Gusher in Gulf Plugged!

The engineer who designed it should be knighted, everyone else summarily shot :wink2:.
 
weilke said:
The engineer who designed it should be knighted, everyone else summarily shot :wink2:.
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Story I heard is it was made from a drawing that a plumber came up with.

No, it wasn't Joe.
 
Not plugged.

BP only demonstrated they can turn it off, not a permanent fix. Despite the headline BP does not intend on shutting the flow off before the "relief wells" (what a misnomer) allow them to pump mud/cement into the well casing.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE66E0MK20100716

The Coast Guard said BP likely will release the flow of oil again after the test is done -- siphoning it to ships on the ocean surface in an improved system able to handle up to 80,000 barrels a day until a relief well seals the well permanently.

This is far from over. Problems have been identified with the BOPs on the auxillary wells, too. Let's hope the "fixes" on them work.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/9171729

The daily BP "updates" have conveniently omitted the total outflow of the well, on the estimated captured flow. The actual total may never be known, but odds are it is an amount substantially greater than BP will admit to.

NSFW: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylKDIxL87bE
 
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Steve said:
... BP only demonstrated they can turn it off, not a permanent fix. Despite the headline BP does not intend on shutting the flow off...
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My understanding of the prior situation was that it could be described as "leaky siphoning", that they were catching some of the escaping oil, but some was still escaping into the Gulf.

Now they've securely capped the well, and no oil is flowing, but they're talking about restarting the siphoning soon. So does this mean "non-leaky siphoning" from now on, assuming everything continues to "hold", or are we just back to leaky siphoning again, possibly with the ability to shut things down temporarily if everybody has to skedaddle out of there for a hurricane?

My assumption would be that this is all about a transition to "non-leaky siphoning". Otherwise, there's something I'm missing in all this...
-harry
 
Barring any technical problems, the new configuration allows flow of hydrocarbons directly from the stack to a vessel on the surface. It'll be a closed system from sea floor to surface.
 
Steve said:
This is far from over. Problems have been identified with the BOPs on the auxillary wells, too. Let's hope the "fixes" on them work.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/9171729
Click to expand...

The problems vaguely described in that article sound like typical failures that are frequently identified and fixed during regular testing. In other words, the tests did what they are designed to do: identify problems and fix them. It's routine maintenance of a complex mechanical system.
 
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