Thanks for the reply. I just can’t fathom why BP can’t let go of the penny pinching mentality. Their only possible salvation as a Company is demonstrating a balls to the wall attitude to fix this. There’s obviously plenty of equipment available, and I assume that with directional drilling it can be sufficiently spaced at the surface to drill 6 or 8 additional wells. I also assume that if each shoots for a 50 yard radius from the well that the drilling can be done much quicker than the 2 bore shot wells. Depending on the shape of the reservoir maybe even drill into the other end of it too with a group of rigs.
By now that oil must be migrating from quite a distance, so 6-8 new wells around the broken one at a 50-100 yard radius has to reduce the pressure and flow at the broken one, reducing the leak and making it easier to kill. The oil produced can help go toward paying for this mess. Idle rigs are put to work. Worst case risk is reduced because every drop of oil extracted in a controlled manner is a drop that can’t leaked into the Gulf in the event the hole can’t be shut in. BP gets to produce a field they wouldn’t be allowed produce otherwise. BP might even look a bit better in the eyes of the public, and it would give the appearance that the whole industry is pitching in. It seems like a win/win approach for everyone.
Maybe a geologist can step in and let us know what they think. I’d hate to think that a nuke is the backup plan. In the meantime I say give Tony the boot and have the new guy come in with the “no expense spared” approach. I see it as the only chance BP has as a company, especially if rumors about penny-pinching on the cleanup effort are true, but that’s a whole other topic.
John
[QUOTE=BLISTERS;38607]John, I never heard of a relief well being used to bleed pressure out of a reservoir to stop a blowout. That don’t mean I am conditioned enough to consider it a silly idea. Desperate situations call for desperate means and your suggestion sounds saner than nuking this thing. Question is how big is the reservoir and how long (and how many relief wells) will it take to deplete/bleed the reservoir of pressure.Could take years. Essentially we would end up producing the field. But the current approach with the relief is sound enough to me and doable even at this depth and with the downhole problems I suspect exist, the wild card though being a weak thief zone and possibility of collapsed casing. My mind’s not closed but I can’t see why they won’t be able to kill it once they tag MC252 and pump in kill mud. As an oilman myself, I am ashamed, this blowout will be at the back of my mind for the rest of my life. At the rate safe practices started to slide it was waiting to happen sooner or later. The rapid climb in oil prices from about '05 and peaking at about $141/bbl played a role. I could see it coming but these days any number of warnings or cautionary advice gets thrown out of the window because most companies have been stacked bottom to the top with a majority of idiots who lack hands on experience with the basics. Government agencies paid by taxpayer dollars to enforce regulations are too weak, undermanned or just plain old corrupt bastards. In my day scores of personnel and companies would get run off. These days I am shocked to find the same companies and personnel still working on the same rig that took a massive blowout (this one did not ignite) surface and underground. Are you worried that conventional kill attempts won’t work ?[/QUOTE]