BP Gulf Coast Oil Spill Q/A 1

[ninja99]

Informational and brainstorming thread about the recent coastal oil spill. Petroleum engineers' professional opinions greatly appreciated!

The story thus far:

Press release:

http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=2012968&contentId=7062470

Live cam:

http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_int...local_assets/bp_homepage/html/rov_stream.html

Related articles:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6490509n&tag=contentMain;contentAux

http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/site/2931/

http://www.api.org/Newsroom/safetyresponse/index.cfm

Some questions:

With the doubled pressure on the underwater rig (due to mud being pumped against the oil flow), could the structural integrity be weakened? What are some of the worst-case-scenarios if this were to happen?

What are some other methods to resolve the situation? Be it via relief well, junk shot, etc.

What are the long term effects on the surrounding area?

 

[unclesyd]

Correct.

For any that miss it the Government has just put the flow rate at 20,000-40.000 bbls/day.

 

[DrillerNic]

Donm't forget there's the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, financed by a 5c levy on every bbl of oil imported or produced in the the US. A sort of manditory insurance paid for by the oil companies for just this type of event. Currently worth about $1.5 billion

I don't know if it's been tapped yet, but if it hasn't BP could be a little irritated- it's like your car insurance not paying out if you have a crash becasue it was a Thursday...

 

[DrillerNic]

unclesyd- so at the upper bound, it's still smaller that Ixtoc-1, isn't it.

And what were the long term environemntal effects of that spill? Pretty minimal! And remember Pemex claimed soverign immunity (as it is goverenment owned) and refused to pay for the short term damage done to Texas beaches...

Sieze BP indeed!

 

[waross]

The real flow rate may be several times the Itox-1 average flow rate. bp may yet surpass the Itox-1 losses.
Even if they don't surpass Itox-1, they are stiil firmly in second place for all time oil spill disasters.
But wait, bp said that this has never happened before. If you are going to be a bp apologist, you shouldn't mention Itox. It doesn't look good alongside bp's denials of previous undersea accidents.


Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

 

[unclesyd]

Itoc 1 total flow over a ten month peroid was around 3,000,000 bbls covering 1,100 sq miles. This blowout started at a very high flow rate and gradually tapper off due several different efforts to kill it.
It sure killed the red snapper fishing in the Bay of Campeche for about 5 years.

Just heard another blivit from the good old Coast Guard, remember the 1,000 bbl/day bunch, saying the tar balls and oil washing up on on a 50 mile stretch of beach centered at Pensacola aren't from the DWH, BS. The Brown mousse laying jsut off shore also cam from a fairy ship or Father Neptune. The Brown mousse patches found inside the Perdido and Pensacola pass must be from alien space ships.

Addenda
What bothers me is the big Mama Snapper, greater than 35 lbs will spawn in July and the fry will be in the water column for up to six months before they migrate to the bottom. They can't win. The only sea life than will move if they sense that their environment is becoming hostile are most of the shrimp species and squid, with the squid being the fastest to move.

I talked to my doctor who is an very accomplished Scuba Diver this morning to checkout what he had found when a group made a dive around a large patch of brown mousse about 13 miles off the beach. He said that the oil extended down 60 feet and stayed about the same size of the visible spill on surface. The only difference noted was that the concentration tapered off somewhat toward the bottom. They got run off by the marine patrol as the area was said to be too dangerous.

 

[waross]

Thanks Syd
My comment was based on a rough estimate;
20,000 to 40,000 BPD times a possible 100 days.
The capture efforts will reduce the total lost in the ocean as opposed to the total well flow, and I hope that it is shut down in less than 100 days.


Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

 

[DrillerNic]

waross- I'm not a BP apologist; I'm a professional drilling engineer in Aberdeen, watching this blowout with horror, and also getting irritated at the misinformation, assumptions, errors and ignorance being reported in the media. Suff like accoustic BOP control systems being mandatory in Norway (they aren't); or the rig didn't have an emergency BOP control system (it had two: an EDS and a deadman switch) and so on.

I'm waiting for the full inquiry on this disaster to report- where did the kick come from? Why did the BOP not close fully? Why did the rig explode? Why did the emergency BOP systems not funtion and so on before I say who's to blame. Does that make a BP apologist? Or does it make me someone who isn't making assumptions and rushing to conclusions?

This is the first deepwater blowout (defined as more than 1500ft water depth) in more than 30- 35 years of deepwater drilling and thousands of such wells. It is the first major blowout in the GoM in almost 30 years and tens of thousands of wells. If the Macondo blowout spills more than Ixtoc-1, it would still have a long way to go before surpassing either the first Gulf war spill or the Lakeview blowout.

 

[DrillerNic]

(on edit) or on deaths, the Macondo blowout with 11 dead has a long, long way to go before surpassing the Alexander Kielland with 123 dead, or the Piper Alpha disater with 167 dead....

 

[waross]

Hi Nic.
First, although we do not agree, I respect you and your position. In a perfect world I would agree with you. But the world is not perfect. I expect to see bp's spin doctors and lawyers work as hard as they can to lessen bp's responsibilities and obligations.
And as for waiting for the inquiry and what facts are allowed to come out, bp's position may be even worse than we expected.
Case in point; The volume of the flow. I and others assumed that bp knew the volume of the escaping oil and were resisting publication of accurate figures for PR effect. We had many estimates putting the volume much higher than bp admitted. We had reports that a team of undersea scientists was enroute to accurately measure the spill volume and were turned away.
When bp started collecting more oil than their original estimate the amount reported as escaping, the goverment re-assesed the volume that was leaking.
When it became apparent that the surface facilities were inadequate to handle the volume that could be captured, it seemed that bp did not have any idea of the volume of the spill and had believed their own BS as well.
I think that we can safely assume that the BOP was in bad order.
As to why work proceeded with a bad order BOP, we will wait and see if that was incompetence in the matter of testing the BOP or willful disregard of safe operating procedures.

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

 

[DrillerNic]

Waross- metering of multiphase fluids is very very difficult, even on surface- generally the fluids are separated into liquid and gas and then indivudually metered.

My guess is that BP were working on what they thought the reservoir might deliver before they drilled it- ie "errrr, similar wells in this formation with a similar permeabilities produce about 2bbls/ psi of drawdown pressure below the reservoir pressure.... We know reservoir pressure in the Macondo well is xxxx psi as we measured it, but what's the pressure in the bottom of the well? Well it depends on the fluids in the well, which are a mixture of oil and gas, but we don't know how much gas as we don't know the wellbore pressure.... And then there might (or might not, we're not really sure) be some back pressure due to restrictions in the riser and BOP and the holes the well fluid is flowing from. Umm, let's estimate 2000psi of drawdown so that would give about 6000bopd"

I think the estimates were jointly produced by BP and bits of the US Government - the Coastguard and the NOAA- so I guess everyone involved reviwed the estimates and the assumptions.

Even the independent scientists have come up with 12,000- 19,000 bopd, which isn't a very accurate number (basically 15500bopd +/- 30%). I've seen some riduclous numbers of 100,000bopd from the well(to put this in context, 100,000bopd is the production from a reasonable sized field with lots of wells). Now we have an better number as BP are actually recovering a lot of the oil (but remember that they have also removed some of the flow restrictions inteh riser that may have been reducing the flow slightly).