Oil Industry Experts Suspect Possible Nightmare Scenario: Well Bore Structure Is Compromised "Down Hole"
Posted by Jim Hoft on Wednesday, June 23, 2010, 9:58 PM
The Oil Drum is a widely respected website that focuses exclusively on the international oil industry and energy issues. Earlier this week a reader and industry insider sent this article posted on The Oil Drum. The article suggests that the well bore structure may be compromised “down hole.” If this is true, it turns this very serious situation into an absolute nightmare.
Dave wrote in with this:
I work in the oil exploration business – and I don’t scare easily when it comes to the rumors that circulate re: the Deepwater Horizon incident – but this article is downright horrific.
I can’t comment about how accurate it might be – the guy paints a fairly plausible picture – but it is something right out of a science-fiction horror movie – nobody (not even the author) wants to talk about what might really be needed here to stop this runaway well – and that might be a nuclear device detonation downhole to seal the wellbore.
Meanwhile, Obama golfs, vacations, and sings with Paul McCartney -
I don’t know if either BP or the government is telling the public just how bad this might become – possibly for fear of starting some sort of panic – and Obama is clueless – and so, for that matter is Salazar — I went to college with this guy – and he is totally an affirmative action baby, a complete idiot — now elevated to a position way, way, way, way beyond his competency level.
Here is that article from The Oil Drum:
OK let’s get real about the GOM oil flow. There doesn’t really seem to be much info on TOD that furthers more complete understanding of what’s really happening in the GOM.
As you have probably seen and maybe feel yourselves, there are several things that do not appear to make sense regarding the actions of attack against the well. Don’t feel bad, there is much that doesn’t make sense even to professionals unless you take into account some important variables that we are not being told about. There seems to me to be a reluctance to face what cannot be termed anything less than grim circumstances in my opinion. There certainly is a reluctance to inform us regular people and all we have really gotten is a few dots here and there…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”.That is something which is a “Worst nightmare” conclusion to reach. While many have been saying this for some time as with any complex disaster of this proportion many have “said” a lot of things with no real sound reasons or evidence for jumping to such conclusions, well this time it appears that they may have jumped into the right place…
TOP KILL – FAILS:
This was probably our best and only chance to kill this well from the top down. This “kill mud” is a tried and true method of killing wells and usually has a very good chance of success. The depth of this well presented some logistical challenges, but it really should not of presented any functional obstructions. The pumping capacity was there and it would have worked, should have worked, but it didn’t.It didn’t work, but it did create evidence of what is really happening. First of all the method used in this particular top kill made no sense, did not follow the standard operating procedure used to kill many other wells and in fact for the most part was completely contrary to the procedure which would have given it any real chance of working.
When a well is “Killed” using this method heavy drill fluid “Mud” is pumped at high volume and pressure into a leaking well. The leaks are “behind” the point of access where the mud is fired in, in this case the “choke and Kill lines” which are at the very bottom of the BOP (Blow Out Preventer) The heavy fluid gathers in the “behind” portion of the leaking well assembly, while some will leak out, it very quickly overtakes the flow of oil and only the heavier mud will leak out. Once that “solid” flow of mud is established at the leak “behind” the well, the mud pumps increase pressure and begin to overtake the pressure of the oil deposit. The mud is established in a solid column that is driven downward by the now stronger pumps. The heavy mud will create a solid column that is so heavy that the oil deposit can no longer push it up, shut off the pumps…the well is killed…it can no longer flow.
Usually this will happen fairly quickly, in fact for it to work at all…it must happen quickly. There is no “trickle some mud in” because that is not how a top kill works. The flowing oil will just flush out the trickle and a solid column will never be established. Yet what we were told was “It will take days to know whether it
worked”….”Top kill might take 48 hours to complete”…the only way it could take days is if BP intended to do some “test fires” to test integrity of the entire system. The actual “kill” can only take hours by nature because it must happen fairly rapidly. It also increases strain on the “behind” portion and in this instance we all know that what remained was fragile at best.Early that afternoon we saw a massive flow burst out of the riser “plume” area. This was the first test fire of high pressure mud injection. Later on same day we saw a greatly increased flow out of the kink leaks, this was mostly mud at that time as the kill mud is tanish color due to the high amount of Barite which is added to it to weight it and Barite is a white powder.
We later learned the pumping was shut down at midnight, we weren’t told about that until almost 16 hours later, but by then…I’m sure BP had learned the worst. The mud they were pumping in was not only leaking out the “behind” leaks…it was leaking out of someplace forward…and since they were not even near being able to pump mud into the deposit itself, because the well would be dead long before…and the oil was still coming up, there could only be one conclusion…the wells casings were ruptured and it was leaking down hole…
There’s more at The Oil Drum.
Let’s hope and pray this is not the case.
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Published February 22, 2012 at 4:19 pm - 32 Comments
gus commented:
Never let a crisis go to waste.
Chernyobel was a crisis too.
I’m still 50/50. Is Obama destroying our way of life on purpose at each “oppurtunity” he gets?
Or is he a complete fu23 up.
Both.
jainphx commented:
Nightmares don’t have the chief character playing golf, but this one sure does. The LORD is judging us, will we repent, or will we continue down this road to destruction?
Opus #6 commented:
Oilbama is in way over his head.
jainphx commented:
Gus—- No one can be this stupid, NO ONE.
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Robert commented:
If this is true, there may be documentation of procedures that would verify it. For instance, there was a report that remarks were made about this possibility back in February, and that the government knew about it.
In early March, BP told the minerals agency the company was having trouble maintaining control of surging natural gas, according to e-mails released May 30 by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is investigating the spill.
…
On March 10, BP executive Scherie Douglas e-mailed Frank Patton, the mineral service’s drilling engineer for the New Orleans district, telling him: “We’re in the midst of a well control situation.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-17/bp-struggled-with-cracks-in-gulf-well-as-early-as-february-documents-show.html
The above notwithstanding, I would advise against painting nightmare scenarios and getting more worked up than we already are.
Hatless Hessian commented:
Exceptional reporting. Once again, the mainstream media has shown itself to be useful for wrapping fish, while bloggers have meaningful, factual reporting.
Bogdan from Australia commented:
Hi guys! Another bad news.
We have a new “Prime Minister”. Her name is Julia Gillard.
Unfortunately it is not a change for the better as the socialist clown – Kevin Rudd has been replaced by the crypto-cimmunist witch.
It also means that EUNUCHALIA will move further away from America as her faithful and trusted ally.
What’s worse is that some 70% kangaroos are for withrawing their soldiers from Afganistan.
Looks like the Bush’s, Blair’s, Howard’s Iraq war proved to be a succes while the Obama’s, Brown’s, Rudd’s Afganistan war is turning into a disaster of epic proportion.
Some 30% of Aussies (including myself) are still the firmest possible friends of your great country but it is too little to stop the cretinisation of Australia.
There is a glimt of hope though.
This idiot – Julia Gillard albeit a smooth talker present an even bigger failure than her predecessor so it is possible that after a while the larger sector of that backward society will see through the fog of self-delusion and ends up with electing the Liberal-Conservative government again sooner than later.
But it is not going to happen until the price of the sausage and beer Down Under goes dramatically up.
Greetings!
jainphx commented:
Bogdan—- I’ll trade you even up, you take old purple lips off our hands and will take your newbie. It looks like we are both screwed and only time will tell if we recover. Maybe a New country were all your conservatives and ours can build a place to be proud of as we once were with our country’s.
notgood commented:
I have seen this before on another well. A bad cement job will do what they are talking about here. It was not a well blowout, according to this data. The continual leaking has also weakened it, the longer this goes on, the worse it will get. By delaying dealing with it, this could be beyond salvaging. It is very serious, but Obama and company want only political results, so this does not matter to them. They get cap and trade and that is all they care about. They are no guardians of the environment. They are out for self interest only, as America is realizing, but far too slowly to bring the right pressure to bear to solve it.
Andreas K. commented:
Philadelphia, September 18, 1787
“Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Mrs Powel asked.
“A republic if you can keep it” responded Benjamin Franklin.
crosspatch commented:
Actually, this is rather old news. I remember reading it last week or the week before.
It is quite possible that the kick ruptured the well casing OR that gas/oil seepage from the formation is making its way up the well casing.
Apparently the formation the well passes through is rather fragile rock (shale?) that has a history of cracking and being difficult to grout. They almost lost the well back in February or March from my reading.
So maybe this was inevitable. It could have possibly kicked and ruptured when it was being brought into production later.
But there is no doubt that the BOP failed to completely close. Last I read from an industry source was that it was probably within an inch or two of completely closing. If the relief well(s) are successful, they will be able to pull that BOP off of there and find out what went wrong.
I am not sure I am completely buying that Oil Drum story, though, because since it has been published, there is no evidence of any additional seepage from the ocean floor nor is there any evidence of any increase in BOP tilt that I am aware of.
Robert commented:
From the Washington Post on May 31
Sources at two companies involved with the well said that BP also discovered new damage inside the well below the seafloor and that, as a result, some of the drilling mud that was successfully forced into the well was going off to the side into rock formations.
“We discovered things that were broken in the sub-surface,” said a BP official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. He said that mud was making it “out to the side, into the formation.” The official said he could not describe what was damaged in the well.
Documents released Sunday by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce point to problems BP was having drilling the Macondo well, although some of them date to 2009 when BP was using a different rig with different equipment. Some documents describe previously reported trouble BP was having controlling the well.
I suppose things don’t go correctly often in this business. However, there were also continual decisions made to reduce cost, notable was the process of removing the drilling mud and using lighter seawater during the process prior to the explosion.
There is also a report that the Deepwater Horizon rig was behind schedule to have been moved to another location, rental on the unit being more than $500,000 per day.
So we have an operation that had problems going back for some time, and financial pressures causing multiple decisions to cut costs.
jonasay commented:
My dad was an oil analyst from the late 60′s to early 90′s and “his” intelligence never jived with the public reporting. My point is GS and other major players sold a lot of BP stock 6 to 8 weeks before the BO.
Rig workers have talked about fracturing, natural gas, a small oil leak and major problems with the well months before the BO.
And yet still the Jones Act has not been removed and skimmers are not employed.
If BP has to pay for the clean up, why aren’t they going nuts about not using foreign skimmers?
This whole thing stinks to high heaven. There is a much bigger story here.
Does anybody know how many rig workers are alive? They need to be very careful “accidents” are quite common this time of year.
The rig workers will know the real story and if there is much more to this story they are key to uncovering it. Bloggers need to find those guys and get them on record.
AuntieMadder commented:
This is NOT an article by The Oil Drum. At the top of the linked TOD page, directly above the first sentence, “OK let’s get real about the GOM oil flow.” is the following:
Editors’ note for first-time visitors: What follows is a comment from a The Oil Drum reader. To read what The Oil Drum staff members are saying about the Deepwater Horizon Spill, please visit the front page. (Were the US government and BP more forthcoming with information and details, the situation would not be giving rise to so much speculation about what is actually going on in the Gulf. This should be run more like Mission Control at NASA than an exclusive country club function–it is a public matter–transparency, now!)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6650#comment-658735
Q. Is dougR an oil industry expert?
A. If he is, he’s an oil industry expert who first made that post (in two parts, using a different handle, “SHR,” identified as “Forum Administrator”) on a site called Godlike Productions, which says up top it’s for “UFOs, Conspiracy Theorists, Lunatic Fringe,” and which has a lengthy disclaimer at the bottom of each page that says, in part:
This website exists for entertainment purposes only. The reader is responsible for discerning the validity, factuality or implications of information posted here, be it fictional or based on real events….Not all posts on this website are intended as truthful or factual assertion by their authors. Some users of this website are participating in internet role playing, with or without the use of an avatar. NO post on this website should be considered factual information on face value alone….
[boldface in original]
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1066057/pg1
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1097505/pg1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I read dougr’s posted comment at TOD just after it was posted last week. It scared the crap out of me…until I pulled my head out of @$$ and looked around the TOD blog site for more information. Sure enough, I found information from actual oil industry experts, mechanical engineers, geologists, and other brainiacs of science that disputed and/or debunked many different parts of dougr’s posted comment. After reading them, I felt relieved for obvious reasons and also glad that I hadn’t jumped the gun and shared a link to dougr the conspiracy theorist’s posted comment here and at other sites I visit regularly. Unfortunately for TOD and everyone who’ll end up believing the dougr dooms day theory, Keith The Blowhard Olberman read it on his nasty program, giving the far-fetched theory publicity, and it’s taken off from there.
Again, the theory in the blog post is not a TOD article. It’s a comment posted at TOD by a non-oil industry conspiracy theorist, who is an administrator at an Internet forum that describes itself as being for “UFOs, Conspiracy Theorists, Lunatic Fringe.”
PS: If you just wanna’ be scared sh!tless, here’s another BP Gulf geyser dooms day theory I found online: http://www.helium.com/items/1864136-how-the-ultimate-bp-gulf-disaster-could-kill-millions?page=2
Colo Kid commented:
NotGood, you are right on the ball! It that “hole” wallows out too much we will see no fix for a long, long time, if ever. This crisis/tragedy is beyond the Obam and Rahm’s wildest dreams. Then the golfer can just stay on the greens forever, but, then he’d better stay away from the beaches from Texas to Maine—forever, too.
Bob Grant commented:
@ gus #1
–”Is Obama destroying our way of life on purpose at each “oppurtunity” he gets?
Or is he a complete fu23 up? “–
There can be no 3rd option….
kate commented:
So dougr is a lunatic and everything is actually being handled fairly professionally or dougr is putting a worst case scenario on the table so we can consider it? Which is it. Or is it somewhere in the middle and we should be comforted that all will be well at the well soon as testified by the emperor on the golf course?
It seems to me that all is not well at the well and not likely to be any time soon due to mismanagement by everyone involved. Regardless of the specifics of killing the Gulf, this is now a political event and being used by Team O against us.
Catherine commented:
Kate got that right who ever wrote that and I read it in the end said there was no hope that over 2 billion Bar. would ?
so it is good to dig a little?
what I found?
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-03-29-unpacking-the-transportation-secretarys-tabletop-speech/
Cars won’t get all the love, Ray LaHood says in big bike speech
by Jonathan Hiskes
29 Mar 2010
Two weeks ago, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood climbed on a table and told a group of bike advocates that federal transportation planners were finished raising the almighty auto above cyclists and walkers.
“I’ve been all over America, and where I’ve been in America I’ve been very proud to talk about the fact that people do want alternatives,” he said (video below). “They want out of their cars, they want out of congestion, they want to live in livable neighborhoods and livable communities … You’ve got a partner in Ray LaHood.”
He followed up on his blog: “Today, I want to announce a sea change. People across America who value bicycling should have a voice when it comes to transportation planning. This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized.”
This is great stuff, particularly from a 65-year-old Republican from downstate Illinois who was never expected to be one of the Obama cabinet stars. Progressive transportation advocates were clearly underwhelmed when Obama chose him. But when I watched him announce a new Smart Growth partnership with top EPA and HUD officials in Seattle last month, he fit right in with the sustainable-urbanism types there. Seemed to be making friends.
HUMM THIS WAS ABOUT 1 MO. BEFORE THE WELL EXPLODED?
BHO SPENDS 1.2 BILLION ON BIKE AND WALKING PATHS?
OF COURSE THERE IS A VIDEO?
http://campfire.theoildrum.com/node/6622
Will the post-oil future be bicycle-free?
Posted by Gail the Actuary on June 20, 2010 – 10:47am in The Oil Drum: Campfire
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
This is guest post by Kurt Cobb.
U. S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood may soon be nominated for heresy-of-the-year award for an impromptu speech at the 2010 National Bike Summit in March. In that speech he said federal transportation policy will no longer favor automobiles over bicyclists and walkers.
As anyone who regularly rides a bicycle knows, this change is big precisely because automobiles and bicycles share much of the same infrastructure. But this very fact may bode ill for the bicycle in a post-oil future
SO MAYBE THE OILDRUM MAY HAVE A REASON TO FRIGHTEN PEOPLE?
So their chats who they do not think are nuts are talking post oil?
Catherine
Scott M commented:
What, exactly, is the nightmare scenario? More oil, bigger slick, yes, I get it. It’s bad. But what is the “science-fiction horror movie” scenario?
Josh Reiter commented:
Don’t listen to that site. They’ve been running scaremonger articles about peak oil and over inflating the risks of drilling for years.
cargosquid commented:
Nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
aprilnovember811 commented:
The woman in this video is from Louisiana. She explains what is really going on there.
PLEASE DON’T TRUST FOX ANYMORE. THEY ARE COVERING UP WHAT IS GOING ON ALSO. THEY ARE PROTECTING HUSSEIN. I STOPPED WATCHING THEM, EVEN HANNITY A COUPLE OF MONTHS AGO. IT’S NOT THAT I BELIEVE SEAN IS PART OF FOX COVERING THIS UP, BUT IF HE IS WITH FOX, HOW CAN WE TRUST HIM TO TELL THE TRUTH. I think their idea of “fair and balanced,” would be to have Hitler on and the Jews. They are now bought.
http://www.gulfemergencysummit.org/p/video-of-summit.html
Lee commented:
This is ridiculous! Think about it, folks.
First thing (pun intended), the original “article” is not an article, but “a comment from a The Oil Drum reader,” that renounced oil drilling expert, “dougr” ( http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6593/648967 ).
Second thing, that comment is not well-edited–e.g., “The depth of this well presented some logistical challenges, but … See Moreit really should not OF presented any functional obstructions” (emphasis added). “Of” should be “have,” as the commenter himself puts in the very next sentence: “The pumping capacity was there and it would have worked, should have worked, but it didn’t.”
Third thing, the item from the “respected” site “The Oil Drum” (I wonder just who “respects” it–sounds like sheer fluff) says nothing about using nukes. That idea came from “Dave,” who we all know knows more about stopping oil leaks than the Dutch and Norwegians who have offered their help, but can’t get a call back from the (mis)administration.
Fourth thing, I don’t claim anything like the expert status of “dougr” and “Dave,” but maybe drill a couple of relief wells to take pressure off the main hole so it can be capped. The same thing happened on a smaller scale in 1979. And in fact that is one of the things being discussed by REAL experts on this.
We’ll see.