BP searches for another way to slice through pipe

[CHIMO]

Source: NEW YORK TIMES

HOUMA, LA.—BP officials were casting about for another way to slice through a leaking riser pipe located more than a kilometre underwater after a diamond-studded wire saw operated by a robot got stuck and was later found to be ineffective.

The delay was one more bump in a frustrating obstacle course that BP has tried to run in dealing with a stricken oil well on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, 80 kilometres offshore. Since an explosion on April 20 that wrecked a drilling rig and killed 11 workers, the well has been spewing thousands of litres of oil a day into the gulf, fouling beaches, shellfish and birds on the coasts of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.

Efforts soon after the explosion to close valves on the well’s blowout preventer device failed; so did several attempts to capture leaking oil with a containment dome. Last week’s “top kill” effort to seal the well by forcing drilling mud and solid debris into it also fell short and was abandoned.

The current strategy is once again to try to place a containment cap over the well and funnel the leaking oil up through a riser pipe to a tanker on the surface. This time, though, the original riser, the pipe that once ran from the wellhead up to the drilling rig and now lies broken and snaking along the sea floor, must be sheared off so that the containment dome can be fit snugly over the well, a procedure called cut-and-cap for short. Officials have cautioned that after the pipe is cut but before the dome is in place, the flow of oil could increase by as much as 20 per cent.



Read more: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/817827--bp-searches-for-another-way-to-slice-through-pipe?bn=1

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Fools. I don't believe that they could cut a brach off a tree without having the saw getting stuck.

There is no reason given for the saw getting stuck. It just got stuck!

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. The weight of the riser bearing down on the blade perhaps, like

when you take a chainsaw to a tree and the tree leans towards your blade, or when you take a skilsaw to a board and it pinches the wrong way.

[CHIMO]

2. Then

You make a cut from the other side or you make a small initial cut to form a wedge and then cut from the other side.

It is not rocket science. Or maybe now, anything that is technical is rocket science.

Unfortunately, modern rocket science is more than 60 years old.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. Attaching a baloon to the riser might have helped... then again

what I have suggested for future prevention of stupid operations is.... a valve that will close BY ITSELF, either in the inner pipe or in the annular ring.... design a frigging spring loaded valve that will close DUE TO THE PRESSURE AND MOVEMENT OF THE OIL AT A PARTICULAR RATE. It's not rocket science, forklifts have had this sort of "blown hose failsafe device" since Moses parted the oil free red sea.

[CHIMO]

4. I

Would be very surprised if API doesn't have a method for shutting down a well. Where is the HAZOP from the system? Why is no one asking for this?

[Owl]

10. I agree. And it seems they're limiting future options by cutting the riser off so close to the top.

[saigon68]

18. "Found to be ineffective"

LOL---ass-clowns

[razorman]

20. I can loan them my phaser.

[daleo]

5. Nothing seems to be easy at these depths

Which is a lesson in itself about corporate engineering hubris.

[CHIMO]

6. Of Course

It is not as easy. No one said is was as easy.

Each installation has it's own risks.

It is up to the company and their insurance to decide if the risk warrants the benefits.

Where is BP's insurance company on this. I have not seen one word on this.

The Corporation relies on the technical evaluations. When the corporation assumes the technical authority they negate their insurance. Where is/are BP's insurers on this?

[daleo]

7. Their insurance company might hold my life insurance or yours

For all we know. We will all end up paying one way or another. I will be very surprised if some law (as yet unrevealed) doesn't cap oil company liability.

I believe there is such a cap for nuclear operators (liability capped at 50 billion?). Just imagine what a catastrophic meltdown could cost. This BP uncontrollable underwater gusher shows how worst case scenarios really do occur.

[CHIMO]

8. BP

May not get much from their insurance company.

We need to see the HAZOP and other decisions that were made. The insurance companies don't insure people or companies that place risk beyond the premiums.

Canada went through that wringer with the collapse of a bridge in Quebec many years ago.

[daleo]

9. Law suits will probably drag on for years

I am not sure if the Exxon Valdez suits are all through yet.

BP is a limited liability company, so even if lawsuits ultimately go against them liability is capped by the book value of the company. If worst comes to worst, that might only cover a fraction of the disaster's costs.

[CHIMO]

11. BP

Was also the Exxon Valdez!
Just watch this piece.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/26/bp_played_central_role_in_botched
AMY GOODMAN: We are talking about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, what the biologist Rick Steiner now calls the Gulf of Oil. Our guests are Abrahm Lustgarten, reporter with ProPublica, and Zygmunt Plater, an environmental law professor at Boston College. But more relevant to this discussion is he headed the legal team that investigated the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill.

What does the Exxon Valdez spill, Zyg Plater, have to do with BP?

ZYGMUNT PLATER: It’s so damnably frustrating to see this happening again, because BP dominated the Alyeska consortium, that our commission said, "Don’t just look at the aftermath. The preconditions were created by the Alyeska company, not just by Exxon." And BP got no notice. In retrospect, our commission report should have mentioned BP by name. We just said Alyeska, Alyeska which was the entity that made all those decisions, but BP dominated Alyeska with a majority holding.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain, though, what Alyeska had to do with Exxon Valdez?

In the end, essentially there was no cost to the participants.

[iamtechus]

12. I can't hold my tongue any longer

It seems that they've made this much more complicated than really needs to be. Engineers sometimes seem to think that every problem calls for some fancy new design.

Why not simply remove the bolts from the flange just below where they're making the cut, then use mostly off-the-shelf parts to attach the line to the surface? I guess I shouldn't use the word "simply" because it would still be a tough job, but not an engineering project.

Send the school boys and academics home and let the mechanics fix it!

[CHIMO]

13. Then Go And

Do it.
Accept the liability and do it.
If you don't have past experience in doing this then what do you have?
It is just a tea party rant?

Everything is possible. Nothing is impossible.

Who said that engineers were in charge? I haven't.

[iamtechus]

14. Ha! I struck a nerve

[CHIMO]

15. Perhaps

Then perhaps not.

I presume you don't think your ideas align with the Tea Party?

[Nihil]

17. Sometimes the jabbering of idiots *does* get irritating ...

... and your previous post was certainly idiotic ...

[HysteryDiagnosis]

16. Engineers are a mechanic's worst nightmare. I'm sure you will

agree.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

19. Too bad they don't have high pressure pumps down there, water

cuts steel quite nicely when garnet is added to it.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/question553.htm