[QUOTE=tengineer;38298]Thank you. I have tried to explain to folks that a relief well was just an access to solving the problem, then the real work begins. Your answer was much more precise.
Now, everyone still wants to know how long this process will take?
Your best considered guess would be appreciated.
Tengineer[/QUOTE]
Even if I were privy to what exactly is going on, on the relief well rigs drilling them now, it is very hard to estimate how long the whole thing will take. If fact it can be quite hard to estimate to estimate how long an exploration well might take to drill to total depth. There might be a layer of very hard rock beneath, there might be a very soft layer prone to fluid losses, we might encounter unexpected high pressures, the drill string could get stuck and they might have to back off and sidetrack past the fish ? Weather is another wild card. Machines break down but there is always back up but so far they are ahead of schedule but once they tag the target well and mill a hole into it, or frac into it, it is a matter of displacing the whole well bottom to top with kill mud ideally speaking that is . But if mud displaced goes up the wellbore and then follows a path into a thief zone already created by high well bore pressures during the blowout , crimping of the riser or top kill job things could get complicated.