NYT: BP Resumed Pumping Mud this evening

[FrenchieCat]

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

[IndianaGreen]

1. BP stopped pumping mud for 16 hours and did not tell anyone about it

Keith Olbermann is reporting, as WaPo and ABC and CNN reported earlier, that BP is going to try a junk shot, perhaps as early as tonite.

A junk shot is an admission that top kill did not work.

Are you bothered at all that BP stopped pumping mud for 16 hours and did not tell anyone about it, not even the US government?

[tekisui]

4. You can't believe a word from BP.

I haven't seen a detailed timeline, but 16 hours before admitting they stopped the top kill was pretty close to when the US Officials were saying all was as planned and top kill was working. BP was staying mum.

[HughMoran]

7. Junk shot works hand-in-hand with top kill

if you look at where the pressure is escaping, and how to keep it there, stopping up the riser leak (even somewhat) helps push the mud down. It is possible that they can't overcome the pressure without the junk shot, but they were discussing this option even before pumping once they found out that the mud for the top kill would be pumping below the main flow restriction (the bop valve that's stuck) - thus clogging that valve up more puts more downward pressure on the oil trying to push up and out of the well.

[gateley]

5. That's what the folks at TOD are saying - essentially this failed, they will

attempt #2, perhaps with the junk shot.

I'm furious that BP is being so duplicitous. They let Allen stand there and say that the top kill was continuing, giving the impression that it was more of the same, all the while knowing that they'd stopped pumping.

EXCEPT -- Hmmmm. Could that be what Allen meant this morning when he said they had "stopped the flow"? Maybe they did inform him but he misunderstood, taking it to mean they'd been successful? :shrug: And today when asked some questions at a press conference, he said he didn't know the answer because he'd been in a helicopter all day checking out the shorelines.

[Teaser]

6. junk shot is not substantively different from a top kill

It's just material mixed in with the mud to increase its viscosity. They are obviously trying different vicsosities of mud to calibrate the best solution to the problem.

[IndianaGreen]

12. Junk shot carries significant risks compared to top hat kill

which is why it is the last resort before we all sit around waiting for the relief well to cap the gusher.

[Teaser]

17. it's the same thing

topkill is a mud injection with a granularity of 0. Junk shot is a topkill with some nonzero granularity. that granularity will be varied between 0 and the upper bound value to see if a solution is found.

[earthside]

14. What were we watching then?

If BP stopped pumping the drilling fluid 16 hours ago, what was coming out of the holes at the top of the bent riser pipe?

Everyone was saying that the light tan colored jets were the drilling fluid.

[IndianaGreen]

15. Per BP, you were watching mud mixed in oil

This is what BP's version of Baghdad Bob has to say (Doug Suttles):

The light-brown material that was seen spilling out of the well throughout Thursday was the previously pumped fluid from the "top kill" procedure mixed with oil, he said.

<snip>

Suttles said part of the problem is that too much mud is leaving the breach instead of going down the well. "So what we need to do is adjust how we are doing the job so that we get more of the drilling mud to go down the well," Suttles said.

He said one solution would be to introduce solids -- known as "bridging material," or its variant "junk shot" -- into the mix.

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

IOW, the oil is pushing all that mud out of the riser.

[gateley]

2. FWIW, the folks on TOD scoff at Scuttles's explanation. They say that you

don't stop this process, then resume. Essentially they feel Attempt #1 failed, and now they're going to try Attempt #2. BP isn't being transparent at all, and IMO that's criminal and inexcusable.

I hope this attempt works. Scuttles said today if it doesn't then they have other plans ready to go. But why should we believe him?

This is just heartbreaking.

[IndianaGreen]

3. BP is lying

I don't know why anyone would still believe anything that BP says.

A junk shot is an admission that top kill failed.

[FrenchieCat]

8. I don't know what PB's doing.......I"m relaying what the NYT is publishing.

[gateley]

11. Oh - I know. I was just telling you what I'd heard/read. nt

[gateley]

9. Well you're in agreement with the industry guys on TOD, and I'm far more inclined

to believe you (and them) than believe BP.

Do you think they're trying to snow Allen/government, too?

[Teaser]

10. if "they" are saying that, then "they" are incorrect

you stop the process to recalibrate the solution. this is going to be a war of inches.

[gateley]

13. I ask this in the most respectful way -- are you in the industry? Because these

guys are and apparently have lots of experience working on rigs, which is why I pay attention to what they say.

[Teaser]

16. I am a physicist and an engineer (and more) and I also am a poster on oildrum

and you are misreporting what "they" are saying.

The population of oildrum is about >40% conspiracy theorist and >60% industry expert, and there is some bit of overlap between the two populations (hence the non-addition). There are a number of commenters arguing that the topkill has failed. But these are just comments. Some of the commenters are knowledgeable, and some aren't. Do you know which ones are? How would you make that judgement?

Read the topline posters. They aren't putting it in those terms. They are saying that the engineers are calibrating the consistency of the injection fluid because there are smaller leaks along the way. Heading Out has a post up, I think the first post right now, saying this very thing.

So if you're a bp engineer, and you don't know the status of the pipeline, what do you do first? You inject a baseline solution to see what happens. And what happens? You discover other leaks along the way. Obviously you need a solution with some granularity in it, to gum up those other leaks, and make it harder for stuff to squeeze out.

That's what's going on. Call it "failure" if you must. What it really is, is an experiment.

(on edit): not interested in defending BP here. They are being remarkably clumsy in their communication strategy. But I do not believe the engineers who have communicated their status to the press have been anything except honest.

[HughMoran]

18. Good post

I feel lucky when I come across a post that tosses all the BS aside and posts the facts as they see them. I tire of hyperbole. Perhaps engineers understand the technical complications of this operation where they are trying to push the oil down into the well faster than it leaks out of the top - without blowing the bop apart in the process.

[Teaser]

19. "without blowing the bop apart in the process."

that's the trick. And it's why I think that this only has about a 50% chance of working. If that. But they haven't blown up the blow out protector yet, and that's a good sign.

[Avalux]

21. Kaku said there are about 16 holes in the bop. Do you know if that's correct?

He said they need to be very careful the mud isn't pumped in too fast or it will rupture apart. It makes sense the engineers would need to recalibrate the consistency of the mud and keep the flow rate under control - both factors must be just right for the 'experiment' to work. It is an experiment - it's not as if this is a tried and true solution and there are experts who have done it before.

[Teaser]

24. I'm not an image analyst

I can't say. certainly looks to be in the right ballpark.

[HughMoran]

22. Watching the ROVs watch the valves etc was boring

- which was a good thing!

[gateley]

20. Here's an example of what I was referring to

aliilaali on May 27, 2010 - 6:20pm
you cannot start and stop a top kill on a flowing well......top kill on a flowing well is a one shot procedure......once the mud pumps stop, top kill is effectively over for a flowing well....so essentially what they will be doing if they start pumping again is top kill attempt No 2.....

i think BP engineers have given up ....this was a long shot anyways ...BP is just blathering and will soon announce that top kill has failed completely .....

``````````````````````````````````````````````````````
Of course this poster may be one of the 40% conspiracy theorists you mention.. I don't understand a lot of what is being said, I just try to get the gist of it, and this guy's posts stuck with me. Maybe because I'm hyper distrustful of BP and knee-jerk think the worst.

What you say makes a lot of sense. And, of course, this is the first time anything like this has been attempted at this depth (which they keep reminding us).

Even though I swing from pessimism to optimism, I'm so hopeful this meets with success. The sooner the better.

[Teaser]

23. I know the poster. I have no opinion on their expertise.

This person sounds like they are trying to sound authoritative. Perhaps they are, but they don't make sense to me, and they don't back up their assertions with data, or even argument.

The topkill may perform optimally at first, but there is no reason you can't start over with a new viscosity material. For a topkill to work, the pressure exerted by the column of mud in the borehole has to equalize the pressure of the oil coming out. And clearly, it wasn't quite doing the trick. Part of the problem might be that the leaks along the way are acting as release valves, and that pressure you want to inject isn't reaching the column of erupting oil. So you add some stuff to the mud to increase its viscosity,and also make it harder to compress (thus making it harder to squeeze out of the leakpoints). Additionally, increasing the density of the mud increases the weight of the column of mud pressing against the oil.

So, if the first viscosity/granularity of the mud doesn't match pressure, you try with another one. Why can't you do it again?

One danger you run up against, though, is as you add to the granularity of the mud, it becomes more abrasive. It can enlarge the leaks, and defeat the entire purpose of the higher density mud. So too many tries, or if you increment to a granularity that is too high, and you may truly screw the pooch.

What will happen? I don't know.

[gateley]

25. You don't know and nobody knows - that's what has to be so frustrating to those

trying to find a solution. It always looks good on paper. :7

Wishing them the best!