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I've heard from more than one petroleum engineer that the only thing likely to work is relief wells and that all the rest of this is theatre. If that's true, it

by gruseom 16y ago

I've heard from more than one petroleum engineer that the only thing likely to work is relief wells and that all the rest of this is theatre. If that's true, it's a politically impossible truth, which would explain much of what we've seen so far. Apparently all the same techniques (the cap, the top kill) were tried 30 years ago -- in much shallower water -- and didn't work then either. What worked was a relief well. If that precedent holds, then we're barely past the beginning of this catastrophe. I hope that's not true, but it's beginning to look that way.

adammichaelc 16y ago
Can you explain "relief wells?" edit: found this http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/graphic_shows_status_of_relief.html http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/gr... "BP is drilling two relief wells, which will permanently intersect with the damaged well and shut down the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico by pumping concrete into it." So a relief well is a new well that intersects with current wells and allows concrete to be flowed to the current wells. Can anybody elaborate? Why would it be political suicide to come out and say, "This is the only viable option. Here are the pros, here are the cons. This is our best option. Now let's get to work."
- fragmede 16y ago
  They started drilling the relief well in early May - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB40001424052748704342604575221943592328492.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB4000142405274870434260457522... . I can't find a time frame on how long the relief well would take, I suspect a while. (It took 9 months for the first well to come online in the Ixtoc 1 spill, and even then it took another 3 months for the flow to subside). The political suicide comes from human nature needing to see something being done. "Uh, so we have a fix in place. Oh yeah, it's gonna take a year to work." "So what do we do now?" "Wait."

by gruseom 16y ago

adammichaelc 16y ago

Can you explain "relief wells?" edit: found this http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/graphic_shows_status_of_relief.html http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/gr... "BP is drilling two relief wells, which will permanently intersect with the damaged well and shut down the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico by pumping concrete into it." So a relief well is a new well that intersects with current wells and allows concrete to be flowed to the current wells. Can anybody elaborate? Why would it be political suicide to come out and say, "This is the only viable option. Here are the pros, here are the cons. This is our best option. Now let's get to work."

fragmede 16y ago
They started drilling the relief well in early May - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB40001424052748704342604575221943592328492.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB4000142405274870434260457522... . I can't find a time frame on how long the relief well would take, I suspect a while. (It took 9 months for the first well to come online in the Ixtoc 1 spill, and even then it took another 3 months for the flow to subside). The political suicide comes from human nature needing to see something being done. "Uh, so we have a fix in place. Oh yeah, it's gonna take a year to work." "So what do we do now?" "Wait."