RE: Any comments on this piece?

At 05:33 PM Wednesday 6/16/2010, Dan Minette wrote:


> >This link was sent to another list a little while ago:
>
> >http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6593#comment-648967
>
> >and people there (no experts in the field) are wondering if the
> >author likely knows what he is talking about or not.
>
>There seem to be two long pieces in the article.  The first involves the
>loss of knowledge due to the up and down nature of the business.  There are
>two problems with that.  First, we're about 10 years into a generally up
>cycle.  Oil prices dipped low for a couple of months, but the fact that BP
>is making billions a quarter and is drilling sub-salt in deep water proves
>that it's not bust time in the oil industry.  Last bust was 98-99, when oil
>prices averaged about $15/barrel. No-one would be drilling deep water at
>those prices.
>
>Second, it wasn't that folks didn't know what the risks were and knew about
>the red flags.  The proper procedure was recommended by several service
>companies, who were planning on following it.  There was a fiery meeting in
>which the company man simply enforced his will. Look, that's not the part of
>the business I'm in, and _I_ knew why what they did was wrong from the
>beginning.  Everyone around in the business knows.  If the company man
>didn't know, then BP appointed someone who never learned the ropes to run
>one of their most critical wells.  I'd bet dollars to donuts he knew better.
>
>The second part concerns where the problem is.  I'm not sure how the first
>set of pipes and cementing broke.  I saw holes near the blowout preventer,
>with mud coming out, and I saw mud come out, and then oil.  But, that's
>because the mud had to be put in above all that, were the riser broke.
>
>My guess is that the downhole pressure was such that you couldn't push hard
>enough against it with the mud to force the column of oil and gas down.
>Instead, the interface was just below the surface, and the mud just flowed
>into the ocean through the holes.
>
>Even if there is a big hole 20 feet below the surface, the important
>question is the pressure downhole vs. the pressure from about 25k feet of
>oil and gas and 5k feet of sea water.  So, once the pressure of the
>formation drops below, say, 12,000 psi, the well will stop leaking
>automatically.  That may be a long time.  So, they are trying to drill a
>well that will intercept the well down low and then pump mud in that well.
>If they intercept near the bottom, and use 18 lb mud, they could have 20k
>psi of pressure pushing down (and up the well of course).  That should be a
>much better place to inject heavy mud.
>
>Finally, the restrictor for mud flow is the next to last set of casing (the
>last set blew up the well, through the rig).  That is probably a 6" ID
>(mebbie up to 8).  With the riser cut, that is what is restricting flow
>rates.  So, I don't see a hole high in the drill string as a big problem.
>That's the biggest ID casing, so it's not the limiting factor to the flow
>rate.
>
>Dan M.



Thanks!  I expect what they are mostly interested in is the claim by 
the author of the link that the situation is so bad that nothing will 
work to stop it until a large portion of the estimated billions of 
barrels of oil in the formation have spurted out into the water, and 
I suspect your expert answer is the same as my much less expert 
one:  that no one has any way of knowing for sure right now, and 
won't until at least they get the second hole drilled . . .


. . . ronn!  :)