Elgin Platform (North Sea) Natural Gas Leak Coming From Rock Above Reservoir- New Scientist
A major methane gas leak is under way at the Elgin wellhead in the North Sea, 240 kilometres off Aberdeen, UK. The leak started on 25 March, but according to sources at Total, the company operating the well, the gas is not coming from the gas reservoir itself, but from a newly disturbed source in the rock above. All 238 personnel have been evacuated.
Many questions remain. Total says that until it works out the capacity of the source and the rate at which methane and gas condensate are leaking into the environment, it is impossible to say either how much gas will be released or how long it will take to block it, despite some reports putting it at six months.
"We've got geologists working on the productivity of the horizon [reservoir] the leak is coming out of," Andrew Hogg, a spokesman for Total, told New Scientist. "We must do some modelling to find out the rate."
Although the main reservoir itself at the base of the drill shaft is safely closed off, Hogg says, the gas from the secondary source in chalk above it is escaping by leaking into the shaft containing the drilling tubes that lead down to the main gas reservoir.
EDIT
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21631-north-sea-gas-leak-venting-from-newly-disturbed-source.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
The major threat to the local ecosystem is the hydrogen sulphide, which is toxic to virtually all animal lifeMovie Camera. Because the leak is below the water's surface, the hydrogen sulphide is bubbling through the sea water.
The very definition of clusterfuck.
> The platform was drilling for sour gas: natural gas polluted with hydrogen sulphide and carbon dioxide,
> which 20 years ago would have been too expensive to extract. "It's gas we started using as a last resort"
> The major threat to the local ecosystem is the hydrogen sulphide, which is toxic to virtually all animal life
> Because the leak is below the water's surface, the hydrogen sulphide is bubbling through the sea water.
Wonderful eh?
Thank you profit motive coupled with the consume-consume-consume cancer (and, of course, the burgeoning
markets in natural gas).
Mind you, I think it's a good job that BP didn't adopt the "cross our fingers, wait & see" response to plugging
the leak that Total are doing:
>> The optimal solution is a self-sealing event, in which the pressure dips as gas vents, so the leak
>> effectively plugs itself. But the likelihood of this will depend on how much gas is in the chalk,
>> and how chambers are connected by fractures and channels.
