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BP replaces failed blowout preventer on Gulf well
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1 of 3. Work continues at the site of the BP Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico in this frame grab from a BP live video feed September 3, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/BP/Handout
HOUSTON |
HOUSTON (Reuters) - BP Plc successfully replaced a failed blowout preventer from atop its ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil well late on Friday, the top U.S. official overseeing the spill response said.
Retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen called the equipment switch "an important milestone" toward permanently killing the leak that spewed more than 4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf from April 20 through mid-July.
"During the period of time between the removal of the damaged BOP and installation of the replacement BOP, there was no observable release of hydrocarbons from the wellhead," Allen said.
The failed 50-foot (15-meter) stack of valves and pipes is critical evidence in criminal and civil investigations into the April 20 blowout that led to an explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that killed 11 men.
BP replaced it with a working BOP to preserve its value as evidence and ensure working equipment sat atop the well before a relief well allows the final kill to occur.
Allen said earlier Friday that it would take 24 to 36 hours to slowly lift the failed BOP to a rig on the surface to be transported to shore. The failed BOP was removed from the wellhead early on Friday afternoon.
BP expects to resume drilling the relief well in the coming days. By mid-September the relief well is expected to bore into the ruptured Macondo well near its bottom about 13,000 feet beneath the seabed and pump in mud and cement to plug the leak for good.
BP and government officials did not expect oil to leak from the well once the failed blowout preventer was lifted off. The company pumped cement into the well from the top on August 5, which officials believe sealed off the well from the reservoir.
(Reporting by Kristen Hays, editing by Anthony Boadle)
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Watched the Macondo 252 BOP on the live camera as they pulled it off the Well Head today at 1:20 + 30sec CST and lightened up some serial screen captures to try and see better and see the Drill Pipe hanging below the Well Head.
Beaudo (the BP spokesman in Houston) said BP did not see any drill pipe as they removed the BOP.
I could see none — could you?
Seems all I saw was smokey stuff falling out of the old failed BOP after they raised it (possibly old residual mud).
I had heard that they once ran a gamma ray scan of the BOP that showed drill pipe through it.
Highlight and paste this picture in your Browser to see the serial views:
http://i1000.photobucket.com/albums/af122/alkanalkan/Pull%20off%20BOP/Pull-Off-BOP.jpg?t=1283559544
BP’s high resolution video will be much better, but that was not available.
With no drill pipe showing — or falling just as they pulled off the BOP from the Well Head — That drill pipe (which is evidence in the criminal investigation) must NOW be fished out using an overshot tool.
A log MUST be done to see if it fell before the cement job — as it might be buried in cement now as 5000 feet of cement was pumped into the bottom of the pipe (as well as hundreds of barrels of cement that possibly U Turned up into the lower annulus that was also pumped out the bottom of the pipe).
Cement Bond Logs must be run to find out and to check the lower annulus and the bottom of the well must be viewed before any opening in the annulus is attempted.
If they fail to do this the criminal investigators will complain about not getting their hands on that drill pipe, so Allen has to order that done to protect himself — even though he probably wants to quickly use the relief well first — he would not want to be involved in the criminal proceedings so most likely he will order the drill pipe retrieved fist (before the possible relief well blow out).
You would not let BP do major surgery on your brain before running some scans and tests. It just has to be done first.
Allen and BP would be total fools not to do expensive “diagnostic tests” before opening the annulus (not knowing what their surgery might find) — much less failing to retrieve the evidentiary drill pipe.
I sure don’t want anyone experimenting on me and operating on me without knowing what is available to study — and first know the results of all the tests studied.
Suppose once they fish out this fallen drill pipe and the logs show perfect cement bonding outside the lower casing in the annulus.
The entire purpose of the Relief Well is to seal the annulus to prevent hydrocarbons from the Monster Zone below.
There would be 5000 feet of rock hard cement in the lower casing that is impossible to leak by — and only the annulus could possibly leak anything.
If they find that annulus cement on the diagnostic tests to be perfectly sealed the well is perfectly declared sealed and must be declared forever dead.
Why use any experimental surgery to do what already is cured.
However, if they find weak cement or any place in the lower annulus near the 5000 foot plug in the bottom of the casing, then it must be sealed.
At that point where more cement in the annulus is needed, there are two possible ways to repair the annulus.
1.) Run large tubing with a packer on it so nothing can pass it coming up the casing once it is set — and set the packer.
Then have Haliburton use a wire line through the tubing and through the packer to the spot the diagnostic tests show cement is needed — and perforate holes through the pipe into the annulus below the packer.
The packer protects against anything coming up the casing that might come in from the annulus holes — and Haliburton can do this passing a tool through the large tubing and packer with the top of the tubing (at sea level) easily packed off in case of any problem. In other words it is a safe method — and nothing dangerous like an experimental relief well.
Then Haliburton can pump a “cement squeeze job” into the annulus to repair it — totally protected by the packer with tubing up to the ship. Nothing can come up the casing past the packer.
This is all standard procedure tested by many many years of O&G experience.
The let the cement set.
Remove the packer and re-log the well to prove it is Killed Forever. Show the logs to Allen and let Haliburton engineers explain this to him and his so called science team.
Then officially declare the well — Killed Twice — and forever DEAD.
(or sadly they might try to rush up and do the 2.) dangerous relief well as:
2.) Finish the Relief well and run the risk of the identical problem of a liquified methane bolus rising and at a certain height forming gas and forming a bubble as it turns to gas to flow over the top of the relief well — to re-create this whole mess. Suppose that does not happen and they only open up the annulus to blow out up the annulus where there is no pipe. By starting the pumping at the very bottom instead of just into a spot that needs cement, they could open the annulus TOP TO BOTTOM –creating a blow out NIGHTMARE that would be impossible to repair. Nothing could then be done for years. Suppose any one of a miriad of other accidents happen because of the relief well experiment.
BP’s new head, Dudley, admits this is a rare thing to experiment with a Relief Well at this 18,000 foot Depth below 5000 foot of sea water and thinks it should still be done to learn about what can be done at such depths and whatever new dangers might lurk. He seems to think it is a great experiment and says it will be done.
Allen wants it because early on he stated that the relief well will be used for the final KILL. His science team seems to go along with BP and is not headed by O&G engineers.
Method 1.) is the standard very very safe way to kill this well twice.
Just abandon 2.) and plug the relief well.
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