"The icy buildup on the containment box made it too buoyant and clogged it up, Suttles said. Workers who had carefully lowered the massive box over the leak nearly a mile below the surface had to lift it and move it some 600 feet to the side.
Company and Coast Guard officials had cautioned that ice-like hydrates, a slushy mixture of gas and water, would be one of the biggest challenges to the containment box plan, and their warnings proved accurate. The crystals clogged the opening in the top of the peaked box like sand in a funnel, only upside-down.
Options under consideration included raising the box high enough that warmer water would prevent the slush from forming, or using heated water or methanol to prevent the crystals from forming.
Even as officials pondered their next move, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry said she must to continue to manage expectations of what the containment box can do.
"This dome is no silver bullet to stop the leak," she said.
A petroleum chemist and geologist said the icy hydrates are a common problem at depths greater than 1,200 feet.
"At this water depth and the nature of the containment vessel, it's hard to know what their options really are," said Art Johnson of Kenner, La., who is president and chief of exploration of Hydrate Energy International.
Originally posted by 2.5: So with the amount of oil already loose in the gulf, WILL it kill nearly everything in the gulf for hundreds of years?
not hundreds - but - it certainly will never be the same in our lifetime. all we need now is a huricane to wash that crap miles inland to make for a complete ecological mess.
It will not "kill everything in the Gulf"--or even close to it, but it will probably affect the littoral estuary systems significantly. And, there already existed, and has existed long since before offshore drilling began, a very large 'dead zone' in the Gulf of Mexico, in the approx area of the current spill.
Eversince seeing my first blowout up close and personal, I've always said, someday, they're gonna drill off into something that man's technical know how can't handle. I don't think this is it, but someday, its going to happen. If not for the extreme depth, this one would have already been killed.
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10:44 AM
2.5 Member
Posts: 43224 From: Southern MN Registered: May 2007
Eversince seeing my first blowout up close and personal, I've always said, someday, they're gonna drill off into something that man's technical know how can't handle. I don't think this is it, but someday, its going to happen. If not for the extreme depth, this one would have already been killed.
and you probably don't just mean this...
[This message has been edited by 2.5 (edited 05-11-2010).]
No, but it would not surprise me to hear some previously unknown or primeival deep earth microbe gets unleashed upon the surface dwellers. There are microbes, that actually "eat" crude oil, so it's not beyond the realm of possibility, tho I was really thinking of a well with so much pressure that it is not possible to kill it with a column of mud, cement slurry, or relief drilling thru a 2nd well.
There seems to be a lot of questions over 2 things. 1. Was--or was not--the cement top plug set? 2. Who ordered the heavy weight column of drilling mud replaced with lighter seawater?--(and why?),
Since the well was supposedly already TD'd--(drilled to total depth), I'm not understanding why they would have made that seawater for mud exchange unless they had a BH plug already set and tested.
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Three big oil and oil service companies all pointed fingers at one another for blame in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in testimony Tuesday at the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
While saying that it was too early to make a final determination of the cause of the April 20 blowout that started the spill, the companies stressed one another's failures.
BP America President Lamar McKay stressed the failure of the blowout preventer owned by rig operator Transocean. "The systems are intended to fail-close and be fail-safe," McKay said. "Sadly and for reasons we do not yet understand, in this case, they were not."
But Transocean chief executive Steven Newman said the blowout preventers "were clearly not the root cause of the explosion." He said they might have been damaged by debris made of cement and steel casing material blown upward because of other failures.
"The one thing we know with certainty is that on the evening of April 20 there was a sudden, catastrophic failure of the cement, the casing, or both," Newman said. The cementing job was done by Halliburton.
Newman said that "the cementing sub-contractor is responsible for encasing the well in cement, for putting a temporary cement plug in the top of the well, and for ensuring the integrity of the cement."
He said the failure of the cement or casing could have been the result of a number of miscalculations, but stressed that many key decisions were made by BP as the operator of the lease.
He said that BP had directed that drilling mud used to counter pressure from the well be replaced by sea water. He also said that by April 17 the well had been completed and the blowout preventer was to be moved off site soon. "The attention now being given to the BOPs in this case is somewhat ironic because at the time of the explosion the drilling process was completed," he said.
Halliburton's Tim Probert also tried to deflect blame, saying, "We understand that the drilling contractor . . . proceeded to displace the riser with seawater prior to the planned placement of the final cement plug." That plug was designed to keep the oil and gas in the well, a final step before pulling the drilling rig away from the well. Probert said that the final cement plug was never set.
BP's McKay also said that Transocean as operator of the well was responsible for its safety and that certain control indicators might have suggested instability in the well before the blowout.
As far as the BOPs not working, I suspect they were never activated. I have nothing to base that on but intuition, but closing a set of shear rams on a drillstring is a last resort and drillers and supervisors are hesitant to do so, as it means the riser is lost, any string within the casing is lost, and the capability to pump kill fluid downhole is also lost. BUT, I've been away from it a long time, have no deepwater experience, and technology has changed a heck of a lot since 1991.
I'm pretty sure "someone" already knows exactly what took place and it just hasn't been divulged yet, tho it must be remembered, that drilling into unknown formations is a crapshoot at best, and even with the best precautions, anything can and often does happen. I don't know what TD was on this particular well, but they had nearly a mile of riser just to reach seabed. IF TD was 5000 additional feet, that means a 2 mile column of liquid on top of the producing formation. Even if it were just seawater, with an approx weight of 8.5 lbs/gal, bottom hole pressure exerted by that column would be significant. I can't extrapolate exactly how much, because I do not know: 1. The diameter of the casings. 2. What sort or size string was taking up room within that casing.
but still, that liquid column was not enough to keep the beast caged within the formation---unless something went awry with the casing itself.
I've personally seen nearly 7K PSI on a well, with 18# mud on 6000' and it did not end well. Casing failed, and it blew the well out (on land) and the underground blowout took the entire rig and surrounding area down with it--drilling rig, crew qtrs, Schumberger trucks, and about 5 acres of land dissappeared into the earth. The 100'+ derrick went down standing up, so that gives you an idea how deep underground the problem manifested itself.
Originally posted by Pyrthian: is the Gulf of Mexico dead yet?
No. By most accounts it is reported that one would never know it happened if they did not know it did. Beaches are clean, bird sanctuaries seem unaffected, as do fisheries.
http://www.slashfood.com/20...ary-of-the-bp-spill/ Today marks the one-year anniversary of the BP oil spill, and caps a very tough year for Gulf fishermen. Many are still struggling to stay in business while being dogged by lingering consumer doubt over the safety of the very seafood they're harvesting.
Images of dead dolphins and sea turtles that washed ashore earlier this month fueled concerns over just where the estimate 200 million gallons of crude oil and 1.8 million gallons of dispersants ended up. In the meantime, plenty of Gulf residents continue to harbor anger over the spill. At BP's annual meeting last week, protesters, including Gulf fishermen, rallied to be heard.
Bryon Encalade, president of the Louisiana Oystermen Association, told The Guardian, "We've not been made whole: our fishing grounds have been depleted, our oysters are dead and we're not receiving the funds we need to support and sustain ourselves. We're seeing money going everywhere but at ground zero."
And, one year later, long-term effects of the oil spill are still unclear.
"We have yet to understand the magnitude of the impact," renowned oceanographer Sylvia Earle tells the Houston Chronicle, adding that it can take several decades to understand the impact of the catastrophe on wild populations.
http://www.southcoasttoday..../104170358/-1/NEWS06 Across the Mississippi River in Pointe a La Hache, oysterman Stanley Encalade is more certain of the spill's toll. Encalade and others say they are barely hanging on after officials flooded shellfishing grounds with river water to keep out the oil, but killing oysters.
Before Katrina, Encalade says he made about $50,000 a year. But BP payments are based on the most recent years' business, when he was climbing out of hurricane-induced debt. So far, he's gotten a $12,000 check from the compensation fund set up for those whose livelihoods were affected by the spill.
Encalade worries it could be years before the oyster come back. So he's refitting his boat, Lady Pamela, with shrimping nets, but that is not a long-term answer.
"You're going to put me out of business for five or six years and you're going to pay me for the worst two years of my life? No man, I don't think so," Encalade says. "It's not over by a longshot."
A: I think we are too eager to have quick answers to questions that do not lend themselves readily to short-term analysis. Prince William Sound (where the Exxon Valdez ran aground), for example, was 1989. It's taken a couple of decades to begin to realize the apparent impact on sea otters, the herring, all these populations which appear to have taken a hit. You have to qualify these things because it is not a laboratory where everything can be quantified. We just don't have good data about what existed before the spill, so it's very tricky trying to gauge the absolute impact after the spill.
Q: Have you seen evidence yet that the reproductive cycles of marine life have been harmed?
A: I think we are too eager to have quick answers to questions that do not lend themselves readily to short-term analysis. Prince William Sound (where the Exxon Valdez ran aground), for example, was 1989. It's taken a couple of decades to begin to realize the apparent impact on sea otters, the herring, all these populations which appear to have taken a hit. You have to qualify these things because it is not a laboratory where everything can be quantified. We just don't have good data about what existed before the spill, so it's very tricky trying to gauge the absolute impact after the spill.
A nice politically correct Non-answer to a very specific question. designed to placate everyone while answering absolutely nothing. But in this day and age, I'm not surprised.
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11:20 AM
Pyrthian Member
Posts: 29569 From: Detroit, MI Registered: Jul 2002
A nice politically correct Non-answer to a very specific question. designed to placate everyone while answering absolutely nothing. But in this day and age, I'm not surprised.
Did you read the entire interview? If not, perhaps you should. Sylvia Earle is one of the world's leading oceanographers and is the explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society. She has led more than 400 expeditions worldwide and spent more than 7,000 hours underwater in connection with her research. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Earle
As a non-partisan scientist and researcher of course her answer wasn't meant to be conclusive about a subject we don't (and can't) have the answers to yet. You want a definitive short term answer to a question with long-term implications. It's like being diagnosed with cancer and asking the doc if you're going to die. He could give you a yes or no answer, or he could give you a politically correct non-answer to your very specific question. Would you be surprised? I wouldn't.
The gulf ecosystem is very, very large so I understand completely why it's impossible to have definitive answers on long term issues caused by the spill. It's only been a year. The problems at Prince William Sound are still playing out today, more than twenty years later, so trying to predict what the gulf ecology will be like two decades from now would be meaningless.
I don't give a crap if she's the queen mother--she was asked a specific question and danced around it like a little child or seasoned politician.
(No, I did not read the entire article yet) See how easy it is? You asked a specific question--I gave a specific, straightforward, honest answer. It simply is not that difficult.
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Have you seen...?
Either she has--or, she has not.
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01:52 PM
cliffw Member
Posts: 35899 From: Bandera, Texas, USA Registered: Jun 2003
Originally posted by JazzMan: You want a definitive short term answer to a question with long-term implications. It's like being diagnosed with cancer and asking the doc if you're going to die. He could give you a yes or no answer, or he could give you a politically correct non-answer to your very specific question. Would you be surprised? I wouldn't.
C'mon Jizzy, . We already have a global warming bashing thread, . Go take this same crap argument over there. Again. We have had millenniums to research the environment. Yet, some purport that short term implications represent long term answers. Jeeze, just last year, the dumbocrats were predicting doom and gloom for the Gulf, . I am not surprised by your response.
C'mon Jizzy, . We already have a global warming bashing thread, . Go take this same crap argument over there. Again. We have had millenniums to research the environment. Yet, some purport that short term implications represent long term answers. Jeeze, just last year, the dumbocrats were predicting doom and gloom for the Gulf, . I am not surprised by your response.
Friends don't let friends keyboard drunk...
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03:56 PM
cliffw Member
Posts: 35899 From: Bandera, Texas, USA Registered: Jun 2003
------------gee---Ya Think?
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