Is the BP Gusher Unstoppable?

[Tab]

 
This is a very interesting article reprinting a post made on an oil-industry forum, which postulates that the well's pipes and everything are broken below the surface which would explain why certain strategies have been tried and why they had the result they did.
 

"It means they will never cap the gusher after the wellhead. They cannot...the more they try and restrict the oil gushing out the bop?...the more it will transfer to the leaks below. Just like a leaky garden hose with a nozzle on it. When you open up the nozzle?...it doesn't leak so bad, you close the nozzle?...it leaks real bad, same dynamics. It is why they sawed the riser off...or tried to anyway...but they clipped it off, to relieve pressure on the leaks "down hole". I'm sure there was a bit of panic time after they crimp/pinched off the large riser pipe and the Diamond wire saw got stuck and failed...because that crimp diverted pressure and flow to the rupture down below.

"Contrary to what most of us would think as logical to stop the oil mess, actually opening up the gushing well and making it gush more became direction BP took after confirming that there was a leak. In fact if you note their actions, that should become clear. They have shifted from stopping or restricting the gusher to opening it up and catching it. This only makes sense if they want to relieve pressure at the leak hidden down below the seabed.....and that sort of leak is one of the most dangerous and potentially damaging kind of leak there could be. It is also inaccessible which compounds our problems. There is no way to stop that leak from above, all they can do is relieve the pressure on it and the only way to do that right now is to open up the nozzle above and gush more oil into the gulf and hopefully catch it, which they have done, they just neglected to tell us why, gee thanks.

"A down hole leak is dangerous and damaging for several reasons. There will be erosion throughout the entire beat up, beat on and beat down remainder of the "system" including that inaccessible leak. The same erosion I spoke about in the first post is still present and has never stopped, cannot be stopped, is impossible to stop and will always be present in and acting on anything that is left which has crude oil "Product" rushing through it. There are abrasives still present, swirling flow will create hot spots of wear and this erosion is relentless and will always be present until eventually it wears away enough material to break it's way out. It will slowly eat the bop away especially at the now pinched off riser head and it will flow more and more. Perhaps BP can outrun or keep up with that out flow with various suckage methods for a period of time, but eventually the well will win that race, just how long that race will be?...no one really knows....However now?...there are other problems that a down hole leak will and must produce that will compound this already bad situation.

"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. In fact?...we are beginning to the results of the well's total integrity beginning to fail due to the undermining being caused by the leaking well bore.

"The first layer of the sea floor in the gulf is mostly lose material of sand and silt. It doesn't hold up anything and isn't meant to, what holds the entire subsea system of the Bop in place is the well itself... The well's piping in comparison is actually very much smaller than the Blow Out Preventer and strong as it may be, it relies on some support from the seabed to function and not literally fall over...and it is now showing signs of doing just that....falling over...

"What is likely to happen now?

"Well...none of what is likely to happen is good, in fact...it's about as bad as it gets.
More (Mother Jones): http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/06/worst-already-true-BP-well-now-unstoppable

[GodlessBiker]

1. This is, umm, scary.

[pretzel4gore]

2. it's stoppable...

if necessary, they might have to build cofferdams around the thing, at cost of $ tens/billions, (literally cost of a manned trip to Mars). Then the oil allowed to gush for years until pressure falls enough to cement entire thing in. It be the vastest thing build by human race...10 times greaterthen Great Wall or the pyramids. The bodies of petro-chem industry execs and their families would make the 'anamaly' sacred (and stave off the Gods for awhile). Same thing as we will do with fission nuke powerplants/wastes and decommed H- bombs etc.

[suzie]

3. Why do you print only the post that gives the "unstoppable theory" and not any of the

other posts which discount this particular individual and his information?

[Tab]

7. I rarely post anything any more

and it's usually to LBN if I do (except for certain subforums). There are plenty of posts debating the efficacy of various methods (top kill, dome, relief well, etc.) but this was the first one that pointed to a substrata problem and it did have the ring of truth, so I thought I'd put it out there. I haven't posted others, but if you have articles discounting it, feel free to go ahead and put them up. Of course, the source is Mother Jones, but that doesn't mean they're wrong and I thought they may have picked up on an interesting point. I'd rather know and choose to discard than to have never known to begin with.

[suzie]

9. There were other posts that gave a different view and questioned the credentials

of the author of that long opinion.

Mother Jones slanted the article by not at least including some of them, or their questions about the author.

Which is not to say that you did.

[gateley]

4. "Postulate" nt

[stray cat]

5. Supposedly demonstrations and protesting may stop it

not sure how that works :shrug:

[nichomachus]

6. If not that, then posting on a blog certainly will

[FBI_Un_Sub]

8. Not using present technology.

The BP Gusher is Unstoppable using presently available hardware and technology --- especially how BP has apparently royally screwed up the well casing and the reservoir.