RE: [Paddlewise] Oil Spill Plans

News reports last night from expert talking heads indicated that the industry now has the ability to fine tune these intersecting wells in order to drill right into the problem pipe.  Think they said they used acoustics to zero in on the pipe and drill through it, at which time they'd pump in mud/concrete/whatever to stop up the works and turn off the flow.  (Or so it says in the fine print.)  Again, according to the experts, this is a significant and fairly recent improvement over past abilities. 

Joq

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-paddlewise_at_paddlewise.net [mailto:owner-paddlewise_at_paddlewise.net] On Behalf Of PeterO
Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2010 10:22 PM
To: 'Craig Jungers'; PaddleWise_at_paddlewise.net
Subject: RE: [Paddlewise] Oil Spill Plans

Craig wrote:
>There is one for-sure method to stop the well. Drill an intersecting 
>well and use that to control the one that's out of control. This is a 
>known method and will do the job. Too bad it's going to take until August.
>Everything else they're doing - and I'm pretty sure the best 
>engineering minds in the USA are working on this - is a stopgap.

G'Day Craig,

I'm told that even the intersecting well approach is uncertain because of the difficulty of accurately locating the intersection at that depth.

BP's report on their 'top kill' attempt to fill the leaking pipe-borehole with drilling mud looked as if it might work when they were able to maintain some kind of seal while pressure was applied to the mud and they hoped eventually to pump cement. When they reported failure as the pressure was removed it made me wonder if pumping cement and maintaining pressure until the cement had hardened might work. I assume that it must have been thought of and rejected because of complications with the extreme depth or some other complication. Wondered if you knew anything about that kind of approach and the associated difficulties?

All the best, PeterO
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