Posted on 05/01/2010 7:01:33 AM PDT by blam
Here's Why They Can't Plug That Gulf Oil Leak [INFOGRAPHIC]
Henry Blodget
May. 1, 2010, 8:54 AM
The Times-Picayune put together an excellent infographic of what's happening a mile below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. It illustrates why everyone's having such a hard time plugging the leak.
Here's the top half of the graphic. Click for the full version:
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
As Charles Krauthammer pointed out on Special Report yestereday, if the federal government hadn’t banned oil drilling on the continental shelf and forced drilling in this extremely deep water, the well could have been capped by now.
The ignorant enviro-nazis and their liberal lapdogs in Congress are responsible for the location of platforms being in such dangerous and inaccessible locations.
ping
Why don’t they crimp the attached pipe?
excellent
Does not look good. I know there is huge pressures from the well head, but is there no way to crush the pipe above the blow-out preventer and at least reduce the flow.
I am showing my old “hardware store” perception and that is not related to Oil Production. But surely there is a way to contain the damage in less than 3 months.
Put a cork in it.
You beat me.
The rig was actually a cat-hulled ship, kept in place by azipod props. Sink the rig, it all comes tumbling down. Pretty easy mission to launch a small torpedo from a cargo ship or covert fishing vessel.
Remember how reluctant the ROK is to lay blame right at the Norks for the loss of their frigate.
I wonder if the POTUS knows something he’s not telling? I wonder if the ROVs have taken pictures showing that it was no accident?
Would they tell us we were being “held hostage,” lest more rigs be sunk and more oil disasters unleashed?
What a glaring strategic vulnerability these offshore rigs are.
why dont they cut it, put a collector sock on it, eith a tube to the surface as an interim measure?
That’s another one.
It is interesting that no images from the ROVs have been released. I'd think some dramatic video of the oil coming out of the pipe and/or valve would be good ammunition for the "don't drill, not here, not ever" crowd.
I thought so too. Unless they show blast damage. Ditto the catamaran-hulled rig. If you torpedo one hull, that sucker is going over, and taking the pipe down in a wrenching twisting mess.
Isn’t the amount of natural seepage over 50 times greater than from drilling?
The amazing thing here is the blow out preventer failing with the amount of redundant systems it contains.
As you can see the reason for the problem is that idiot supply boat captains sank the rig with water cannons putting too much water on the fire, thus collapsing the casing riser.
On the up side this must be quite find.
Anyone catch Levin yesterday? He had a call from a petroleum engineer who explained (most of which went way over my head) several alternative explanations—including sabotoge.
Then he got a call from an actual crew member—they verified it, don’t ask me how. Had a lot to say but was adamant it could NOT POSSIBLY be sabotage.
If you didn’t hear it, may be worth checking it out.
Seems Zero was going gangbusters to allow drilling, a move completely opposite of his liberal position. Then, days later, this happens and Zero shuts down drilling. A timeline just too convenient.
I think we’re seeing at best 10% of the real story.
Considering the depths you are talking about, sabotage seems unlikely. It would be a major operation with ROVs to get to that depth to sabotage it. Something like that wouldn't go unnoticed.
The sabotage would have been during the initial explosion. There have been questions about the nature of the fire not being consistent with the facts we’re being given.
I don’t know enough to have meaningful comments, but I think the calls to Levin are worthy of a listed. Levin certainly thought so & did some good cross examination.
Wonder if we’ll be hearing similar calls to other conservative shows from witnessess assuring us it couldn’t POSSIBLY be intentional.
Seems to me that a sea floor blast at the valve would compact the rock underneath and stop the flow. Something like a bunker buster...
This graphic implies the oil is leaking from the casing pipe. Thus the questions of why can’t they simply crimp the pipe to stop the flow are obvious.
But, I have heard the leak is coming from the outside of the casing pipe due to a defective cementing of the casing pipe in the bore hole.
0 is a very blackmailable potus with
All his secrets.
Have lived around the oil-field all my life, but never close to actual operations. My family has some wells on our property.
I have a cousin who spent most of his career on off-shore drilling rigs. He had a consulting company in Lafayette LA. He has been retired about 15 years. Another cousin still active (in his 80’s) in Midland. He is a very well known petroleum engineer.
The deep-water off-shore production appears to be a very difficult and technical undertaking.
That certainly would be good news.
Did you hear the guy before him, the petroleum engineer as well?
BTTT
Before 9/11, fishing boats could tie off drilling rigs and fish. Rigs are great fish habitats. After that, nothing was allowed close to the rigs and their security was upped several notches on an already heavily secured site. Don’t kid yourself, nothing was left for chance when your rig costs $350 million dollars and you’ve got over a 100 well head guys who chew nails for breakfast.
I’m an armchair driller myself.
I wonder if they could drop something like a concrete box over the top of the BOP. A concrete box similar to a valve box or lift station box like they use in sewer systems.
Cover the BOP valve with the box and then dump tons and tons of rock and stuff on top of it to keep is sealed down.
How many more rigs are just a vulnerable to attack?
I guess I don’t get your point... I was talking about how to STOP the leak.
I don't know but I'm pretty sure it wasn't Obama's idea to send a SWAT team to the area.
One thing that struck me as strange, why would the master cutoff control be located in the area that is suseptible to the fire?
bookmarking - thanks.
If this were a high pressure gas line we’d put an open gate on the end then close the gate.
That's a great argument to throw back in their faces.
It's always the unintended consequences that make liberal ideas backfire.
If they cannot crimp it, lower a small inverted funnel over the leaking pipe, use a surface pump with a capacity slightly more than leak rate. that should get most oil with some leaking in seawater.
I am sure this will not work, but I would like to know why
At best at this stage of the process. It will be months if not years before all the data are sorted and analyzed.
Here is a link to a more detailed thread from yesterday posted by Thackney Plug never set on Macondo well {Deepwater Horizon} from Upstreamonline.com which has a lot of detailed info on its website.
Here is a clip from that thread:
After declining to clarify its role on the Transocean semi-submersible rig Deepwater Horizon for the past week, Halliburton today said its crew had performed cementing operations on the rig."Halliburton had completed the cementing of the final production casing string in accordance with the well design approximately 20 hours prior to the incident," the company said in a release.
"The cement slurry design was consistent with that utilized in other similar applications."
Halliburton also said the cement and casing job had been tested.
"At the time of the incident, well operations had not yet reached the point requiring the placement of the final cement plug which would enable the planned temporary abandonment of the well, consistent with normal oilfield practice," the company said.
end snip
Just pointing out some facts that aren’t generally known.
Smile.
They’re in the process of fabricating some sort of containment device. ETA four weeks.
Why has there not been even one interview from a survivor?
Sabatoge or terrorism???
Company policy. They don’t want wild speculation until they
issue a statement.
The rig was formerly owned by Reading & Bates and bought by Transocean which moved offices a few years ago from the US to Sweden for tax reasons.
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