Oil Spill Unstoppable

This is hard to fathom, hard to imagine, that in our possible greedy quest, we are destroying so much of our earth, of what we need to surive, to live long and healthy lives. I don’t know about you, but when I first heard about the spill, my thoughts were something like, “Oh dear. That’s terrible.” I had no idea that it would be a catalyst to this major forecast of disaster for so much of the earth.

I get regular newsletter updates from the Survival Centre, and today’s letter contained this news with a hyperlink reference to read a more detailed report. Out of man’s control, to whom or where do we turn? Do you believe in prayer, that prayer, earnest prayer can move mountains? Do you have faith tiny as a mustard seed; just a tiny bit? If all who have but the tinest bit, prayed together, heard together (for we are all connected, we are spirit), I believe our Creator, Abba Father, YHWH would hear that heart felt cry, and I believe that indeed not a prayer goes unanswered. I believe that because such a prayer is not a selfish prayer, for we pray for others, for others alive to today, and generations to come.

The article contained this photograph and just looking at the projection of the path of the spill all along the east coast, upwards to Canada where I live…I think of my father’s father who has passed on years ago. He was a fisherman. He migrated to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, from Boston where he continued in the fishing industry. What about that fishing industry. God help the poor creatures that live in the waters.

Here is the e-mail newsletter I received from The Survival Centre. I have a reference to their site in my links on the main page. To subscribe and receive these newsletters and updates on survival information, etc., is free. You may wish to check it out.

There is a web site called The Oil Drum on which knowledgeable people – geologists for example – are discussing the Gulf Oil Spill – analyzing what information is publicly available, and what BP has done so far to try and stop this gusher.

One post in particular is worth bringing to your attention because it gives us an insight into why literally tens of millions of gallons of oil and gas are erupting into the ocean – and it can’t be stopped.

This means the oil must inevitably find its way around Florida and up the East Coast (see image at right) and in turn, there is quite likely going to be a mandatory evacuation order (possibly under martial law) issued for Gulf Coast residents – and that could include much of Florida and even parts of the East Coast.

If you are a subscriber to our paid newsletter, “Family Survival News,” you have received the latest issue, in which our lead story is “How To Prepare To Evacuate,” followed by an article with all you need to know about “Escaping The Gulf. “

If you are not a subscriber yet, you can get that report by subscribing here.

Remember, we are experts in preparedness. That’s what we have been involved in for over 35 years.

And this disaster – totally unprecedented as it is – is so REAL that we can do nothing but present the cold hard facts:- when the hurricanes hit, it is inevitable that millions will be affected not just by the storm, but by acid rain as well. This will pollute water supplies for many miles inland.

Therefore, even if you think you live beyond the danger area, it’s important that you be kept abreast of what is bound to become a great upheaval of our society.

That’s why we publish “Family Survival News” – for those who have a need for the best and most up-to-date information on what to do, how to prepare, and how to get through a terrible event such as this, or any other natural or man-made emergency.

While politicians, BP and some of the media try and keep us focused on expecting some positive results, the following excerpt from a post on The Oil Drum will give you a genuine insider expert’s evaluation of just how bad the situation is – and why this gusher is unstoppable.

Once you’ve read it, you should consider subscribing to our premier newsletter – especially if you are likely to be one of those caught up in coming evacuation plans.

We pick up this excerpt from the post on The Oil Drum just after “Dougr” has explained why the Top Kill effort to plug the well failed.

To those of us outside the real inside loop, yet still fairly knowledgeable, it was a major confirmation of what many feared. That the system below the sea floor has serious failures of varying magnitude in the complicated chain, and it is breaking down and it will continue to.What does this mean?

It means they will never cap the gusher after the wellhead. They cannot…the more they try and restrict the oil gushing out the bop?…the more it will transfer to the leaks below. Just like a leaky garden hose with a nozzle on it. When you open up the nozzle?…it doesn’t leak so bad, you close the nozzle?…it leaks real bad,same dynamics.

It is why they sawed the riser off…or tried to anyway…but they clipped it off, to relieve pressure on the leaks “down hole”. I’m sure there was a bit of panic time after they crimp/pinched off the large riser pipe and the Diamond wire saw got stuck and failed…because that crimp diverted pressure and flow to the rupture down below.

Contrary to what most of us would think as logical to stop the oil mess, actually opening up the gushing well and making it gush more became the direction BP took after confirming that there was a leak. In fact if you note their actions, that should become clear. They have shifted from stopping or restricting the gusher to opening it up and catching it.

This only makes sense if they want to relieve pressure at the leak hidden down below the seabed…..and that sort of leak is one of the most dangerous and potentially damaging kind of leak there could be. It is also inaccessible which compounds our problems. There is no way to stop that leak from above, all they can do is relieve the pressure on it and the only way to do that right now is to open up the nozzle above and gush more oil into the gulf and hopefully catch it, which they have done, they just neglected to tell us why, gee thanks.

A down hole leak is dangerous and damaging for several reasons.

There will be erosion throughout the entire beat up, beat on and beat down remainder of the “system” including that inaccessible leak. The same erosion I spoke about in the first post is still present and has never stopped, cannot be stopped, is impossible to stop and will always be present in and acting on anything that is left which has crude oil “Product” rushing through it.

There are abrasives still present, swirling flow will create hot spots of wear and this erosion is relentless and will always be present until eventually it wears away enough material to break it’s way out. It will slowly eat the bop (Blow Out Preventer) away especially at the now pinched off riser head and it will flow more and more.

Perhaps BP can outrun or keep up with that out flow with various suckage methods for a period of time, but eventually the well will win that race, just how long that race will be?…no one really knows….However now?…there are other problems that a down hole leak will and must produce that will compound this already bad situation.

This down hole leak will undermine the foundation of the seabed in and around the well area. It also weakens the only thing holding up the massive Blow Out Preventer’s immense bulk of 450 tons. In fact?…we are beginning to (see) the results of the well’s total integrity beginning to fail due to the undermining being caused by the leaking well bore.

The first layer of the sea floor in the gulf is mostly loose material of sand and silt. It doesn’t hold up anything and isn’t meant to, what holds the entire subsea system of the Bop in place is the well itself. The very large steel connectors of the initial well head “spud” stabbed in to the sea floor. The Bop literally sits on top of the pipe and never touches the sea bed, it wouldn’t do anything in way of support if it did.

After several tens of feet the seabed does begin to support the well connection laterally (side to side) you couldn’t put a 450 ton piece of machinery on top of a 100′ tall pipe “in the air” and subject it to the side loads caused by the ocean currents and expect it not to bend over…unless that pipe was very much larger than the machine itself, which you all can see it is not.

The well’s piping in comparison is actually very much smaller than the Blow Out Preventer and strong as it may be, it relies on some support from the seabed to function and not literally fall over…and it is now showing signs of doing just that….falling over.

If you have been watching the live feed cams you may have noticed that some of the ROVs are using an inclinometer…and inclinometer is an instrument that measures “Incline” or tilt. The BOP is not supposed to be tilting…and after the riser clip off operation it has begun to…

This is not the only problem that occurs due to erosion of the outer area of the well casings. The way a well casing assembly functions it that it is an assembly of different sized “tubes” that decrease in size as they go down. These tubes have a connection to each other that is not unlike a click or snap together locking action. After a certain length is assembled they are cemented around the ouside to the earth that the more rough drill hole is bored through in the well making process. A very well put together and simply explained process of “How to drill a deep water oil well” is available here:
http://www.treesfullofmoney.com/?p=1610

The well bore casings rely on the support that is created by the cementing phase of well construction. Just like if you have many hands holding a pipe up you could put some weight on the top and the many hands could hold the pipe and the weight on top easily…but if there were no hands gripping and holding the pipe?…all the weight must be held up by the pipe alone.

The series of connections between the sections of casings are not designed to hold up the immense weight of the BOP without all the “hands” that the cementing provides and they will eventually buckle and fail when stressed beyond their design limits.

These are clear and present dangers to the battered subsea safety structure (bop and lmrp) which is the only loose cork on this well we have left. The immediate (first 1,000 feet) of well structure that remains is now also undoubtedly compromised. However…..as bad as that is?…it is far from the only possible problems with this very problematic well.

There were ongoing troubles with the entire process during the drilling of this well. There were also many compromises made by BP IMO which may have resulted in an overall weakened structure of the entire well system all the way to the bottom plug which is over 12,000 feet deep. Problems with the cementing procedure which was done by Haliburton and was deemed as “was against our best practices.” by a Haliburton employee on April 1st weeks before the well blew out.

There is much more and I won’t go into detail right now concerning the lower end of the well and the troubles encountered during the whole creation of this well and earlier “Well control” situations that were revealed in various internal BP e-mails. I will add several links to those documents and quotes from them below and for now, address the issues concerning the upper portion of the well and the region of the sea floor.

What is likely to happen now?

Well…none of what is likely to happen is good, in fact…it’s about as bad as it gets. I am convinced the erosion and compromising of the entire system is accelerating and attacking more key structural areas of the well, the blow out preventer and surrounding strata holding it all up and together.

This is evidenced by the tilt of the blow out preventer and the erosion which has exposed the well head connection. What eventually will happen is that the blow out preventer will literally tip over if they do not run supports to it as the currents push on it. I suspect they will run those supports as cables tied to anchors very soon, if they don’t, they are inviting disaster that much sooner.

Eventually even that will be futile as the well casings cannot support the weight of the massive system above without the cement bond to the earth and that bond is being eroded away.

When enough is eroded away the casings will buckle and the BOP will collapse the well.

If and when you begin to see oil and gas coming up around the well area from under the BOP? or the area around the well head connection and casing sinking more and more rapidly? …it won’t be too long after that the entire system fails.

BP must be aware of this, they are mapping the sea floor sonically and that is not a mere exercise. Our Gov’t must be well aware too, they just are not telling us.

All of these things lead to only one place, a fully wide open well bore directly to the oil deposit…after that, it goes into the realm of “the worst things you can think of” The well may come completely apart as the inner liners fail.

There is still a very long drill string in the well, that could literally come flying out…as I said…all the worst things you can think of are a possibility, but the very least damaging outcome as bad as it is, is that we are stuck with a wide open gusher blowing out 150,000 barrels a day of raw oil or more.

There isn’t any “cap dome” or any other suck fixer device on earth that exists or could be built that will stop it from gushing out and doing more and more damage to the gulf. While at the same time also doing more damage to the well, making the chance of halting it with a kill from the bottom up less and less likely to work, which as it stands now?….is the only real chance we have left to stop it all.

It’s a race now…a race to drill the relief wells and take our last chance at killing this monster before the whole weakened, wore out, blown out, leaking and failing system gives up it’s last gasp in a horrific crescendo.

We are not even 2 months into it, barely half way by even optimistic estimates.

The damage done by the leaked oil now is virtually immeasurable already and it will not get better, it can only get worse.

No matter how much they can collect, there will still be thousands and thousands of gallons leaking out every minute, every hour of every day.

We have 2 months left before the relief wells are even near in position and set up to take a kill shot and that is being optimistic as I said.

Over the next 2 months the mechanical situation also cannot improve, it can only get worse, getting better is an impossibility. While they may make some gains on collecting the leaked oil, the structural situation cannot heal itself. It will continue to erode and flow out more oil and eventually the inevitable collapse which cannot be stopped will happen. It is only a simple matter of who can “get there first”…us or the well.

We can only hope the race against that eventuality is one we can win, but my assessment I am sad to say is that we will not.

The system will collapse or fail substantially before we reach the finish line ahead of the well and the worst is yet to come.

Sorry to bring you that news, I know it is grim, but that is the way I see it….I sincerely hope I am wrong.

We need to prepare for the possibility of this blow out sending more oil into the gulf per week then what we already have now, because that is what a collapse of the system will cause.

All the collection efforts that have captured oil will be erased in short order. The magnitude of this disaster will increase exponentially by the time we can do anything to halt it and our odds of actually even being able to halt it will go down.

The magnitude and impact of this disaster will eclipse anything we have known in our life times if the worst or even near worst happens…

We are seeing the puny forces of man vs the awesome forces of nature.
We are going to need some luck and a lot of effort to win…
and if nature decides we ought to lose, we will….

June 17, 2010 · by Shammah · in Headline News · Tags: devastation, east_coast, headline_news, oil_spill, usa