Factbox: BP’s next steps on killing Gulf leak

July 28, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – BP Plc was working to ready the first of two relief wells to bore into its blown-out Gulf of Mexico well about 13,000 feet under the seabed and permanently plug and seal the leak.

Along the way, the company aims to begin the kill process with a “static kill,” which involves pumping heavy drilling mud and cement in the well from the top.

The well remains capped, having shut in all oil flow since July 15.

Here is an explanation of BP’s next steps, according to retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the top official overseeing the spill response, and Kent Wells, BP’s senior vice president of exploration and production:

THE RELIEF WELLS

* On July 25 a rig that had been drilling the first of two relief wells was reconnecting its riser and drillpipe after shutting down operations to move out of the path of bad weather.

* Once reconnected, a plug that had been placed in the well to keep it stable will be removed, and the well will be cleaned.

* BP will then insert and cement in place the last piece of pipe, called casing, at the bottom of the relief well prior to boring into the Macondo well.

* After the casing is in place but before drilling resumes, BP aims to begin a static kill.

* The relief well has drilled 12,864 feet beneath the seabed and remains on target to intercept and kill the leak in August. The weather-related shutdown has likely pushed the finish date to the second half of August from the middle of the month.

* The finish date depends on how well the static kill works, how deep the relief well must bore into the stricken well, and how many times BP must pump in heavy drilling fluid and cement.

* The second relief well, a backup to the first, bored 10,961 feet beneath the seabed by July 12, when drilling was suspended to avoid disturbing the first relief well’s use of sensors to find its right intercept target.

THE STATIC KILL:

* The static kill resembles BP’s failed “top kill” in May, except that the well is capped and sealed.

* The top kill failed because heavy mud shot out the top of the leak along with crude and couldn’t smother the leak.

* As with the top kill, heavy mud will be pumped into the well from surface vessels through pipes and hoses connected to a failed blowout preventer at the seabed.

* Because oil no longer has an escape route, the mud is expected to push it back down to the reservoir.

* Cement can then be pumped into the well to plug and kill the leak at the bottom.

* The first relief well will then drill into the space between the well’s pipe and the strata, called the annulus. If oil is flowing there, more mud and cement will be pumped in through the relief well.

* Once that cement dries, the relief well will bore into the well pipe to ensure that the static kill plugged it. If not, more mud and cement will be pumped in at the bottom to finish the job.

* The static kill could accelerate the entire kill process if it works as intended.

WELL PRESSURE

* BP has monitored pressure in the well since it was sealed shut on July 15 for signs of leaks or problems.

* Pressure has slowly risen from 6,700 pounds per square inch on July 16 to 6,904 psi on July 25.

* Rising pressure indicates the pipe and cement in the well remain intact after the April 20 blowout. Lower or falling pressure would be a sign the well is damaged, allowing oil to leak out the sides and possibly breach the seafloor.

* Pressure above 7,500 psi would show the well is intact, while pressure that falls or fails to rise above 6,000 psi would indicate a problem. The slowly rising pressure could be a sign that the reservoir is largely depleted from the leak.

BACKUP OIL-CAPTURE VESSELS

* BP still aims to assemble a surface oil-capture system of four vessels that can siphon up to 80,000 barrels a day from the wellhead.

* That system will include a rig, the Helix Producer; a well-testing ship, the Toisa Pisces; and two Transocean Ltd. drillships, the Discoverer Enterprise and the Discoverer Clear Leader.

* Each would be connected to wellhead equipment via hoses and pipes that allow for a quick disconnect if a hurricane approaches.

* The system remains on tap as a backup if any problems arise with the static kill and the first relief well.

(Reporting by Kristen Hays in Houston; Editing by Paul Simao)

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CORRECTED – WRAPUP 1-BP runs crucial test on Gulf oil leak

July 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

HOUSTON, July 15 (Reuters) – BP Plc (BP.L) (BP.N) was running a crucial test on Thursday on its ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil well that could stanch the flow of crude that has polluted the ocean and shoreline since April.

BP began the process on Wednesday night, which could stretch up to 48 hours. The British energy giant began the tests after getting the green light from top U.S. government officials who had delayed the plan by 24 hours on concerns the process could irreparably damage the well.

If tests, which will be assessed every six hours, show that closing the cap might cause further damage to the well, the capping device could instead be used as part of a complex system to capture the oil and siphon it to ships on the surface.

Kent Wells, BP’s senior vice president of exploration and production, said undersea robots working a mile (1.6 km) below the surface had started shutting a series of three valves designed to ultimately stop the oil flow completely.

Critically, BP has closed the main valve in the middle of the cap, “and we no longer have flow out the top,” Wells said.

BP said late on Wednesday it had isolated a leak it detected in a line connected to one of the valves and was repairing it before proceeding with the test.

The developments will be watched by investors on Thursday as BP’s ultimate costs may hinge on how much oil is judged to have flown freely into the Gulf. The disaster is the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

On Wednesday, shares in BP ended 2.3 percent down in London in slow trading and were off about 1.9 percent in New York, with some analysts saying investors were likely cashing in profits ahead of further news on the new cap.

After losing over half of its market value at one point in the wake of the April 20 rig explosion that killed 11 workers and unleashed a flow of crude, its share price had been staging a rally, spurred by talk that company executives were seeking investors and optimism of a turning point in the spill. <^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ For full spill coverage link.reuters.com/hed87k Breakingviews [ID:nN14132617] Insider TV link.reuters.com/qyk76m Graphics link.reuters.com/dyp37m Graphic on BP shares r.reuters.com/dez27m ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>

The decision to go ahead with the tests was taken after a day of intense deliberation that reached the level of President Barack Obama and his Cabinet, reflecting the stakes involved.

Retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, who is overseeing the U.S. response to the spill, has said if tests show the well can withstand certain pressures, odds are good it could be “shut in” indefinitely.

The disaster has soiled hundreds of miles (km) of shoreline, shut down about a third of Gulf fisheries, put BP on the hook for billions of dollars in cleanup costs and legal liabilities and prompted Obama to temporarily halt deepwater drilling.

ANGER OVER SPILL

Anger among Americans over the failure to halt the spill added to Obama’s political problems, distracting him from his legislative agenda and denting his popularity as his Democratic Party faces tough congressional elections in November.

In Buras, Louisiana, crabber Larry Tew said he was hopeful about the cap tests. “I think it’s going to work. … I mean, they don’t have any other choice,” he said.

At least some of the oil from the well has been siphoned off to ships in the past few weeks, but that operation was halted while the tests are undertaken. BP has said by the end of July four vessels can be hooked up and collect up to 80,000 barrels (3.34 million gallons/12.7 million liters) per day.

That should be more than enough to capture the whole well output, as estimates put the spill rate between 35,000 barrels and 60,000 barrels a day.

The only proven way to kill the leak lies in the drilling of relief wells to intercept the ruptured one. The first of two such wells started in May is expected to intercept it by the end of July and plug by mid-August. (Additional reporting by Alexandria Sage in Buras, Louisiana, Chris Baltimore in Houston and Matthew Lynley in New York; Writing by Ed Stoddard; Editing by Todd Eastham)

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BP runs crucial test on Gulf oil leak

July 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

HOUSTON, July 15 (Reuters) – BP Plc (BP.L) (BP.N) was running a crucial test on Thursday on its ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil well that could stanch the flow of crude that has polluted the ocean and shoreline since April.

BP began the process on Wednesday night, which could stretch up to 48 hours. The British energy giant began the tests after getting the green light from top U.S. government officials who had delayed the plan by 24 hours on concerns the process could irreparably damage the well.

If tests, which will be assessed every six hours, show that closing the cap might cause further damage to the well, the capping device could instead be used as part of a complex system to capture the oil and siphon it to ships on the surface.

Kent Wells, BP’s senior vice president of exploration and production, said undersea robots working a mile (1.6 km) below the surface had started shutting a series of three valves designed to ultimately stop the oil flow completely.

Critically, BP has closed the main valve in the middle of the cap, “and we no longer have flow out the top,” Wells said.

BP said late on Wednesday it had isolated a leak it detected in a line connected to one of the valves and was repairing it before proceeding with the test.

The developments will be watched by investors on Thursday as BP’s ultimate costs may hinge on how much oil is judged to have flown freely into the Gulf. The disaster is the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

On Wednesday, shares in BP ended 2.3 percent down in London in slow trading and were off about 1.9 percent in New York, with some analysts saying investors were likely cashing in profits ahead of further news on the new cap.

After losing over half of its market value at one point in the wake of the April 20 rig explosion that killed 11 workers and unleashed a flow of crude, its share price had been staging a rally, spurred by talk that company executives were seeking investors and optimism of a turning point in the spill. <^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ For full spill coverage link.reuters.com/hed87k Breakingviews [ID:nN14132617] Insider TV link.reuters.com/qyk76m Graphics link.reuters.com/dyp37m Graphic on BP shares r.reuters.com/dez27m ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>

The decision to go ahead with the tests was taken after a day of intense deliberation that reached the level of President Barack Obama and his Cabinet, reflecting the stakes involved.

Retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, who is overseeing the U.S. response to the spill, has said if tests show the well can withstand certain pressures, odds are good it could be “shut in” indefinitely.

The disaster has soiled hundreds of miles (km) of shoreline, shut down about a third of Gulf fisheries, put BP on the hook for billions of dollars in cleanup costs and legal liabilities and prompted Obama to temporarily halt deepwater drilling.

ANGER OVER SPILL

Anger among Americans over the failure to halt the spill added to Obama’s political problems, distracting him from his legislative agenda and denting his popularity as his Democratic Party faces tough congressional elections in November.

In Buras, Louisiana, crabber Larry Tew said he was hopeful about the cap tests. “I think it’s going to work. … I mean, they don’t have any other choice,” he said.

At least some of the oil from the well has been siphoned off to ships in the past few weeks, but that operation was halted while the tests are undertaken. BP has said by the end of July four vessels can be hooked up and collect up to 80,000 barrels (3.34 million gallons/12.7 million liters) per day.

That should be more than enough to capture the whole well output, as estimates put the spill rate between 35,000 barrels and 60,000 barrels a day.

The only proven way to kill the leak lies in the drilling of relief wells to intercept the ruptured one. The first of two such wells started in May is expected to intercept it by the end of July and plug by mid-August. (Additional reporting by Alexandria Sage in Buras, Louisiana, Chris Baltimore in Houston and Matthew Lynley in New York; Writing by Ed Stoddard; Editing by Todd Eastham)

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BP preparing to switch seabed oil-capture caps

July 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment

HOUSTON, July 10 (Reuters) – BP Plc (BP.L) (BP.N) prepared on Saturday to remove a containment cap atop its gushing Gulf of Mexico oil leak and replace it with a bigger cap and seal that could fully contain the crude, the company said.

BP said in a statement that the process would take four to seven days. In the time between the current cap’s removal and before the new cap is bolted on, crude will gush unchecked from the leak, BP said.

But once the new cap is installed, it could ensure no more crude leaks from the seabed. Oil captured by the cap would be funneled to vessels on the surface.

At the same time, the company was hooking up and testing a third vessel in hopes that it could begin siphoning crude late on Sunday.

The two procedures are part of BP’s overall effort to set up an upgraded oil-capture system with four vessels that can handle up to 80,000 barrels a day and disconnect and move quickly if a hurricane approaches.

Kent Wells, BP’s senior vice president of exploration and production, was slated to explain the complicated processes later on Saturday.

The cap switch is a critical step in increasing BP’s oil-collection capability with a hurricane-ready system until a relief well intercepts the blown-out Macondo well and kills the leak by early to mid-August.

Retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the top U.S. official overseeing the oil spill response, approved the cap switch late on Friday.

The current cap is on the jagged remnant of a pipe atop failed blowout preventer equipment. It has a seal that doesn’t capture all the crude, and a live video feet of the seabed shows oil billowing out from under it and from open vents on top.

That remnant will be removed along with the current cap, so the new cap and seal will be bolted on a larger surface with no jagged edges. That is expected to ensure all or most leaking crude is captured, Allen has said.

BP’s current oil containment system involves two vessels, Transocean Ltd’s (RIG.N) RIGN.S Discoverer Enterprise drillship, and Helix Energy Solutions’ (HLX.N) Q4000 rig.

The Enterprise is connected to the current containment cap by a fixed pipe, and needs at least five days’ lead time to disconnect and get out of a hurricane’s path. Its collected oil is processed and shipped to shore by a tanker.

The Q4000 is connected to a failed blowout preventer at the seabed via a hose and pipe. It cannot process oil, so the rig burns off collected crude.

The combined system can handle up to 28,000 barrels a day of oil. On Friday, the system collected or burned off 24,790 barrels.

BP originally intended to add the third vessel, a rig called the Helix Producer, by June 30 but rough seas caused by Hurricane Alex delayed its hookup. The Producer can handle up to 25,000 barrels a day, and was hooked up to the blowout preventer by a second hose and pipe.

An eight-day window of good weather prompted BP to hook up the Producer this week and begin the cap switch, the company said.

Once the new cap is installed, BP will be able to move toward the 80,000 barrel-per-day collection system later in July. The Producer will stay in place, but another vessel will replace the Q4000. A pair of drillships will be hooked up to the new cap by drillpipes, according to BP’s plan. (Reporting by Kristen Hays, editing by Vicki Allen)

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Alex to become hurricane, delay oil spill efforts

July 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment

CAMPECHE, Mexico, June 28 (Reuters) – Tropical Storm Alex was set to strengthen into a hurricane on Tuesday, delaying BP Plc’s (BP.L) (BP.N) efforts to increase siphoning capacity at the gushing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico where some companies evacuated workers.

Alex was forecast to move slowly away from the Yucatan Peninsula over southern Gulf waters and curl northwest away from major oil-extraction facilities to make a second landfall in northern Mexico mid-week.

It is not expected to hurt oil capture systems at the BP oil spill or the company’s plans to drill a pair of relief wells intended to plug the leak by August, a BP executive told reporters in Houston. [ID:nN28258499]

But waves as high as 12 feet (4 metres) would delay this week’s plans to hook up a third system to capture much more oil, said Kent Wells, BP executive vice president.

As a precautionary measure, Shell Oil Co (RDSa.L), Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N), Anadarko Petroleum Corp (APC.N) and Apache Corp (APA.N) evacuated nonessential workers from platforms near Alex’s path. Shell also shut subsea production at the Auger and Brutus platforms over the weekend.

Traders and brokers kept a close eye on Alex, but oil prices fell toward $78 per barrel on Monday as most forecasters predicted the storm would pass southwest of major U.S. offshore oil and gas installations in the Gulf of Mexico.

A hurricane watch has been issued for the coast of Texas south of Baffin Bay to La Cruz in Mexico.

The ports of Dos Bocas and Cayo Arcas, which handle 80 percent of Mexico’s oil export shipping in the Gulf, have been closed since Sunday due to strong surf in the area.

State-run oil giant Pemex [PEMX.UL] said its platforms in the Campeche Sound continued to work normally on Monday although it suspended helicopter flights to and from the facilities.

Pemex said it is monitoring wind and surf conditions caused by Alex. Its Isla del Carmen port, not essential for oil shipments, has been closed since Sunday night.

Barbara Blakely, a spokeswoman for Shell, told Reuters the company was closely monitoring Alex’s advance in the Gulf but that its LNG plant in Altamira, Mexico was working as usual.

DEATHS IN CENTRAL AMERICA

The storm is due to make landfall again between Brownsville, Texas, and Ciudad Madero in Mexico at mid-week, mostly sparing BP oil collection efforts south of Louisiana.

Alex, the first named storm of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, gained some strength late Monday with sustained winds of about 65 mph (100 kph) with higher gusts and was located about 475 miles (765 km) southeast of Brownsville, Texas. The system was moving north-northwest at 8 mph (13 kph) early Tuesday morning, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Forecasters expect the storm to turn toward the northwest later on Tuesday and then gradually turn toward the west-northwest on Wednesday.

“Additional strengthening is forecast… and Alex is expected to become a hurricane on Tuesday,” the center said on its latest update.

At least 10 people have been killed in Central America since the weekend in accidents related to Alex, local authorities reported.

Three people died in El Salvador from flooding, two others were killed in a landslide in Guatemala and five people were swept away by swelling rivers in Nicaragua, emergency officials told Reuters.

Alex was expected to bring 3 to 6 inches (7 to 15 cm) of rain to the Yucatan Peninsula, southern Mexico and parts of Guatemala through Tuesday. Isolated torrents of up to 10 inches (23 cm) were possible over mountainous areas. Forecasters warned the rain could cause flash floods and mudslides.

The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov 30 and meteorologists predict this year will be a very active one. Hurricanes feed on warm water and the sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic are higher than usual this year. (Additional reporting by Jose Cortazar in Cancun, Nelson Renteria in El Salvador, Sarah Grainger in Guatemala, Ivan Castro in Nicaragua and Mica Rosenberg in Mexico City)

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Factbox: How a relief well works

June 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Here is an explanation of how a relief well works, as explained by industry and academic experts as well as Kent Wells, BP’s senior vice president of exploration and production.

* A relief well provides access to a blown-out well far beneath the seabed, at or close to the bottom of the problem well.

* Typically, it is drilled parallel to the problem well through multiple layers of rock and sometimes salt. Then the drillbit curves to intersect with the problem well. This is how BP’s relief wells are being drilled.

* The first relief well began drilling on May 2, and the second began on May 16.

* As of June 18, the first well had been drilled to 10,677 feet, or 2 miles, beneath the seabed. The second well had reached 4,662 feet, or eight-tenths of a mile.

* The first well also was within 200 feet of the side of the blown-out well, but had to continue drilling down to find the right intersect point.

* The Macondo well was drilled to 13,000 feet, or 2.4 miles, beneath the seabed.

* The drilling process is lengthy because it must stop at points along the way. That allows drillers to insert piping, called casing, to hold the well open and prevent a cave-in.

* The diameter of the well shrinks as it drills deeper to maintain control and integrity of the wellbore. BP’s target will be about 8.5 inches across, or about the size of a large dinner plate.

* BP is slowing the pace of drilling for the first relief well so electromagnetic sensors can be used to detect the blown-out well and gradually move closer.

* BP has detailed information on the Macondo well that is helping it choose the right path for the relief wells.

* BP intends to first pierce the space between the wellbore and the casing in the blown-out well, and then pierce the casing. That will ensure the well connects with the flow path of gushing oil and gas.

* Once intersected, BP can pump heavy drilling fluid down the relief well into the blown-out well.

* The weight of the mud reduces high pressures in the reservoir that send crude billowing up to the leak.

* As pressure is reduced, the flow of oil slows.

* Once sufficiently slowed, BP can pump cement into the Macondo wellbore and plug the leak at or near the source.

* A relief well can still work if it doesn’t precisely intersect with a blown-out well.

* In that case, if a relief well gets close enough, holes can be punched through its casing to allow drilling mud to flow through fissures and fractures in the reservoir rock to reach the blown-out well.

* Once the leak is plugged, BP can possibly return to the Macondo well at some point to try to produce oil from it. BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward told Congress the company estimated the reservoir holds up to 50 million barrels of oil, and the well would have produced 15,000 to 25,000 barrels a day had it been completed.

* If the Macondo well is too damaged to revisit, it is possible the company could turn one of the relief wells into a producing well.

(Reporting by Kristen Hays; Editing by Xavier Briand)

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BP begins top-kill operation to curb oil leak

May 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 27 (DPA) BP Wednesday began a long-awaited operation intended to seal off its ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico, raising hope after five weeks of massive crude oil seepage into the sea.

The operation, called top-kill, involves pumping heavy mud down into the damaged well head in the hopes of counteracting the pressure of the crude oil pouring into the Gulf since April 20.

It marks the first time that BP has tried to seal off the well, a precarious operation that, as BP chief Tony Hayward pointed out, could make the leak even worse. Earlier attempts to contain the situation focussed on siphoning off the oil.

It could be anywhere from half a day to several days before engineers know if the procedure is effective, BP vice president Kent Wells has noted. The operation began at 1800 GMT, about an hour and a half after the US Coast Guard gave the go-ahead.

Up until the last minute, BP engineers studied whether they should even begin the procedure, said Hayward, who was up through the night evaluating the situation as underwater robots took pressure readings in the valves.

Weeks of talk about top-kill have built up expectations. BP officials warned against hopes of a quick fix, but gave themselves an up-to 70-percent chance of success. Engineers planned to carefully ramp up the forced mud pressure to make sure it does not burst through possible weak points further down the well casing, a federal mining official said.

All previous efforts to reduce the flow have fallen short as thick heavy oil washes onto 110 kilometres of Gulf marshes and beaches.

There is only one permanent solution to the oil disaster now arriving on shore, where fish suffocate, oiled birds die slow deaths and soupy crude oil swamps fragile marsh grasses: that’s the tedious drilling of two parallel relief wells, not expected to be finished until August.

The top-kill method has a successful past, but has never been tried at this depth, 1.6 kilometres beneath the surface. The well burrows another 6 kilometres below the sea floor, explaining the strong pressure forcing oil and gas out of two leaks.

Engineers are to force up to 50 barrels of heavy mud a minute into valve openings on the five-storey damaged blowout preventer – the very one that failed to shut down when a sudden rush of gas ignited and blew up the drill rig, killing 11 workers, April 20.

If the specially produced kill mud succeeds and ‘outruns’ the pressure of the well, engineers will then pump cement into the well casing.

To prepare for top-kill, BP deployed multiple underwater robots that could withstand human-crushing pressure, fiddle with the stuck valves and take pressure measurements.

Hayward admitted Wednesday that one of the ‘big lessons from the incident’ was that BP was woefully unprepared for the disaster. It took weeks to assemble a fleet of sub-sea intervention equipment.

‘With the benefit of hindsight, it would clearly have been good to have that ready to go from day one,’ Hayward told CNN. He said this was something that industry ‘will undoubtedly need to, should do and will probably be required to have in the future.’

US President Barack Obama, who noted a wide ‘sense of despair’ about the unfolding environmental disaster, was to head to the oil-slicked coast for a second time Friday to assess efforts.

‘We’re going to bring every resource necessary to stop this thing,’ Obama vowed at a solar panel manufacturer in California. ‘We will not rest until this well is shut, the environment is repaired and the clean-up is complete.’

The words were little balm to angry Gulf residents and elected officials whose fishing and tour boating livelihoods are at stake.

They have the equipment to start a sand-dredging plan and build barrier islands to catch the oil. But federal officials want weeks of study before they grant permission.

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FACTBOX – BP to try “top kill” to stop oil leak

May 26, 2010 By Leave a Comment

As early as Wednesday, BP aims to try to stop the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico with a procedure known as a “top kill.”

Here is how the procedure is designed to work, as explained by Kent Wells, BP’s senior vice president of exploration and production. He said the procedure could be delayed as BP conducts tests to gauge its chances of success:

* Drilling “mud,” or fluid heavier than oil that can contain barite, clay and water, will be pumped from a ship to a construction and well-servicing rig and then down a drill pipe to the seabed a mile (1.6 km) below the surface. The ship can pump 50 barrels (7,950 liters) of mud a minute and is stocked with 11,000 barrels (1.75 million l). Three other ships stocked with mud are nearby.

* The mud will go through the pipe into hoses connected to a manifold on the sea floor, which routes the fluid to another set of hoses known as “choke and kill.”

* The choke and kill hoses lead the fluid through valves on the failed blowout preventer.

* Once inside the blowout preventer, the fluid travels into the well beneath the seabed. If successful, the “hydrostatic head” of the fluid, or the force exerted by the fluid at rest, will resist and overcome the flow of oil and “kill” the well.

* If the fluid cannot stop the flow alone, BP can inject a “junk shot” of solid materials like golf balls and shredded rubber to help get more mud down the well.

* The entire procedure can take from a half day to two days.

(Reporting by Kristen Hays; Editing by Eric Walsh)

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BP’s “top kill” on leaking well could be delayed

May 26, 2010 By Leave a Comment

BP Plc will begin a process to plug a leaking undersea oil well on Wednesday at the earliest, but it could be delayed or even abandoned if tests show it would not work, a company executive said on Tuesday.

“In terms of when the actual kill might go forward, the earliest would be tomorrow and it could extend on from there,” BP senior vice president Kent Wells told reporters on a conference call, referring to the “top kill” procedure.

Under intense pressure from the Obama administration to plug the five-week-old gushing leak in the Gulf of Mexico, BP sought to manage expectations of its latest effort.

The company has failed to plug or completely corral the leak that burst after a rig drilling the well a mile beneath the water’s surface exploded and sank, killing 11 workers.

President Barack Obama and U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar have publicly scolded BP for a breakdown of responsibility and missing deadlines in sealing the well.

BP officials had said the top kill, which involves injecting heavy drilling fluids twice as dense as water into the well to stop the oil flow, would begin last Sunday at the earliest.

They subsequently pushed its start to Tuesday, then Wednesday, and Wells said it might start later as scientists finish tests to gauge its chances of success.

“In terms of timing, the pace at which we’re doing this — subsea construction — we usually spend months to do what we’ve done in days and weeks,” Wells said. “We have to be careful in terms of setting expectations.”

MAY ABANDON KILL ATTEMPT

Wells said the tests may prompt BP to abandon the top kill altogether if scientists determine it can’t be done safely or will worsen the leak.

“What we learn during this diagnostic phase will be crucial to us,” he said.

Russell Hoshman, a petroleum engineer with the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service, said the agency is reviewing procedures to ensure they are technically sound so as to “not make this situation worse.”

Wells said the 12- to 24-hour diagnostic phase would take place “over the next day or so.” If given the go-ahead, the top kill could take half a day to two days to show results, he said.

The top kill involves injecting drilling fluids, which are heavier than oil, into the failed five-story blowout preventer at the seabed, at the rate of 50 barrels (2,100 gallons) per minute. The tests are supposed to show which of the five points of entry into the blowout preventer can be used.

The biggest risk in the procedure is that the upward pressure of the oil and gas rushing from the well would overcome the downward pressure from the mud and blow it out the top of the blowout preventer, BP executives have said.

Wells said some oil could get past the fluids and escape, but the concept is to pump them fast enough to overcome the oil and kill the well.

“JUNK SHOT” OPTION

If the fluids aren’t enough, BP could employ a “junk shot,” or pump solid materials like shredded rubber golf balls as a “bridging agent” to slow the oil flow and allow more fluids down the well.

If those options don’t work, BP can remove the bent pipe coming out of a piece of equipment on top of the blowout preventer and place a containment dome with a seal on top of it to corral the oil. The oil would be transported by pipe to a drilling ship at the surface.

BP tried such a containment dome over the leak before. Too much seawater inside mixed with natural gas coming from the leak and formed ice, known as hydrates, which blocked oil from flowing to the drillship. Wells said the seal should reduce seawater to cut potential for hydrates to form.

(Reporting by Kristen Hays and Chris Baltimore; Editing by David Storey)

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