NYT Expert Is Confident About Sealing Oil Well

[dogindia]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/us/25well.html?ref=global-home

sorry if this is a repost

pre ad on the link has a small light click place at the upper right corner

here is the first few paragraphs

Pat Campbell never met a well he couldn’t kill.

But in his long career of bringing oil well blowouts under control, Mr. Campbell has usually employed a hands-on approach. Fires may have to be extinguished, wellhead equipment repaired, gunk removed. Then, he said, the well has to be told who’s boss: “I’m here, I’m touching you, I’m telling you you’re dead,” is how he describes it. “You just don’t know it yet.”

His latest challenge, however, is a well that only a robot can touch. Mr. Campbell is one of scores of experts working in a command center in Houston to help BP figure out a way to seal its blown-out well 5,000 feet below the surface in the Gulf of Mexico. Rather than just containing the oil as it gushes into the gulf, sealing the well would stop the leak permanently.

Because of the pressure, temperature and remoteness of such deep water, preparations to seal the well have taken time, with the work at the wellhead done by robotic submersibles. There are plenty of things that could go wrong, but Mr. Campbell, an executive vice president of Superior Energy Services whose subsidiary, Wild Well Control, is a leader in the field, is confident of success.

“Oh, we’ll kill that well,” he said.

[JBoy]

1. I hope there's some basis for his optimism.

And it's not just swagger.

[charlesg]

2. Interesting stories

[truedelphi]

3. You are allowed by the forums here to print up to four paragraphs

When I try to access the material I get into some sort of loop wherein I am requested to subscribe to Economist journal.

I'd love to see the story but don't have time to wade through all that.

So if you'd just post what you are getting from NYT's, up to 4 paragraph limit, I would much appreciate it.

[BrklynLiberal]

5. Try the link again....

Because of the pressure, temperature and remoteness of such deep water, preparations to seal the well have taken time, with the work at the wellhead done by robotic submersibles. There are plenty of things that could go wrong, but Mr. Campbell, an executive vice president of Superior Energy Services whose subsidiary, Wild Well Control, is a leader in the field, is confident of success.

“Oh, we’ll kill that well,” he said.

Relief wells are being drilled that would do the job in a few months, BP officials say. But the more immediate plan, which is expected to take place Wednesday morning, is to try a “top kill,” in which heavy drilling mud is pumped into the well, followed by cement, to overcome the pressure of the rising oil. The procedure may involve a “junk shot,” an attempt to choke off the oil flow by bridging gaps in the blowout preventer, the giant stack of equipment that failed when the accident occurred on April 20.

With more than four decades in the well-control business, Mr. Campbell, 65, has done some bridging of his own, between the days of strutting well-cappers like Red Adair (whose exploits were the stuff of the 1968 John Wayne movie “Hellfighters”) and the current crop of quieter, nearly anonymous well-control experts who do as much work planning to forestall blowouts as wrangling them when they occur.

Mr. Campbell got his start in the oil patch when his high school football coach in Bakersfield, Calif., arranged a summer job for him. But he got his start in big-time well-killing with Mr. Adair and Mr. Adair’s partners, Asger Hansen, known as Boots, and Ed Matthews, or Coots. The three would turn to him to make equipment for specific blowouts.

[BrklynLiberal]

4. Excellent map that is part of that article.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/01/us/20100501-oil-spill-tracker.html?ref=us

I do not feel very confident in Mr. Campbell's predictive abilities in this case.

[slackmaster]

6. The blown-out well is a technical problem. It will be fixed by technical experts.

Not by the media, not by the blogosphere, not by government officials.

Thanks for posting this. K&R,

:kick:

[drm604]

7. I hope he's right.

He sounds like exactly the type of expert who's needed. I just hope that this isn't beyond even his skills.

[dogindia]

8. i added a couple of paragraphs from article n/t

[damntexdem]

9. Well, I know that the NYT is bulky and heavy ...

but do you think that it can really seal the gusher?

;-)

[jberryhill]

10. "the well has to be told who’s boss"

The oil-well whisperer?

Come to think of it, why isn't the entire New Age community directing their positive healing vibes at this thing?

Or is the point here that future vehicles will run on homeopathic oil taken right from the Gulf waters?

[marions ghost]

11. whew OK I guess we can all relax now...

:scared:

Wild Well Control's got a Well Killer on it...yee haw

I want to believe it...but...what do you believe?