BP May Not Need to Finish Drilling Relief Well, Allen Says

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Bloomberg

BP Plc may not finish drilling a relief well to its Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, National Incident Commander Thad Allen said during a conference call today.

The relief well, which for months has been touted by the U.S. government as the ultimate solution to stopping the flow from Macondo -- a process known as “killing” the well -- may not be needed after all, Allen said.

BP has started a pressure test that may show that the Macondo oil well was killed adequately when it was plugged with mud and cement with a “static kill” last week, making the relief well unnecessary, Allen said.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-12/bp-may-not-need-to-finish-drilling-relief-well-allen-says.html

[RC]

1. And if that well is damaged and the Top Kill didn't go down far enough?

We can expect a repeat only this time it will be much harder or impossible to kill because the oil will be coming up around the outside to the casing.
When has BP been straight with anyone so far?

Kill the damn thing at the bottom and be done with it!

[Psephos]

14. Exactly. n/t

[tularetom]

2. Wouldn't the relief well enable them to capture the oil?

Why would they pass up the chance to pump some profitable oil out of this relief well?

Unless the leak depleted the formation. Maybe there's no oil left in the immediate vicinity of the leak.

[TexasProgresive]

4. The orginal well was an exploratory well never intended for production.

Wells will be drilled into this oil bearing formation in the future-that was always the plan. BP doesn't need this hole.

Robert Heinlein wrote: You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their emotions quicker than you can convince one man by logic. It doesn't have to be a prejudice about an important matter either. Zebadiah Jones from If This Goes On AKA Revolt in 2100

[MoonGlow]

13. yes, and they will pump the oil

but not for a year or two

[RKP5637]

3. I'm not an expert here, but my curious side wonders if a relief well will be completed and

opened up later for access to the oil deposit when the heat dies down. None is going to let that oil sit there for eternity. It will be tapped eventually when out of sight, out of mind IMO.

[TexasProgresive]

5. See my above remarks. n/t

[RKP5637]

10. Thanks!

:hi:

[Travis_0004]

6. Doesn't drilling a relief well have its own set of risks?

If the well is stable enough that BP doesn't need to drill a relief well, not drilling one seems a lot safer.

I'm assuming 99% of the people on this board are not petroleum engineers, so we can't really comment on what is the right thing to do. I won't trust BP blindly, but if there are some independent experts who say its not needed, then I'll take their word for it.

[pitohui]

7. managing expectations

yesterday they were saying there was a slight chance they wouldn't need to finish the relief well, now it looks like there's a bigger chance than "slight"

BP does not want to get people's hopes up and then dash them back down by saying it's a done deal the relief well is not needed but i have to admit i'm getting optimistic

things looked so dark just one month ago! and now we are getting little pieces of optimism

[daylan b]

8. I thought that too until I realized something

The only thing less dark, is the "it may be August before we shut this down" predictions finally had time to come around.

[pitohui]

11. well the louisiana idea of august... (smile)

the real storm season, the real season of hazard starts the third week of august and goes thru the first week of october

while you are in fact correct that it's august, the first two weeks of august are traditionally quiet ones for the hurricane season

the urgency was to get er done before a major storm and i think we have passed that hurdle, knock on wood

[tammywammy]

23. The end of August/beginning of Sept is the time to really worry

I really hope BP has this under control, as the end of this month approaches, that's when the big storms seem to come (Katrina, Rita, Ike...).

[KoKo]

9. I guess we shouldn't worry about this...All of Wall Street got off after Raping American Families...

So..what's the big deal if BP doesn't finish the Relief Well? All is well in the Gulf..Disaster was avoided (remember Wall St. Meltdown) and the crabs and birds have returned to the Marshes and some folks even feel that the whole BP Disaster was cooked up and not real. A conspiracy by Dems or Whoever..(Maybe Global Warming folks like Al Gore) to get the "Cap and Trade" passed.

Pick your choice. BP will never truly be held liable for much of this. It will be in the Courts for Years until the Public has forgotten after a big Media Blitz from the Oil Cartel manages to "Disinform Us" so much we won't believe anything and have to move on because our head spins.

We've seen this now for over a Decade. Nothing Changes.

[pitohui]

12. there's a $20 billion victim's fund PLUS fines

obama has already said BP can't pay fines out of the victim's fund

this is huge, we saw w. exxon valdez what victims get under reagan/bush (which is fuck all)

in my opinion BP has really stepped up and obama has done what no president before him has ever done to hold big oil accountable, did he call for the public execution of queen elizabeth at high noon or send the air force out to drop bombs on great britain, no, but that was never gonna happen, folks

[Nihil]

16. Thank you for pointing that lot out.

> there's a $20 billion victim's fund PLUS fines
> obama has already said BP can't pay fines out of the victim's fund
> this is huge, we saw w. exxon valdez what victims get under reagan/bush (which
> is fuck all)
>
> in my opinion BP has really stepped up and obama has done what no president
> before him has ever done to hold big oil accountable,

Like you say, this is far, far more than any previous president has achieved
(thank you Obama!) and a surprisingly good response from BP (way better than
ANY other company in that sector).

It might not be ponies all around but it is an amazingly optimistic result
compared to how most folks (myself included) were feeling a few months back ...

:shrug:

[ret5hd]

17. How much of that $20B has been deposited?

[primavera]

20. None of which is going to help...

... the countless millions of wildlife in the Gulf killed, or the huge dead zones forming in the Gulf where all of the plankton which generated the life-sustaining oxygen has been killed off, nor will it help the small invertebrates that are now black from having consumed petrochemicals, or the larger animals that are dying and will continue to die from eating them. But, of course, who cares about wildlife anyway? It's not like they have any commercial value, so they really don't have any right to live at all. Don't worry, be happy, go back to driving your SUV, nothing to see here.

[primavera]

21. But why shouldn't that happen?

We sentence individuals to prison terms for illegally poaching a single animal, yet BP can decimate an entire ecosystem and get away with it? Okay, so they're paying some fines and that is some improvement over what Exxon got away with under a Repuke administration. But these guys clear $60 million a day in profit and have assets in excess of a quarter of a trillion (that's trillion with a "t") dollars. Even record-setting fines are just lunch money for these guys.

BP opted to drill in an area they knew to be hazardous. They did so without having any plan whatsoever of what they would do if anything went wrong. They omitted basic safety measures required in most countries (except, of course, ours). When the few early warning devices they had in place alerted them to a problem, they not only ignored them, but deactivated the alarms so as to not be bothered by them going off again. This is gross negligence, reckless disregard, and callous indifference to the foreseeable consequences of their actions. For no other reason than pure, unadulterated greed, BP took a giant shit on the Gulf of Mexico and only a portion of the damage they caused can be fixed by mere money. Money can't bring back to life the wildlife that has been killed. Money can't re-create any species than may have been permanently lost. Money can't restore the oxygen producing plankton to the vast dead zones now in the Gulf. Money can't restore my confidence that, if I go down to Guys and have a shrimp poboy, I won't sprout a tail or an extra head or something. It seems to me that there's a fundamental justice issue at stake here: ought one be able to get away with a criminal offense if you happen to be rich enough to pay a fine? Clearly not, if that were the case, murder for hire would be perfectly acceptable, you'd just have to add into the price of the hit the penalty fine you'd have to pay the state for being allowed to murder someone.

I'm sorry, but I can't agree that this has turned out rosily if the only accountability for the perpetrators is that they have to pay a few fines.

[mike r]

15. The relief well is already at ~18,000 ft, with only 30 ft to go

Just do it and kill it dead.

[KoKo]

19. Just Wait and See what happens to what "you are told about this."

It will CHANGE...believe me on this.

[Odin2005]

18. Bullshit.

[DCBob]

22. I was expecting this.. the relief well may be more a risk than just leaving it as is..

I think this one of those leave well enough alone situations... no pun intended.