Is someone watching the Olympus ROV1? It has been looking at the seabed for some time and it seems to be quite clear that there is clouds of black stuff coming from the seabed. And before anyone says it's stilt from the thrusters, it seems not to be. The ROV seems to be steady and looking down to seafloor and clouds of black stuff are slowly emerging from the ground. I made some screen grabs also just in case. Not sure if they prove anything, but still, if need be I can post them.

The NOAA ship is the PISCES - its traffic pattern is interesting:
http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/default.aspx?mmsi=369970145&centerx=-88...

That's silt being stirred off the bottom by Anderson Cooper's Russian submarine.

I'm no expert (although I have stayed at a few Holiday Inns) but it reminds me of the same video feed from BOA 2 that had been "sitting" at the base of the well looking for leaks. Every so often, the ROV would stir up the mud/silt and be swallowed in a cloudy mist. That stuff looks very much like BOA 2's mud/silt "mist".

More on ROVs looking at the seafloor. I find this one interesting. Caveat: can't vouch for the source as this is like a second hand video, so take it FWIW. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WsEdK8aFng&feature=related

I read that exchange this morning but it took me forever to dig this little gem out of the dustbin of my memory:
An English professor wrote the words: "A woman without her man is nothing" on the chalkboard and asked his students to punctuate it correctly.

All of the males in the class wrote: "A woman, without her man, is nothing."

Are you ready for this...........?

All the females in the class wrote: "A woman: without her, man is nothing."

Punctuation is powerful.

Have a great day.

Hurt myself laughing.

Me too (both times).

No, I get to finish, hopefully. ;^)

Pico's piece may be silly, but what would you expect of a self-conscious exercise in exegesis, an explication of the nuances and intricacies of strange little squiggles and their impacts on meanings? Surely, however, nobody, competent herself in wordcraft, would honestly question Iyer's facility with language, notwithstanding the triviality of his message. Come on, now, Loris, you know he's good at it; he just annoys you.

lotus: Of course, we must all be friends. How lonely would lit geeks and language freaks be if we didn't seize every opportunity for fellowship in this world where the vast majority believes that semantics is only important in source code?

Why do they have to spill any oil? Aren't the choke and kill lines to the old BOP still connected, just valved off?

Why can't they just attach to the new choke/kill lines on the new closure device? I though they had valves that were closed?

Sounds like BP doesn't want a real flow test.

I agree fd - it's likely the rate and overall spill volume will be a negotiated amount, for at least two reasons:
- any measurement now - and we are days, if not weeks, away from having the capacity to contain the maximum estimated flow - would just show the flow for those days remaining before the well is finally killed. The flow could have been significantly larger in June than it is in July. We'll never know the true amount that has been spilled.
- both sides will agree to a settlement to avoid a protracted legal battle.

I'm all for leaving the well shut. It seems that the two arguments for reopening it are to reduce the risk of an underground blowout and to learn the flow rate. If Chu can be persuaded that the current monitoring is adequate to give a warning about a potential problem with leaks, that would satisfy me. As for the flow rate, we'll never know what it has been the past three months. I find the argument that by not collecting, BP will potentially avoid paying a larger fine unconvincing, since, as noted above, there in all likelihood be a settlement. Somehow, whatever the size of the fine BP pays, I imagine that other companies have already gotten the message to increase safety awareness. If they haven't, another couple of billion dollars in fines isn't going to change their minds.

In any event, sending more money from a fine into some government bucket will do less for the well-being of the Gulf environment, the health of the creatures that live in it, and the economic well-being of those who live around it than will keeping one more drop of oil and dispersant from entering the water. There have already been anecdotal reports that tourist reservations started picking up as soon as word spread that the well was shut down, albeit temporarily.

In addition, there is inherent risk in collecting the oil and flaring the gas at the surface. A few weeks ago Allen mentioned that there were around 1,500 men in that city of ships and a number of other ships have been added to the area since then. Why risk their lives at this point if we don't have to?

May we never see those shots of oil & gas leaking out into the sea again.

Now they need to figure out a way to set an "official rate"

I am fast coming to the conclusion that the whole issue of determing the flow rate for the purposes of fining BP is becoming an internet mneme all of its own. It is interesting that the whole idea of fining BP under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act was something that was first breeched in the press, not by a government agency. It seems that almost any action by BP is now being viewed as a way of somehow avoiding the truth with respect to the fine.

It is worth pointing out that pursuing such a fine is up to the US government. They have a number of options before them, and some interesting possibilities exist. The Act actually provides two different mechanisms to fine a company. The mechanims are exclusive - they can only use of of them. If the government elects to fine BP using the paragraph 6 mechanism (which limits the total fine to $125,000) they don't fine them with paragraph 7 - which is the open ended, up to $3000 per bbl bit. This means that there is a mechanism by which the government can actually kill the option of the big per bbl fine, if it so wished. The government could OTOH cut a deal where they claim a specific spilled amount and BP agrees no to contest it. That would allow a middle ground.

The actual determination of the fine - if it is done under paragraph 7 is, however, up to the court that hears the case - not the government. Which may mean that the government will be less likely to pursue this option - since it relinquishes control to the court for what is going to be a very sensitive political matter. There is a time when the executive needs to act as the executive. This incident is way past that point.

In the end there is a lot of room for the court to move over the fine anyway.

(E) JURISDICTION.—An action to impose a civil penalty
under this paragraph may be brought in the district court
of the United States for the district in which the defendant
is located, resides, or is doing business, and such court
shall have jurisdiction to assess such penalty.

(8) DETERMINATION OF AMOUNT.—In determining the
amount of a civil penalty under paragraphs (6) and (7), the Ad-
ministrator, Secretary, or the court, as the case may be, shall
consider the seriousness of the violation or violations, the eco-
nomic benefit to the violator, if any, resulting from the viola-
tion, the degree of culpability involved, any other penalty for
the same incident, any history of prior violations, the nature,
extent, and degree of success of any efforts of the violator to
minimize or mitigate the effects of the discharge, the economic
impact of the penalty on the violator, and any other matters
as justice may require.

So what happened to Allen's statement yesterday that the collection will start? Who is in charge? Once again BP says the CG in charge, and then tries immediately contradicts them. Collect the oil. Lets see how much is leaking....is an important part of the assessment of the damage that BP has caused.

So what happened to Allen's statement yesterday that the collection will start? Who is in charge? Once again BP says the CG in charge, and then tries immediately contradicts them. Collect the oil. Lets see how much is leaking....is an important part of the assessment of the damage that BP has caused.

q7, for you and others new to this site you will see at the top left of your Oil Drum screen the word search and a place to type in your search term. I typed in biochar and got more than 10 pages of results from previous Oil Drum articles and discussions

http://www.theoildrum.com/search/google?cx=000874532052579887663:mezzmhx...

There is an option for advanced search as well
For help, read Google's basic and advanced instructions.
You can also obtain filterable and sortable results using our advanced search engine based on Apache Solr.

The Oil Drum has been around for some years and I doubt that there is a single energy topic that has not been touched on in passing or in detail. The Deepwater Horizon accident has been front and center of late, but The Oil Drum has been dealing with all aspects of energy for quite some time.

I think it was Rear Adm Mary that made that statement

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-25/bp-says-1-000-barrels-of-oil...

BPie is stealing my OysterMen. Where can I get a check for over-priced Apalachicolas? Ima being oppressed by the giant lake of oilz.

Also: It's quiet. Things look sweet from here. White sand, cheeeep Shrimp. Life goes on.

Except for the Oyster shortage.

How about in the internal BP confidential memo from April 27, 2010?

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_edvxM1dkFlo/TBKoz6O2HwI/AAAAAAAAAgw/VyQv-EC-wZ...

Or is it only real if you see it on the TV?

Right at the beginning:

BP Oil Spill Day 25: How Much Is Really Leaking?

ABCnew By JEFFREY KOFMAN, DARIN BYRNE and KATE McCARTHY
May 14, 2010

Following the rig explosion on April 20 BP said about 1,000 barrels of oil a day were leaking into the Gulf of Mexico, an estimate the Coast Guard later raised to 5,000 barrels a day. Now, on day 25, there's speculation that the gusher could be as much as five times as big. ...

More importantly -- re: the 5,000 BPD -- There's a quote from BP's Suttles later in that article.

BP's chief operating officer Doug Suttles, pushed back against that claim on "GMA" today, saying it is "almost impossible to get a precise number."

"Ourselves and people from NOAA (National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration) and others believe that something around 5,000 [barrels]…is the best estimate."

Now, I don't much care who made the estimate. BP is clearly endorsing it. When someone else makes a more reasonable estimate, they discredit it by talking about how hard it is to get precise. Well, it sure is, but who was concerned about "precise" at that point? We'd have settled for a range that was in the ballpark.

It might be safer to call them disingenuous. I'll still say they were practicing the art of deception.

To my knowledge of events from April 20 forward, BP has never officially estimated a flow rate. All rates of flow have come from the government, beginning on April 24. BP may have agreed to a government estimate, but no one from the company has ever said the rate of hydrocarbon flow from Macondo is xxx,xxx bbl/day.

As I understand it, the oil coming out is at about 200 degrees, so if there's any escaping, it would warm things up.

They could be strain gauges (Wheatstone bridge) or crystal gauges (quartz or saphire or micro-saphire)

Dima, if you have a sensor inside the system, it's likely to be a quartz piezoelectric gauge. The gauge is calibrated at the surface, and it sends a signal up a wire to the surface. The signal is just indicating how the quartz is being squeezed, and the software converts that to psi.

Quartz pressure transducers are very accurate, 0.01 percent or 1 part in 100,000. At 6700 psi you would be good to .1 psi or so. I suspect you can get more accuracy if you want to pay for it.

This is from one manufacturer that we use.

http://www.paroscientific.com/pdf/dqadvantage.pdf

Just a couple of comments, and then I will let this go. In my original post, I was incorrect in using the term psig - I should have certainly used psiD as suggested in a previous thread. My previous question/comments should have been posed in the context of whether or not the pressures being reported were differential or absolute pressures.

After combining oil and gas into a single liquid phase using some simple historical fluid property correlations, I calculated an approximate pressure gradient of the static fluid column of .215 psi/ft. If there is no water, or leftover mud, or leftover kill fluid, or whatever in the hole, this gradient should be reasonable for back-of-envelope calculations of pressure versus depth on a static fluid column.

After all of my hand waving, it just strikes me as a REALLY interesting coincidence that the difference in original reservoir pressure and current bottom-hole-pressure=cap pressure+(18360.-5067.)*.215 is close to the pressure at the sea floor. I am willing to buy into any number of explanations - reservoir depletion, insidious in-flow from the reservoir and back-flow to your choice of reentry point somewhere in the well, cluttered well bore, subspace tunneling of energy from the thermosphere to reservoir, whatever - but the closeness of the value makes me want to have SOME assurance that the cap pressures are absolute and not differential pressures.

ARRROOOGH!!!!!!!

Psig and psia are 1 atm apart.

Only at sea level.

PSIA - pressure above VACUUM, absolute relative to ZERO

PSIG - pressure relative to AMBIENT - NOT atmospheric!!! In day to day use, eg filling your car tyres ambient is ROUGHLY 14.7 psia but depends on barometer. If you are 5,000 feet under the hogin it is pressure relative to the depth you are at ie your, or rather the gauge's, ambient pressure.

If the pressure of the water at your depth is 2000 psi above that of the surface then a PSIA gauge will read 2014.7 approx while your PSIG gauge will read 0 as its ambient is the same as that which it is measuring.

NAOM

I would use a long liner. But I assume the liners they ran above it are all pretty stout, and they got at least 10,000 psi burst pressure rating all the way up.

"owned" in the sense that: "unless Cameron inspected the Chinese modifications and blessed them they would be off the hook: it wasn't a Cameron BOP..it was a BP BOP rebuilt by the Chinese." Transocean may be the owner per se but they complained that BP had not given them the updated design drawings. If that's true Transocean isn't off the hook IMHO: a critical safety device is owned by them and they don' know the design?

According to an article in the Guardian newspaper, the MC252-B BOP was sold to Transocean by Cameron. Transocean claim that BP ordered them to overhaul the BOP in China, which "is common in the industry".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/18/deepwater-horizon-blow...

@gary: in order to begin capture or intersect macondo to kill the pressure needs to be released some. i believe those are the reasons.

Not to mention that a few threads back it was noted that the flex joint connector was only rated to 5,000 psi. I presume each day that it has more than that going against it creates a greater risk it will fail and then the whole second BOP will be toast. Anyone who knows more can correct me, but that is my unprofessional guess.

They'll probably keep it closed until they're ready for the kill procedure.

At that point, you'll need to replace the oil/gas in the blowout well with heavy kill mud. That means, you flow the well at the top, while pumping the mud down the relief well and up the blowout well. As soon as you release the pressure for the oil to leave, the reservoir will start producing again, diluting your kill mud. You flow it this way until most of the blowout well column is filled with the heavy mud.

You would normally pump mud down the relief well down the relief well drill string AND down the annulus around the relief well drill string. They normally pump mud down the annulus with cement pumps or the like.

However, there's an alternative method to the kill mud procedure, a hybrid if you will, where you have the kill mud ready, one in which you would want to have go from the formation to the surface, and then you have what is called a "pill" or a slug of very heavy mud. If you start out with a slug of very heavy mud, it gives you a head start on any dilution by formation fluids. I would expect something like this, now that everyone seems to know the status of the casing integrity. The volumes and the weights of the kill mud are speculative now, but if you have some sharp pencils, you can make a ballpark guess.

In short, the well should be open again for less than eight hours, and perhaps a third that. Sometime during that time the well will stop flowing oil and will flow mud.

Dragonfly, that's an excellent question. My guess is they felt taking the old flange off and putting a new flange on with a set of valves and associated equipment had better be done carefully, and the equipment wasn't on the shelf. I would have moved faster to get it done. I also suggested some crazy ideas in this site which were ignored - they sounded too crazy - such as why not OPEN the BOP valves and let the pipe stuck in there either fly out or drop into the well, and then try to close the BOP's again? There are all sorts of things people proposed, in the end we have the outcome we have.

The executives of British Petroleum can not be extradited for this, the British government would refuse. Also, what are you going to try them for?

This document is an excellent reference for all things related to the DWH. You will find lots of ROV pics & coordinates.

Interesting points from the linked article:

BP ordered the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig, whose explosion led to the worst environmental disaster in US history, to overhaul a crucial piece of the rig's safety equipment in China, the Observer has learnt.

BOP Owner: Transocean DWH
BP had it sent to China for "overhaul".

Experts say that the practice of having such engineering work carried out in China, rather than the US, saves money and is common in the industry.

SOP.

There is no evidence that the significant modifications to the blowout preventer (BOP), which were carried out in China in 2005, caused the equipment to fail. But industry lawyers said BP could be made liable for any mistakes that a Chinese subcontractor made carrying out the work. It would be almost impossible to secure damages in China, where international law is barely recognised.

What were the "significant modifications"? Is this a modification of design or 'overhaul' = disassembly, PM, reassembly (incorrect?) without changin designed fuctionality?

It is understood that lawyers for Cameron International, the manufacturer of the BOP, will argue the device was so significantly modified in China that it no longer resembled the original component, and that Cameron should therefore not be held liable.

Do BOP manufacturers price their overhaul services to encourage owners to send them elsewhere for maintenance, thus absolving them of liability?

Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon, which bought the BOP from Cameron, has already told congressional hearings into the disaster that the modifications were carried out at BP's request and "under its direction" as the lessee of the rig.

Anyone watching the ROVs? All of a sudden it seems very oily down there?

On Olympic Challenger UHD 30 there seems to be oil coming in from the right and on Olympic Challenger UHD 31 it's a mess.

Never been around a bad outbreak of Red Tide, have you?

When I entered this business in the 70's, most of the older, experienced engineers had two mantra's:
1) the solution to pollution is dilution and,
2) industry will never be able to survive the costs of compliance with EPA/OSHA regulations.
Anyone who still believes either of those statements is deluding him/herself.

TFHG, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go out there and see if you can find that submerged American flag that Ben Raines left out there in the submerged oil.

I caught two nice flounder yesterday, right off the old barge near Punta Clara. Summertime seafood goodness. No flags, though.

good fer you tinfoil.

Speaking of sub surface oil, where is the NOAA research fleet?
Surely this is by far the most direct challenge that agency currently faces, the reality of an eco disaster on our shore.
There was some comment posted previously which said the leading NOAA research vessels had been dockside since late May, on HQ orders.
If this is correct, we are missing critical information to correctly evaluate or model this spill and its effects.
Could someone shed some light on this, please?

Ruptured below the wellhead where? Where is the oil and gas that has sprung forth from this rupture? It is being absorbed? Unlikely, no? Perhaps impossible. Why is the pressure rising? We are being lied to about that as well? I am not so sure the evidence supports your hypothesis. Good luck.

only the lawyers will care if the hole is compromised after the well is killed. suttles hedged by saying there is no proof. so, what ya gonna do?

but still something would be better than only BP coverage of the event....

Like independent scientific research results being broadcast by radio Havana? >;^)

The absence of evidence is the surest sign that there is a conspiracy afoot.

kiers, the ROV operators are indeed in private hands, put there are military dudes holding H&K 9 mm pistols to their heads as they operate their vehicles, the CIA has set up a torture chamber in New Orleans just in case they think there are huge oil spills being covered up by BP, AND the president has ordered Men in Black to infiltrate BP's headquarters.

There's a new statement by Thad Allen at the DW Horizon site:

http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/doc/2931/790959/

BTW, keep up the good work folks. I'll chime in if I think I can add anything to the discussion.

Trip

From that link

Why was BP allowed to drill in this location? Both the MMS and BP geologists cautioned against drilling in the location of the Deepwater Horizon due to evidence of a highly volatile methane bubble beneath the seabed. They warned that if this bubble was disturbed and exploded, it could cause a 200 foot tsunami that would virtually wipe out six Gulf states! In spite of all this, MMS waived environmental impact studies for the rig and well.

Somehow we've circled back to huge bubbles and a 200 ft tsunami.

It's still a load of complete nonsense. It's a pity you are taken in by it

Do you honestly believe even the first point?

1. Why was BP allowed to drill in this location? Both the MMS and BP geologists cautioned against drilling in the location of the Deepwater Horizon due to evidence of a highly volatile methane bubble beneath the seabed. They warned that if this bubble was disturbed and exploded, it could cause a 200 foot tsunami that would virtually wipe out six Gulf states!

Over at Huffy Post they say you guys all shill for BP and corrupt government.

Please ask Arianna Huffington about the solubility of permanent gases in water at ambient pressure and temperature and tell me what she says.

If there aren't some fresh images of a chocolate pelican soon, the anti-drilling forces are going to lose some of their effective visuals. Spill Cam was pretty effective, but now it's No Spill Cam.

HuffPo has a bunch of oilcoholics in denial. I missed the part that said, "Why was BP drilling in the Gulf instead of in Bakersfield or Beverly Hills?"
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/31289
What has HuffPo done in the last 90 days to move away from their addiction to FF?

this is what i believe will happen. macondo will be produced and proceeds will go to us gubmint. this is what the argument is about right now.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38273995/ns/disaster_in_the_gulf

You might support him, but he has abandoned you.If he cared, he wouldn't have vacationed in Maine.

Talk and Awe.
That would be a good one for Colin Powell.

Talk = "I'll say anything you want, boss."
Awe = "Aww, I didn't mean it, new boss."

Now that's leadership!

@beagle: this is the argument that will win the day, imo.

The produce-the-well strategy was voiced by former Shell Oil President John Hofmeister, who told "TODAY" he fears that the casing at the base of the well might be too weak to support the ultimate goal of plugging the well with cement.

"Do we have enough casing to hold cement to hold oil in the reservoir," he asked.

"We have a flow, why don't we use that flow," he added. "Let's capture all of the oil if we can. In other words, produce the well. And if this well is damaged, drill another well to be a production well ... the funds could be used to restore the Gulf Coast."

They're actually saying pretty much the same thing...

Suttles, 7/18 briefing

I think that nobody wants to see anymore oil go into the Gulf. Absolutely no one does, but clearly we have to make sure that we don’t make the situation worse and that’s the reason why we're taking this integrity test so cautiously and carefully and have this very, very extensive monitoring program in place.

And as you said the data has been monitored continuously. Its been formally reviewed on a regular basis with all of the experts involved. And I think we will just take this day by day. Clearly we don’t want to reinitiate flow into the Gulf if we don’t have to, but if we need to to make sure things don’t get worse we will. But at this point we'll just take this a day at a time.

Allen,7/18 statement

WASHINGTON - Per my conversation with BP Executive Bob Dudley as recently as 11 a.m. EST today, nothing has changed about the joint agreement announced yesterday between BP and the US government. The ongoing well integrity test will continue until 4 p.m. EST today, with the potential for additional extensions in 24-hour increments. As a condition of the extension, the US government has required significant new monitoring and periodic evaluation and approval by our science team.

Work must continue to better understand the lower than expected pressure readings. This work centers on two plausible scenarios, depletion of oil from the reservoir and potential leakage caused by damage to the well bore or casing.

While we are pleased that no oil is currently being released into the Gulf of Mexico and want to take all appropriate action to keep it that way, it is important that all decisions are driven by the science. Ultimately, we must ensure no irreversible damage is done which could cause uncontrolled leakage from numerous points on the sea floor.

(emphasis added)

"Increasing in-house engineering would be a positive step."

Not if their new engineers pull the same stunts as the engineers they had working on DWH. Those engineers were there to provide cover for cost-cutting practices that do not conform to industry standard or best practices. The cement job is exhibit A for that proposition. (http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/293776-1) BP management seems to have corrupted engineering to justify its risk-taking. It will take more than new engineers to fix that.

With Mark Hafle in charge? BP has hundreds of engineers and, worse, bean-counting risk tolerant managers that killed 11, destroyed a rig, tried to pin blame on Transocean and Halliburton, covertly planned to produce from the relief wells by drilling horizontally into the reservoir, blundered with stupid collection schemes that didn't work, and leaked 3 million bbls into the Gulf while denying they could measure flow.

Thank God the government put Wright in charge of relief well drilling program.

Congress forced them to cough up internal documents that show BP shrugged off the risk of a long tapered liner, ignored Halliburton and bullied Transocean to hurry up and move the rig. They put trainee Kaluza in charge of negative test.

The only way to fix BP America is disband it and impound the assets.

"Increasing in-house engineering would be a positive step."

Yea, that's the ticket. Direct-hire degreed engineers who won't or can't pass a simple engineering licensing exam (no panacea, admittedly), so they can work without personal liability under an "industrial exemption clause" while wearing golden handcuffs monogrammed with the letters "BP".

Having the corporate logo on one's Nomex does not make one a better engineer, just one who has more to lose if he/she dares to say "no" to some manager's hair-brained scheme that will gain the manager another rung on the corporate ladder.

Direct or contract, the engineers must be competent, and they must be prepared to function ethically.

Cross reference all IP numbers from "those other sites" against every one here, and ban all that match. Why not? Every time a coherent poster gets loose in their neck of the woods they ban them, no reason we can't do the same when they come here and spew nonsense.

Then I would say you are not ALL for freedom of speech.

Yes, it's thick in here today! I'm heading outside~!

@oldb: great timely question. so, lets say the bop is a legal matter and should be recovered asap. there will be a hesitancy to do so. more cover to the produce macondo scenario. push the bop recovery way into (10-15 years) the future where people will forget?

Bench,

I'm not sure they'll answer all your questions but I found the following two Kent Wells videos helpful.

Relief Well Overview and Ranging Animation

and Relief Wells Operations Overview

and this article on relief wells on John Wright's site - he's the guy calling the shots on DD3.

Relief wells: Advancements in technology and application engineering make the relief well a more practical blowout control option

It is zoomed in really, really close on the gas collection being done right next to the wellhead. It is collecting into what looks like an inverted tin funnel when seen in its entirety.

"Gas Monitoring". It is sampling the tiny bubbles which they are fairly certain are just normal and probably nitrogen bubbles from cement which has recently been temperature cycled (and are seen on other wells) but they want a sample just to be absolutely certain. That's what has been said at briefings.

Thanks, guys.

@OOK: you forgot to factor in the pocket nature of the reservoir, imo.

Oilfield people and geologists are used to watching what happens when multiple things going on at once and to making decisions even though they know they can't ever have full information.

Some interesting things that might be going on right now in our favorite well:

- Slow recharge of the producing horizon after fast release had drawn down its pressure

- Cross flow between two producing horizons whose initial pressures were different, either through a worm hole outside the casing or through multiple breaks in the casing

- Loss of fluid through a shallow break in the casing

- Flow from the producing horizons to make up fluid lost to other processes

There's no need to choose among these effects. They could all be happening at once. What we see by watching the well pressure is the net result: more oil is available from the main producing horizon than is being lost from the well.

Snakes:The guys working on it (partners too)would probably not agree with the huge reservoir contention.

That analysis assumes that pressure equalizes instantly through the whole reservoir. If the pores in the rock are small enough that there's resistance to flow the producing horizon could be drawn down locally and could be replenished from more distant parts of the horizon when the extraction rate were reduced.

I would think the entire area would glow like a sore thumb. Everything collected oil while it was gushing out.

Actually I have seen it mentioned, via NatGeo.

The water would absorb the UV like crazy.

NAOM

@fh: i agree completely. thought the racial complaint was strange. i didn't get it at all. someone thought it was about bama? people are so sensitive nowadays. i think we have over corrected.

I thought it was meant to be a joke. No?

Just went and read your article at your blog about the Mogi doughnut hypothesis. Although I didn't understand most of it, it was certainly fascinating nonetheless. Thanks for drawing people's attention to this doughnut/banana theory as it relates to earthquakes. For the record, I am just a middle-aged woman living in Florida that is very concerned about what has been going on in the GOM, so don't beat me up guys. I certainly know nothing about science. But that being said, I could not help but notice that there were 6 earthquakes in the eastern half of the US within 24 hours of the capping of this well. The first went off in Arkansas about 30 minutes after the well was capped. There were 5 more on the map within the next 24 hours. Since my son lives in southern California I watch the earthquake maps at earthquakeusgs.org pretty frequently, and so I know that 6 in a 24 hour period in that part of the US was a little weird. The only thing that I could think of was root beer. When I was a child, my dad would make homemade root beer. Sometimes he'd make a mistake and the cap would blow off and root beer would shoot everywhere. But when things went right we had bubbly rootbeer on hot summer days. So I couldn't help but wonder if this cap was exerting some sort of back pressure on the earth's crust. Anyhow, I actually commented about it here on TOD but my comment was pretty much dissed. Thanks for this site. I come here a lot, to try to gather information, though most of the time I haven't a clue what I'm reading!

It would be worthwhile to read the original article (Mogi's scientific paper) before assuming that its conclusions apply to a huge region. The LA Times article quotes Susan Hough as saying that news items like this one cause unnecessary panic more often than they provide useful insight. She and Lucy Jones have been recording and cataloging Southern California earthquake data for decades, so they'd know as well as anyone whether there's a prominent pattern like this.

The maps in this blog article show earthquakes thousands of miles apart that are happening for different reasons: subduction of the Nazca Plate under Mexico, transform tectonics on the San Andreas Fault, extensional tectonics in the northernmost Rio Grande Rift, flake tectonics where a major transform blends into the back arc area of the Lesser Antilles, a few stray earthquakes in the Mississipi Embayment and in stable North America. I doubt that there's an underlying geologic feature that links the causes and the timing of all these earthquakes to one another.

I'll worry about the possibility that earthquakes are linked over an area 2500 miles across when Ross Stein says it's reasonable.

Horner "Plot", not clot - plot used for analyzing pressure buildup data

Google for "Horner Plot" (with quotes) for more information than you ever wanted to know. Some good explanations a thread or 3 back.

NAOM

fletch -- "Horner clot". LOL. I know it was probably just a typo but a great laugh anyway...thanks. One of the prime uses for a Horner plot is to allow some qualitative estimate of how large a reservoir might be. I've seen more than one operator nearly develop a clot/stroke when the HP indicated a reservoir much smaller than thought.

That article is one long apology for the oil business.

I read it as Anglo-Euro-Americans came to this continent and didn't respect the native people enough to learn anything from them. Arrogant, heartless and never gave a damm about the earth.

I also noted the article's provincial point of view....they act like Louisiana extends all the way out into international waters.

@tinfoil: this is a tough love lesson. for a couple of hundred years the people in the gulf have had a free ride re:resources. no one really cared to preserve because there was no threat. there is now a reason to cross train and educate the population for other work. being a "waterman" might not feed the family in the future. hope this brings a change in attitude.

The JUCO in town has lab people and I know the director. He would love to do it. He has a PhD in Microbiology. He has students. I could go that route.

Umm, a 3-day leak is a 3-day leak. An unsuccessful bottom-kill can delay the final killing of the well by weeks or months.

Do your math.

btw it won't be at 60,000 bpd since they now have (or expect shortly to have) the capacity to process 'up to 80,000 bpd.

James: Relax. First, he said up to three days and did not say the whole flow for that period . Also Allen said most likely 35K per day.Put that together and it may not be as onerous as the article states. You can be sure the longer things look good the longer they will keep it closed unless Simmons is advising Chu!

They got the drill stuck in the rock and couldn't get it back out. A pretty common occurrence, it happens.

rp - The MSM isn't covering those points to any great degree because they are not relevant. As I recall they stuck dril pipe (not uncommon in all drilling ops) because they had too high a mud weight and it fractured the rock and lost mud to the rocks. That's probably where the misconceptions of "cracks" being caused and made them move the rig. The rig wasn't moved. The "cracks" where thousands of feet below the sea floor. They plugged back the hole with the stuck drill pipe and side tracked (drilled around) the lost section of hole.

We've covered this aspect in great detail early on. But don't hesitate to ask any questions. And don't let the other old farts here tell you otherwise. IMHO it's much to TOD's credit that it continues to attract newbies even if they can cause redundancy. Besides, some of us big mouths like to show off our knowledge especially to folks who can't tell facts from BS. LOL.

Pull up a bowl of Blue Bell and join in.

Tell me it is in the field of Abnormal Psychology.

Greetings. I am working on an academic paper that covers, in part, how Matt Simmons' controversial theories about the oil spill have been received at large, and I would be grateful if someone could point me to places where this was discussed and debated on TOD.

Thanks for your help.

Discussed ad infinitum. Use the Search tool upper left corner and type in: simmons, leak

Substitute other relevant words in place of "leak". Also, look at the intro to this page below the lead news story for more info.

btw, Just curious, how do you define "at large"?

@ob: did ya have a point?

I think people are just trying to be humble, not arrogant.
I have never worked on an oil rig, so I don't know what I don't know.
I have worked in large power plants and have worked on a lot of piping systems and trouble shooting.
In several different blogs I have told people that the solutions are not simple, as we don't know the pressures involved, piping thickness, oil/gas densitys and over all just how the BOP's work. Of course that was before I joind TOW and learned a ton from the experts. Due to the TOW I fee I have a good understanding of how things work and what is required to kill the well.
Thanks to all that have provided great information.

Told ya !!

Here is another link from the Houston Chronicle...

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/all/7113833.html

novice -- Certainly a possibility. But "condition of anonymity" statements don't carry much weight on TOD. We have lots of hard sources posted here to chew on. So keep posting

Can someone please explain what this story implies? I have no education in engineering or the likes of that so I'm unable to confirm what these various view points entitle. Now, I've heard of frightening scenarios floating around and I'd like to know the truthfullness behind them.

I have been following this story for a while and here are my questions.

1.)What does the above story mean, really?

2.)What are it's consequences? I know I may sound stupid, but various comments on Yahoo (I'm sorry.) such as these; "There is most likely a bigger leak about to spring up. They may never get this thing stopped.", "There is a 20 mile crack on the ocean floor and when this thing blows all of the methane will kill everyone in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. I don't know why the government hasn't issued a mass evacuation but if they don't may god have mercy on everyone down there.", and then something about a sinkhole are begining to confuse me, I'm not sure who to trust and I thought I'd come here to get some information.

3.) That tired old methane story floating around, I don't know how it's suppose to work, but I'm just curious to whenever or not this situation is plausible. I'm sorry if you had already dealt with this question numerous amount of times but I'm just a bit worried.

I raised the question of the low 6,700psi pressure being
caused by seepage here yesterday. Some members responded
with a discussion of the possibility and the mechanism
by which it could be taking place. Very informative.

Read More:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6742#comment-679657

The AP article also says the following:

BP is not complying with the government's demand for more monitoring
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gIXWYBTpLtSayJtg41LKXp...

It appears from the Skandi ROV2 feed that they just transferred the gases they've been collecting with the funnel device to a cylinder (for tranport back to the surface?) for analysis.

My gut feeling is that BP is taking the stance: "We've plugged the damned hole, and we're not unplugging it." The government has a problem with that, because if they tell BP to unplug it, then it becomes the government's spill.

Imagine this--BP Executive, speaking to the media: "We had the hole plugged, but they told us to unplug it."

I think we're watching a game of Chess, and BP just hollered, "check."

This is not a confirmed report yet, but is of great concern. We need to monitor the situation and any gloaters are devils. Go relief well.

The official said BP is not complying with the government's demand for more monitoring.

I may be jumping the gun here but can some educated legal mind enlighten us to the options available to the USG should BP continue to 'not comply'?

Watch what happens subsea. If anyone thinks there are seeps, they will open it up and let oil release back into the gulf. So far, Thad had not ordered the top flipped.

This may originate from a question you hear on some of the conference calls which relates to bubbles you can see coming from the well. The response was A) if it was methane, you'd see hydrates; and B) you see this on other intact wells; and C) they will continue to monitor.

I'm parsing this AP story a bit more carefully. What intrigues me is that the story talks about 'a seep' and 'possible methane'.

A federal official said Sunday that scientists are concerned about a seep and possible methane seen near BP's busted oil well in the Gulf of Mexico.

Unless they are grammatically careless (which I doubt, given the enormity of this story, if confirmed) it would suggest that a somewhat higher level of certainty about the presence of seepage vs the presence of methane being released. Notice also the following sentence, where it would appear that the seepage is not in doubt (as expressed), only the nature of what is seeping.

The official is familiar with the spill oversight but would not clarify what is seeping near the well.

Interesting...

No, I think they are going to open her up and collect ASAP. ROCKY.

Keeping the well shut-in during the drilling of the relief well will allow them to monitor any possible communication between the relief well and the wild well. If the wild well, now shut-in, experiences a pressure spike while they are drilling the relief well, while assuming they are drilling over/underbalanced, they will know there is a flow path between the two wells via the wild well annulus. If there is no spike, but they believe they are close enough, they could turn up the mud pumps on the relief well and look at the pressure in the shut-in well for pressure spikes, which would indicate they have intercepted the shut-in well annulus.

Great wildly speculative counter. We shall see. If it is detectable, I believe it will be confirmed.

Going to get photos. Wish I had RSS text for here. I have the cheap phone. Basic text only.