# Oil industry technical article re the BP well leak & it's worse than you could imagine **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 16, 2010, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oil-industry-technical-article-re-the-bp-well-leak-its-worse-than-you-could-imagine/543375 "2010-06-16T00:38:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2010, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oil-industry-technical-article-re-the-bp-well-leak-its-worse-than-you-could-imagine/543375/1 "2010-06-16T00:38:18Z")
Interesting oil industry article about the technical aspects of what’s going on with the busted BP well. [The Oil Drum](http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6593/648967) > [@](#): > > First of all…set aside all your thoughts of plugging the well and stopping it from blowing out oil using any method from the top down. Plugs, big valves to just shut it off, pinching the pipe closed, installing a new bop or lmrp, shooting any epoxy in it, top kills with mud etc etc etc…forget that, it won’t be happening..it’s done and over. In fact actually opening up the well at the subsea source and allowing it to gush more is not only exactly what has happened, it was probably necessary, or so they think anyway. > > So you have to ask WHY? Why make it worse?..there really can only be one answer and that answer does not bode well for all of us. It’s really an inescapable conclusion at this point, unless you want to believe that every Oil and Gas professional involved suddenly just forgot everything they know or woke up one morning and drank a few big cups of stupid and got assigned to directing the response to this catastrophe. Nothing makes sense unless you take this into account, but after you do…you will see the “sense” behind what has happened and what is happening. That conclusion is this: > > The well bore structure is compromised “Down hole”. There’s lots more and it’s pretty scary stuff. > [@](#): > > All of these things lead to only one place, a fully wide open well bore directly to the oil deposit…after that, it goes into the realm of “the worst things you can think of” The well may come completely apart as the inner liners fail. There is still a very long drill string in the well, that could literally come flying out…as I said…all the worst things you can think of are a possibility, but the very least damaging outcome as bad as it is, is that we are stuck with a wide open gusher blowing out 150,000 barrels a day of raw oil or more. There isn’t any “cap dome” or any other suck fixer device on earth that exists or could be built that will stop it from gushing out and doing more and more damage to the gulf. While at the same time also doing more damage to the well, making the chance of halting it with a kill from the bottom up less and less likely to work, which as it stands now?..is the only real chance we have left to stop it all. > > It’s a race now…a race to drill the relief wells and take our last chance at killing this monster before the whole weakened, wore out, blown out, leaking and failing system gives up it’s last gasp in a horrific crescendo. > > We are not even 2 months into it, barely half way by even optimistic estimates. The damage done by the leaked oil now is virtually immeasurable already and it will not get better, it can only get worse. No matter how much they can collect, there will still be thousands and thousands of gallons leaking out every minute, every hour of every day. We have 2 months left before the relief wells are even near in position and set up to take a kill shot and that is being optimistic as I said ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2010, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oil-industry-technical-article-re-the-bp-well-leak-its-worse-than-you-could-imagine/543375/2 "2010-06-16T01:06:22Z")
So Ripley was [right](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCbfMkh940Q). ---
**Author:** ![elelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f0a364/32.png) [@elelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elelle)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2010, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oil-industry-technical-article-re-the-bp-well-leak-its-worse-than-you-could-imagine/543375/3 "2010-06-16T02:28:11Z")
Thanks (well,:eek:), astro. Everyone should read that link, it’s time to pull our head out of all sands. I’m too heartsick to even be angry now, I’m sure that will come after the shock. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2010, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oil-industry-technical-article-re-the-bp-well-leak-its-worse-than-you-could-imagine/543375/4 "2010-06-16T03:05:11Z")
As a technical article, the linked post is laughable. Mostly bullshit, IMHO. The first tip-off is that the writer doesn’t even attempt to present any personal qualifications. The second is the frequent use of Random Caps. The third, and most important, is that the author doesn’t seem to be able to articulate the well structure very clearly, even though detailed information about the well geometry and casing configuration is in the public domain, and he seems to know little about the geologic setting of the well. Nevertheless, there is a grain of truth in what the writer is, rather ineptly, trying to say. He seems to be saying that there there could be a fluid escape path behind the several casing strings in the hole. If this is the case, and if the fluid conduit outside the casing is open to a point above the base of the shallowest casing string currently installed, there is is some risk of the seabed fissuring around the wellbore, allowing unrestrained flow that, as the author says, simply could not be capped by any available technology. The question is, is there evidence of leakage at seabed level from outside the wellhead and BOP structure itself? Well, the rest of the post seems to veer into conspiracy theory, and the listed estimates of the amount of fluid that could be released in such a scenario seem to assume that the entire field could vent via that single well, an assumption that is flat-out wrong, in several ways. The persons who added comments (before comments were disabled for that thread) seemed to be arguing whether any such evidence was viewable on the ROV feeds. I have no more info on this than anyone else not directly involved in the control effort, but I will say that if the risk of seabed fissuring is significant, then it would be correct to not attempt to apply too much back pressure to the current flow. I would prefer, however, to see this explained by someone with clearer evidence of technical qualification than the author of the linked post. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2010, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oil-industry-technical-article-re-the-bp-well-leak-its-worse-than-you-could-imagine/543375/5 "2010-06-16T03:06:08Z")
> [@astro](#): > > …worse than you could imagine. I’m imagining the oil slick suddenly catching fire and acting like a giant rocket engine, driving the earth into the sun and extinguishing all life in fiery agony. It’s worse than that? Or maybe it’s just a few million gallons of hydrocarbons mingling with the quadrillions of gallons of hydrocarbons already present on the Earth. Yes, it’ll kill off some wildlife and have lasting effects for decades…but it shall pass. In three years, I bet all those beaches are open again, and the fishing industry will have recovered as much as it can in this overfished age. This isn’t the end of life as we know it. Move twenty miles inland and you’ll never see a single effect environmental effect from it, and even the economic ones shall pass. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2010, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oil-industry-technical-article-re-the-bp-well-leak-its-worse-than-you-could-imagine/543375/6 "2010-06-16T03:17:03Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > I have no more info on this than anyone else not directly involved in the control effort, but I will say that if the risk of seabed fissuring is significant, then it would be correct to not attempt to apply too much back pressure to the current flow. I would prefer, however, to see this explained by someone with clearer evidence of technical qualification than the author of the linked post. You appear to be in the business, why are the relief wells so far away and drilled so deep? ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2010, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oil-industry-technical-article-re-the-bp-well-leak-its-worse-than-you-could-imagine/543375/7 "2010-06-16T04:02:36Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > You appear to be in the business, why are the relief wells so far away and drilled so deep? They are not particularly far away, maybe as much as 1500 feet horizontal displacement. This gives some room to play with if the initial relief wellbore does not intercept the blown-out wellbore on the first try, which is a significant risk. If this occurs, they will plug the relief well with cement, back to about a thousand feet from the original terminating point, re-calculate the required trajectory, then try to intercept the wellbore via directional drilling again. As far as depth goes, the relief well design is intended to intercept the original wellbore at a point just above the producing formation, which apparently is near well bottom. This, so far as I know, is more or less standard practice for this type of remediation, and is done because you want to set your cement plug (the actual kill mechanism) in as mechanically strong and non-porous a formation as possible. Presumably there is a relatively impermeable shale bed above the reservoir zone that provides a such a structural cap, and in essence is part of the reason there is a reservoir below it to begin with. Meanwhile, regarding the OP, there is a rather more lucid discussion of possible wellbore failure issues elsewhere on the OD site, [here.](http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6609) The linked post concentrates more on erosion of the damaged _Deepwater Horizon_ BOP, which I believe to be a more significant issue in the short term than seafloor leakage around the wellhead. I don’t mind answereing other technical questions if they are within my area of knowledge, but a) I’d rather not hijack this thread further; b) I’m going to be extremely busy (and traveling) over the next few days so may not be able get to questions right away. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2010, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oil-industry-technical-article-re-the-bp-well-leak-its-worse-than-you-could-imagine/543375/8 "2010-06-16T04:22:45Z")
El Kabong, feel free to ramble about anything related that you think is relevant. I’m sure I’m not the only person who wants every scrap of detail. What can you tell us about the drill that’s still in the well? are they going to have to extract it? Will they eventually pour cement into the original well at the BOP? I’m actually quite impressed with what is going on even if I do want to hang certain BP officials by their nads and sell pinata tickets. ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2010, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oil-industry-technical-article-re-the-bp-well-leak-its-worse-than-you-could-imagine/543375/9 "2010-06-16T04:34:34Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > In three years, I bet all those beaches are open again, and the fishing industry will have recovered as much as it can in this overfished age. . I will be happy to bet a beer (or the price of a 6-pack) that you are dead wrong about this, although I pray to the Good Lord that I will lose the bet. The devistation to the Gulf Coast fishing industry will be felt for decades, and there will be residual oil on once pristine beaches for many years to come. The entirety of the spill is going to be worse than most of the current “worst case scenarios” floating around right now, and the oil will eventually effect many other countries besides the USA. People in New Orleans (and throughout the region) will be talking about this spill for as long as they talk about Katrina or the Saints finally winning the Superbowl… ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2010, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oil-industry-technical-article-re-the-bp-well-leak-its-worse-than-you-could-imagine/543375/10 "2010-06-16T04:38:53Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > El Kabong, feel free to ramble about anything related that you think is relevant. I’m sure I’m not the only person who wants every scrap of detail. What can you tell us about the drill that’s still in the well? are they going to have to extract it? Will they eventually pour cement into the original well at the BOP? I’m actually quite impressed with what is going on even if I do want to hang certain BP officials by their nads and sell pinata tickets. Ok, got to sign off after this but I’ll cover this one. The only readily-moveable component that was in the well at the time of the blowout was a length of drill pipe (with no drill bit attached, since such operations had concluded), running from surface to about 8600 feet below sea level (so about 3600 feet below seabed). So far as I know, the remaining part of the string, after the part above the BOP stack was cut off to allow for the current containment operation, remains suspended by the partially-closed BOP rams. It should not be necessary to remove this as the relief wells will intercept the wellbore much further down. Chances are a cement plug will be set below wellhead level once the well has been killed via the relief wells, but that cannot take place until the flow has been stopped by cement injected via the relief wells. Otherwise, continue to monitor the Oil Drum site for updates. My reservations about the OP’s link aside, they’ve been one of the best sources for accurate technical discussion about this event that I’ve seen. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2010, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oil-industry-technical-article-re-the-bp-well-leak-its-worse-than-you-could-imagine/543375/11 "2010-06-16T07:05:30Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > I’m imagining the oil slick suddenly catching fire and acting like a giant rocket engine, driving the earth into the sun and extinguishing all life in fiery agony. > > It’s worse than that? Worse? That’s pure awesome!