'Deepwater Horizon'

[rac74]

I've heard much in the way of suspect concrete jobs and lack of drill pipe centralizers, could any of these directly caused or led to the failure of the BOP during a blowout? Or is this just misinformed conjecture... Any unrelated misgivings aside, what the would actually contribute to the BOP failure or is it impossible to tell without pulling it up for analysis?

[Terry Haines]

..with my bit of experience in the 'oil patch' in the past and reading bits of what oilfield engineers have said I'd say..

1)They were drilling and 'hit oil'/pressure...very high pressure...so much so it started to push the drill pipe back up the liner(maybe damaged the liner too?), the drill pipe snapped...

2)Tried to close the BOP's BUT by that time the drill pipe sections had disconnected/snapped off and TWO lengths of the same drill pipe 'stand' started up the well/liner..

3)BOP's are designed to shear off drill pipe..ONE drill pipe not two..

4)The drill pipe wedged in the BOP's preventing closure of the well pressure..

 

...which is where we are now!!!

[rac74]

Is there anything that could have prevented the drill pipe from snapping or was there simply too much pressure than anticipated?

[Terry Haines]

...drill pipe can twist off/snap even in normal operation. Think of miles of pipe,unsupported,with a cutting bit on the end ...all driven from the top!!!

[Terry Haines]

[Terry Haines]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10564798.stm

 

 

Russian sub 'could stop oil leak'

Page last updated at 00:42 GMT, Friday, 9 July 2010 01:42 UK

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By Katia Moskvitch

Science reporter, BBC News, Lake Baikal The subs have started their third season of exploration at Lake Baikal

Russian-owned submersibles would be able to cap the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, the captain of one of the vessels has said.

The skipper was speaking as two of the subs - which can dive to 6,000m - started a campaign of exploration at the bottom of Lake Baikal in Siberia.

He added that there was still time for the subs to help BP with the disaster.

The subs are searching for gas hydrates - a potential alternative fuel source - on the bed of Baikal.

Yevgenii Chernyaev told BBC News that the problem had to be addressed at the highest level.



Two oval-shaped submersibles have recently started their third season of exploration in Baikal - the world's deepest lake.

Anatoly Sagalevich of Russia's Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, which owns the vessels, said that he had an informal conversation with a BP representative asking if Mirs would be able to help stop the leak.

But he said there was no official request and no real discussions about the matter.

A BP spokesman told BBC News that the company had not had any formal contact with the Russians.

"We've had over 120,000 people come up with ideas," he said in an e-mail.

"We are looking through all of these to see which are viable. If [the Russians] want to contact us (or may have done so through some other channel), we can evaulate their idea."

Oil has been leaking from a damaged well in the Gulf of Mexico since a BP-operated drilling platform, Deepwater Horizon, exploded and sank in April.

And though BP says it is now able to gather some 10,000 barrels of oil a day, using a device that siphons oil up to surface ships, thousands of barrels of oil continue to gush daily from the ocean floor.

The US administration has already called the leak the biggest environmental catastrophe in the country's history.

Mr Chernyaev said that his team had held numerous discussions about the oil spill in the Gulf and the Russians would be ready to come to the rescue - but only if everything was done properly.

The subs have discovered reserves of gas hydrates on the bottom of the lake

Standing on a barge that transports the two subs after their submersion, the Mir-2 captain underlined that the subs were probably the only deep-sea vessels in the world capable of stopping the leak.

"Our subs are unique. There are two of them and they can submerge and work simultaneously. Also, they are powerful enough to work with any other additional equipment.

"There are only four vessels in the world that can go down to 6,000m - the Mirs, French Nautile and Japanese Shinkai. The Mirs are known to be the best, and we have a very experienced team of specialists," he said.

But Mr Chernyaev added that such an operation would have a chance of succeeding only if BP or the US government asked the Russian government to join efforts to stop the leak.

Mr Chernyaev said the problem had to be addressed at the highest level

"It should all be decided on the government level. Asking [Anatoly] Sagalevich [of Russia's Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, which owns the subs] to simply bring the Mirs over is nonsense. Even though we're able to go to much greater depths than where the damaged well is located, we wouldn't be able to do much on our own.

"We need a team of international specialists and we have to know all the details and probably even build a special device to attach to the subs, and all this needs time," said Mr Chernyaev.

He explained that the subs had already worked in much harsher conditions, such as the Arctic.

The submersible's pilot also said that the Russians were very surprised that BP and the US government had not asked them for help from the beginning.

"And we would not refuse to help, even though for us it would be very complicated, especially right now, when we're already working on Baikal. But it doesn't look like anyone seriously wants our help," he added.

Mr Chernyaev was one of the pilots on the first manned descent to the seabed under the geographic North Pole, carried out using the Mir mini-submarines. The expedition was widely reported as a bid to further Moscow's territorial claims in the Arctic.

The Mir submersibles can dive to a depth of about 6,000m

The two submersibles started their third season of exploration in Lake Baikal on 1 July. Over the last two expeditions, they found reserves of gas hydrates on the lake bed - which some consider a possible alternative fuel source of the future.

Gas hydrates are usually formed in permafrost or deep in the oceans. These are crystalline water-based solids; gases such as methane are trapped inside them within cages of hydrogen-bonded water molecules.

Baikal is the only freshwater basin where gas hydrates are found in its sediments. Scientists say the depth of the lake - reaching 1,637m - and extremely low temperatures of water near the lake bed both help gas hydrates form at depths exceeding 350m.

The current expedition aims to obtain important data about these findings, and is also searching for new life forms, which might be unique to Baikal.

Located in eastern Siberia, not far from the Mongolian border, the lake holds one-fifth of the planet's fresh water and many unique species of plants and animals, among them the nerpa - a species of freshwater seal.

[Terry Haines]

[spridget]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFq926ywIbM&feature=player_embedded

 

 

Water sample from Alabama beaches explodes under analysis.

[Terry Haines]

[Terry Haines]

Most Americans can't comprehend the technological terms that have been used throughout this ugly episode of lying by almost everyone involved - the U.S. government, British Petroleum, and the major media.

 

But fortunately, experts are stepping forward. Mainstream media have pretty much ignored the claims recently made by oil industry insider Matt Simmons that the main leak of the so-called volcano was not the device so often pictured on network TV, because the diameter of that pipe was not large enough to account for the volume of oil observed in the Gulf by satellites of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

 

The best CNN could do July 19 was to report that government and BP spokespeople were admitting that other leaks in the seafloor were appearing in other locations than the so-called riser pipe, perhaps as a way to deflect attention from Simmons' assessment that officials were covering up both the location and the volume of the main leak that has now poisoned the entire Gulf of Mexico.

 

But now geologist Chris Landau has blown the lid off the whole tragic charade that has been cynically carried on by BP, President Obama and the various functionaries who have been paraded before the cameras to parrot oil industry misinformation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Landau, who has been critically commenting on the whole sorry episode throughout this 3-month ordeal that threatens the health of the entire world, has enumerated a whole list of reasons as to why the government's story cannot possibly be true.

 

The most egregious lie, according to this veteran oil industry watcher, is the constant images put forth on television which show a pipe burbling some substance into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It looks like an overworked water bubbler in a public park, emitting a substance of changing colors that floats with a moderately effervescent turbulence toward the surface.

 

 

 

However, news reports have quoted various BP and government officials as saying that extreme pressures from the wellhead are what caused the oil rig to explode and the leak to remain unplugged for three months.

 

Landau isn't believing any of it.

 

"I have worked with air, steam, and hydraulic leaks up to the 4,500 PSI (pounds per square inch) range," Landau wrote. "They were claiming wellhead pressures of up to 70,000 to 100,000 pounds per square inch.

 

Now, they are claiming pressures of 6.5-7K PSI."

 

Landau writes: "From personal observations, I can tell you that 600 PSI, it'll cut you in half. Hydraulic fluid at 3,000 PSI vaporizes when a line bursts.

 

 

 

"Now, can you correlate those facts with the images being shown on MSM of a lazy burbling fountain of oil lazily coming out of a 14" diameter pipe, when the pressure indications would indicate something in the nature of a Saturn rocket booster engine?"

 

He said the oil leak, if they're claiming 100,000 pounds per square inch as the reason for the disaster, should look like the most colossal rocket engine exhaust we have ever sent into space!!!

 

Is this not more verification of what oil expert Matt Simmons said is "the biggest lie of all time"?

 

 

 

And that's not all.

 

"The video of the pressure gauges is interesting," Landau writes, adding "not for what the gauge itself reads, but for the fact that crush depth for a modern nuclear submarine is somewhere around 1,200 ft.

 

"How do they keep the gauges from crushing in at 5,000 feet?" he asks, fuming.

 

(Yep, that one jumped out at me when I first saw the gauges and the depth they were supposed to be at!!..WTF is the glass they are using on those thinks I ..TH)

 

And if all that's not bad enough, Landau notes:

 

"Since when do you have a blue background in videos taken at 5,000 feet? Some shown have had them."

 

Is this not proof positive that the whole pathetic presentation by BP and the U.S. government is a pathetic hoax?

 

 

Watch Landau's video and then try to figure out what we as Americans can do with a government in charge of a law enforcement and military apparatus that is clearly complicit in a horrible scheme to kill millions of people.

 

The read Landau's latest article: "BP Well Should Not be Pressure Tested": www.opednews.com/articles/BP-Blown-out-well-should-n-by-Chris-Landau

[Terry Haines]

http://www.examiner.com/x-33986-Political-Spin-Examiner~y2010m7d8-BP-Gulf-disaster-Relief-well-progress-and-media-blackout-paint-a-grim-picture-Video-photos

[Terry Haines]