Oil Expert: ‘Well to flow for probably more than a DECADE’ if not plugged successfully

[nashville_brook]

http://preview.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-02/bp-gulf-of-mexico-oil-leak-may-last-until-christmas-in-worst-case-scenario.html


Oil Expert: ‘Well to flow for probably more than a decade’ if not plugged successfully

(snip)


In its original exploration plan for the Macondo well about 40-miles from the Louisiana coast, BP estimated the worst-case scenario for an oil spill was 162,000 barrels of crude a day, according to a filing with the U.S. Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service.

BP Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward has more recently put the maximum potential leak rate at 60,000 barrels a day. …

The ultimate worst-case scenario is that the well is never successfully plugged," said Fred Aminzadeh, a research professor at the University of Southern California’s Center for Integrated Smart Oil Fields who previously worked for Unocal Corp. "That would leave the well to flow for probably more than a decade," he said in a telephone interview.

Plugging the well is another challenge even after BP successfully intersects it, Robert Bea, a University of California Berkeley engineering professor, said. BP has said it believes the well bore to be damaged, which could hamper efforts to fill it with mud and set a concrete plug, Bea said.

[Catherina]

1. 5000 feet under the sea, a hole

25,000 ft measured depth, 18,000 feet straight down. Good luck.

Those criminals drilled straight into Pandora's box.

[Jennicut]

2. Yup. And the scary thing is there are deeper, bigger wells out there right now.

[nashville_brook]

3. pandora's box -- ain't that the truth.

[liberal N proud]

5. They have hit earths femoral artery

[nashville_brook]

6. that's an apt metaphor. ouch.

[Catherina]

7. n2doc posted this earlier. Hits the nail on the head

I agree with you.

[chill_wind]

4. .

[gristy]

8. Does the article give the reader ANY reason to believe that there was ANY chance

that the well would NOT be plugged after 10 years of trying?

The answer is NO, the article makes NO such claim. The OP and its title is completely misleading and alarmist.

[Fumesucker]

12. Umm.. perhaps *this* couple of sentences gives a less than rosy scenario?

BP has said it believes the well bore to be damaged, which could hamper efforts to fill it with mud and set a concrete plug, Bea said.

From time to time worst case scenarios turn out to be accurate..

The floor of the Gulf is a hundred feet or more of ooze and the well head is apparently moving around as it's being worked on.

The oil is being expelled at a pressure of more than five tons per square inch, that's about an SUV's weight on each postage stamp area of a 21" diameter pipe. A back of the envelope calculation is pi*10^2*10,000=3 million pounds of force..

Murphy's laws may be ad hoc ones but they are no less unforgiving for that.

[gristy]

9. Unrec. I recommend that others unrec it too.

For reason already stated.

[tencats]

11. Recommend over your unrecommend.

[Kablooie]

10. Just to play devils advocate ...

What if it's plugged perfectly very soon, every bit of oil is cleaned from the water land and wildlife and all deep water oil wells are cemented up forever.

What about THAT, huh? What about THAT?



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Strange that comments like this are devil's advocate comments.
Kinda makes you want to be on the devil's team, doesn't it?