Update: Latest post (with video embedded) has moved here.
BP is broadcasting footage from its “top kill” attempt to plug the leaking Macondo well by pumping heavy drilling fluid down it.
The images, from cameras on remotely-controlled submarines near the sea bed in 5,000 feet of water, are often hard to make out. When the scene is clear, you can see the blow-out preventer – the system of valves intended to prevent releases of oil and gas, which failed in the accident – and a plume of drilling “mud” escaping from it.
FT Energy Source is providing regular updates on the attempt to plug the well, after the jump. Click refresh on your browser screen to see the latest updates.
Update: ROV activity
3.48pm BST (10.48am EDT; 9.48am CDT)
So much for having all the monotony of an Andy Warhol film – the ROVs are definitely up to something:
Update: LMRP 3.28pm BST (10.28am EDT; 9.28am CDT)
A couple of TOD commenters believe some of the recent footage shows the Lower Marine Riser Package, which BP says it is preparing in parallel with the top kill efforts. One points out that the camera in the screen shot below seems to say LMRP (see text at the centre).
Update: Debris, gas bubbles?
2.56pm BST (9.52am EDT; 8.52am CDT)
We just returned to the feed to see a very different sight; what appeared to be bubbles rising to the surface. Judging from comments over at The Oil Drum (which has a new comment thread up and running), a lot of debris was seen flying around about half an hour ago. One Twitter user took a screen shot (right).
UPDATE: Thad Allen says no oil coming up well bore
1.12pm BST (8.12am EDT; 7.12am CDT)
Admiral Thad Allen, the official overseeing the operation, also appearing on ABC’s Good Morning America, says the flow of oil and gas has been stopped — at least for now.
From the ABC’s website:
“They have been able to stop the hydro-carbons from coming up the well bore….they’ve been able to push the hydro-carbons, the oil, down with the mud. The real challenge is to put enough mud into the well to keep the pressure where they can put a cement plug over the top.”
He did say something not entirely dissimilar yesterday morning, however.
UPDATE: Hayward says junk shot ‘pretty well according to plan’
12.30pm BST (7.30am EDT; 6.30am CDT)
The “junk shot” has now been tried, according to Tony Hayward, BP’s CEO. He told ABC’s Good Morning America that the procedure was going “pretty well according to plan”, but the decision to use the junk shot, which adds to the riskiness of the operation, looks like a sign that progress so far has been disappointing.
However, Hayward sounded upbeat about the junk shot, saying: “We have some indications of partial bridging which is good news.” In other words, the attempt to clog the BOP is showing some sign of success. BP plans to begin pumping mud again later today, so watch this space for further news.
Meanwhile BP’s shares, up almost 6 per cent yesterday, are down more than 4 per cent today.
UPDATE: BP’s share chart
8.40am BST (3.40am EDT; 2.40am CDT)
Here’s a look at how BP’s share price is doing:
Of course they are not the only company affected by the disaster; Bloomberg earlier this week estimated that $95bn had been wiped off the combined market cap of BP, Transocean, Halliburton, Anadarko, and Cameron International.
It might also be worth mentioning at this point that BP indicated last night that the results would not be known for 24 – 48 hours – in otherwords, late Saturday.
Plenty more time for guessing by investors, then.
UPDATE: BP says LMRP being prepared; Second BOP option being planned
7.33am BST (2.33am EDT; 1.33am CDT)
A new update from BP just landed a few minutes ago. It refers to ‘heavy drilling fluids’ but it’s not clear whether this means the ‘junk shot’ type materials are being used — in otherwords, mud, not junk:
Operations on the top kill procedure continue. Heavy drilling fluids were pumped under pressure into the BOP starting May 26 at 1300CDT, and top kill operations continue through 2400CDT on May 27. It is estimated that the full top kill procedure could extend for another 24 to 48 hours.
If the well were successfully ‘killed’, it is expected that cementing operations would then follow. The top kill procedure has never before been attempted at these depths and its ultimate success is uncertain.
However two more options are still being kept open: the Lower Marine Riser Package and the second BOP.
The LMRP is being prepared already:
Deployment would first involve removing the damaged riser from the top of the failed BOP to leave a cleanly-cut pipe at the top of the BOP’s LMRP. The cap, a containment device with a sealing grommet, will be connected to a riser from the Discoverer Enterprise drillship, 5,000 feet above on the surface, and placed over the LMRP with the intention of capturing most of the oil and gas flowing from the well.
The LMRP cap is already deployed alongside the BOP in readiness for potential deployment. If it is decided to deploy this option, this would be expected to take some three to four days.
Planning for putting a second BOP on top of the existing BOP is ‘being advanced’.
The total cost to BP is so far at $930m, the statement says.
UPDATE: Junk shot?
7.01am British Summer Time (2.05am EDT; 1.05am CDT)
Once again the screen has become clouded very rapidly before clearing just as suddenly. This has happened several times in the past 10 minutes.
Is it still the ‘mud’ being forced down the well, or are we seeing the effect of ‘junk shot’ materials?
As the Washington Post reported, Suttles referred last night to using the sorts of materials used in the ‘junk shot’:
He said engineers hope to improve on their initial performance by preceding a mud injection with a blast of rubber balls and other rough-textured materials — a “junk shot” — to clog the blowout preventer and force more mud down into the hole, rather than shooting it out of the leaks in the riser.
However UpstreamOnline writes, it wasn’t clear when these materials would be used:
Suttles said the decision of how much and what types of bridging agents to use, as well as when to deploy them, would be left up to experts on the pumping boats.
UPDATE: Top kill restarted
12.21am British Summer Time
CNN is reporting the top kill has been restarted, quoting BP’s Doug Suttles. From Reuters:
MIAMI, May 27 (Reuters) – BP has restarted the pumping of heavy drilling “mud” in its ongoing “top kill” operation to try to plug its leaking Gulf of Mexico oil well, BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said on Thursday.
“We’ve restarted pumping in the last hour or so,” he told CNN.
UPDATE: BP confirmed mud pumping stopped
10.45pm British Summer Time
BP has confirmed that it has stopped pumping mud temporarily, but says “nothing has gone wrong” with the top kill. Doug Suttles, the chief operating officer for exploration and production, gave the news on a conference call with reporters. He said BP could re-start the operation later on Thursday evening.
He also talked about the company’s next plan: a new containment chamber, designed to be fitted over the top of the BOP, with a pipe to carry the oil to the surface. That will be deployed early next week, if the top kill fails. The fact that BP is already talking about this plan shows they see failure as a real possibility.
Meanwhile, over at The Oil Drum, some commenters are taking a pessimistic view of the likelihood of the operation’s success.
Rockman says:
And everyone: you can stop taking about BP pumping cement into the hole to plug the well. I know it’s difficult for most to envision what’s going on down there. But this isn’t a simplification of the situation: you have a pipe sticking straight up the air and it’s flowing 10 gallons per minute out the top. You stick a tube down the pipe and start pumping cement. Question: how long for the cement to harden? Answer: never. The cement is going to mix with the water and flow out the end of the pipe. Honest…I didn’t dumb down this example. That’s exactly what would happen if the pumped cmt down the blow out if it were still flowing. No one has ever set a cement plug into a flowing well in the history of the oil business. But you can shove a packer down a producing csg string and stop or at least slow a flow considerably. But can’t shove a packer down this hole: can’t get it through the BOP. And if you could there’s drill pipe in the way.
Sorry to be such a downer but I thought BP might have come up with a clever idea they weren’t talking about. So far I still haven’t heard of it.
Other commenters observe that with no more mud being pumped down, the mud that was in the hole has now been pushed out again, and what is now coming out will be oil and gas again.
UPDATE: Some optimism among video watchers
6.30pm British Summer Time
In spite of BP’s caution, the evidence from the video feeds does suggest the attempt is working, according to ‘Heading Out’ at The Oil Drum.
He says:
Below the fold are two pictures to show why I believe that the injection pressure of mud into the well has dropped, indicating that BP have filled the well, and are now holding pressure to see if there are any problems. I would assume, if none develop, that they will inject cement to seal the top of the well, sometime today.
And a commenter on the thread quotes an anonymous email from an apparently well-placed source:
We’re still losing a lot more mud than we would like, so there is something we’re missing, but we’re still very optimistic. The transitions and handoffs have gone flawlessly topside, which is very surprising.
Cement operation is standing by until the mud engineers give them the go ahead. Still planning on making it happen in the next few hours but, like everything else about this operation, it’s running late.
UPDATE: BP shares close up 5.9%
5pm British Summer Time
The market has made up its mind, in spite of the lack of news from BP. The shares closed up 5.9 per cent.
UPDATE: Leak stopped ‘for now’
3.45pm British Summer Time
The LA Times has changed its headline, and now says Admiral Allen said the leak had been stopped “for now”
UPDATE: Thad Allen calls ‘success’
2.10pm British Summer Time
The LA Times reports that the US Coast Guard’s Thad Allen is calling the top kill a success. BP shares are now up more than 6 per cent on the news, but the full story still suggests the battle is not over.
Reporting from Houma, La.Engineers have succeeded in stopping the flow of oil and gas into the Gulf of Mexico from a gushing BP well, the federal government’s top oil spill commander, U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, said Thursday morning.
The “top kill” effort, launched Wednesday afternoon by industry and government engineers, has pumped enough drilling fluid to block all oil and gas from the well, Allen said. The pressure from the well is very low, but persists, he said.
Once engineers have reduced the well pressure to zero, they will begin to pump cement into the hole to entomb the well. To help that effort, he said, engineers are also pumping some debris into the blowout preventer at the top of the well.
Allen said one ship that was pumping fluid into the well has run out of the fluid, or “mud,” and that a second ship is on the way. He said he was encouraged by the progress. “We’ll get this under control,” he said.
Note the tense. “We will get this under control”, he says, not “we have got it under control”.
UPDATE: BP cautiously optimistic
12.40pm British Summer Time
CBS reports that BP says the top kill is “moving the way we want”, but it is too early to say how it will go. The comments were made by Robert Dudley, one of BP’s executive board directors, on the CBS Early Show:
(CBS) BP managing director Bob Dudley talked to “Early Show” anchor Harry Smith about the so-called “top kill” procedure that BP started Wednesday afternoon.
Drilling mud is being pumped into the well through the wells kill and choke valves. The mud must come into the well with enough pressure to stop the flow of oil. Smith asked Dudley if the procedure is working.
“We said the operation would take between half a day and two days,” said Dudley. “It continues going according to plan. It’s like arm-wrestling between two equally strong people, the well and our operations.”
He said then that about 7000 barrels had been pumped down, at a rate of about 65 barrels per minute. BP said it was starting with 50,000 barrels ready to go, so presumably the rate has now slowed. BP said that those 50,000 barrels should be more than enough to do the job, if it was going to be done at all.
Related links:
BP begins ‘top kill’ to plug oil leak- FT
The top kill guessing game – FT Energy Source
