relief well: how can they intersect with the other pipe, 5 miles below water level?

[davester]

Spiff wrote:
I still think it's all a scam - BP is in it to save as much oil as possible to keep this "gold mine" going. They are playing up how they are gathering more and more oil from the well each day, but still not getting it all. There was a great NPR interview yesterday with a BP exec. NPR grilled him mercilessly, and he came across as a slick salesman, always ignoring the question and spewing propaganda - spinning the situation to make it look like BP is the good guy. He even evaded the question about the original oil flow estimates that BP staunchly stood by (5000 barrels a day) when others were saying closer to 50000.

I noticed that the idea of killing the well entirely didn't last long. Is it possible? Feasible? I don't know since I'm not an expert in the area of oil drilling. I must have missed that discussion. However, that would seem to be the best - to kill it so it does not spew forth any more oil. However, that would be a loss for BP, which they apparently don't want. It sickens me to hear them talk about how they are putting forth maximal effort to rectify the situation. Supposedly, if something like this were to happen, they were ready with equipment to prevent a catastrophe.

Obviously not.

Sorry about the rant. :mad:

Well you can rant all you like, but your rant is misplaced since the fact is that BP is not going to be able to save this well and it is extremely costly to keep collecting and treating seawater-contaminated oil from an out of control well the way they are doing it now There is no doubt that BP would much rather kill the well than continue with this mess.

Undoubtedly they or another oil company will attempt to exploit this petroleum reservoir again in the future since it is obviously productive, but that is neither here nor there.

[space-time]

cbelt3 wrote:
An empirical response would be

"The same way Porcupines make love. Slowly and Carefully."

(tu)

[Mr Downtown]

Laser beams allow some amazing things. The Chunnel was dug from both ends and had only a couple centimetres difference in alignment when they met.

But surveyors have always been pretty amazing. One of Chicago's first water supply tunnels was dug under the surface of Lake Michigan. One crew started on shore and another crew started from the water intake crib two miles out in the lake. Crews of Irish workmen dug by gaslight from both ends, lining the tunnel with brick as they went. When they met, they were four inches off. In 1863.

[macphanatic]

They're killing this well, but will use another to get to the oil and gas reserve.

[Speedy]

Similar story for measuring the height of Mt. Everest by the British from India.

Mr Downtown wrote:
Laser beams allow some amazing things. The Chunnel was dug from both ends and had only a couple centimetres difference in alignment when they met.

But surveyors have always been pretty amazing. One of Chicago's first water supply tunnels was dug under the surface of Lake Michigan. One crew started on shore and another crew started from the water intake crib two miles out in the lake. Crews of Irish workmen dug by gaslight from both ends, lining the tunnel with brick as they went. When they met, they were four inches off. In 1863.

[Janit]

An exercise in underground aqueduct construction in Jerusalem around 700 BCE was much less precise but no less impressive:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezekiah%27s_Tunnel

The difficult feat of making two teams digging from opposite ends meet far underground is now understood to have been accomplished by directing the two teams from above using sounds generated by hammering on the solid karst through which the tunnelers were digging.

[Spiff]

Good point davester. This is me, letting it go for now. :eye:

[mjgkramer]

If I remember correctly, this was an exploratory well which is used to determine if oil is there and if it can be produced in commecial quantities. If so, it would likely have been plugged and abandoned and production wells drilled at a later time from a central floating production platform.

I am a Shell Oil retiree and was a drilling engineer for a short time many years ago. The drilling of relief wells is not a new thing. Back in the 80s, Shell had a blowout on land in Mississippi that resulted in a dangerous level of H2S (hydrogen sulfide) being leaked into the surrounding area. It required evacuation and relocation of a lot of people for several months. That well was on land which made things a bit simpler than the current BP situation. If I recall correctly that well was 20,000 to 25,000 feet deep. It was successfully intercepted with a relief well and the well was killed. I was in a Shell conference at the time the intercept was announced and everyone stood up and cheered.