Gulf oil spill: BP vice president explains concerns behind delay of crucial well test

BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells on Wednesday morning detailed some of concerns voiced by experts that prompted the federal government to demand that the oil company delay a crucial well test that could determine whether a new cap can be used to shut off all of the oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico.

The test, which had been set to begin Tuesday, seeks to measure the interior pressure of the well in an attempt to gauge whether there are any leaks along the pipe running 13,000 feet into the earth.

If there are no leaks, BP could close off the well with a new tight-fitting cap that was successfully affixed Monday.

But if leaks are suspected, BP will let the oil continue to flow out of the well, at first collecting some of it -- and by late July, all of it -- using a system of riser pipes and containment ships.

The testing delay was announced with little explanation late Tuesday night by Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the federal oil-spill response commander.

Wells, in a morning press conference, said the "24-hour timeout" was ordered due in part to questions about whether the test would be able to determine a key issue: Whether the oil, if leaking, was coming from a shallow or a deep part of the well.

"What we want to do is avoid that oil is being put out in the shallow environment," Wells said. "There's always the potential, remote as it might be, that it could breach up to the surface."

The threat of a crater forming on the sea bed around the well head -- with oil flowing from multiple points -- would be a potentially catastrophic scenario that would make containing the oil extremely difficult.

But according to Darryl Bourgoyne, director of the petroleum research lab at Louisiana State University, leaks deep in the well may not be much of a problem--so long as it was so deep that "the fluid would stay in the subsurface, and cratering wouldn't be a risk."

The permanent fix for the well, which has been leaking up to 60,000 barrels of oil per day since an April 20 rig blowout, will come when it is intersected far beneath the earth's surface by one of two relief wells underway. The closest of those wells, currently at 17,840 feet in length, is scheduled to plug the faulty well with mud and concrete sometime in mid-August.

Wells said that work on that well was delayed until the integrity test could be completed -- which puts a permanent solution another one to two days behind schedule.

-- Richard Fausset in Atlanta

Comments

[Merle Savage]

Sounds like the Dance of Deliberate Deception:

Crude oil continues to invade the Gulf; as BP, the US Government, and other official agencies monitoring the toxic crude, continues to FIDDLE. That is what I called the Dance of Deliberate Deception. No one will come forward with the intestinal fortitude, and declare the obvious - that crude oil is toxic to breathe. I have been told by OSHA that a medical study cannot be conducted until after 6 months of exposure. WHAT? There have been 21 years since the exposure of the crude oil in Prince William Sound, and no one is listening. So, after 6 months of workers in the gulf breathe in the crude oil, a study can be conducted? That leads me to believe that the government is holding up the rug, while BP sweeps known reports under the same rug, and the other agencies conduct the Dance of Deliberate Deception on top of the rug.

Please watch the Youtube video then stand up with me and demand honest answers for the Gulf residents, and cleanup workers who will be suffering from the toxicity of the crude oil, if this political dance is allowed to continue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M1J7U2GYA0

[Ben]

BP have the technology to solve this.

BP still want to oil to be profitable down there and ignore the environment altogether.

[Bobskis]

An important 48-minute video:
Shell experts at Aspen Ideas Festival last Friday, July 9, compared their deep offshore drilling methods with those of BP (presentation starts about 4:00; good material at about 13:00; contrast with BP at about 18:00; discussion of BOP at 22:00; Q&A at 25:00 – ownership, risk management, safety assessment, etc). If your time is limited, go directly to well design and operations comparison in the Q&A, starting about 29:00.

http://www.aifestival.org/audio-video-library.php?menu=3&title=639&action=full_info

Drilling for Oil: A Visual Presentation of How We Drill for Oil and the Precautions Taken Along the Way
Marvin E. Odum
Joe Leimkuhler

Also:
An outraged reaction (“reckless rope-a-dope”) to latest developments this morning from Houston oilman-blogger Bob Cavnar:
http://dailyhurricane.com/2010/07/well-integrity-test---where-did-that-come-from.html

Remember all those claims that it was impossible to measure the amount of oil and gas flowing out of the well? Well, two years ago, BP claimed in its magazine that it had developed new technology to do just that:
http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/reports_and_publications/frontiers/STAGING/local_assets/pdf/bpf22_34-38_sonarflow.pdf

And there is some new stuff, especially about Thunder Horse, in this NY Times review yesterday of BP’s hubris:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/business/energy-environment/13bprisk.html?ref=general&src=me&pagewanted=all

Finally, how 15 years of deregulation set the stage for the disaster – by a former Bush official:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/opinion/14abraham.html?hp

[obama]

Boycott bp gas , but don't forget the convenience stores are independently owned mostly by American families

[Dan]

Today I have not been able to find out the latest news about the gulf oil spill, is there a reason that none of the news agents have reported anything about it today? East Texas Country News & Events

[Craig]

At this stage of the game, they should just hook a hose up to the wellhead and run it up to Washington to flush our impotent legislators out into the streets permanently.

[fight the spill]

Keep a piece of history, order your "Memorial Oil" here today! What is Memorial Oil? Memorial Oil is actual oil collected from various Gulf Coast Beaches.

[Ellie]

"...one to two days behind schedule." Maybe they should have not "scheduled" the oil spill at all!! Looks like folks are still clinging to the notion that this is able to be under some kind of control.