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B2G Donating Member (714 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat May-01-10 03:27 PM
Original message
Any drilling experts about?
If there's 18,000 feet of bedrock between the ocean floor and the oil reservoir, why can't they blast it and close the leak?
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rzemanfl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat May-01-10 03:29 PM
Response to Original message
1. Exactly what I have been wondering. n/t
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B2G Donating Member (714 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat May-01-10 03:37 PM
Response to Original message
2. That's alot of bedrock
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El Supremo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat May-01-10 03:37 PM
Response to Original message
3. You want a bigger leak?
I'm not a drilling expert but I am in petroleum exploration.

That oil & gas is under a lot of pressure and is in a steel pipe all the way down to the reservoir. The blow out controls at the ocean bottom must be damaged. The only real hope is to drill another well that will intersect the well bore at a deeper depth and seal off the upper portion. Then a new set of valves can be used.
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B2G Donating Member (714 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat May-01-10 03:39 PM
Response to Reply #3
4. Seems to me a controlled detonation
Edited on Sat May-01-10 03:39 PM by B2G
Could seal the leak at the drill site.
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izquierdista Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat May-01-10 04:26 PM
Response to Reply #4
11. Or fracture the whole mess
In which case the entire reservoir would start oozing out all the new cracks.
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Subdivisions Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat May-01-10 03:42 PM
Response to Reply #3
6. Giving it your best guess, how long would it take to move a rig into place
and get the intercept hole drilled?
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B2G Donating Member (714 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat May-01-10 03:44 PM
Response to Reply #6
8. I heard 3 months.
That's not gonna work (timewise).
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Subdivisions Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat May-01-10 03:40 PM
Response to Original message
5. I'm not an expert, but wouldn't you need to put the bomb down in the hole?
How would that be done with oil gushing out of it under pressure?

I can't remember where it was this morning but I read a comment (from a non-expert) that it might take a nuke to close the hole. Yikes!
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B2G Donating Member (714 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat May-01-10 03:43 PM
Response to Reply #5
7. A nuke?
We bring down huge buildings with conventional explosives.

But now that you mention it, where are all of the 'expert' that usually blanket the news coverage on things like this? I've seen none. Odd.
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Subdivisions Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat May-01-10 03:44 PM
Response to Reply #7
9. Yea, I'd like to see what they have to say too. How do bombs even
act at that depth? Hell if I know.
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Warpy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat May-01-10 04:02 PM
Response to Original message
10. With the force that's pushing the oil out of that hole
how the hell do you expect them to get anything down there to blast it?

Blasting from the top down would just make a bigger hole.

They have to slant drill a pressure relief hole into the existing well in order to do anything.
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izquierdista Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat May-01-10 04:28 PM
Response to Reply #10
12. Call up the Enterprise
Maybe Scotty can modulate the phasers to go through water and they can cauterize the leak that way.
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flamingdem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat May-01-10 04:30 PM
Response to Original message
13. Frickin' idiots shouldn't be there in the first place, what arrogance nt
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