Oil disaster: 'we are in this for months to come'
Updated on 30 May 2010
Renowned marine biologist and veteran of the Exxon Valdez spill, writing for Channel 4 News Professor Rick Steiner says "the catastrophe has magnified exponentially".
"With the failure of the Top Kill attempt, the catastrophe has magnified exponentially. This was the last chance to kill this well before the relief wells can kill the well from the bottom. We are likely now in this for months to come.
It was apparent that the Top Kill attempt was not working early into the process, as the downward pressure of the mud was not reducing the upward flow rate much at all. They shot some 30,000 barrels of mud and a dozen or so "junk shots" into the well, and most of it simply blew back up and out.
The blowout pressure just beneath the Blowout Preventer (BOP) is reported to 8,500 psi (or 4 tons per square inch), and that is a lot of pressure to overcome.
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This was the only attempt to kill the well from above - all other interventions at the BOP have been and will continue to be to simply try to collect the oil as it comes out and funnel it to the surface to a tank vessel.
That is what the 90 tonne Pollution Containment Chamber that was tried a couple of weeks ago was (which failed due to methane hydrate crystals clogging the outflow orifice), the top hat (which sits on the nearby seafloor and has not been tried as yet), and the Riser Insertion Tube Tool (which is collecting a little of the outflow from the riser holes).
The next attempts
Their next attempt - the Lower Marine Riser Package (LMRP) - is essentially a more finely designed top hat, that should fit more tightly over the riser when they cut the bent pipe off. A snug fit should prevent too much seawater from entering the apparatus, which should reduce the hydrate ice formation that could clog this unit too.
They say this will take another three or four days to fit, as they have to make a very clean cut of the bent riser to get a snug fit for the LMRP.
They have also discussed a dome to be dropped over the blowout if the LMRP does not work. They certainly need to get more creative with potential technologies to collect and funnel the blowout oil up from the BOP up to the surface - ideas such as flexible fabric tents have been suggested, etc...
And even fitting a second BOP on top of the failed BOP, which is risky as it would raise pressures and may blow the restriction the failed version is providing so far.
As the pressures are reported to be 8,500 psi just beneath the failed BOP - and 2,600 psi just above the BOP - it seems the failed device is providing some resistance to the oil flow, and thus is being partially effective now. If they lose that resistance by adding too much pressure, then we could indeed have a larger release rate.
They absolutely need to speed up the relief wells being drilled at present by the Development Driller III and DD II. These will allow a what they call a "dynamic kill" - what I call a "bottom kill" - where the relief well stem intersects the failed well bore near the top of the oil reservoir, 13,000 feet beneath the seabed. They can then inject materials up the well bore, along with the flow. They will inject seawater, then the heavy drilling muds, then cement, to kill it completely.
Lessons to be learned?
They should never have been permitted to drill these deepwater wells without having a thorough contingency plan for a blowout. None of these rigs had such a plan, and we are now learning that there may be no way to kill such a deepwater blowout from above, leaving a bottom kill from a relief well as suggested above the only option.
They had a Regional Oil Spill Response Plan (OSRP), which I have reviewed. It has nothing whatsoever in it as to how they will respond to plug a blowout on a deepwater well. It addresses this as a worst case scenario, and how they will deploy spill response assets to address surface oiling, but nothing at all about the various options to stop the outflow at the blowout. Any good oil spill plan needs to address the priority issue of stopping the outflow first, and then how to recover and respond to the oil spill second. The Regional OSRP for the Gulf of Mexico does not do such.
This is why they are left to engineer these options now, during a blowout, rather than having a plan detailing all such options beforehand. That is truly outrageous. Again, it's like building a fire truck after your house catches on fire.
President Obama's press conference last week shows that he finally gets this. His interim protection policies announced were appropriate - suspending the Arctic Ocean exploratory drilling scheduled this summer, cancelling leases off Virginia and the western Gulf of Mexico, suspending new deepwater drilling permits, and most importantly, suspending the deepwater exploratory drilling by the other 33 rigs in the offshore Gulf right now.
None of these rigs had or has any better plan to respond to a blowout of their deepwater wells than does BP for the Deepwater Horizon. That they have continued working over the past month and a half was very very worrisome, and it is wonderful that the President has shut these down for now."
A BP spokesman told Channel 4 News:
A BP spokesman said: "All of our activities, including drilling, offshore in the Gulf of Mexico are governed by and have been permitted by the responsible Government agency, the Minerals and Management Service (MMS). The drilling of the MC252 well was permitted by the MMS. Included as part of the permitting was an oil spill response plan - also approved by the MMS - this plan has been put fully into action as a result of this incident.
"We absolutely expect that as a result of this incident - which is unprecedented - and the investigations that will be carried out into it, both the oil industry and the regulatory systems that govern it will undoubtedly learn many lessons which will be applied to future activities."
