BP Should Not Drill the Relief Wells: - Democratic Underground

amborin

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Wed Jun-16-10 02:13 PM
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BP Should Not Drill the Relief Wells:

Since BP has Broken Everything It Has Touched, We Must Remove BP from the Crime Scene and Let an International Team of Experts Fix This on BP's Dime

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/bp-has-broken-everything-it-has-touched-we-must-remove-bp-crime-scene-and-let-international-?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+%28zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+the+survival+rate+for+everyone+drops+to+zero%29

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......And Spiegel reports today that there are many dangers with completing the relief wells:
Independent experts warn that relief wells, like any well, are not without risk. "More oil could leak than before, because the field is being drilled into again," says Fred Aminzadeh, a geophysicist at the University of Southern California. Ira Leifer, a geochemist at the University of California in Santa Barbara, voices similar concerns: "In the worst case, we would suddenly be dealing with two spills, and we'd have twice the problem.".............Leifer is a member of a team of experts deployed by US President Barack Obama to estimate the volume of oil currently flowing in the Gulf of Mexico. .........BP's most recent efforts to stop the flow of oil have only made the situation worse, says Leifer. The engineers' attempt to seal off the well from above, using a method known as "top kill," failed and only enlarged the borehole, according to Leifer. Now, he adds, there is almost nothing stopping the oil from flowing out of the well.
.......As straightforward as it sounds, this approach has not always been easy to implement in the past. The disaster in the Timor Sea, for example, ended in a debacle. It took engineer five tries to even find the borehole under the sea floor. Shortly before the end, the West Atlas oilrig went up in flames, after all.
Another case is also a warning sign for BP. In June 1979, engineers with the Mexican oil company Pemex lost control of the Ixtox I, an exploratory well in the Gulf of Mexico. Just as BP is now attempting to do, engineers at the time drilled two relief wells.
.............Is history repeating itself? The spill in the Macondo oil field could also continue to gush uncontrollably well beyond BP's August deadline. Pemex Director Carlos Morales, currently providing BP with technical advice, expects the spill to continue for another "four to five months." Leifer also believes that the disaster on the sea floor could drag on "until late fall."
.......Although the BP engineers have already completed two-thirds of the first relief well, it is extremely difficult to find the out-of-control well in the middle of the bedrock, says David Rensink, incoming president of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.
"You're trying to intersect the well bore, which is about a foot wide, with another well bore, which is about a foot wide," Rensink said recently. Hitting it with the first attempt, he adds, "would truly be like winning the lottery."........Instead, the engineers will presumably have to repeatedly pull back the drill head to adjust the direction, Rensink predicts. "If they get it on the first three or four shots, they'd be very lucky."

More Caution

Rensink is particularly concerned that BP, in drilling the relief wells, will penetrate into precisely those rock formations in which extreme pressure and temperature conditions facilitated the April blowout in the first place. Gas bubbles and gushing oil from the depths are real possibilities. "Any relief or kill well needs to be drilled with more caution than the first well," Donal Van Nieuwenhuise, a geologist at the University of Houston, told the New Orleans daily Times-Picayune. "You don't want a repeat performance."

Indeed, the engineers aren't only facing a formidable technical challenge. Weather will also play a significant role. Forecasters have already predicted that this hurricane season, which began this month, could be one of the most active on record. Drilling would have to be ceased for the duration of each strong storm.
Government spokesmen have said that BP's technical knowledge and equipment are superior to the government's. But that is misleading.
The U.S. government might not have expertise, but many private companies do. For example, Norway's Statoil is the largest offshore operator in the world, with enormous experience in deepwater drilling. Chevron, Exxon, Royal Dutch Shell and other companies also have substantial experience in such operations.
Numerous countries have also offered to help. See this, this and this, but BP and the U.S. government have rejected their offers.
.......Indeed, it is no longer just the U.S. threatened by this catastrophe, but also Mexico, Cuba, and possibly many other countries as well.
The government shouldn't be letting the knuckleheads who caused the blowout and have made everything worse drill the relief wells.

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