Wednesday, July 14, 2010

The Mother Of All Caps - 2

In the first post of this series we looked at the Deepwater Horizon well assembly as well as what BP was trying to do with the cap and with the testing of what would happen if they tried to cap it completely.

Now we find out that the test has been postponed.

My guess is that the scenario depicted in Figure 3 in the first post is suspected by BP engineers.

The pressure probably did not hold, or seismic data indicated something happening around the well bore and well casing.

If so, it would mean we wait for the relief well slated to make contact with the original well bore and well casing sometime around mid-August.

Figure 4 depicts the concept of the relief well, showing the oil stopped deep under the seabed at the relief well contact point.

For the relief well to work, the well casing and well bore below the relief well contact point will have to be undamaged.

UPDATE: Other posts here that deal with the Deepwater Horizon disaster: Danger Lurks In The Deep Water and From Deepwater I to Deepwater II.

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