The BP Relief Wells
[Guest post by DRJ]
The New Orleans Times-Picayune updates us on the BP relief wells. The BP relief well website suggests the 1st relief well is close to intersecting the original well bore:
I’m sure it will take time to target and complete the intersection and do a number of other tasks that I don’t really understand. Maybe it will be August before BP can use either relief well to try to plug the leak … but it looks like the first well could reach total depth in a week or two.
— DRJ
interesting that BP is using the *exact* same number of casing thingies on the relief wells as on the original
happyfeet (19c1da) — 6/20/2010 @ 2:55 pmIt takes longer to drill an exploratory well because they have to locate the high pressure zones, and one reason to set casing is to isolate the high pressure zones from the well bore. Because they’ve already drilled the exploratory well, they know the approximate levels where the high pressure zones are. As I understand it, that’s also why the exploratory wells can be more dangerous than subsequent wells in the same area/reservoirs.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 6/20/2010 @ 3:17 pmthis is true but I just bet there was never any question of using *more* casings than the original quite apart from the engineering of it
They still seem quite hopeful of pinning this on someone else.
happyfeet (19c1da) — 6/20/2010 @ 3:21 pmI don’t think there’s any disagreement about how to identify high pressure zones. As I understand it, the debate is about whether BP should have used more connectors to center and seal the pipe when there was a change in casing diameter.
But I certainly could be wrong. Any engineers around?
DRJ (d43dcd) — 6/20/2010 @ 3:32 pmno you are absolutely right about that, I’m just saying that we’re unlikely to find anything in the schematics to suggest that they are being more careful this time than the first time around
happyfeet (19c1da) — 6/20/2010 @ 3:35 pmoh. I’m so low blood sugar or something today… I mean it’s interesting cause the relief wells are going the long way around
happyfeet (19c1da) — 6/20/2010 @ 3:40 pmI doubt it. Nothing will change that the first well blew out but if they use the same protocol and the relief well blows out, too, they are cooked. It would be far better to follow a new protocol and argue later about whether the original well was drilled improperly.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 6/20/2010 @ 3:40 pmPlus the MMS wouldn’t approve it.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 6/20/2010 @ 3:43 pmthey’re the experts
🙂
happyfeet (19c1da) — 6/20/2010 @ 3:44 pmthat smiley guy is a little more smirky than how my grin is for reals
happyfeet (19c1da) — 6/20/2010 @ 3:45 pmthis is the commission we’re waiting on so all the people affected by Baracky Chavez’s moratorium can go back to work yes?
Don’t hold you breath, kids.
The war on jobs proceeds apace.
happyfeet (19c1da) — 6/20/2010 @ 3:51 pm*your*
🙁
happyfeet (19c1da) — 6/20/2010 @ 3:52 pmAce had a link about some doomsday prediction which, to my uneducated mind, seems realistic.
The whole well could blow, since all the top down methods have failed, and then the flow would be unstoppable, and that is why they are drilling a relief well. The trick is to get the relief well working before the defective well splits apart and fails on a massive scale.
Patricia (160852) — 6/20/2010 @ 3:53 pmI’m very interested in the technology to hit the first well with the relief well. My original thought was they were going to hit the oil level and reduce the pressure but this seems to be a plan to intersect the first well. I will be fascinated by an explanation after it is accomplished. I know about tunneling using GPS technology but this is another order of magnitude.
I hope it works.
Mike K (82f374) — 6/20/2010 @ 5:14 pmI was told by someone with experience in onshore drilling that they use electromagnetic imaging to link up the well bores. They used to use magnets.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 6/20/2010 @ 5:54 pmsomeone should send up the batsignal
happyfeet (19c1da) — 6/20/2010 @ 6:02 pmI’ve seen those posts, Patricia, and they are sobering. But we’re talking about a reservoir that is 13,000 feet below the bed of the Gulf and 18,000 feet below the surface. If the well bore fractures, it seems to me it would cause the equivalent of a cave-in that would seal off the well. I think they call it bridging:
DRJ (d43dcd) — 6/20/2010 @ 6:04 pmSort of like a “natural” nuke remedy, DRJ.
Let’s hope for the best!
Patricia (160852) — 6/20/2010 @ 6:11 pmVia John Derbyshire…
● BP drills a hole down through many layers of rock, of different strength and consistency, to the oil.
● The oil will then come up through this bore hole at great pressure.
● You do NOT want that pressure forcing the oil sideways into upper levels of the drilled-through rock.
● So you line the bore hole with steel casing, and cement in the space between casing and bore hole wall. This is deep-drilling S.O.P.
● Evidence from the Top Kill failure suggests that this casing-cement system is now fatally compromised.
● So we have “down hole leaks” — oil under colossal pressure forcing its way sideways into below-sea-bed rock formations.
● If you had (which of course we don’t) some massive cork to jam into the top of the bore hole and stop the gusher, all that sideways-leaked oil would just come bursting out through fissures opening up in the sea floor.
● For miles around.
● And even though we don’t have such a cork, the bore hole might collapse in on itself, with the same effect.
As the writer says: “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.”
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzI5Y2EwZTA3NjQ4ZTYwNjhmNjhiNjQ1ZmQ1MzIzZTQ=
GeneralMalaise (2ce3dc) — 6/20/2010 @ 6:34 pmhe’s sort of a grumpyhead though
happyfeet (19c1da) — 6/20/2010 @ 6:36 pm
happyfeet (19c1da) — 6/20/2010 @ 6:37 pmThe infantile optimism of post-JFK America may have met its match down there in the Gulf.words fail but that I do not like this John Derbyshire
happyfeet (19c1da) — 6/20/2010 @ 6:38 pmbut if you put Derbyshire’s panickings together with a relief well that’s so ahead of schedule that they must have rushed rushed rushed then it seems like maybe you can conclude that BP is very very scared about something… which is what Derbyshire’s panicky guy says:
happyfeet (19c1da) — 6/20/2010 @ 6:56 pmBut let’s not forget that these coastlines are not as “fragile” as the media keep saying they are. Yes, wildlife will die and people will take a big financial hit but BP and the government will pay them. We will recover.
Prince William Sound is fine, and so was the Gulf after the Ixtoc, the last big one.
Patricia (160852) — 6/21/2010 @ 7:28 amsunshines and hurricanes are about the cleansingest things in the whole world
happyfeet (19c1da) — 6/21/2010 @ 7:31 amHere’s some more (not much) from the Oil and Gas Journal. Also, Anadarko, BP’s Macondo partner, is upping the pressure on BP.
The cementing is going to be the key. I don’t doubt that “they” can do it and fix it.
Here’s an another “industry” resource for info on the spill from the American Petroleum Institute (API).
MikeHu (6451eb) — 6/21/2010 @ 10:26 amI still don’t get this. If there is so much pressure in the original well, how will they overcome the pressure in the new bore? Why won’t it also blow back up the pipe before they can seal it?
Don McFadden (a07a9c) — 6/26/2010 @ 8:21 am#27 Don McFadden:
Opening a relief bore reduces the amount of pressure that is apparent at the original bore and the relief bore is never under as much pressure as the original.
As an example, take a garden hose with the faucet turned on full, and see how much pressure there is at the end of the hose. Now add a “Y” connector to the end, which has the effect of almost doubling the size of the hole at the end of the hose and note how the pressure has dropped.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 6/26/2010 @ 8:30 amhaiku think pressure
ColonelHaiku (181d1a) — 6/26/2010 @ 8:53 ambuild slow joe b.’s cranium
ass or head blow first?
I’m an engineer in another industry, needless to say horrified at what is happening. I have a thought about this whole situation as follows:
Richard Ericson (b91f6f) — 7/5/2010 @ 8:39 am1. Thre relief wells may not work, only about a 70% chance of working according to T Boone Pickens
2. If this well fails, we could continue to leak very large quantities of oil.
3. Therefore, shouldn’t we have more drill rigs, drilling more wells, near the leak, to suck out the oil before it pollutes everything beyond repair?
4. Nearby additional wells would lower the pressure and slow down the leak rate, eventually.