BP – oil spill in the Gulf – Response without brain activity

Below is the response from the Government team for an Idea I submitted on July 8th as time critical. Response received, wait for it……. 18 days late.

This idea alone could have prevented over 1 million gallons of oil from spilling into the gulf during BPs comedy movie, “How to tighten six bolts with an ROV”.

Am I the only person that sees all this BS for what it is? BP made zero effort over the whole leak period to mitigate real amounts of oil from the oil released by the cap. They all pretend it is impossible to do things like funnel the oil to the surface, something I could have set up with the right team in 48 hours.

BP and the Government act as if any single person’s reasoning is childlike and unsophisticated, like it is to complicated for an everyday person to comprehend what needs to be done. We knew what needed to be done, contain the oil.

They pissed in our pond then claimed they could do nothing to stop the oil from going everywhere, hell, that was their plan all along, disperse it, make in disappear by spreading it out over as large an area as possible, they never once tried to contain it at the source. There is a valuable lesson in all this if you think a nuclear accident would be no big deal.

BP acts like our ideas are infantile and yet they don’t even notice the words “Time Critical” in the title of a submission. I watched when they took the bolts out of the flange. I watched the stupidity involved there. They could have used specialty sockets made by several manufacturers that would have made mounting the tools on the bolts 100 times easier and got the job done it 2 hours, not 24 which is a big deal when you are leaking 1500 gallons a minute.

Maybe the engineers and smartest scientists in the world need to use a wrench once in their life before trying to pull off something like this. Maybe they should have asked tool engineers what they could do to help.

I have seen so many great ideas from as the BP monarchy put it “The small people”. So many of them focused on stopping the leakage, preventing the oil from getting away and they were all ignored. I say it again; BP did nothing to capture the oil leaking out around their tools or out of the riser except dump dispersant on it to hide it from us.

I will never buy anything with their brand on it or any product owned by their company again, not because they had this accident, because during the cleanup they proved they don’t give a shit about anyone period. There is nothing that this “Small person” with a infantile brain can find to support in their actions.

Received from the Coast guard- July 26th, shame on you.

<http://homeport.uscg.mil/toplogo.jpg&gt;
<http://homeport.uscg.mil/logo.jpg&gt;

The following RDC BAA Form has changed status:

New Status: Screening Complete, Pending Notification

Tracking Number: 2007729

Submission Title: TIME CRITICAL – RISER CHANGE-OVER TOOL TO MITIGATE

Company:

Technology Area: Oil Wellhead Control and Submerged Oil Response

Date Submitted: 07/08/2010 17:34

You can also check the status here: http://homeport.uscg.mil/IATAP/Status .
Please be patient as we anticipate a large number of people with great ideas that want to help.

________________________________

Below is a description of the possible New Status’ that your white paper might be assigned. Your current status is listed above.

*    Received, Pending Screening – Your submission has been received and is awaiting screening.

*    Screening Started – Your submission is currently being screened.

*    Screening Complete, Pending Notification – The screening of your submission has been completed. An email notification is being prepared regarding the results of our screening.

*    Screening Complete – With regard to your submission, an email notification has been sent to you providing the results of our screening.

*    Withdrawn – In response to your request, we have withdrawn your submission.

*    Duplicate – It has been determined that this submission is a duplicate of another one you previously submitted.

http://homeport.uscg.mil

BP oil spill in the Gulf – The nonsense of blind science

Below is the full text of the most recent statement by National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen on the Well Integrity Test dated July 18, 2010 11:37:44 CST

WASHINGTON – Per my conversation with BP Executive Bob Dudley as recently as 11 a.m. EST today, nothing has changed about the joint agreement announced yesterday between BP and the US government. The ongoing well integrity test will continue until 4 p.m. EST today, with the potential for additional extensions in 24-hour increments. As a condition of the extension, the US government has required significant new monitoring and periodic evaluation and approval by our science team.

Work must continue to better understand the lower than expected pressure readings. This work centers on two plausible scenarios, depletion of oil from the reservoir and potential leakage caused by damage to the well bore or casing.

While we are pleased that no oil is currently being released into the Gulf of Mexico and want to take all appropriate action to keep it that way, it is important that all decisions are driven by the science. Ultimately, we must ensure no irreversible damage is done which could cause uncontrolled leakage from numerous points on the sea floor.

Absence of proof is one of the most misunderstood facets of science. Scientists say that a test is “Inconclusive” when they have either no results or no deviation from the norm. In the above quote, it is clear that the group of scientists overseeing the “Well Integrity Test” are very concerned about the low pressure readings being taken but since they did not see any of the results they predicted, they deem the results inconclusive even when they said before hand that sub 8000 psi means a leak. There is no gray area here, it is all mathematics and physics.

This is not the same as saying the well is successfully capped. To the average observer the absence of leakage means the well is capped and if there is no leak visible, all is good in the world. This is however not reality. Any fluid dynamics person can easily calculate the volume displacement necessary to depressurize the oil reservoir under the gulf that MC252 is drilled into. In fact, that calculation would have been made several times during the run up to the Well Integrity Test. The conclusion of those calculations would have pinned down the expectation of 8000 psi and above. Any vetting of those numbers surely would have been done pre-test.

It is important to not forget that the whole system cannot be seen. The low pressure is not a sign that everything is ok, it is a sign of impending doom. It has already been mentioned that the well pressure took a while to stabilize and that it was “slowly rising” toward 7000 psi. This is an ominous clue that is being overlooked. Scientists are using the pressure peak data and comparing that to what would be expected. The pressure curve data is the key to seeing the truth.

The pressure curve is the amount of time it takes for the pressure to rise from the dynamic flow pressure in the well to the static no flow closed pressure. What one would expect to see is no pressure rise after well head closure because closure itself would be the point of maximum pressure because of flow dynamics. This flow dynamic pressure is often referred to as water hammer in a public water system and it has amazing destructive force.

The hammer effect comes from the mass of the fluid that is flowing itself and its momentum. As you slowly close the well, you would expect to see pressure rise as flow is restricted. the more you restrict the flow the higher the pressure rises. If you use a very slow closure rate, the pressure will rise to its peak at the point of closure. If you use a slightly faster closure technique, the pressure will rise higher than max and subside a little when the flow stops. This over peaking is caused by the fluid that is in motion being stopped and its resultant momentum being absorbed as a pressure spike.

What will never happen? The pressure will never be lower at closure than it is 24 hours later. Nothing could cause this to happen except a breach through the system into a secondary chamber and to see the pressure rise over time, the chamber would have to be massive.

Imagine if you will that the well casing is breached and oil is leaking into a cavern below the well. The oil has been leaking in there all along. Now, you slowly close the well and when you finally stop the flow your well pressure is 6700 psi instead of 8000 to 9000 psi. What you are seeing is, at the closure, the peak pressure occurs but then rises as oil flows through the breach into the adjoining cavern. This flow is like the act of blowing up a balloon. Any rise of pressure after the well is closed is a huge danger sign.

This is what the sonar study is trying to find, sounds from the seafloor indicating cracks are forming in the bedrock. These cracking sounds would be very loud and possibly trigger seismic events from actual movement of the surrounding rock, unless……there is already a path to the surface and the pressure rise is just what it takes to push the water out of the way.

The test has failed and yet, it has been extended. There are multiple scenarios that could lead to epic problems and each one of those can only be proved to exist but they cannot be proved to not exist. It is the nonsense of blind science to think that because you see nothing, nothing is happening. We have endless examples of things we haven’t seen until we have. Seeing nothing does not equate to success, it equates to lack of resolution.

Since every possible scenario for positive outcome of the Well Integrity Test  has to end in the expected pressure peak and curve and it didn’t, It is extremely risky to proceed without understanding what has occurred. It is the same as you looking out your back window right now and since you don’t see elephant’s you claim they don’t exist. It could be you just can’t see them because they are to far away. It does not however mean they do not exist. Low pressure means the pipe is breached, period! A slowly rising pressure curve after well closure means the well is leaking into a large space below the sea floor and the lack of seismic data and / or sonar returns means the rock is not cracking or moving which can only mean the oil is on it’s way to the surface through underground sea water flooded pathways.

The only conclusion that anyone with a brain can reach is that the BP engineers and the science team are hoping the leak will not reach the surface. The science is not “conclusive” until oil reaches the surface, by that time, an underground cavern could have millions of gallons of crude oil in it and it could leak out slowly for centuries. That is the good scenario, what is the bad one? In one gigantic bang, the seafloor could form a crack and a half a mile long leak could start rising from the crack as the pressure in the well dropped quickly. That, would be very conclusive!

Starting the Well Integrity Test was stupid, continuing it after these results is an exercise in extreme foolishness. It is the nonsense of blind science. What if right now the well is leaking into the rock surrounding the relief well, what if the relief well drills into the leaking area and is blown out? If you can’t hear the leak or see the leak, it must not exist but a leak is the only logical answer for the pressure readings that have been recorded. Maybe you can’t see elephants from your back porch but it doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Proceeding now is gambling, it is not science. The tools that are being put at risk are the very tools that will ensure the success of the relief well, why are we putting them at risk?

BP oil spill in the Gulf – Open the well before it is to late.

The test has failed and yet, no one is acting. The stated goal of 8000 – 9000 psi steady state pressure has not been obtained and yet they continue, sighting the steady rise in pressure to 7000 psi. As suggested in a Washington Post article people are speculating that the pressure in the oil reservoir has been lowered by three months of leakage but this is contrary to an opinion voiced by Kent Wells last month.

It is exactly at times like these that disaster strikes. I can think of a very logical reason why the pressure is lower than you thought it would be yet keeps building to 7000 psi, it is because the well is leaking into a confined space and building pressure as it leaks. What will happen next is we will find out what breaks. If the well is leaking into say the space around the well casing, the first indication of a problem might be the casing being ejected like a rocket destroying all the toys you just placed on top of it.

How can it possibly make sense to anyone to push this test when it is outside of parameters.  Another possibility is that the well casing if damaged leaking into a subterranean cavern that is about to explode. It would be very difficult to detect this if the pressure migration was non violent, if it was a leak that has existed all along but now it is pressurizing because the well is capped. This pressurization would not show up seismically or on sonar until the rock starts to crack.

Every possible solution vector points to reopening the well and capturing more oil even if there is a spill associated with it. The relief well will be ale to determine the status of the well bore very soon. During that time 100% containment can be achieved by limiting the flow rate to the production capability, by using partial pressurization. Another factor is the intercept process will be better managed when the well is flowing to prevent a possible failure of the relief well itself.

What is it with everyone and their political PR nonsense. It is extremely dangerous to be taking a wait and see position with something tantamount to a bomb, when it goes off, you have waited to long, if it hasn’t yet, you still hope it won’t, the psychology of this kind of mental trap is well defined in a trail of death and destruction. No single logic vector points to success as you press forward against data that clearly shows the well bore is leaking so knock it off.

What is that back up plan if you destroy the well with this test? Oh, still don’t have one? End this nonsense now, before it is to late.

BP oil spill in the Gulf – Well integrity test now slightly less stupid

It is a great thing that the US Government interceded in the actions about to be undertaken by BP. It should be clear to everyone by now that BP needs authoritative qualified technical oversight to prevent another disaster.  The government has finally taken full control over the runaway nightmare in the Gulf and is implementing smart and logical oversight in this very critical process of the well integrity test.

I encourage everyone to read the transcript of the press briefing with national incident commander Admiral Thad Allen from July 13, 2010 as it methodically lays out the process about to take place.

I stand by my earlier remarks that this is not the time to do this process and it should only be carried out as a necessity because it is clear to me that if the well fails during pressurization their is absolutely no backup plan. If this test is allowed to go forward, the government will be ignoring their own understanding and directive to have backups for backups.

While it would be very bad to leak oil into the gulf during a hurricane, it would be epically catastrophic to have an uncontrolled well from now until the relief well is finished. The people in charge certainly understand the risk, if the cap fails under 9000 psi it could annihilate most of the undersea systems in place right now and take several of the rovs with it.

If the well casing has a severe blowout below the well head, all of the equipment just placed will be rendered useless. There is no stated contingency plan for either of these events. Both BP and the Government officials are talking themselves into this procedure because it offers the prospect of closing the well and stopping the leak. With no back up plan, the risk is epic, if something goes wrong, there is nothing that can be done to stop the well and the prospects of the bottom kill being rendered ineffective are exponentially higher.

Right now, before the well integrity test is performed both of the previously stated goals can be met. Right now with all systems hooked up there is greatly increased recovery capacity and disconnect / reconnect times are greatly reduced. These features will be sufficient to prevent abandonment of the well when a hurricane threatens unless the strike is immanent.  It is clear that a Hurricane could make it difficult to verify the well integrity in the future and it would prevent the attempt to close the well during foul weather.

A huge number of gallons of oil have leaked to prepare for and install this cap. The well is leaking on the order of 100 thousand gallons an hour when no collection is taking place. This is the equivalent of 2000 household water heaters full of oil an hour or 33 a minute.

With the sonar studies and seismic studies completed there is a high probability that any leakage from a down-hole breach could be detected. All of these facts make it clear that everyone is jumping the gun doing the well integrity test. They are gambling with the future, pray they have made the right choice.

See Department of Energy link for well pressure data, transition spool and capping stack information as well as many other details.

BP oil spill in the gulf – BP about to do something really stupid

I am not an engineer and I don’t work on oil wells so it is possible I just don’t have the complete perspective necessary to understand this next step that is about to be undertaken. To most people right now I would say that stopping the oil from leaking is a pretty great thing. I also know that it is necessary to prove the collection system hookups before a hurricane shows up so it is with those observations that I can’t reconcile this:

“DATE: July 12, 2010 17:45:08 CST

Statement from National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen on Well Integrity Test

Significant progress has been made on the capping stack installation. As a result of that progress, BP will perform a “Well Integrity Test” tomorrow morning. This test involves closing one or more of the valves on the new cap for a period of time to allow BP to measure pressures in the well.

It also requires that the Helix Producer and Q4000 collection systems be ramped down and placed in standby mode during the test. The measurements that will be taken during this test will provide valuable information about the condition of the well below the sea level and help determine whether or not it is possible to shut the well for a period of time, such as during a hurricane or bad weather, between now and when the relief wells are complete.

I have reviewed the protocols for this test, in consultation with the government science team. The test will likely last anywhere from 6-48 hours or more depending on the measurements that are observed. BP will be in regular contact with the government during the test, and the government will halt the test if the risks of doing further damage to the surrounding formation are significant.

Once the test has concluded, collection of the oil will resume.”

Risks to the surrounding formation…. What they are talking about is a down hole blow out. Many people have speculated that the pipe between the sea floor and the oil reservoir is severely damaged based on pressure readings that were obtained during the failed “Top Kill” operation last month. It is estimated that the well head will have a peak pressure of about 9000 psi when it is closed in. That is a pressure unlike anything a human being can really grasp. It means that an area the size of a dinner plate has the same pressure on it as an area the size of a foot ball field does from air pressure at sea level. The deepest diving most modern US submarine operates in an environment of less than 1500 psi. Typical hydraulic systems on the surface rarely exceed 3500 psi.

It is enough pressure to tear apart any weakness in the well bore and potentially separate the pipe from the well bore. If this happens, all the progress made so far will be lost in an instant.  What is so startlingly stupid about this is that it is totally unnecessary. If the well bore leaks, then the act of pressurizing it will make it leak more and possibly cause rock and cement erosion around the well bore creating a leak that can not be stopped until the relief well is ready. Why risk that now?

Actually that question is totally rhetorical. It is clear now as it has been all along that BP is more concerned with headlines than anything else. If they can pressurize the well, they can say it is capped and they can stop all oil collection from it. If they blow it up though, that won’t look so good, will it? Also this test will allow them to shut down the well without ever establishing a maximum flow number, which is certainly a goal of theirs for financial reasons since every leaked barrel could cost between $1100 and $4300 dollars a barrel in fines. If you never establish the true leakage rate, how can the government fine BP for the leakage?

It is stunningly stupid to do this now. What they should be doing is hooking up all the collection systems and stopping the incessant leakage into the gulf. During the last four days and the coming four they will have done as much damage as two Exxon Valdez spills because they didn’t mitigate a single drop of spillage at the source. Now they are going to risk everything and test the well at max pressure, the well that is almost certainly compromised. From this test they will gain the knowledge that they can shut down the well in a hurricane, that is what they say. The truth is if the test is successful there will be no reason to do anything but close the well and wait for the relief well to be completed, BP wins, nobody will ever know the true, legal flow rate.

While it would be great to just have all this stopped it is a giant gamble indeed and it should not be allowed to proceed. All along we have followed BP’s lead and every time has ended in failure. We are about to be in the fourth month of this disaster and probably now just weeks away from the first relief well. The relief well will be much more successful if you can restrict the flow from the primary well. these systems should be saved for that day or for the day when a hurricane shows up then if you have to test them, do it but it would even be prudent to leave some oil flowing to keep the peak pressure down. It would take very little flow to cut the pressure in half.

If this test goes bad and it could go very bad indeed. The worst case that could happen in the next 48 hours is the well pipe could fail under pressure and create an enormous leak that would essentially bypass all the equipment above it and render all that has just been accomplished totally useless.

BP finally has control of this monster and the first thing they want to do is apply 9000 psi to the structure. It is another bone headed maneuver and as it is done another Exxon Valdez worth of oil will flow into the gulf. By now, I wouldn’t expect anything less. It is another hail mary pass, if they succeed and are able to shut in the well they will be hero’s in the main stream press, but only slightly less of a villain to most.

If the well integrity test fails and destroys the integrity of the well bore, even the relief well might not be able to stop the flow and there will be no way to collect the oil at the sea floor. If that happens, The list of people to blame will be very large, the oil could flow until next year and there would be no way to stop it. What little information there is to be gained from this test is simply not worth the risk or the leakage.

BP oil spill in the gulf – Making it slow and messy

It is nearly impossible to watch the circus without laughing. What is billed as a daring and complex undersea operation comes across on video as a comedy of errors, a laurel and hardy movie. I watched the show on and off over the last 24 hours and there are some simple truths that blow through the complexity pointing to the same old thing, lack of a brain.

Wouldn’t you think that almost anyone could figure out that the oil is leaking at 15oo gallons a minute? doesn’t it seem likely then that you would consider time to be a critical factor? many times over the last 24 hours there has been just one rov working on the primary task. one rov out of twelve that are available.

A smart plan would have been to have a simple way to put that LMRP cap on top of that spool once it was installed about 24 hours ago. It would be an even smarter plan if you knew you were going to take 10 times as long tightening the bolts as it would take if you actually used your resources effectively.

I am pretty sure most people saw the challenge here as removing the flange. I bet no one fore saw that it would take BP more than 24 hours to tighten six bolts but that is exactly what has happened. It is a clear indicator of the management planning problem and shows that the leaders are and have been the primary obstacle in the way of progress.

Incredibly as you watched an rov would go through the painstaking process of installing the special wrench on to a bolt, a process that could take up to 20 minutes because there is no way to effectively line the wrench up so it becomes trial and error and there is a tremendous amount of error.

Next they would take another 30 minutes to tighten the bolt and finally take off the wrench and move to the next position. Anyone, including a child could have figured out how to do it faster, have 2 rovs do it and it takes half the time, three, and it is cut to one-third. In that one-third of the time you save leaking a scant 1.45 million gallons of oil. But BP has never really cared about the oil they leak into the gulf have they.

Luckily for us, even though they took extra time to do something brutally simple, they also performed zero mitigation of the leaks during the procedure. so all that oil went directly into the gulf when a significant part of it could have been collected by the same system they have been using for weeks. So all they had to do was drop the cap right on top of that spool and capture a percentage of the leakage but of course they didn’t do that either.

What all of this says in a very loud voice is that BP could care less about anything but the big headline they are about to get. The only reason they are doing all of this is to get the “BP Caps well” headline. I am pretty sure at most news agencies it will be “Caps well finally” or ” hard to believe but true, BP caps the well” Through out this nightmare BP has made a point to smother us in its PR machine by saying “We will make this right” but the simple truth is, they won’t, because they can’t. Every minute another 1500 gallons of oil blows into the Gulf, making this right – that is not letting this happen.

BP oil spill in the gulf – Transition spool has been placed!

The transition spool has been placed. This means we are two steps from the end of the nightmare. One more very large piece called the capping stack BOP must be placed on the transition spool and the combination of those two pieces will finally make it possible to stop this leak.

http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/incident_response/STAGING/local_assets/html/OceanInterventionROV2.html

BP oil spill in the gulf – Live well capping feed

The transition spool is being placed right now 3:15 eastern.

http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/incident_response/STAGING/local_assets/html/OceanInterventionROV2.html

http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/incident_response/STAGING/local_assets/html/Boa_Deep_C_ROV_2.html

BP – oil spill in the gulf – BP appears to be many hours ahead of schedule

As I watch I can see the transition spool in hover at the sea floor, the upper flange has been removed and rov1 from Boa Deep C is pulling the guideline to place the spool on the well head.

For those of you that don’t know the layout of the new system this transition spool is the big banana. If it can be placed and bolted down the leaks can be stopped from the well head. That means that when this task is completed only one more step is left to be ready to close in the well and end this nightmare forever.

It would seem that BP padded its time schedule heavily so that anything they accomplished looked better than it was. Had they provided a true time line of expected times then the calculated losses from this operation would not have looked so dismal.

It is a consistent pattern of lying. Lying is systemic in BP’s management as is the lying by omission and misstating the truth. BP has caused a tremendous rift between their company and the public all because they could never tell the truth, even now, in success.

BP will be the biggest loser in history and they will share that loss with all the other oil companies because it is clear that they are old style good old boy organizations that have no respect for their customers or their share holders. Did you notice no women appeared anywhere in their management structure and no women appear in the PR campaign? What does that tell you?

When BP finally caps this well it will be because the US government has held their head to the floor and their arm behind their back. It will also be because of a great number of hidden hero’s that work for a bunch of other companies that have come to the rescue in the gulf.

So even in success everyone will say “It’s about time” or “thank god the government stepped in” but the news media will report “BP caps the well” or “BP is successful” neither of which will be true.

In the end it will have been everyone but BP that made the decisions that forced BP to pay attention and it will have been BP’s contractors and the scientific community that were responsible for the critical decisions that made the fix possible.

Anyone effected by this event owes it to themselves and their families to find out the truth about energy without environmental threat like wind power, solar power etc. Imagine what a different place Pennsylvania could be if they closed the mines and started building wind turbines and solar panels. Image what America could be like without the threats caused by nuclear power. BP has ensured that we will in the near future call oil, nuclear and coal – Alternative energy

BP oil spill in the Gulf – Cap change update 2

Through unbelievably sloppy operations the Rov operators have failed to use good judgement concerning the fit of the socket to the bolt heads on the flange. It is clear from the marks that there is not enough clearance between the distorted riser and the bolt head to fit the socket correctly.

Instead of making the clearance and then removing the bolts they have severely damaged several bolt heads by using excessive wrench pressure on the top third of the exposed head.

Again this is a severe rookie move and it indicates clearly that the people doing this operation don’t have the technical skills necessary to remove the bolts and they need to be supervised.

This is something any mechanic has experienced and tries to avoid at all costs. The correct procedure is to use a modified socket with a thinned wall or use a tool to cut a slice out of the riser to make the necessary clearance.

The tools they are using are hydraulic wrenches that simply can not work without very good bolt head engagement. If they keep going as they are, they will have to cut the bolts off leading to further problems. Right now the rov operators are using a medium die grinder to try to reshape the heads. We will see if they learned their lesson. I somehow doubt it.

This is just another example of the way in which BP fails to look closely at what they are facing. The LMRP Cap has been off the riser for up to 8 hours in the last month. It should have been clear to anyone that they needed a hyper accurate photo survey of the flange before the proceeded with the bolt removal.

An operation that should have been done already drags on as oil is ejected from the well at rate of 25 gallons a second. The correct action right now would be to move the LMRP Cap back into place and resume collection of the oil while preparing tools to address this problem. I am sure BP won’t do the correct action.

This is an ongoing example of poor planning, not doing your homework and ending up in a mess. the same exact thing they have done every time.