Why is "oil leaking from the seafloor" such a big deal? Help me to understand, please.

[Th1onein]

I don't know why this would be a big deal. What does it mean? Why is it any more catastrophic than oil coming from the pipe that BP put in?

I am apparently missing some facts. Can someone explain this to me, please?

[Bluebear]

1. read Catherina's post . . .enlightening and frightening!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8549020#8549142

[Catherina]

6. I just edited my post to show I got it from Webster Green's link

People should read the whole thread WG linked to in the post above mine. It's really frightening.

[Fumesucker]

2. The seafloor of much of the GOM is mud from 100 to 1000 or more feet deep..

If the oil is leaking from the seafloor there is basically no way even in theory to stop it..

[time_has_come]

3. if it's leaking from the seafloor it cannot be stopped until...

...it runs out/pressure drops.

[HughMoran]

13. The relief well fills the well from the bottom & cements from the bottom

But it would make containment for the next 2 months nearly impossible and could increase the flow rate up to 100,000 bpd.

[time_has_come]

19. I'm not so sure the relief well will work if the integrity of the well is gone

[HughMoran]

20. Why?

Can you explain your trepidation?

[time_has_come]

26. the relief well is essentially a way to inject cement low into the original well....

...it would require that the original well has some integrity (ie. not be cracked) in order for the cement to have something to set in, i would think.

And in fact i've read some oil industry experts being quoted that such problems could mean the well will spew until it's done.

[Catherina]

4. You can cap a pipe. You can't cap the sea floor.

And due to increased pressure, with erosion, from the floor, the escape cracks will get larger.

[burnsei sensei]

10. The Gulf of Mexico

will become the Gulf of Endless Crude Oil.
The pollution profound-- it may even change conditions of atmosphere and the ocean permanently.
Are we to become like one of Saturn's moons?

[Donnachaidh]

5. think about it -- how do you CAP the sea floor?

That is what they say they are attempting to do with shutting down this mess. Capping can happen IF there is a pipe to cap. But flat sea floor? AIN'T gonna happen.

[Bluebear]

8. Although I can see them announcing an attempt...

"We are 45% certain we can cap the sea floor, and urge all other drilling worldwide to continue as we attempt this maneuver. We should know in 72 hours whether we are 50% successful...."

[Donnachaidh]

14. yeah - no shit LOL! n/t

[Warpy]

7. Oil leaking from the seafloor means the blast

fractured the area around the well and that there is no way to stop the leak short of dropping an aircraft carrier over it, and even that is a shot in the dark. It means that oil will continue to flood out even if the well is capped. It means that pressure relief wells are the only thing that will control this mess and that several of them will probably be necessary before this is all over.

[Catherina]

9. Slight correction "might be able to control this mess"

I don't have much faith in the relief wells either. By the time they're completed, I'm afraid it will be too little, too late.

[defendandprotect]

22. Nuking it is being mentioned... though I don't get that idea!!

[patrice]

11. It is evidence that it is not just the drill hole that blew out, but that the main body of the well

itself is cracked, probably in more than one place, a much more difficult thing to fix than just plugging a broken "straw" into that big bottle.

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. Worse yet, the oil field is gigantic.

Awhile back I found and posted a 2009 news article that announced the find of this oil field,
that it was HUGE and actually was under the southern half of Ala. Fla and even parts of Mississippi, that it had been drilled at a slant and edge of the field in the Gulf to avoid
paying landowner royalties. The article mentioned 500 million barrels.



from the Oil Drum article:

"I saw an earlier post here quoting an Anadarko Petroleum report which set the total amount at 2.3 billion barrels. One New York Times article put it at 2 billion barrels."

[Catherina]

15. I think it could be more. From original press releases and articles

BP said in a statement on Wednesday that it had made the "giant" find at its Tiber Prospect in the Keathley Canyon block 102, by drilling one of the deepest wells ever sunk by the industry.

Further appraisal will be required to ascertain the size of volumes of oil present, but a spokesman said the find should be bigger than its Kaskida discovery which has over 3 billion barrels of oil in place.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE58133V20090902





Nearly seven miles below the Gulf of Mexico, oil company BP has tapped into a vast pool of crude after digging the deepest oil well in the world.The Tiber Prospect is expected to rank among the largest petroleum discoveries in the United States, potentially producing half as much crude in a day as Alaska’s famous North Slope oil field.

The company’s chief of exploration on Wednesday estimated that the Tiber deposit holds between 4 billion and 6 billion barrels of oil equivalent, which includes natural gas. That would be enough to satisfy U.S. demand for crude for nearly one year. But BP does not yet know how much it can extract.


http://www.theledger.com/article/20090902/NEWS/909025037/1410


More here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=8460177

[dixiegrrrrl]

16. In that article you linked to I found this gem:

The Gulf is especially attractive because it offers high profit margins, due to relatively low taxation compared to countries such as Russia and Nigeria, and because of the low political risk.


Ironic, eh?

[mod mom]

21. infuriating!

:mad:

[lob1]

17. Yes, but...

"That would be enough to satisfy U.S. demand for crude for nearly one year."

That's an interesting fact, but it's misleading. That insinuates that the crude will all be sold to the U.S. It won't, it'll be sold on the world market and will go everywhere. We'll get some of it, but not the bulk of it.

[dipsydoodle]

24. The "avoid paying landowner royalties" bit

is likely to be mythical given the location of Deepwater Horizon but yes it is huge @c. 25,000 sq miles in total : second largest known to exist on the planet. I think you'll find BP , Andarko and Japan Mitsui only had a section within the overall field.

[Are_grits_groceries]

18. Here is a long explanation about the entire problem:

The Doomsday oil scenario: a description of what could be happening (with diagrams).

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8519473

If the casing is really leaking, we are screwn. It will probably continue to deteriorate and leak more as time passes.

[meow mix]

23. as its coming through it eats away an ever enlarging set of pathways..

eventually the whole cavity could break out.
may even collaspse the sea floor and create an OIL-Tsunami...which will crash 10 miles inland. (i heard)

it also makes the relief wells more doubtful.

[dipsydoodle]

25. They cannot , or will not , apparently

close the problem well until the relief wells are drilled to relieve the pressure. The adjacent well at the Ocean Saratoga rig, not owned by BP , has been leaking since 2004 but to a far far lesser extent. http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-08/taylor-s-gulf-oil-wells-leaking-for-years-u-s-says-update2-.html