FOUR MORE DAYS - Gulf Gusher fix attempt, "cut and cap," to take 4 days to implement

[nashville_brook]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/29/bp-says-so-far-gulf-well-_n_594501.html

BP admitted defeat Saturday in its attempt to plug the Gulf of Mexico oil leak by pumping mud into a busted well, but said it's preparing yet another method to fight the spill after a series of failures.

BP PLC Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said the company determined the "top kill" method had failed after after it spent three days pumping heavy drilling mud into the crippled well 5,000 feet underwater.

"This scares everybody, the fact that we can't make this well stop flowing, the fact that we haven't succeeded so far," Suttles said. "Many of the things we're trying have been done on the surface before, but have never been tried at 5,000 feet."

It was the latest setback for the company casting about for ways to stop the crude from further fouling waters, wildlife and marshland. A 100-ton box placed over the leak failed after ice-like crystals clogged it, while a mile-long tube that sucked more than 900,000 gallons of oil from the gusher was removed to make way for the top kill.

Suttles said BP is already preparing for the next attempt to stop the leak. Under the plan, BP would use robot submarines to cut off the damaged riser from which the oil is leaking, and then try to cap it with a containment valve. Officials say the cutting and capping effort would take at least four days.

"We're confident the job will work but obviously we can't guarantee success," Suttles said of the new plan.

[tishaLA]

1. Can someone explain what cut and cap is?

I figure if I busy my brain with details about efforts to stop this gusher, I might be able to contain my seething anger.

[Lasher]

3. I think I understand it.

See, you make a clean cut in the pipe so that you end up with an end that resembles an undamaged one: round, with a square end. Then you hope to be able to slip an open valve over top of that, sealing it in place. Finally you close the valve.

[FarCenter]

4. cut off the damaged riser from which the oil is leaking, and cap it with a containment valve

The riser would be a large diameter pipe (around 20") extending from a surface rig down to the well.

The containment valve is sort of an open framework that attaches to a flange on the top of the existing blowout preventer.

Once attached, the framework operates to draw the end of the riser down onto the flange so that the oil will go to the surface rig through the new riser pipe instead of gushing out the sides of the framework.

Roughly.

[readmoreoften]

That is what they're hoping for--to busy your brain.

Imagine a garden hose pumping water at insane pressure. It has holes in it. Top Kill inserted a smaller hose in the big hose and tried to plug up the big hose through stopping it up with heavier clay. Didn't work. Now they're cutting off the narrower area with the holes--which will make the spill leak more--in order to try a gadget that will sit on top of the hose and suck up all the water.

Mind you, the pressure in the BOP at this sea depth is about 5 tons per square inch. It's not like doing this operation at the surface.

[Ruby the Liberal]

20. They are going to open her up with a giant can opener

Where the 'spill' is hampered by a kink at the top of the BOP (where it connects to the riser), they are going to release it and then hope to lower either a "dome" or another BOP on top of it.

You thought we were seeing a massive volcano of output now - just wait until they take off what is restraining it.

[metapunditedgy]

2. Meanwhile BP stopped work on the backup relief well to use its parts for the operation.

Or at least that was the word earlier today.

[BelgianMadCow]

8. not for this operation I believe - for the next, "BOP on BOP"

and it's still not acceptable. There are rigs enough around, if this isn't an occasion where the government can order one of them to be handed over (and pay the price, to be recouped from BP ofc) for parts, I don't know what is.

There may be technical reasons why parts of the relief well 2 are best suited - but then you get another set from somewhere else and get drilling with that.

Killing nr 2 when Obama ORDERED it - wtf

[elleng]

9. There were/are 2 backup relief wells; work on 1 may have stopped.

[metapunditedgy]

11. There were two relief wells total, the second ordered by the WH.

BP stopped work on the second, from what I heard.

Dispersants, relief wells... why the hell is Obama saying the buck stops with him when nobody even seems to be listening to the Executive Branch?

[nashville_brook]

14. yeah -- BP's whole "fuck the EPA" attitude kinda puts the lie to that.

[BelgianMadCow]

17. "when nobody even seems to be listening to the Executive Branch"

that is very puzzling to me. I understand the impossibility to take over - but at LEAST declaring a national emergency, providing total transparency and having your orders fucking followed should be obvious.

There is a seat besides driver's seat and back seat. I'm sorry but I found and find the boot-to-the-neck not impressive and way too late. Christ, they do a new estimate after a whole MONTH - when BP 5000 barrels was based on SURFACE oil but they were using dispersants SUBSEA.

[Ruby the Liberal]

22. But if they didn't do that, they would have to send in more equipment and another crew!

Think of the overtime!

[metapunditedgy]

24. They only make $20 billion in profit a year.

(Per Yahoo Finance.) Pretty soon, this operation is going to start cutting into their balance sheets!

[Ruby the Liberal]

28. Did I really need the sarcasm tag?

Really?

[metapunditedgy]

35. Nope, but I guess I did. :-) n/t

[BelgianMadCow]

5. 4 to 7 is what I read (from BP). Luckily we haven't heard a succes %

I've read that it is gonna capture a part of the oil, definitely not all.

There is one possible adavantage - the riser pipe will have to be cut, so they get a clean cut just above the BOP that they can start from. This will make the ENTIRE leak visible - where today, they are NEVER showing the subsequent leaks at once. Not showing the end of the riser (which was on all the time) wasn't an accident I think. The horrible truth will bring even more pressure to bear on them - I hope that does some good to those concerned...

What I don't understand is why Massey (or was it Markey) doesn't put all of his feeds out there. I read they've got all of 'em and we have seen at CNN that they have at least 6 feeds. The people have a right to know.

[gristy]

6. I've been anxiously waiting for them to move on to this stage

This is gonna work.

[nashville_brook]

10. have you been following discussions of 'cut and cap' on the Oil Drum or other trade sites?

if you can -- post some links. we've all behind the curve on cut and cap.

[gristy]

30. It's called an LMRP cap

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6523#comments_top

Scroll to the top

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. Hate to be the bearer of bad news

but the END SOLUTION is a relief well... that will take months. Heck even CNN is NOW explaining what I have been saying here for oh at least from the beginning. What would I know? No I am not an expert, but every time we have a blowout, this is exactly the chain of events... They have happened in the past you know. They have even been like in the news... oh wait, I forget not in the US. You know the last one before this was in oh Australia last year? What do you think was the end solution? RELIEF WELLS.

[nashville_brook]

13. yep -- i think we're mostly aware of the 3 month (best case scenario) on the relief well

solution...these measures all fall under the heading of "patching the bleeding." making things even more grim -- there's no guarantee that the first, second or fifth attempt to drill a RW would be successful.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Actaully not everybody is aware of it

but it is good to see that I am not alone

:hi:

Nine to twelve months, sadly, would not shock me.

[metapunditedgy]

16. Which is why the backup (second) relief well is so important.

Even relief wells are tricky business and not guaranteed to succeed, so I have read.

Hopefully BP's halt on that backup well is just to move equipment around and won't affect the schedule. (Otherwise, what the hell is going on???)

[BelgianMadCow]

21. There should be 5! Ixtoc took 9 effing months

what is the problem, no rigs? There are idling ones close by, in a natl emergency surely they can be commandeered. What, the cost? They make 15 billion minimum profit per year.

"In the next nine months, experts and divers including Red Adair were brought in to contain and cap the oil well.<6> An average of approximately ten thousand to thirty thousand barrels per day were discharged into the Gulf until it was finally capped on 23 March 1980, nearly 10 months later.<7>"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixtoc_I_oil_spill

Rachel compared the current catastrophy to this one from 1979 - eerie.

[metapunditedgy]

23. Agreed. Even if there's a 25% chance that any given well will fail or be delayed,

that's too high a risk. Probably BP figures that if things aren't stopped 3 months from now, they will no longer be in charge of anything, anyway. So what does it matter to them.

The problem with corporations is they prioritize short-term gains and executive security over EVERYTHING.

[BelgianMadCow]

25. I thought a relief well was a new straw in the reservoir - it's not, great pic here

on edit: this is from a May 18 article - so drill progress isn't current - and I wanted also to point out that hitting the existing well is pinpoint work and hard to do if you have to go through casing, as seems to be the case here.

[metapunditedgy]

34. Yeah, as I understand it (based on TheOilDrum readings), the goal is to

actually intersect the blowout pipe way down, and pipe mud/cement into it from below.

Folks on that forum are quick to point out that this process is not foolproof, and the actual job of perfectly intersecting and drilling into a pipe that far down is very time-consuming and tricky.

Two wells seems like far too few, given the risks.

[Feron]

27. It took 5 relief well attempts to stop the Montara oil spill.

Really there should be at least 3 relief wells being drilled right now.

I really hope BP gets it right the first time.

But yes, relief wells are really the only working solution at this point.

Oh well....hopefully we'll get more robot action to watch. I loved watching the ROV with the saw this morning.

[stevedeshazer]

12. These fuckers have no idea what to do. This is just posturing.

This is going to go on for many months.

[metapunditedgy]

18. BP has a bigger reservoir of posturing than they do of oil So what is the WH going to do? n/t

[Sheltiemama]

33. My father wants BP's CEO arrested.

He's serious. He also wants us to nationalize BP if they try to get out of paying any of the costs of this mess.

[Ruby the Liberal]

19. So they admit that 21,000 BBL have been siphoned

Anyone know how many days that sippy straw was down there? I know they removed it Wednesday, but don't recall when it was put down there.

Gov't is saying it was capturing 10% - so this may help validate flow claims.

[charlesg]

26. We need a daily reminder on TV like Walter Cronkite did: "Today is Day 40 of the BP oil spill"

This thing is going to drag out like the Iran hostage crisis.
The Gulf is dying.

[Ruby the Liberal]

29. Keith Olbermann changed his signoff from "Mission Accomplished" to "Deepwater"

"It has been x days since the (disaster in the gulf - or similar)". GNGL.

[Motown_Johnny]

31. more distractions until the relief well is drilled...

I hope I am wrong but I am just not buying this anymore

[Statistical]

32. Diagram and explanation of "cut & cap" or LMRP

Simplified version:
1) cut away damaged riser from top of BOP.
2) lower LMRP (Lower Marine Riser Package) over the BOP
3) Inject Methanol (very low freezing point) into oil flow to prevent ice from forming
4) Siphon the oil/gas/methanol mix up to drilling platform.

[nashville_brook]

36. thanks for posting this -- visuals are so important for us non-engineers.

[Cetacea]

37. 4-7 days. Another week.

[Karenina]

38. It's just THEATER. And the best case scenario is they don't make it worse

before the relief wells are done.

[Cetacea]

40. +1 n/t

[Catherina]

39. Hey!

I tried to PM you but your box is blocked.

[Cetacea]

41. Hello!

Fixed it! All ok?