UPDATE 1-BP removes cap from Gulf well
* Cap atop Macondo well removed
* Next step will be switching blowout preventers (Recasts, adds detail, byline)
By Kristen Hays
HOUSTON, Sept 2 (Reuters) - BP Plc <BP.L BP.N> said it removed a cap from equipment atop its ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil well on Thursday, the first of several steps in advance of plugging the leak for good.
Spokeswoman Jessie Baker said underwater robots removed the cap as planned.
The next step will be to remove a failed blowout preventer on the wellhead and replace it with another. Then BP can resume drilling a relief well that will intercept the blown-out Macondo well and inject mud and cement for a permanent plug.
The failed blowout preventer is key evidence in criminal and civil investigations into the April 20 blowout that led to an explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and killed 11 men. More than 4 million barrels of oil spewed into the sea.
It will be taken to a NASA facility in Michoud, Louisiana, for forensic study by the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which are jointly investigating the disaster.
"The BOP (blowout preventer) is one piece of evidence that has the potential to provide some answers," the team said on its website.
The U.S. Justice Department also is investigating the accident.
The cap removed Thursday has shut off all oil flow from the leak since July 15.
BP and government scientists believe cement injected into the Macondo well from the top in early August, as well as a seal at the top of the well, will prevent oil from leaking during the blowout preventer switch.
(Reporting by Kristen Hays; Editing by Stacey Joyce)
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Great, now with the cap off, why not end this mess sooner?
They now have a well that is static and has been opened to the sea water with no problems encountered.
The upper cap of the Stack is gone and the dirll pipe is close at hand. Inside the remaining stack in the middle is a 6 5/8 inch od drill pipe that is not crimped shut by the ram blades but held there hanging maybe 3500 feet down from the central part held by the failed BOP partially closed cutting rams.
What is available to do now without any problem?
Take a couple of hours and let Haliburton lower their logging tool through the drill pipe hanging in the middle.
Then find the location of the bit being raised during the blow out. Say it is hanging there (they stupidly don’t seem to know exactly how much pipe is there as they seem not to have tallied or counted the joints of pipe taken out). Possibly 3000 or 3500 is just hanging below the ram jaws or below the sea bed floor.
Then have Haliburton use their wire-line pipe cutter and zap off the lower drill pipe to cut off only the lower drilling bit — and let it fall thousands of feet to bottom — where the bit will fall and hit the 5000 feet of cement at the bottom of the casing that was put there by the static kill (that worked).
Then run another wire-line tool to log the bottom of the casing and see many unknown exact things like the extent and location of the cement, using cement bond logs of the casing also check other vital parameters.
If the bond logs show good annular cement outside the casing at the level of the lower 5000 foot cement plug in the casing — that absolutely PROVES that the annulus is perfectly plugged and the well is ready for standard plugging procedure.
There is nothing else to do to seal the bottom (like playing and experimenting with a relief well).
It will also show if any weak spots in the cement can be repaired by using a packer on tubing to perforate the lower casing and “squeeze cement” any bad annular spot — to repair it — all without needing a Relief Well.
NO RELIEF WELL can do anything more to help matters — if there is already cement in the annulus it is hoping to pump into — as that is all it hopes to do — if it doesn’t restart another Blow Out to the Gulf.
Dudley (the new chief of BP) just got through stating the relief well — WILL BE USED — after they put on the new BOP.
The reason he gave for going ahead and using it was that the experiment of using a relief well at this great depth needs to be tested as something new might be learned by playing around with it.
Experiments are for Physicists working at the Cern Switzerland Particle Collider — to run experiments — and see if vastly higher collision energies will cause a “chain reaction” — to destroy our Whole Galaxy.
Experiments are certainly not for those of the Gulf — already suffering from the last BOP experiment BP tried on their Macondo Well when it failed after they tried the other experiment of pulling up the drill pipe without knowing if the mud was holding things down — and then the were said to put in seawater that let the liquid methane rise to turn into gas forming a giant bubble that blew out the well.
We all know what such “experiments” can do.
Standard procedures are safer than experiments — and run little risk at all — like logging this well without doing some dangerous things with a relief well.
Why not end this mess sooner?
The above way is to leave everything just as it is and possibly prove the well is already killed (for sure if the log finds good cement in the annulus). This would be the first next logical move.
Suppose it found the annular cement job was weak or the annulus outside the lower pipe needed more cement?
They can then lower a packer on large tubing and cement the annulus as needed — this can even be done after they remove the present malfunctioning BOP for the investigators to take custody of it.
In that case I suppose they will then put on the other BOP from the no. 2 relief well — that once would not respond to its kill button (but they now say they fixed it). At that point (going by Allen’s statement) they will have maybe 3000 feet of drill pipe hanging below the bad BOP, and he says they will then pull up the BOP slightly and cut off the drill pipe at the old BOP bottom.
It will then fall several thousand feet to the bottom of the well and hit the 5000 foot cement bottom plug (hopefully not shattering and breaking something).
Maybe they will not let it fall if they are smart.
At any rate, after they fish out (or first remove) this 3000+/- foot of drill pipe, they can do the very same thing as above (even much easier).
The problem is that they propose to do nothing to check things after they remove the present bad BOP — just forget about the drill pipe they cut off and maybe not remove it or check anything — just hurry up — hurry up with the dangerous relief well.
If they first remove the drill pipe (like they will have to do anyway) then sanity and standard non-experimental procedure dictates that they must check for lower casing cement (right away) with everything open and ready for wire-line logging.
This will check the annulus outside the casing pipe from bottom on up with several newer types of bond logs and other logs — so everything possible will be very quickly known about the annulus.
Remember the relief well is there only to fix any annulus problems — so why fix something you know nothing about without checking it when the well is wide open?
They will know for sure if anything more is needed. If they find the annulus at the bottom needs more cement, instead of the dangerous relief well, they can run a packer on large tubing and set it near the casing bottom — then run a wireline through the tubing and through the packer to near the bottom cement inside the casing pipe — and then perforate the casing into any open annulus space they find near the bottom — protected by the packer from anything coming up the casing (viz pressure from anything the annulus contains)— then “squeeze cement” into any unsealed annulus through the packer (with the set packer being there only there for insurance and safety protection).
That safe standard procedure would be everything that the relief well could possibly do and more — as they can do logging to recheck after the cement job is done to see if everything was done perfectly before declaring the Well KILLED TWICE. Then follow plugging rules to finish this disaster.
This will avoid the myriad of dangerous things the Relief Well experiment could possibly cause.
They will be using safe standard O&G procedures that everybody in the O&G business knows are safe.
The well is then “Killed Twice” like Allen keeps saying it needs and wants done.
Everybody in the Gulf will then be happy to know its over (except maybe Allen and BP people).
BP would love to do the experiment and play with the relief well at this rare depth to learn what can be done and whatever potential problems can go wrong.
Allen also wants the relief well — and he will be glad they use it because he keeps repeating and promising: (”The well will not be killed until the relief well is used.”). He is sticking by his stupid order to further endanger the peoples of the Gulf and satisfy his own pride and ego. He seems to listen to non O&&G people.
Will they do the experiment and further endanger the Gulf and its people — YES.
They said they will, and they WILL — unless of course they (very soon) awaken and realize they are being inhumane and stupid to create more possibly serious problems with unnecessary experiments.
Simple safe standard things however are best.
Doing what is best however will not be mentioned by history books — if and only if — the relief well does not cause another disaster.
However, using safe standard things will indeed be mentioned as something that “should have been done” as a Monday morning quarterback view by our recorded history —
should the combined actions of Allen and BP create another HUGE Blow Out.
Tune in later — to see more about this comic-tragedy.
I think the answer to doing the right thing here is “Peer Pressure”.
People in the O&G business will make these Keystone Cops the laughing stock of the World if they don’t do the safe things.
Suppose once the old BOP is removed and the Drill Pipe is removed, peer pressure says, “You know for sure that the eyes of the World are watching you, and you are now — Required — to log this well with all the new type logs including various bond logs to check exactly where the cement is in the annulus behind the pipe.”
“Why would you not get the drill pipe out first and log the well? Why would you want to try experimenting with a relief well to repair something that is already repaired. You now have no idea if there is ‘good cement’ down at bottom where the new cement plug level inside the casing or not. I surely would not let you do major surgery — on me — without first running some tests. If those test show a perfect seal of the annulus with cement at that level, the relief well is just mischief at best and criminal if is causes a problem.”
So, I now think rather that be the laughing stock of the World, they will now have to run the logs.
Once they run the logs, if they find the good annular cement in the annulus, then the well PROVEN dead and is declared TOTALLY KILLED.
If they find the cement there is weak or questionable and needs more cement, then again peer pressure asks, “Why would you use something that might cause more grief and Gulf Problems to repair something that standard procedure says — NOW run a packer on large tubing to prevent anything from coming up the casing — for almost perfect safety and insurance — then through that tubing and that packer perforate the spot that needs fixed — then follow that by a squeeze cement jog through the very same tubing and packer you used for protection and insurance to perforate. This way you have control at every step. A relief well would not give you that, and would be many many times more dangerous as an experiment compared to such a standard safe procedure.”
Suppose a scientifically minded member of our US Congress required Admiral Allen to submit an explanation why he is not using such a safe and standard set of steps to protect the Gulf.
Peer Pressure is the only answer here when Allen’s advisers and BP (with different motives) are not doing safe things.
These things are moving one step at a time, and with good peer pressure by intelligent people with the O&G experience to back them up, there may yet be an intelligent question asked at every little new step of this procedure that takes place.
An “intelligent answer” at no single little step will say, “Now use the relief well.”
Sometimes Peer Pressure will make you do the right thing — or otherwise look like a total fool.
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