Diagram of the blown oil rig and its basic components at the bottom of the gulf:

[Are_grits_groceries]

The worst-case scenario for the broken and leaking well gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico would be the loss of the wellhead currently restricting the flow to 5,000 barrels -- or 210,000 gallons per day.
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If the wellhead is lost, oil could leave the well at a much greater rate, perhaps up to 150,000 barrels -- or more than 6 million gallons per day -- based on government data showing daily production at another deepwater Gulf well.
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By comparison, the Exxon Valdez spill was 11 million gallons total. The Gulf spill could end up dumping the equivalent of 4 Exxon Valdez spills per week.
<snip>
Kinks in the piping created as the rig sank to the seafloor may be all that is preventing the Deepwater Horizon well from releasing its maximum flow. BP is now drilling a relief well as the ultimate fix. The company said Thursday that process would take up to 3 months.
<snip>
"The pipe could disintegrate. You've got sand getting into the pipe, its eroding the pipe all the time, like a sandblaster," said Ron Gouget, a former oil spill response coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"When the oil is removed normally, it comes out at a controlled rate. You can still have abrasive particles in that. Well, now, at this well, its coming out at fairly high velocity," Gouget continued. "Any erosive grains are abrading the inside of the pipe and all the steel that comes in contact with the liquid. It's essentially sanding away the pipe."
<snip>
http://blog.al.com/live/2010/04/gulf_mexico_oil_spill_worst_case.html

Kinks? Kinks are the only thing restricting the flow now???? Now that was a backup plan.
That whole pipe is going to disintegrate, and the wellhead will probably blow.

[Junkdrawer]

1. And, if this thing collapses, would we be told, or .....

would we just hear that the spill size tripled overnight? I think there's a good chance the thing has already collapsed.


...

As bad as the oil spill looks on the surface, it may be only half the problem, said University of California Berkeley engineering professor Robert Bea, who serves on a National Academy of Engineering panel on oil pipeline safety.

"There's an equal amount that could be subsurface too," said Bea, who worked for Shell Oil Co. in the 1960s when the last big northern Gulf of Mexico oil well blowout occurred. And that oil below the surface "is damn near impossible to track."

Louisiana State University professor Ed Overton, who heads a federal chemical hazard assessment team for oil spills, worries about a total collapse of the pipe inserted into the well. If that happens, there would be no warning and the resulting gusher could be even more devastating because regulating flow would then be impossible.

"When these things go, they go KABOOM," he said. "If this thing does collapse, we've got a big, big blow."

BP has not said how much oil is beneath the Gulf seabed Deepwater Horizon was tapping, but a company official speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the volume of reserves, confirmed reports that it was tens of millions of barrels.

...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36870222/ns/us_news-environment/page/2

[Junkdrawer]

2. "could become 50,000 barrels a day"....

...

The prospect remained that the snapped oil pipe rising from the crippled well could continue to spew its poisonous load for three months or longer. The surface slick was last night already 3,850 square miles in area, three times larger than Hampshire. An internal memo from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, obtained by a newspaper in Alabama, suggested that the rate of leakage could "become unchecked, resulting in a release volume an order of magnitude higher than previously thought". That would imply that the 5,000 barrels a day rate of flow – the current estimate – could become 50,000 barrels a day.

Worse still, the oil coming from the well is of a particularly viscous nature and hard to clean up. "If I had to pick a bad oil, I'd put this right up there," Ed Overton, an industry expert at Louisiana State University, cautioned. Like other experts, he said everything was combining to make this spill as bad as any seen before. "This has all the characteristics of a category five hurricane."

As he arrives here, Mr Hayward of BP will plunge into what would be any energy company's worst nightmare. The questions awaiting him include why it took the company so long to recognise what was happening one mile under the ocean's surface. This time last week, the word from BP – and the US Coast Guard – was that the spill from the collapse was small. Even when that was exposed as inaccurate, the company insisted that any slick would be contained and would not reach land.

He will also be asked to explain more distant actions, including the company's resistance to Washington's attempts to introduce a new rule to make deep-sea drilling safer. A letter from BP to the US government dated 14 September 2009, made its position clear. "While BP is supportive of companies having a system in place to reduce risks, accidents, injuries and spills, we are not supportive of the extensive prescriptive regulations as proposed in this rule," the letter said.

...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bp-accused-as-size-of-oil-slick-triples-in-a-day-1960372.html

[Indy Lurker]

3. IS the BOP still attached?

I haven't heard much about what the actual problem is.

[Are_grits_groceries]

4. Oil Spill Points to Rig Fail-Safe as Utter Failure

AOL News (April 30) -- With efforts to battle the massive Gulf Coast oil slick now demanding precedence, the question of who or what is to blame for the spill itself remains murky. One fact, however, is starkly clear: The piece of offshore-rig equipment designed to be "a drilling operation's last line of defense" against leaks failed miserably.

When an oil rig has an uncontrolled oil pressure buildup -- like the one thought to have set off the explosion that sank the Deepwater Horizon rig last week -- a device called a blowout preventer (BOP) is supposed to deliver a hydraulic-powered "guillotine"-like slice to the drill pipe, crimping and sealing it off.

BOPs are mandated on all U.S. offshore oil rigs and are supposed to undergo regular inspection. Several studies have shown them to be increasingly reliable; however, they are not flawless.

A robotic submarine attempts to activate a shutoff device known as a blowout preventer (BOP) to close off the flow of oil at the Deepwater Horizon well head.
<snip>
Cameron International, formerly known as Cooper Cameron, is the worldwide leader in providing BOPs to offshore rigs, according to industry website RigZone. The Houston oil and gas systems company has been recognized by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers for creating the first blowout preventer of its kind, all the way back in 1922.
<snip>
More recently, Cameron won a $230 million-plus contract to provide Chevron with subsea-development safety equipment. The hefty deal underscores Cameron's generally rosy financial picture: Its earnings rose 5 percent in the first quarter of this year.

More blah-blah from the company at the end:
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/oil-spill-debacle-points-to-rig-blowout-preventer-as-utter-failure/19461009

I'm looking for more info on the BOP.

[progressoid]

5. What a clusterfuck.