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Posts Tagged ‘drilling’

What’s next? Static (top) kill? Relief well intercept? Weather is the key.

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 20, 2010| Leave a Comment »

  • As indicated in the Weather Undergound map above, a tropical system may be approaching, and weather may be the key factor in determining the next step at Macondo.  Is the hurricane season about to begin in earnest?  Fortunately the well is shut-in, and will likely remain shut-in (this is good news despite attempts to describe it otherwise).
  • BP is now considering a static kill operation – slowly injecting mud and killing the well from the top.  This should work, but timing is the key.  Could the operation be completed in what remains of the weather window? 
  • With regard to the relief well, is it prudent to initiate the Macondo intercept given the weather uncertainties?  Clearly, you do not want to have to relocate the DD3 in the middle of a bottom kill operation. 
  • Keep a close watch on the weather, as tropical waves and storms can appear and intensify overnight.

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Confusing Signals?

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 18, 2010| 2 Comments »

Doug Suttles tweets at 0830 on 18 July:

Data continues to show encouraging signs and we’re reviewing w/ gov’t team. We will continue to leave the well shut in. 

Pressure is currently 6778 PSI, what we would have forecast in a scenario where the resevoir would have been depleted. 

We are continuing to run extensive tests and monitor. We’re going to take this day by day. 

There doesn’t seem to be any information that would justify a resumption of flow via the collection and production systems.  Yesterday’s official statement from Admiral Allen (below) is therefore a bit puzzling.

When this test is eventually stopped, we will immediately return to containment, using the new, tighter sealing cap with both the Helix Producer and the Q4000. Additional collection capacity of up to 80,000 barrels per day is also being added in the coming days. 

Why resume flow?

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Shell Presentation: Drilling 101

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , on July 16, 2010| 2 Comments »

This presentation is pretty basic for BOE’s very savvy readers, but it includes a good discussion of the differences between Shell’s typical drilling and barrier practices and the Macondo well design.

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A Couple of Points

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 16, 2010| Leave a Comment »

  • Tough decision looming?: Assuming the well continues to hold pressure and other surveys don’t indicate any anomalies, will they leave the well shut-in or resume flow through the collection systems?  This will be an interesting decision.
  • Insignificant detail that is probably only of interest to me: Since 1971 when I started tracking blowout data, a relief well has not been required to halt the flow from any drilling blowout in US (Federal) offshore waters.  On several occasions, relief wells were initiated but not needed to stop the flow from a well.  Since the Macondo flow is now under control, at least at this time, this record appears to have been sustained.  A relief well will still, of course, be needed to kill the well, so this is admittedly a nuanced and largely insignificant detail (especially since nearly 3 months were required to shut-in/control the Macondo well).  

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Cap Talk

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 13, 2010| Leave a Comment »

  1. Presumably BP is very slowly and carefully shutting in Macondo with the newly installed cap.  Wellhead pressures are no doubt being very closely monitored.  The strength of the 16″ casing is a concern as is the potenital for creating channels back to the surface.  Those types of problems must be avoided.
  2. How concerned was the BP team about attempting the bottom kill without the sealing cap in place?  Is the cap needed to create sufficient back-pressure and reduce the weight requirements for the kill mud?  Absent the cap, would the required kill weight be high enough to seriously risk fracturing outside the production casing and causing an underground blowout?
  3. If BP can successfully shut-in the well, that will of course be fantastic news.  However, questions must be raised about the sequence of intervention attempts and the reasons why such a sealing cap wasn’t tried sooner.  The more we can minimize the screaming and finger-pointing, the more public and private benefit will be derived from this discussion.
  4. Can we broker a cease-fire in the moratorium debate and focus our collective energy on addressing the immediate technical and policy issues at hand?  In the interim, each well should be carefully considered on a case-by-case basis.  Water depth is only one consideration, and may prove to be a relatively minor factor in the Macondo blowout.
  5. We need to create an environment for leadership, ingenuity, and continuous improvement.  The focus has to be on comprehensive safety achievement.

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NT opposition questions Montara report delays; preliminary Macondo findings?

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 12, 2010| Leave a Comment »

The Federal Government is unnecessarily delaying the release of a report into last year’s Montara oil spill off Australia’s north coast, the Northern Territory Opposition says.

link

On a related note, it would be great if preliminary findings from the DOI/DHS Macondo investigation could be released as soon as possible.  There is much work to be done and all interested parties (in the US and elsewhere) need the best available information so that they can assess their programs.  Better to err on the side of releasing findings to soon with any necessary caveats and disclaimers.  In that regard, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce has done a good job of making their findings available without delay.

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BP Details Relief Well Timeline

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 9, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Notes:

  1. Click on the diagram to enlarge
  2. The 9 7/8″ liner has NOT been run yet.
  3. Note the cement bond log.  3 months too late?
  4. Step 2 is to intercept and kill the flow in the annulus.  If there is no flow inside the 7″ casing, step 2 will kill the well.  This step is scheduled to be completed by the end of July.
  5. Step 3 will be necessary to make sure the production casing is plugged, even it there is no flow inside that casing.
  6. The timeframes are understandably conservative.

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Thank you Admiral Allen

Posted in accidents, Uncategorized, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on July 9, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Regarding the relief wells, Development Driller III, which is the lead drilling rig for the relief wells is now at 17,780 feet measured depth, within a couple hundred feet of the proposed penetration point of the wellbore.

Admiral Allen: Thank you for reading BOE and responding to our request.  You even specified “measured depth!”

Relief Well Team:  Great work!  Time to finish the job!

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Acoustic switches, etc

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 8, 2010| Leave a Comment »

  1. The big question with regard to acoustic backup systems for BOPs is whether ambient noise associated with a seafloor blowout prevents the signal from being reliably received.  The Macondo well would seem to provide an excellent opportunity for testing acoustic systems to see how effectively the signals are received under such challenging conditions.  Too late?
  2. Still no regular relief well reports, but Admiral Allen commented yesterday that they only have about 200′ to drill.  I’m assuming the 9 7/8″ liner has been set.  If all this is accurate and there are no weather or technical delays, they should be ready to intercept the well bore soon (1-2 weeks?), even with the added time for special ranging and directional surveys.
  3. Unless the relief well is delayed, it doesn’t seem to make sense to change the LMRP cap at this time.  Collection might improve somewhat with the new cap, but the well would be wide open during the change.
  4. Day 21 since the Montara report was delivered to the Ministry, and there are no recent news updates.  No interest?
  5. Very good article in Platts as the media begins to show more interest in regulatory approaches.

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Preventing Future Blowouts and Limiting their Effects

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , on July 5, 2010| Leave a Comment »

BOE friend and internationally recognized well control expert Colin Leach has submitted an excellent paper suggesting new procedures that will improve well design and intervention.  Click here to read Colin’s paper.

The goal is to eliminate the possibility of what actually could happen not being recognized (at the time of the design). This is achieved by having a core of knowledge against which individual operating companies and outside assessors can assess designs and approaches. Communication between the operator and the “knowledge core”would be confidential as long as a well control incident did not occur. The format of this “knowledge core” is such that it eliminates the “committee think” within an operating company where a dissenting individual (who is actually knowledgeable) can be overruled by a committee vote.

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