"Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors."

-Jonas Salk

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Aardvark and No Play

"aardvark" has a plausible summary of the state of play at the well site. Be sure to click through to the diagram while you read it. I am not saying that everything there is right (I am not qualified to say either way) but it certainly offers some insight into the flavor of the technical problem.

Comment 7 on this Dot Earth article is somewhat simpler, and also tells the story quite well.

8 comments:

Hank Roberts said...

This is a link from that thread you point to, it's the first one that clearly identifies the location of one of the often seen views: http://bittooth.blogspot.com/2010/05/deepwater-oil-spill-restarting-mud-and.html

That's the place the riser is bent over past 90 degrees above the BOP, if I read it right.

Hank Roberts said...

Maddening. Last comment at the WKRG video page was stopped for a long time showing the bent over pipe at the top of the BOP, same one identified in the thread Aardvark started.

The poster at WKRG mentions something happening with a specific timestamp:

"I am saying at 4:07 am this morning that pipe above burst wide open ...."

No clue what's really going on.
Very curious what the Herc 6 Plume Monitoring video shows, several people have commented it now looks like the flow is doming out of something down in a hole, but that could be perspective if it's a view from almost overhead looking down at the seabed.

Hank Roberts said...

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6523#more

Deepwater Oil Spill - The LMRP Attempt, the "Press Conference," and a Live Open Thread

Posted by Gail the Actuary on May 29, 2010 - 7:30pm

BP is now saying that its Top Kill approach has failed, and it is moving on to LMRP. A few comments from the press:

Anonymous said...
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Hank Roberts said...

Oy!

http://www.wkrg.com/gulf_oil_spill/article/bp-ceo-disputes-claims-of-underwater-oil-plumes/891587/May-30-2010_4-19-pm/

Anonymous said...
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Hank Roberts said...

Finally something informative:
http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/incident_response/STAGING/local_assets/downloads_pdfs/Riser_Removal_large.jpg

Hank Roberts said...

resources:
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYETicASkH8SZGZmN3ptcXpfN2M2cmR3c2M5&hl=en