I’m about 99% sure that what we see in that video is nothing more than the ROV pitching (heaving) a few degrees. This seems real likely, given that right before the motion the ROV has shoved its “hand” into the seabed. Hand could only penetrate so far - the rest of the arm movement moved the ROV itself instead.
I wonder about the silence too… and am rather disappointed that none of our posters from the industry have anything to say today.
BP Says ‘Static Kill’ Achieved in Gulf
BP PLC said Wednesday its Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico appears to have reached a “static condition” after the oil major stopped pumping heavy drilling fluid into it.
“The well pressure is now being controlled by the hydrostatic pressure of the drilling mud, which is the desired outcome of the static kill procedure carried out,” BP said in a statement.
[QUOTE=AHTF;40680]I think bp has plenty mony and power an has killed all voices who criticize.
This forum is now deader than dead snakes— no life left, it all gone poof like smoke!
[B]WHY?[/B][/QUOTE]
Blame loony tune conspiracy theorists with a very poor grasp of geography
[QUOTE=DogsDogsDogs;40785]WTF doesn’t begin to cover it. I hate the dramatic presentation, but really, what IS going on in this video?
The silence here is freakin me out.[/QUOTE]
The ROV moved.
[QUOTE=27182;40797]The ROV moved.[/QUOTE]
yea…just mute the audio and watch it again…
also wouldn’t expect the floor to expand & contract uniformly IF they [I]had[/I] secretly detonated a nuclear device…
I WILL admit that this Earthquake - the first one recorded in Louisiana since 1967, is a mighty big head-shaking coincidence…
PLCGuy, 27182, thanks for your replies. 
Well, that was obvious. And (to me, at least) the disturbance (sand floating/ billowing around) kinda looked the way I’d expect it to just because the ROV (or any other equipment) was <shrug> disturbing the sea bottom (depending on what the bottom is like- silt, clayish, coarse or fine sand, whatever). The sea floor appearing to rise & fall did make me raise my eyebrows, though- except that it really didn’t look natural (maybe cgi?). It was too “small”/ localized, imo.
Re the (allegedly) successful static kill (not disparaging that, just “who knows?” after all the shenanigans) why didn’t they just do this months ago?
johnebe (lol I had to mute it) Not sure if the New Madrid fault literally goes all the way into Louisiana, but there have been tremors (I think there almost always are of some kind) further north, earlier this year.
Oil Rig’s Owner Had Safety Issue at 3 Other Wells
Based on Kent Wells’ latest update:
http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/incident_response/STAGING/local_assets/downloads_pdfs/BP_technical_audio_08042010.pdf
looks like the mud went down the casing. This indicates that the leak was at the crossover or shoetrack; big news!
Felicidades BP and cast, surely Red Adair is looking down smiling!
In Kent Wells’ August 4th update he says “We now have it to a situation where there is no pressure at the Q4000, so it’s static at the sea – at the sea level”. If it is static at sea level and the lines are still full of mud then [I]if[/I] they had to disconnect it wouldn’t be static at the mud-line … am I understanding that correctly? Why not pump until there is no excess pressure at the mud-line, so that even if for some reason the Q4000 has to EDS and the BOP fails there wouldn’t be any flow. Or is an EDS failure regarded as too improbable to be worth worrying about?
horizon37 says on another website"http://www.flickr.com/photos/uscgd8/4551846015/page213
"
“The fact is they don’t have a clue if there is cement in the BOP, as they have no clue as to the flow path of the mud and cement. If the flow was down the annulus, there will be settled out cement around the drill pipe in the casing, rendering it stuck tight.
If the flow was down the casing, that leaves the annulus full of oil and and now a thin mud and cement cap in it, this not what you would call an ideal scenario.
If the mud and cement cap let go when they are open to the sea, the whole game of killing the well starts over again. Only this time without the benefit of being able to kill it from the bottom with the relief well because they just plugged up its flow path to fill the damned hole with kill mud.”
[QUOTE=New Orleans Lady;40870]horizon37 says on another website"http://www.flickr.com/photos/uscgd8/4551846015/page213
"
“The fact is they don’t have a clue if there is cement in the BOP, as they have no clue as to the flow path of the mud and cement. If the flow was down the annulus, there will be settled out cement around the drill pipe in the casing, rendering it stuck tight.
If the flow was down the casing, that leaves the annulus full of oil and and now a thin mud and cement cap in it, this not what you would call an ideal scenario.
If the mud and cement cap let go when they are open to the sea, the whole game of killing the well starts over again. Only this time without the benefit of being able to kill it from the bottom with the relief well because they just plugged up its flow path to fill the damned hole with kill mud.”[/QUOTE]
NOLA, All this link (http://www.flickr.com/photos/uscgd8/4551846015/page213) shows me is a pic of the ROV hot stabbing the shear rams on 22nd April. Is there something else here in the link??
I’ve been away for a while, but have been talking to some “Well Control Experts” who reckon that the 7" casing (at the 9.7/8" crossover??) likely collapsed on the 20th April. However, all agree that bad planning/programming led to a domino effect leading up to the 20th.
As for the cementing from the top… it kinda surprised me, as now they have no flowpath for killing from the bottom of the well (be it via annulus or via casing). All that will be left is bullheading (cement) from the bottom (unless the 2nd relief well features into their future scenarios thereby giving ano flow path from relief well1 to relief well2??
Again, lots of unknowns… lots of armchair drama… and only a few know the facts.
My question is did they follow the cement with some volume of spacer to clear the BOP and the top 500 feet of the well below mudline of cement? Or did they INTENTIONALLY entomb the BOP on the seafloor so that there will be no recovery of the BOP and associated forensics?
Update: http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/08/bp_working_to_cure_dry_cement.html
National Incident Commander Thad Allen, in a press briefing this morning, said the company put a layer of fluid on top of the cement and then pumped more mud on top to add pressure to help cure the cement. BP is waiting for the cement job to cure before resuming work on the relief well it is drilling nearby.
Suttles said they pushed cement into the reservoir and up around the outside of the casing.
Thad Allen says the BOP will be brought to the surface, as evidence.
http://www.wwl.com/Feds---BP-well-site-now-treated-as-a-crime-scene/7861812
http://www.wwl.com/Official--BP-blowout-preventer-to-be-replaced/7861784
alf ,Just scroll down once you get to that website…great info. [QUOTE=Alf;40873]NOLA, All this link (http://www.flickr.com/photos/uscgd8/4551846015/page213) shows me is a pic of the ROV hot stabbing the shear rams on 22nd April. Is there something else here in the link??
I’ve been away for a while, but have been talking to some “Well Control Experts” who reckon that the 7" casing (at the 9.7/8" crossover??) likely collapsed on the 20th April. However, all agree that bad planning/programming led to a domino effect leading up to the 20th.
As for the cementing from the top… it kinda surprised me, as now they have no flowpath for killing from the bottom of the well (be it via annulus or via casing). All that will be left is bullheading (cement) from the bottom (unless the 2nd relief well features into their future scenarios thereby giving ano flow path from relief well1 to relief well2??
Again, lots of unknowns… lots of armchair drama… and only a few know the facts.[/QUOTE]
Thanks. it was my dumb laptop (sorry, I meant the dumb Microcrap software on my laptop) not allowing me to see anything below the picture.
Yes, Horizon37 is saying some sensible things.
bigmoose Re: Deepwater Horizon - Transocean Oil Rig Fire
My question is did they follow the cement with some volume of spacer to clear the BOP and the top 500 feet of the well below mudline of cement? Or did they INTENTIONALLY entomb the BOP on the seafloor so that there will be no recovery of the BOP and associated forensics?
Bigmoose has also pointed to the concerns of cementing from the top. Despite "lots of eyes’ watching them, bp still have the capability (and deviousness) to screw up any BOP recovery.
[QUOTE=ExCompanyMan;40845]Based on Kent Wells’ latest update:
http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/incident_response/STAGING/local_assets/downloads_pdfs/BP_technical_audio_08042010.pdf
looks like the mud went down the casing. This indicates that the leak was at the crossover or shoetrack; big news![/QUOTE]
Didn’t see your post until after I had posted mine.
Looks like 2+2 might equal 4!
[QUOTE=bobcouttie;40796]Blame loony tune conspiracy theorists with a very poor grasp of geography[/QUOTE]
I thinks Loons ‘cum frae Scottland’ an wears skirts.
Maybe you are bp loon!!
Been away and trying to catch up. ROV ‘earthquake’ appears to be of the ROV performing some testing of the seabed. The sea floor didn’t move, the camera tilted down and back up, for some reason. Had the seabed moved there should/ would have been a left to right tilt visible in the video.
I sent this video to the replay booth for review. After further review… either the aft portion of the ROV lifted off of the seabed or the seabed did in fact move. The timestamp is off with respect to the earthquake. Timestamp shows 08:24 or 08:42. Not consistant with the the USGS Earthquake time of Sunday, August 01, 2010 at 11:34:28 PM, Monday, August 02, 2010 at 04:34:28 UTC at epicenter.
Saw a news ( snooze ) conference on CSPAN two days ago and Ret. Adm. Allen indicated the relief well would be used to cement the annulus before drilling into the casing/ wellbore and cementing inside the casing.
I believe the there is still the high probability of drill pipe inside the casing. If that is the case wouldn’t they have to penetrate the drillpipe and cement inside it too?
OK, so now we have vastly degraded ROV feeds, and folks seeing methane seeps from the seafloor after the top cemeting operating. I started digging a bit and found this report: http://www.noaa.gov/sciencemissions/PDFs/tj_deepwaterhorizon_responsemissionreport_june3_11_2010final.pdf
[I]NOAA Ship Thomas Jefferson Deepwater Horizon Response Mission Report Interim Project Report-Leg 2, June 3-11, 2010
[/I]So we have some official data on the sonar runs. Go to page 24 and 25 and you find these pix:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1088[/ATTACH]
The caption on the first:
Figure 20. Natural seeps (red and yellow columns) mapped by Thomas Jefferson, and by Gordon Gunter (purple cylinders) along with CTD stations showing high fluorescence (brown, green and white spheres). Deepwater Horizon well site is in background (red cylinder) and distribution of Bottom Following Reflectors is represented by orange lines.
The caption on the second:
Figure 19. Geographic distribution of BFR’s (Bottom Following Reflector)(orange lines).
Note that they are clustered in along the western slope of the passage between
two bathymetric highs that surround the well site (red cylinder).
So there are clearly documented seeps, but note they are south west of the Deepwater Horizon location.
I am starting to wonder if there is a larger reservoir below the 60 ft payzone that has been talked about openly.
One thing I am convinced of, is there is a whole lot more going on here than “they” want to tell us. It has to be “big” for the government to be complicit to the degree that it is in Thad Allen’s behavior. To not have any press conferences after the cementing over the weekend, to deliberately degrade the ROV feeds, to not show the BOP anymore, to have 3 or 4 ROV’s watching the same patch of seafloor constantly, to have 2 or 3 “rogue” ROV’s with no public feed… just does not add up.
If things are how you BP and USCG say they are, what about a little [I][B]TRANSPARENCY[/B][/I] to back up your claims?