The Beginning Of The End?

McClatchy reports on the latest solution for the Well from Hell: BP begins ‘static kill’ of Deepwater Horizon well

MIAMI — BP on Tuesday finally began slowly strangling its blown-out well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, injecting heavy drilling mud slowly but steadily into the well in a plan to drive the crude back into the deep rock formations from which it first surged more than three months ago.

The company and the Obama administrations cautioned it would take another step and a week or more to officially pronounce the monstrous gusher dead, but a successful “hydrostatic kill” operation would drive one huge nail in the coffin. Early on, the signs from a mile below the Gulf’s surface were encouraging. BP said it began the process, which injects a dense “drilling mud” tipping the scales at 13.2 pounds a gallon to muscle oil and gas back down its ancient reservoir, around 4 p.m. Eastern Time after what BP Vice President Kent Wells called some “text book” tests.
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Though a massive 75-top “stacking cap” sealed the well in July, Allen said it remained unclear where the flow was coming from inside a well running some 2½ miles below the sea floor. Bullheading can plug in the well’s inner casing, he said, but an internal rupture also might be allowing oil or gas up the annulus, the open space between the casing that normally carries oil and gas and the larger bore hole surrounding it. Earlier in the week, Wells had suggested that the static kill alone might be enough to finish off the well. But Allen, supported by a team of federal scientists led by Energy Secretary Steven Chu, have argued that the only assured permanent plug is for the relief well to penetrate the annulus and pump in more mud and cement. “We need to go into the bottom to make sure we fill the annulus, the casing, and any drill pipe there and then follow that with cement,” Allen said. “This thing won’t truly be sealed until those relief wells are done.” Earlier in the day, Allen said BP had completed cementing in casing for its primary relief well, which is just 100 feet from its target 18,000 feet below the Gulf’s surface.

First, I’m sure that the third paragraph should start: ” Though a massive 75-ton ‘stacking cap'”, not “75-top”.

Even at this late date, after all that has happened, BP is trying to cut corners and go cheap. Fortunately, it looks like the government has finally found its spine and is requiring BP to do the job right. We don’t know which of the three possible paths from the reservoir are being used – the bore hole, the casing, or the drilling pipe. It may be using any or all of the three, and until all three are sealed, the well isn’t sealed. The current process is only dealing with the space between the inner casing wall and the drilling pipe.