

The Discoverer Enterprise is over the current wellhead. It's pretty big and the drilling rigs are also large. They need some space between them for safety and to allow their support ships to maneuver between them. They aren't really all that far apart. Pic. That's a relief well rig in the foreground and the Discoverer Enterprise is the ship in the middle background. The other relief well rig is out of frame but I think it's about the same distance from the Enterprise as the first rig.

Originally Posted by Magiver

I'll re-ask the question. why does it have to go down so far versus pouring cement at say 300 feet below the ocean floor. What is the reason for the depth? It seems to me that 2 intersects at 300 feet would immediately relieve the pressure on the current well head.

They use drilling mud to counteract the pressure in the well and 300' isn't deep enough for the weight of the mud in the hole to balance out the pressure of the oil below it. Also, I think the seabed might not be strong enough at that shallow depth to handle the type of pressure the relief wells would put on it.

[Magiver]

Originally Posted by Terraplane

They use drilling mud to counteract the pressure in the well and 300' isn't deep enough for the weight of the mud in the hole to balance out the pressure of the oil below it. Also, I think the seabed might not be strong enough at that shallow depth to handle the type of pressure the relief wells would put on it.

That makes sense. Thanks.

[Squink]

Tropical storm Alex, five day forecast.


Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen on when things need to move, and how long it'll take to move them out of the storm's way:

In general, our threshold to start taking action is 120 hours before gale-force winds are forecasted. That can be a different set of mileage, just depending on the track and the speed of the storm. But in general, at about 120 hours out of the onset of gale-force winds, we will start to redeploy the equipment from the well site, redeploy other equipment to safe venues, and then come in after the storm to re-establish production or to take part in rescue activities with the Coast Guard. We're also looking at continuity of operations plans at our incident command posts, how we'd evacuate our personnel, and so forth.
...
What we need for the Discoverer Enterprise, time to secure and evade, and that including giving them at least 24 hours to make a transit out of the area right now is 114 hours for the Discoverer Enterprise and 54 hours for the Q4000. And that's an update and refinement of the earlier estimates.

114 hours is 4.75 days.
What's a Gale?

So the immediate evacuation zone is roughly the day 5 circle, lightly shaded, on the storm forecast. So far, that's missing the well location.