Digby: What’s the Worst Case Scenario for the BP Oil Spill?

[marmar]

Posted by digby at 3:03 pm
June 17, 2010

What’s the Worst Case Scenario for the BP Oil Spill?


This post originally appeared on Hullabaloo.

I keep hearing this, and I wish that some real geologists and oil experts would either debunk it or confirm it because it’s scaring the hell out of people:

What’s the worst case scenario for the BP oil spill? How about the horrifying possibility of leaks in the pipe below the sea floor—leaks that could open up a “gusher… directly into the oil deposit”?A comment from well-regarded energy policy website The Oil Drum has been making the rounds, outlining a scenario as terrifying as it is bleak: That the Deepwater Horizon rig’s problems extend below the sea floor, where one or more leaks are currently weakening the seabed foundation in a way that could cause an inextinguishable “wide open gusher blowing out 150,000 barrels a day of raw oil or more.”

The lengthy, extensively sourced and cited post, by commenter “dougr” (who isn’t officially affiliated with The Oil Drum), is located here. It’s the scariest thing you’ll read today. Presenting himself as a “fairly knowledgeable” person, dougr works from BP’s efforts to stem the leak to make a case for, essentially, a coverup of the well’s true problems, perpetrated by BP and the government. Collecting quotations from BP officials and descriptions of their actions, which he says “make no sense,” he comes to “one inescapabale conclusion… The well pipes below the sea floor are broken and leaking.”

If that’s true, what would it mean? For starters, that a “cap” won’t work, as it will transfer pressure to the “down hole” (i.e., below the sea floor) leaks. But even worse, writes dougr,

This down hole leak will undermine the foundation of the seabed in and around the well area. It also weakens the only thing holding up the massive Blow Out Preventer’s immense bulk of 450 tons….

When enough is eroded away the casings will buckle and the BOP will collapse the well. If and when you begin to see oil and gas coming up around the well area from under the BOP? or the area around the well head connection and casing sinking more and more rapidly? …it won’t be too long after that the entire system fails…

All of these things lead to only one place, a fully wide open well bore directly to the oil deposit…after that, it goes into the realm of “the worst things you can think of”… <...> the very least damaging outcome as bad as it is, is that we are stuck with a wide open gusher blowing out 150,000 barrels a day of raw oil or more

It’s a race now…a race to drill the relief wells and take our last chance at killing this monster before the whole weakened, wore out, blown out, leaking and failing system gives up it’s last gasp in a horrific crescendo.

I have to assume it’s Manhattan Project time with the digging of the relief wells and that every possible thing is being done to get them finished ahead of schedule, right? It’s going night and day with no breaks and every single asset brought to bear?

I suppose this worst case scenario may be nonsense, but I’ve been reading this at various places and people have been sending it to me for a while now and it’s disturbing. Is it possible? Probable?


http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/06/17/whats-the-worst-case-scenario-for-the-bp-oil-spill/

[rzemanfl]

1. Scary, but not even close to the one with the gas explosion and

the tidal wave that will kill me and my family.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8582634

[WeDidIt]

2. And this possibility is 100% due to the fact that BP went on the cheap on well design.

But they saved $7 million dollars doing it.

[Poll_Blind]

3. Yep.

PB

[Poll_Blind]

4. Depends, I think, on the answer to TWO really important questions:

1. Is the well casing intact and if not, exactly where is it breached?

2. How much pressure is in the oil pool, really?

There are actually a shitload of other questions but I think, really, if the answer to No. 1 is YES and No. 2 is (something non-supernatural) then all we have to worry about it the oil shooting out for a motherfucking long time. Cause that's actually the good outcome, if you can believe it.

If anyone has citations for answers to those two, I'd really love to know them.

Today was the last day of school for my kids and there were little clean drops of water falling out the sky. I couldn't stop thinking about clean water and my kids when I went to pick 'em up.

PB

[zeemike]

5. That worse case scenario may not be nonsense.

And it depends on the geological structures it is in.
From what I have learned just recently about Methane Hydrates could make it an even bigger catastrophe than just a lot of oil.
If there is a large layer of these hydrates that has been fractured it may be unstopable...if it does not come out of the well it will come out somewhere else because once the hydrates start to fracture it creates tremendous pressures that have to go somewhere.
not posting this to scare you all but this is not over yet by a long shot.

[RC]

6. The answers are here.

http://www.theoildrum.com/

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6611#more

Bookmark the site. It is the best source of information I have found on this well.

Quote:
"We are trying to perform a service to the public here to coordinate smart people who know their stuff with other people who want to learn about what's going on. Promotion of that ideal will be the criteria by which we make our decisions about what stays and what goes."