Top Kill: Reflections of the Deepwater Horizon

Thanks for some additional insight.

I have read ,in several places, that the concentration of gas (methane hydrates) to oil in this well was; and still is extremely high.

"BP is still using a riser insertion tube tool to contain oil at the larger of the leak sites. The company said Thursday that the tube was capturing 5,000 barrels of oil per day from the well and had the capacity to capture more. The company announced Friday, however, that it had decided to restate how it measures and reports the amount of oil the tube is capturing.

"The rate fluctuates quite widely," Suttles said. "It's better to look at a 24-hour period."

From midnight Wednesday to midnight Thursday, the tube collected just less than 2,200 barrels of oil and 15 million cubic feet of natural gas, Suttles said, although at points during that period it was on pace to capture as much as 5,000 barrels per day. The tube has not captured 5,000 barrels in a 24-hour period, Suttles said."

Also enough pressure was created to distort the diameter of the pipe end by 30%

"Some of those third-party estimates did not factor in the amount of natural gas escaping from the well or the damage to the riser and drill pipes after the April 20 explosion, factors that could depress the amount of oil escaping.

"For instance, while the original riser was 19.5 inches in diameter prior to the Deepwater Horizon accident, damage sustained during the accident distorted the diameter at the end of the pipe by about 30 percent," BP said in a statement. "In addition, a drill pipe currently trapped inside the riser has reduced the flow area by an additional 10 percent

[link to www.nola.com]

Apparently there was concern about cement failure. One article stated that the cement failure was possibly related to contamination of the cement by drilling mud.

“In its internal investigation, BP also flags up cement problems, adding that the float collar initially did not operate as intended - it appears it took nine attempts with higher than usual pressures to get the float to bump.
It also appears that the float test carried out after cementing may not have been definitive, flagging up concerns that the cement slurry may have been contaminated by drilling mud”.

[link to www.upstreamonline.com]

I would think that the deepwater drillers would have a lot of experience using both cement and drilling mud, so this seems implausible to me. Could the compounds in this “fracking formula” have induced the cement failure? This “fracking formula” concept is intriguing.


Could the high concentrations of methane hydrates played a role in the cement failure?

“Although public discussion of damage from methane hydrate accidents appears to be minimal, the danger is well-recognized within the industry. Last November, one Halliburton executive gave a presentation before a meeting of the American Association of Drilling Engineers in Houston, titled "Deepwater Cementing Consideration to Prevent Hydrate Destabilization."
It recognizes that the cementing process releases heat which can destabilize methane hydrates, and presents something called Cement System 2 as a solution to the problem. One of the graphs shows that the system doesn't achieve gel strength for four hours.
Yet according to an eyewitness report broadcast on Sunday on 60 minutes, BP managers made the decision to decrease pressure in the well column by removing drilling mud before the cement had solidified in three plugs Halliburton had poured.”

[link to solveclimate.com]

Perhaps the BP enigneers missed this presentaion:
Especially look at slides # 20. and #21 static gel strength vs hours in this PDF:
[link to www.aade.org]

“As these developments unfolded, reports emerged that implicated gas liberated from methane hydrates as a likely cause of the explosion and fire that destroyed the Deepwater Horizon.
Robert Bea, a University of California Berkeley engineering professor who serves on a National Academy of Engineering panel on oil pipeline safety, has received copies of interviews with survivors of the explosion and has described them to the Associated Press.
Essentially they describe a sequence of events in which a bubble of methane gas escaped from the well and shot up the drill column, expanding quickly as it burst through several seals and barriers before contacting an ignition source and exploding.
The well was being sealed and a chemical reaction caused by heat from the setting cement may have released methane.”
[link to www.marinelog.com]

I still really think this was a problem of destablaiziton of the methane hydrates caused by the heat liberated by the cement slurry hydration and also possbily allowing inadequate time for the cement to set.

Bottom line, BP had inadequate knowledge and safety proceedures to be doing what they were doing so deep, and so near known large quanties of metane hydrates. I would rather have outside scientists and engineers more involved in the solution to this than what they seem to be.

I am really worried about them being adequate to fix this mess, but I am trying to convince myself to have a little tiny bit of hope. (My 2 cents anyway.)

A BOP or the kink pipes coming out of it has never been seen on live cam while they supposedly have been working on it so they can do this "top kill". Clearly meaning the thing was shot to hell and back after other gas explosions that have occurred before they started showing us live cam after the initial one that killed people and will kill the GOM. (Go back and read a few of my post on this that I have made this morning.) And there are post throughout this 150 or so page thread since Sat night that pretty much say the same thing.

Gives the Death car song a different meaning for me...

Citizens Against Gaslighting.

Reflections complete.

Gaslighting is a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or members of a group, hoping to make targets question their own memory, perception, and sanity. Using persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying, it attempts to destabilize the target and delegitimize the target's belief.

Instances may range from the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents ever occurred up to the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of disorienting the victim.

The car wreck, with 'probable head injuries', clearly orchestrated.

Do you know how to get ahold of her still?

Seems I read someone else had a crash as well. Maybe it was you, but those experiences are indeed disconcerting. It is crap that people feel the need to walk on eggshells with mods and blog owners in any blog in the internet universal. Blogging can be the best of times and worst of times.

I will be bumping the original thread with a letter to Sir John Sawers soon.

It is time deepwater reflection and ocean transparent explain their actions within 'internet universal' as I worded it almost seven years ago. I was not the only one effected and affected. The day my person and property were originally affected and effected was the original date of interest listed in the Department of Justice of the United States of America Obstruction of Justice case. More than a few eyes saw what occurred. As aforementioned, my reflections are complete. Even eyes in Houma would soon see:

[link to www.thegisinstitute.org]

Citizens Against Gaslighting.

Reflections complete.

I know its weird to say, but Im thankful for the oil spill. During the spill, I was vacationing for the summer in Santa Rosa Beach florida. The owner of the house I was renting was so freaked out over the media hype and how the beaches would be ruined forever, he wanted to sell his house. My wife and I bought that beach house. We figure the oil spill saved us well over 180K bucks.

By the way, we were there all summer, and although I was looking everyday, I only found about 20 tar balls. I still have them in a jar of water on my desk.

I have often wondered how you have enjoyed your tar balls on your desk. How you weathered.