Bp Live Feed of Top Kill activity NOW 5-26 2:44 CST

kinda cool, but i have no clue what is going on, someone might sketch that stuff or give an overview what is going on there right now?
 
Go to BP.com, it's all on there, with Video's, animations, explanations etc etc... follow the link for "what is top kill" etc etc ...

All the info you need is on the BP home page and you can follow a link from there to the Incident Response Homepage too - everything is there.... so get learnt.

 
Ha ha - it's not like they've been sitting around.... it's taken this long to prepare the BOP for this very moment... as you're watching that now, they've started to pump the kill mud through that retro-fitted flexible line you can see in the foregrond, that is going through the small yellow Collet Connector (yellow cylinder looking thing on the end of the flexlible hose - bear in mind this "flexible" hose is designed to withstand pressures equivalent to a family car per sq inch of it's external surface area.

So here we go, fingers crossed... the seals look great, no mud loss from the collet or the Graylock clamp further up.

this will show more of the preperations before this could be started

http://bp.concerts.com/gom/rovs_24052010.htm
 
1274904213-884687-600x501-1274904172oil.JPG


1) well is flowing up the BOP and out the riser, obviously not to scale or geometrically correct.

2) Top Kill

So they are trying to pump a very heavy fluid down that will put a hydrostatic head on the formation and stop the flow. The problem is the well is flowing and there is no way to close off the pressure. So you have to pump at a high enough rate that the friction pressure in the riser is greater than the formation pressure so the mud will go down the well. i pretty much see this as impossible because the riser is a greater diameter and open to sea water where the well bore is smaller diameter and open to a much higher pressure. I have been told that the well is 16.8 ppg equivalent kill weight. Fresh water is 8.33 so this is some dense shit.

From the riser video it looks like they are getting some mud oil mixture which indicated it is not working, unless the riser is all mud then there the well pressure is greater than the riser and it is not working.
 
Awesome sketch... Love you're work for a quick turnaround.... is perfect for NS....

Also bear in mind the bop is not vertical, it's at an approx angle of 30 deg on the piss due to the pull forces on the riser from the horizon before it sank.

Watch the link I posted above for the prelude to this operation, they'll show how the managed to cut the kill line and install the flexible hose all subsea.
 
and Tasche, you're right, they're committed now, they'll be totally running the pumps at max chat eventually to get mud pressure into the well bore. The other risk is that the pressures cause something to fail, namely the whole LMRP (could be already weakened). But it's obviously been thought through over and over, calculations and analysis done - they know what they're dealing with, they just need to hope they can achieve the pressure and maintain it.

I would imagine the flowing well head arrival pressures are not that high, maybe only 3000 psi..... , it's not like shut in pressures etc... however, those will build over x amount of time as they stem the flow, and that's when they'll need to slowly increase the pressure at the topside of mud injection. The hope then is they can flow mud sufficient distance down hole to create a sufficient head again, i.e. just like before the original blow out happened.

It's a very delicate operation... that's for sure!
 
Latest shots from the first riser bend leak look more like pure mud which is a good sign!
 
Exciting stuff now!

That's the first bend in the riser at the top of the BOP, the main initial leak, but it's flowing pure mud now , which is great news! as long as it doesn't blow the fuck up! That means they;'ve at least temporarily killed the oil.... and now we're pushing mud downhole hopefully.... but it's a long way from being over, they'll need to pump mud for days... but, at least that's drill mud, not oil coming out now.
 
It is pretty impressive the amount of detailed work they are able to perform with the ROVs. The top kill prep video is actually pretty interesting to see.
 
just hope you appreciate it's time consuming and hard to do this kind of thing in this depth... it's not like just flicking a switch. This is pioneering stuff...
 
They'll have too ... because of the losses at the leak points, they need to maintain positive pressure down hole, then try and cement it... somehow! The junk shot would be to help cut the losses at the leak points.

Fingers crossed. If they manage to top kill this well like this, well, it would be an incredible achievement....... there are some many variables, it's a very dynamic situation...
 
I hope so to, I hope they burn all oil companies to the ground. How dare they provide us with the most essential element of the modern age at a stageringly low price. And why they are at it I hope they fry any corporation who takes on projects that no one else is smart or daring enough to attempt.

Your stupidity offends me. It is right to punish them for their mistake but as they saying goes, if you set of on a quest for revenge, first dig two graves.
 
It's going well... The LMRP is holding so far, and what you see at the leak points is pretty much mud not oil.... Hopefully today will bring good news. Bp have been more proactive about this then any oil company I can think of would have been. You really are seeing the facts, despite how much people love a good cover up/conspiracy.... Sorry, this ain't Hollywood. I hope regulations get tightened, in the gulf they need to be.
 
That's cool -

yeah they keep switching ROV feeds. You can tell by the Bottom left... there are several ROV's down there, at the BOP, monitoring the riser is the Millenium 22 (an oceaneering ROV)... then over at the Subsea Mud Distribution Unit, monitoring the valves and connections there is the Millenium 21. These are distuiguished on the Feed as Mill 22/Mill 21 etc in bottom left, so you know which ROV's stream you're viewing.

What they just did from the 22 was very cool; not sure if you saw, but they took an ordinary wrench and held it in the leak stream for a while, then pulled it out and zoomed in on it to see if it was mud collecting on it, or traces of oil etc. To me it looked very good, heavy thick mud collecting around the masking tape they'd used to secure the tether ends, and no oil, just some rust.....

anyway, thought i'd let you know what was going on if interested. Once they get enough of a column of mud downhole, so that the hydrostatic head of the mud column is greater then the flowing pressure of oil, then you're back where you were moments before the blowout, and the well is stabilized, then they'll cement it in from the top.... going to plan so far... fingers crossed. If they achieve top kill like this subsea, it will be incredible... fuck what obama keeps saying about him being in charge, that's absurd arrrogance and a terible attitude... if i ran Bp id throw him the keys and say, go on then, get on with it... you do a better job... try using NASA eh? sorry, just a rant, because most of the guys who've calculated this and achieved this are friends of mine.... I worked on the Mud distribution manifold for this too...
 
No worries! I'll just repeat though - that is NOT oil coming out of the riser now, that's drill mud... essentially a Bentonite slurry.... or Clay.... like you find in your back yard soil.... so don't panic!

 
Thanks for all the info/insight. It's still slightly mindblowing to me just how awesome NS is in that it's so diverse as to actually have someone working on this project/in this industry.
 
I use it to fund mad ski trips all over the world.... AK Heli trip next year i think! :-)

Seriously, i'm just like you guys! im not some earth killing, right wing texan! Just a british kid who got into engineering and loves the ocean from growing up surfing etc... so always wanted to work in it... and get paid enough to enjoy life and be able to travel the work on company dimes....but - yeah i feel shitty about this spill and it's impact, it's horrible, so me, and everyone here and around the world in the Oil industry have put there heads together, no expense spared to engineer a solution. Top Killing this is up there with getting apollo 13 back - it's that level of complexity.
 
I came here hoping that someone who actually knew their shit about this would chime in... Thanks Bob, I see your petrol engineering degree is finally coming into use on NS. You must be so happy!
 
My whole life has built up to the point where I can show off my degree on NS. Its literally validating my being.
 
Fuck, I hope I feel that way someday, it must be wonderful.

you two can continue your circle jerk (or would it be mutual masturbation..?) now.
 
the best part about H8CH, our oil/subsurface engineer (if i am right) is, that he is still repping this cat icon, idk, i always cracks me up to see a cat sitting at a desk say such stuff.
 
Ha Ha !! That's how I roll bro.... I could be sat at work doing something pretty crazy, or in a high level meeting, discussing some serious engineering issue, but secretly pissing myself with laughter inside about some crazy NS thread or post i read on my iphone.....
Tasche is more subsurface, drilling and geological, but mostly onshore and i'm a Subsea equipment engineer for all these fields in the GoM and around the world - so all this stuff you see with ROV's and valves and stuff is what i work on day to day, designing etc etc. But i don't really work in Drilling, i work in the subsea production side of things, once these wells are drilled, we will go out and help design / buy all the kit for the full field development (manifolds, pipelines etc) to bring the oil to the surface of the ocean to a platform and on back to dry land... usually takes around 5 years from concept through installation and start up....
It's good, i get to go to work on helicopters a fair amount and stand over the shoulders of these ROV pilots and do/see crazy shit at the bottom of the ocean. It's just a shame when shit like this happens.
Anyway.... thanks for the props about the cat - it fucking rocks....
 
Tasche :I hope so to, I hope they burn all oil companies to the ground. How dare they provide us with the most essential element of the modern age at a stageringly low price. And why they are at it I hope they fry any corporation who takes on projects that no one else is smart or daring enough to attempt.Your stupidity offends me. It is right to punish them for their mistake but as they saying goes, if you set of on a quest for revenge, first dig two graves./end quote

ok, why don't YOU recount what happened?? I will go first:1) after lobbying the government with gobs of money, they said they shouldn't have to have a plan for if the rig spilled because it was not likely to happen (how likely is a car accident? Getting hit by a car walking? Your airplane falling out of the sky and crashing? The airplane crashing is the LEAST likely to happen)
2) after the spill, bp said "the spill happening was a total freak event, and then the BOP not working was a even rarer event".
3) turns out that the spill probably was at least partially due to BP not filling the hole with mud. According to many witnesses BP overruled TransOcean who wanted to fill the hole with mud, which would of given it more pressure.
4) As far as the BOP not working, both TO and BP knew a month beforehand that it WAS NOT RELIABLE, but did nothing.
This extreme negligence caused 11 deaths, and will end up costing billions, if not trillions of dollars of damage, when you factor in vacationers not wanting to visit a oil soaked, oil smelly place, lost jobs, etc.
TO just filed with the court that it wanted to limit its liability to 20 something million dollars.
 
$50 says it doesn't work.

Either one of our resident experts wanna confirm or deny that all these ideas are more or less just PR stunts to distract us until the relief well is drilled?
 
More or less. Although everything they have tried had a possibility of working. The top kill was the one that I really felt like would never work. It would be like trying to blow bubbles in milk with a straw with giant holes cut in it.

This latest plan would work nicely if they had the correct equipment. I doubt there is a custom made hood that they can sting into on top of the bop. Then they are going to have the same issues with hydrate formation if it is not a perfect seal.

I think the solution in the future will to be to drill tandem wells at least as far as surface locations go. Then if you get in serious trouble you are only a week or two away from a relied well. Then they could go directional.

That or don't pull 15' of drill pipe through a closed annular preventor and then displace with sea water. That would also work...
 
first of all, BP is actually a very intuitive company that provides Clean energy as well as oil, second of all, what Tashe said.
 
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