BP estimates top kill's chance of success at only 60%.

[Statistical]

BP's (NYSE:BP) has moved equipment in and is ready for its "top kill" attempt on Wednesday. This has never been attempted before at these depths of 5,000 feet below the surface. BP is estimating the success rate being only about a 60 - 70 percent.

If the attempt is a failure, BP has a couple other options they could implement. The first being they would try and cut the damaged riser pipe on the top of the blowout preventer, they would then attach a cap to the riser from the above drillship. The company said if successful this would capture most of the oil.

Another option is to lower a second blowout preventer or a valve. We're heading into the sixth week now since the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon on April 20th and the sinking April 22nd.

http://drippingoil.blogspot.com/2010/05/bp-nysebp-ready-for-top-kill-attempt.html

That likely means real chance of success is 6%. :(

[greencharlie]

1. yayayaaaayyyyyyyy! More oil!!!!!!! And Corexit too!!

can't wait for my next Gulf vacation!!!!!!

:sarcasm:

:mad:

[hedgehog]

2. That statement makes no sense to me. If BP knows of something

that could go wrong to prevent success, why isn't BP fixing that to begin with? For example, if valve A fails, the attempt fails. So spend the extra money up front to use valve Super A that won't fail.

[Statistical]

3. The BOP is damaged.

You work with what is there. There is another article talking about a one big unknown is how much mud will flow up the BOP instead of down it.

So the valve is on side of BOP. The mud injected can flow up or down. Obviously only mud flowing down does any good. Some percentage will go wrong way. They can only increase pressure so high without risking the BOP rupturing. So when they get to max safe pressure if enough of the pressure isn't pushing against the oil flow the plan will fail.

The part that needs to be "replaced" is the entire BOP but they can't do that.

[backscatter712]

13. That's the key. What parts are damaged? How well can the rest hold together?

Hopefully, Dr. Chu's dream team got some good pictures with the gamma ray imaging, and have a decent scientific idea of how much stress the BOP can take.

[Statistical]

14. Honestly I think they are just making some guestimates.

[backscatter712]

15. I think they may have been able to make some real measurements.

That's the point of the gamma-ray imaging - to get X-rays of the BOP, to try to figure out exactly how much it's eroded, determine the state of the valves and other parts, and so on.

[NoNothing]

4. There are a lot of random factors involved

You simply can't correct for those.

[DURHAM D]

9. They don't know the condition of the liner/casing.

Basically, if it is broken it can not be fixed.

[backscatter712]

5. I'll throw out my Mythbusters odds...

Just to make it understood that I'm properly sourcing my material, I'm pulling this straight out of my ass...

40% chance it actually works
40% chance something goes wrong and they abort.
20% chance something goes catastrophically wrong (they blow up the BOP) and the leak becomes 10 times worse.

[Statistical]

7. Given those odds a probability risk assesment says don't do it.

:)

Say if they don't do it between now and time relief wells close the flow a total of x gallons is spilled.

Thus
40% chance they abort = no change: x gallons spilled = 0.4 * x = 0.4x
40% chance: 0 more gallons spilled = 0.4 * 0x = 0x
20% chance: 10x as much is spilled = 0.2 * 10x = 2x.

Overall probable "gain" from that scenario would be 2.4x gallons of oil spilled vs x gallons waiting for relief well.

Sometimes doing "something" is worse than waiting.

[jtrockville]

6. And we all know how accurate BP's estimates are.

I'm more inclined to go with your estimate, Statistical. 6% sounds about right.

[Statistical]

8. I used "complex logic" and analysis to come up with it.

BP added the missing 0 from the leak flow rate to chance of success.

Flow
Reality: 50,000 bpd
BP: 5000 bpd (one missing zero)

Kill Chance
Reality: 6%
BP: 60% (one extra zero, "borrowed" from flow rate)

:)

I would love to be wrong.

[DURHAM D]

10. I'm with you.

I think it has a 6-7% chance of working.

I pray I am wrong.

[JBoy]

11. Here's how I would break down the probability

50% chance that the equipment BP has assembled works as designed, and they execute the procedure they've developed correctly.

50% chance that the actual condition of the well prevents their attempt from working correctly.

50% chance that the depth their working at prevents them from being able to do something critical.

50% chance that something else crops up that they didn't think about or didn't expect.

Put them together you get 0.5 * 0.5 * 0.5 * 0.5 = 6.25% chance of success.

[Feron]

12. Here's some more information:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6505

I'm dubious that this will work.