quote Originally posted by maryjane:

Awesome! Thanks!



Edit for PAGE 3 OWNAGE!

[This message has been edited by Rallaster (edited 06-03-2010).]

Duct tape always sticks where you don't want it.

quote Originally posted by spark1: Duct tape always sticks where you don't want it.

LOL. Good one.

Am i the only one here growing impatient with the hoses that keep getting tangled up? Seriously, it's been 4 hours already, you would think they would have used that duct tape for that.

quote Originally posted by twofatguys: Why couldn't they just unbolt the head, and bolt a new one on?

quote Originally posted by jetman: Excellent, that's what I was thinking too.

1. The ROVs don't have the ability to exert enough torque to unscrew the bolts/nuts. The bolt diameter is 2 1/2". I saw the reccomended tightening torque posted elsewhere earlier today, but don't have it handy. It's a bunch. Keep in mind, this thing was originally assembled to the BOPs on the deck of the Deepwater Horizon, then lowered down as a complete assy.

2. You can't tell it much by the rov cams, but the flange bolt holes have counterbores. You are only seeing a part of the bolt and nut in the videos. No way to saw them off.

3. The end cut is really irrelevant as long as the grommet will fit over the stub. The seal will be on the sides and on the bevel part coming up off the flange. You can see the counterbores in the drawing below. Yes--it's an artist's rendention, but fairly accurate. Take my word for it, that ain't no straight and simple flange.
Again:

[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 06-03-2010).]

If this does not work we need to contact CHUCK NORRIS. With one gulp of air he will swim down and punch that well till it stops!!

quote Originally posted by RotrexFiero: If this does not work we need to contact CHUCK NORRIS. With one gulp of air he will swim down and punch that well till it stops!!

That would be one punch.

Brad

Red Adair could fix it.

quote Originally posted by maryjane: 1. The ROVs don't have the ability to exert enough torque to unscrew the bolts/nuts. The bolt diameter is 2 1/2". I saw the reccomended tightening torque posted elsewhere earlier today, but don't have it handy. It's a bunch. Keep in mind, this thing was originally assembled to the BOPs on the deck of the Deepwater Horizon, then lowered down as a complete assy.

Ever hear of a impact gun battery powered or otherwise?

Steve

------------------
Technology is great when it works,
and one big pain in the ass when it doesn't.
Detroit iron rules all the rest are just toys.

Enterprise ROV 1 is action right now.

Cap looks to be in place. Oil everywhere.

Brad

quote Originally posted by Cheever3000: Red Adair could fix it.

He's dead and so is 'Coots' Matthews of Boots and Coots fame. Boots Hanson is retired and the company now beongs to Halliburton.

BP called Chuck Norris but he said his schedule was full and .........

quote .........besides, they don't need me. Evidently, anyone can fix this, tho it's really ironic that a bunch of people who have no small problems just keeping a 20 year old mid engine car running, all seem to know exactly how to plug a 13,000 ft out of control oil well a mile below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. Who knew? Yours, Chuck

quote Originally posted by maryjane: Care to tell me how you intend to dissapate all that back torque while floating in the water? ROV's thrusters sure won't do it. "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction"

Grab the pipe below where you are taking the bolts off?

Just an idea, I've seen them holding stuff a lot lately.

Get on chat.

Brad

quote Originally posted by twofatguys: Grab the pipe below where you are taking the bolts off?

I get it, like what the astronauts do, anchor themselves down, right? You could use the force of the torque to tighten your grip too, like the principal of how a pipe wrench gets tighter as you twist. But then again, we're talking about a mile under the surface and little remote vehicles.

Man alive, that's alot of oil gushing out, I sure hope they get that controlled fast.

Looks like the flow may now be coming from below the flange. I've been surprised all along that the BOPs still have any integrity. Maybe they don't. This is why everyone has been so hesitant to just "put a big friggin screw in it"--no one knows what the integrity is regarding the top casing joint, the liner joint, or the BOP is. Plug the flow off, and it just leaks somewhere else--maybe from 100' down in the mud zone. Might even blow the whole mess out of the sea floor and then you ARE screwed till the relief wells start pumping kill weigh mud from the bottom intersect point.

quote Originally posted by maryjane: ... till the relief wells start pumping kill weigh mud from the bottom intersect point.

That's something I've been puzzled about.
How can they be *that exact* when drilling the relief wells, that they'll intersect with the existing one?
Is everything plotted on GPS?
Does GPS even work that far down?

Here's a link to the company that made the Flexjoint coupling: http://www.oilstates.com/fw...AE-Products-369.html It was probably a non-stock, special order item.

edit: That rig looks top heavy. Wonder if they can/will use guy cables to stabilize it?

[This message has been edited by spark1 (edited 06-04-2010).]

quote Originally posted by maryjane: "get on chat" Can't--too many tabs open to other discussions and trying to watch the video. "connecting to server" "connecting to server" "connecting to server" "connecting to server" "connecting to server"......................

Ahhh, well the video is on on chat.

Brad

quote Originally posted by Raydar: That's something I've been puzzled about. How can they be *that exact* when drilling the relief wells, that they'll intersect with the existing one? Is everything plotted on GPS? Does GPS even work that far down?

GPS isn't anywhere close to precise enough even if it did work that far down. They use a type of magnetic tracking to "home in" on the existing casing. I'll see if I can find an explanation of it, but they'll hit the center of the casing within a couple om Milimeters somewhere around 13000 ft vertical Total Depth (but a lot of that new hole will be horizontal or close to it) , pull out of the hole, and put a mill on, run back in the hole and mill a window in the side of the old casing--with heavy wt mud in their own casing. They'll break thru, pump enough heavy mud and cement into the old well from bottom, till cement shows up in the annulous, then pump some more till it flows out into the formation as well. It's at that moment-----and not before--that this one is killed. No nuke, no big azz screw, no geodesic dome, no bread pan--just mud and cement like god intended.

They claim they can find a dime in a goat's ass 5 miles down.

Wow.
The technology amazes me. Based on that, it obviously shouldn't be a problem to do. "Shouldn't" being the operative word.

Thanks again for the explanations.

In simple terms:
In the old days just to maintain a straight hole, (when I worked the rigs) we would drop a survey tool (a long tube) down the drill pipe right before we were ready to come out to do a bit change. When we got the last collar up on the foor, we took the bit off, removed the tube, took the tube apart, and removed the capsule. In it, was a little papaer graph, about the size of a silver dollar. When that tool travelled down the drill pipe and hit the bottom hole assy, a little stylus poked a hole in the graph paper. The graph paper had concentric lines on it, and once it was removed, it was looked at thru a magnifying glass, and a lot of math then done which told us approximately "where" we were. Not exactly rocket science and no where near accurate enough to intersect a piece of casing 2 miles down.

Later, they went to using a wireline unit, meaning the tools would be dropped down the drillpipe via a loooong skiiny line, then brought back up without having to bring the whole drillstring to surface. After that, MWD came into being--monitoring while drilling. Signals are sent down and back up the drill string and even via the mud. They now have mud driven motors with a bit on the end, and they are steerable from surface via wireless interface. I don't begin to understand how they work, but I do know they are accurate as heck--or at least as accurate as the operator allows them to be.

For casing interceptions,
The new magnetic stuff actually 'pings' for the casing like sonar on a ship, uses it's wireless communications, and steerable mud motors. Before those days, when you got close, you had to pull a survey--find where ya were, go back in the hole, kick off a couple degrees, drill 5-6 ft, run another survey, pull out of the hole, read survey, go back in--drill5-6 ft again etc etc. It was a very slow process. Drilling a relief well is never fun. You're on your toes all the time, because you already know you're messing with something that really really wants to come up and bite ya on the butt. Shakin hands with the devil more or less. Then of course, you're in a hurry, because the reason you're drilling a relief well --is because one rig is either already in trouble or already burned to the ground and blowing oil and gas all over hells half acre. So you're axholes and elbows while you're turning, half afraid to go to sleep when you aren't working, and once you get TD, there's all that mud and cement, and gawd knows how many Company Men--not to mention mud pumps running balls to the wall pressuring up lines youre too scared to stand near--with mud weights that would kill everone old enough to die if a hose or standpipe blew off.

There's a million things that can go wrong when you're drilling a well and all of them can kill ya. Molten supher, H2S, high pressure saltwater, live steam, low pressure gas that gets in your mud and 'aerates' it, making it weigh less/gal than you think it does, not to mention make it hard to pump (it compresses). Ya ever smelled brackish saltwater--black colored saltwater that has sat for a long time stagnating? Multiply that odor by a couple hundred thousand years and you'll smell something you won't ever forget.

Drilling mud is the key--always. Neglect your mud for 1 hour and you're in harm's way. Pull the drill string from the hole and don't replace that drill pipe area with an equal volume of mud and you screwed up big time--I saw it done. You turn your pumps off, and mud comes up the hole, you can bet your butt the well is flowing and the beast is right behind it, and that beast really really just loves to walk about the face of the earth once in a while showing humans what nature is truly all about--and there's almost always just a 5 man crew tryin to keep him caged up. They're like a crew on a ship that catches fire in the middle of the ocean--you have 1 choice and that is to fight the fire. Or die. Don't know what they pay nowdays, but back when i was in the oilfield, a driller (the supervisor of that crew) made about $11/hr. Think about it next time you put gas in your car.

fyi
This particular well is what is known as 'over pressured'. That has nothing to do with what you can see on a gauge tho. Many wells (most) are pressured by the formation of gas over the eons, and this one is too, but more importantly, it is pressurized by a gazillion tons of geological formations and ocean bearing down on top of it. The 'stuff' that is 'over' it is pressuring it. It's flowing a lot right now, but it can get worse--a LOT worse if all that formation decides to give way and come crashing down on the reservoir, making it the mother of all blowouts.

I miss the oilfield sometimes.

Here is an active multicam site. Works well for me. Click the link below the cam and it opens in windows media player.

http://blog.alexanderhiggin...e-oil-spill-cam.html

quote Originally posted by maryjane: ... I miss the oilfield sometimes.

I never would have guessed that.

quote Originally posted by Wolfhound: Here is an active multicam site. Works well for me. Click the link below the cam and it opens in windows media player. ...

Excellent! Thanks for that!
I have to click on the image itself to enlarge it.

I find that it (or something) crashes my browser after a few minutes. Stilll better then trying to organize windows. though.

I wonder if they have considered retrieving the shorter section of riser to evaluate how much erosion has taken place?
That could help evaluate the other options they have.

quote Originally posted by maryjane: Or die. Don't know what they pay nowdays, but back when i was in the oilfield, a driller (the supervisor of that crew) made about $11/hr. Think about it next time you put gas in your car.

Worms are making about 24, drillers are making about 30-32. But that doesn't tell the whole story. There's bottom hole pay, and bonus pay, and safety pay and per diem and oil based mud pay, and on and on and on.

quote Originally posted by WBailey1041: Worms are making about 24, drillers are making about 30-32. But that doesn't tell the whole story. There's bottom hole pay, and bonus pay, and safety pay and per diem and oil based mud pay, and on and on and on.

Good gawd almighty!! Why, back in the days when we had men of iron and wooden derricks..............

I'm still watching, though Rumors chat stopped when that ROV went down.

Brad

Dumb idea department....

Too bad they couldn't burn the oil off right at the well head, you know, mix the oil with air and ignite it.

///// Dumb idea....

quote Originally posted by jetman: Dumb idea department.... Too bad they couldn't burn the oil off right at the well head, you know, mix the oil with air and ignite it. ///// Dumb idea....

I've also wondered why they couldn't do it.
Probably too difficult to get enough oxygen down to it. (Gasoline burns at ~14:1 air/fuel. Not sure about crude. Regardless, it would take a metric crapload of air. or even pure O2.)
Probably too cold to maintain, even if you could get it to light.

Edit - NAWWWS!!! (Sorry. Hadda say it.)

[This message has been edited by Raydar (edited 06-04-2010).]

quote Originally posted by Raydar: I've also wondered why they couldn't do it. Probably too difficult to get enough oxygen down to it. (Gasoline burns at ~14:1 air/fuel. Not sure about crude. Regardless, it would take a metric crapload of air. or even pure O2.) Probably too cold to maintain, even if you could get it to light. Edit - NAWWWS!!! (Sorry. Hadda say it.)

Just a REALLY good... are ya ready for it? Oxidizer. I'm sure there are oxidizers that will break the water down to it's basic components so it will burn... Maybe...

If we can weld under water they can light it.

Steve

------------------
Technology is great when it works,
and one big pain in the ass when it doesn't.
Detroit iron rules all the rest are just toys.

quote Originally posted by Rallaster: Just a REALLY good... are ya ready for it? Oxidizer. I'm sure there are oxidizers that will break the water down to it's basic components so it will burn... Maybe...

Lets ship in a buttload of those things that people are selling to convert water to hydrogen and oxygen, so that people can get 40 MPG in their Suburbans.
That ought to do it.
Proff?! You here?

quote Originally posted by 84fiero123: If we can weld under water they can light it.

But that's just it. I thought they could only weld down to ~3000 feet or so. (Think I remember reading that.)

[This message has been edited by Raydar (edited 06-04-2010).]

quote Lets ship in a buttload of those things that people are selling to convert water to hydrogen and oxygen, so that people can get 40 MPG in their Suburbans. That ought to do it. Proff?! You here?

It's called an HHO generator. I've considered putting one in the Fiero...

This link has all the web cams. You have to scroll since they're not neatly tiled but that's ok for me. I did notice that it takes a moment or two for all the cams to load up, be patient.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-b...etail?entry_id=64980

Is it just me or is the pipe now gushing out 4x as much oil as it was?

Why is no one saying this? They try to spin it as "we are capturing oil" but NO DUH! You just made 4x as much come out, good thing you're getting some of it!

*frustrated!*

------------------

quote Originally posted by Steven_Kreg: Is it just me or is the pipe now gushing out 4x as much oil as it was? Why is no one saying this? They try to spin it as "we are capturing oil" but NO DUH! You just made 4x as much come out, good thing you're getting some of it! *frustrated!*

No one will care as long as it is not affecting them personally.

I can’t access any of those web feeds and the news has put it on the back burner.
If it has gotten worse you are the only one who is saying anything Steve.
Until it kills all the sea life no one will care.

Steve

------------------
Technology is great when it works,
and one big pain in the ass when it doesn't.
Detroit iron rules all the rest are just toys.

I don't know that it's any worse than it was.
Don't think it's any better, though.

Gonna be hard to tell, since whatever is coming out is still under extremely high pressure.