Setback Delays ‘Top Kill’ Effort to Seal Leaking Oil Well in Gulf

[saigon68]

Source: N.Y. Times

4:38 EST
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS, JOHN M. BRODER and LIZ ROBBINS
Published: May 27, 2010



HOUSTON — BP had to halt its ambitious effort to plug its stricken oil well in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday afternoon when engineers saw that too much of the drilling fluid they were injecting into the well was escaping along with the leaking crude oil.

A technician at the BP command center said that pumping of the fluid had to be stopped temporarily while engineers were revising their plans, and that the company hoped to resume pumping by midnight, if federal officials approved.

The technician, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters, said the problem was not seen as serious. “We’re still quite optimistic,” he said, but cautioned: “It is not assured and its not a done deal yet. All of this will require some time.”

The news of yet another delay in capping the well came on a day of rapid-fire developments from Louisiana to Washington.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/us/28spill.html?hp

[gateley]

1. CNN/MSNBC don't seem to be aware of it yet. nt

[Iliyah]

4. That's

because they are too busy trying to get ratings and play on people emotions.

[BelgianMadCow]

2. That's a lot of new information - thanks for the post - "stopped pumping"?

Doesn't that mean the oil comes back up? I guess not if the mud column already weighs enough to counteract reservoir pressure - but if that is the case, you'd start the cementing part.

I do understand why maybe you would want to stop - so as not to erode leaks, but if the oil comes back up, and you need to basically restart the process, you will erode extra too.

Obviously, not smart enough (me)

[Lone_Star_Dem]

3. Damn.

Hopefully they'll be able to restart it and it will work this time.

[BelgianMadCow]

5. crossreference to thread with Theoildrum updates

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4401039&mesg_id=4401039

[niceypoo]

6. BP pauses effort to stop Gulf oil leak

Source: Associated Press

ROBERT, La. — BP suspended its attempt to choke off the gusher at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday so crews could monitor their work and bring in more drilling mud, but the company said everything was going as planned and the effort was expected to resume later in the evening.

News that it would be at least 24 more hours before officials know if the procedure called a "top kill" will work came as dire new government estimates showed the disaster has easily eclipsed the Exxon Valdez as the biggest oil spill in U.S. history.

...

Read more: http://www.wral.com/business/story/7683519/

---

Fingers crossed..

[Botany]

7. bring in more drilling mud

oh for the love dog .... they should have had plenty of mud there to start w/.

[Oregone]

9. Why would they want to buy more and have more ships than necessary transporting it?

How do you expect BP to save money if they are over cautious?

[TroglodyteScholar]

14. BINGO

Every 'first attempt' at any approach will be the cheapest possible first attempt.

[Oregone]

17. This is why BP should be taking orders, not developing them

Those execs aren't the experts at anything besides protecting shareholders and enhancing profits; they will always bring a conflict-of-interest into the room when we allow them to call the shots. Remove them from the picture already, and get a direct line to the technicians and engineers beneath the corporate thumb

[tekisui]

11. Reading the Oil Drum suggests no amount

of mud could make top kill successful. As long as there are leaks in the system, the flow cannot be reversed.

[Junkdrawer]

8. "Top Kill I" has made it worse. "Top Kill II (Now with Junk Shot!)" later tonight....

and if that fails, they saw the riser off and attempt Top Hat.

Lord help us all.

[JBoy]

10. Is there evidence that it's made the problem worse? I haven't seen/heard that.

[Junkdrawer]

12. When they started the pumping, there was a big increase in the flow....

That increase seems to continue even when they stopped pumping. Experts have always been concerned that if top kill doesn't work, it would erode the insides of the BOP and increase the leak.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. They apparently stopped pumping many hours ago

BP's much-anticipated effort to cap its undersea gusher in the Gulf of Mexico was temporarily suspended at midnight and was expected to resume Thursday evening, a BP executive said.

The "top kill" procedure continued until "just before midnight, when we stopped pumping operations," Doug Suttles, the company's chief operating officer, told reporters. BP has been evaluating the results of the first round of pumping over the past 16 hours.

"We have not yet pumped today," Suttles said. The light-brown material that's been seen flowing out of the well throughout Thursday was the previously pumped fluid mixed with oil.

"Nothing has actually gone wrong or unanticipated," Suttles said. He said engineers have been monitoring the process for the past 24 hours, and determining adjustments to the mud-like fluid being injected into the line to counter to flow of oil.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/05/27/gulf.oil.spill/index.html?hpt=T1

[ShortnFiery]

15. Like 16 hours. Now it's the JUNK SHOT attempt about to take place. eom

[revolution breeze]

31. A friend is in the Louisiana National Guard down in Fourchon

He said after watching truck after truck showing up all day with mud, it was a humorous moment when truck with tire pieces, golf balls, and other "junk" showed up. He said he and his buddy starting laughing so hard, others thought they had finally lost it. After all they have seen down there, you start looking for humor in the little things

[Jacobin]

16. Drilling mud is quite toxic

According to Patin, ferro-chrome lignosulfonate, a common drilling mud additive used as a thinner and deflocculant, has reported effects on survival and physiological responses of fish eggs and fry; the filtration control additive CMC (carboxy-methyl-cellulose) can cause death in fish fry at high concentrations (1,000-2,000mg/l) and physiological changes at 12-50 mg/l, whereas at the low concentrations (1-20mg/l) used in standard chronic tests it has no observed effects. Other additives used as defoamers, descalers, thinners, viscosifiers, lubricants, stabilisers, surfactants and corrosion inhibitors all have reported effects on marine organisms, ranging from minor physiological changes to reduced fertility, lower feeding rates and higher mortality, depending on the concentrations.

Normally drilling mud is recycled and in an offshore well as discharge into the gulf has been prohibited for several decades.

In this circumstance, so much damage has been done and will continue to be done, I suppose they said "why not try it"

It does not appear that the top kill will work.

[Newest Reality]

18. Has anyone heard about a potential, second, larger leak?

If that is true than we are possibly being misdirected here, as well.

http://www.blacklistednews.com/news-8915-0-23-23--.html

[BelgianMadCow]

19. Yes - that it makes no sense and Simmons has no credibility

:shrug:

check out theoildrum - they analyse the rumor & the source

[Gin]

20. can this gusher cause an earthquake? if draining an aquifer in

Florida caused sink holes......what could happen to the ocean floor after this?

[ProSense]

21. BP Halts ‘Top Kill’ Effort to Seal Leaking Oil Well

Source: New York Times

HOUSTON — BP temporarily stopped pumping drilling fluid into its stricken oil well in the Gulf of Mexico late Wednesday night after engineers saw that too much of the fluid was escaping along with the leaking crude oil.

BP resumed pumping Thursday night, the company said, after engineers spent Thursday revising their plans.

“We have not yet stopped the flow so the operation has not achieved its objective,” Doug Suttles, the chief operating officer of BP said earlier in an afternoon news conference from Robert, La.

Mr. Suttles said that “nothing has gone wrong or has been unanticipated,” but that engineers had only partially been able to overcome the upward pressure of the escaping oil and gas from the leaking well. He said that the pumping operation was stopped in order to assess its progress and that they were also restocking vessels with more drilling fluid, known as mud, before restarting the operation.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/us/28spill.html?hp

[brettjv]

22. So, they were completely full of shit ...

BP officials, who along with government officials created the impression early in the day that the strategy was working, disclosed later that they had stopped pumping the night before when engineers saw that too much of the drilling fluid was escaping along with the oil.

By 'early in the day', they mean EARLY TODAY. By 'disclosed later', they mean, LATER TODAY. And by 'the night before', they mean LAST NIGHT, i.e. BEFORE EARLY TODAY.

So they lied. Bald-faced, flat-out bullshitted us all.

Let me just be the first say that I'm shocked. SHOCKED, I tell you!

And what pansies the Times are for not calling a spade a spade. And for not even having the balls to actually tell us in the article how much worse this thing is than what they've been telling us ... just saying that it's worse than the Valdez, and the worst spill ever. The numbers are out there, but the Times can't tell us what they are.

What a horrible clusterfuck this whole thing is.

[Peace Patriot]

23. What Brettjv said! nt

[clayton72]

25. Engineering perspective

I am very mad at the management of BP. I am very mad at the people who were directly in control and dropped the ball when this horrific accident happened. But as an engineer who has been under high pressure situations my heart is with the people who are trying to stop this tragedy. I make no excuses for the PR folks who are in control of the flow of information and the message. I just want to point out that there are people working extremely hard to stop this thing right now and our prayers should be with them.

[Iowa]

26. Good point. I'm not an engineer, but I have never met an engineer I didn't like...

They always seem to be straightforward, honest, no-bullshit kinds of folks.

I'd feel a lot better if there wasn't a single executive, bean-counter, lawyer, or politician involved with this. Just let engineers run the entire operation - top to bottom. That would solve many problems, and prevent a lot of massive fuck-ups, IMO.

[boppers]

30. Welcome to DU!

It looks like the mud is too weak, and people are re-calculating. I know that there are 700+ geeks on this, and I have faith in their abilities, but this situation is very hard on folks who want instant fixes to incredibly complex problems.

[Devil_Fish]

27. Welcome to DU. Excellent post. N/T

[superconnected]

28. Welcome to DU Brettjv.

:hi:

[brettjv]

29. Thanks,

Y'all are my kinda folks around here :)

[BOG PERSON]

24. What a disaster

It's just heartbreaking...