Why was BP Capping Deep Horizon in the first place?

[CrusaderFrank]

"As a forceful reminder of the potential harm, the well beneath BP's Deepwater Horizon rig was being sealed with cement for temporary abandonment when it blew April 20..."

Gulf awash in 27,000 abandoned wells - Disaster in the Gulf - msnbc.com

Why was BP Capping a monstrous gusher in the first place?

 

[Care4all]

that's a good question CF.

Why would BP want to cap this well and abandon it temporarily when it was loaded with oil?

do these oil companies want to keep the well's oil off the market to keep prices higher with supply being kept down?

what's the purpose of spending all the money to drill and then not extract it?

I don't get it?

 

[dilloduck]

temporary abandonment

I'm guessing it's just a normal trade practice ---drilling and extraction aren't necessarily one continuous process.

 

[editec]

temporary abandonment

I'm guessing it's just a normal trade practice ---drilling and extraction aren't necessarily one continuous process.

I'm guessing you're right about that.

They bring existing wells online when the demand (hence price) makes it worth thye expense to pump it out of the ground.

Drill baby drill so we can gouge the public when it suits OUR purposes.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Obviously there's a severe distortion in the market if withholding supply leads to greater total profits.

 

[Mr. H.]

Even on land, many wells are drilled and then completed using different rigs. Offshore there's a complex subsea infrastructure that needs to be put in place before production and handling can begin. I swear the paranoid folks around here.

 

[Mr. H.]

Although, on the other hand....

Gulf awash in 27,000 abandoned wells

More than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells lurk in the hard rock beneath the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades. No one — not industry, not government — is checking to see if they are leaking, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The oldest of these wells were abandoned in the late 1940s, raising the prospect that many deteriorating sealing jobs are already failing.

The AP investigation uncovered particular concern with 3,500 of the neglected wells — those characterized in federal government records as "temporarily abandoned."

 

[Samson]

Even on land, many wells are drilled and then completed using different rigs. Offshore there's a complex subsea infrastructure that needs to be put in place before production and handling can begin. I swear the paranoid folks around here.

Sheeze.....I thought everyone already knew this.

Ya know, school systems do a terrific job of educating the public to read about environmental pollution, but a little thing like how we get 99% of the NRG we use is something to be ignored....

 

[JimH52]

It seems a reasonable explanation would be price manipulation. It would not be in the interest of any oil company to bring too much crude to the market at the wrong time. Maybe they see a price spike in the near future? Boy, did that decision bite them on the ars?

 

[JBeukema]

Because one platform drills a well, caps it, and leaves.

Then a production rig comes in, taps the well, and starts extracting the crude.


Deepwater Horizon was a drilling rig, not a production rig. It was being capped so DH could go drill elsewhere and a production rig could come in.


This is offshore drilling 101- and Rachel Maddow has explained it several times

 

[JBeukema]

It seems a reasonable explanation would be price manipulation. It would not be in the interest of any oil company to bring too much crude to the market at the wrong time. Maybe they see a price spike in the near future? Boy, did that decision bite them on the ars?

Or, you know, it could be the fact that DH was just about done and they wanted to bring a production rig in so they could actually extract the damned oil and sell it.


Jesus, people... Y'all need to start watching the Rachel Maddow Show

 

[JimH52]

It seems a reasonable explanation would be price manipulation. It would not be in the interest of any oil company to bring too much crude to the market at the wrong time. Maybe they see a price spike in the near future? Boy, did that decision bite them on the ars?

Or, you know, it could be the fact that DH was just about done and they wanted to bring a production rig in so they could actually extract the damned oil and sell it.


Jesus, people... Y'all need to start watching the Rachel Maddow Show

Not a big Maddow fan...

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Rachel who?

OK, that makes sense.

 

[bogtrotter]

They had planed to drill...and peculiarly, and abandon two wells even prior to commencement. Certainly defies logic. Here it is is a nutshell folks. Drilled well, lost circulation (the mud that is pumped through the drill pipe to maintain pressure and circulate wellbore cuttings to the top) Without maintaining circulation to top, further drilling can not continue as there would be insufficient fluid to maintain static pressure when encountering a pressure zone. They had encountered a highly permeable zone with low pressure which all their drilling mud invaded. They decided to squeeze the well (pump cement into the permeable zone to seal it off) but not having mud in the hole it collapsed in parts above causing the drill pipe to get stuck in the hole. They blasted the pipe off above the highest place they were stuck to pull the pipe out. They had intended to try to drill through the pipe and cement to get back in the drill hole but couldn't and then tried to whipstock (begin drilling a new hole from the top of pipe and cement at an angle to parallel the old hole. The squeeze job did not hold in the original hole and began to flow oil. The Blowout preventer was attached to the new string of drill pipe and could have no effect on the flow from the old hole. Worst part is, its still flowing!