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Here is the link to watch what's going Subsea right now, live stream from the ROV.
You'll probably find it fairly boring...
anyway, here you go... http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/homepage/STAGING/local_assets/bp_homepage/html/rov_stream.htmlhttp://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/homepage/STAGING/local_assets/bp_homepage/html/rov_stream.html
Go to BP.com, it's all on there, with Video's, animations, explanations etc etc... follow the link for "what is top kill" etc etc ...
All the info you need is on the BP home page and you can follow a link from there to the Incident Response Homepage too - everything is there.... so get learnt.
Ha ha - it's not like they've been sitting around.... it's taken this long to prepare the BOP for this very moment... as you're watching that now, they've started to pump the kill mud through that retro-fitted flexible line you can see in the foregrond, that is going through the small yellow Collet Connector (yellow cylinder looking thing on the end of the flexlible hose - bear in mind this "flexible" hose is designed to withstand pressures equivalent to a family car per sq inch of it's external surface area.
So here we go, fingers crossed... the seals look great, no mud loss from the collet or the Graylock clamp further up.
this will show more of the preperations before this could be started
and Tasche, you're right, they're committed now, they'll be totally running the pumps at max chat eventually to get mud pressure into the well bore. The other risk is that the pressures cause something to fail, namely the whole LMRP (could be already weakened). But it's obviously been thought through over and over, calculations and analysis done - they know what they're dealing with, they just need to hope they can achieve the pressure and maintain it.
I would imagine the flowing well head arrival pressures are not that high, maybe only 3000 psi..... , it's not like shut in pressures etc... however, those will build over x amount of time as they stem the flow, and that's when they'll need to slowly increase the pressure at the topside of mud injection. The hope then is they can flow mud sufficient distance down hole to create a sufficient head again, i.e. just like before the original blow out happened.
It's a very delicate operation... that's for sure!
Exciting stuff now!
That's the first bend in the riser at the top of the BOP, the main initial leak, but it's flowing pure mud now , which is great news! as long as it doesn't blow the fuck up! That means they;'ve at least temporarily killed the oil.... and now we're pushing mud downhole hopefully.... but it's a long way from being over, they'll need to pump mud for days... but, at least that's drill mud, not oil coming out now.
They'll have too ... because of the losses at the leak points, they need to maintain positive pressure down hole, then try and cement it... somehow! The junk shot would be to help cut the losses at the leak points.
Fingers crossed. If they manage to top kill this well like this, well, it would be an incredible achievement....... there are some many variables, it's a very dynamic situation...
That's cool -
yeah they keep switching ROV feeds. You can tell by the Bottom left... there are several ROV's down there, at the BOP, monitoring the riser is the Millenium 22 (an oceaneering ROV)... then over at the Subsea Mud Distribution Unit, monitoring the valves and connections there is the Millenium 21. These are distuiguished on the Feed as Mill 22/Mill 21 etc in bottom left, so you know which ROV's stream you're viewing.
What they just did from the 22 was very cool; not sure if you saw, but they took an ordinary wrench and held it in the leak stream for a while, then pulled it out and zoomed in on it to see if it was mud collecting on it, or traces of oil etc. To me it looked very good, heavy thick mud collecting around the masking tape they'd used to secure the tether ends, and no oil, just some rust.....
anyway, thought i'd let you know what was going on if interested. Once they get enough of a column of mud downhole, so that the hydrostatic head of the mud column is greater then the flowing pressure of oil, then you're back where you were moments before the blowout, and the well is stabilized, then they'll cement it in from the top.... going to plan so far... fingers crossed. If they achieve top kill like this subsea, it will be incredible... fuck what obama keeps saying about him being in charge, that's absurd arrrogance and a terible attitude... if i ran Bp id throw him the keys and say, go on then, get on with it... you do a better job... try using NASA eh? sorry, just a rant, because most of the guys who've calculated this and achieved this are friends of mine.... I worked on the Mud distribution manifold for this too...
No worries! I'll just repeat though - that is NOT oil coming out of the riser now, that's drill mud... essentially a Bentonite slurry.... or Clay.... like you find in your back yard soil.... so don't panic!
I use it to fund mad ski trips all over the world.... AK Heli trip next year i think! :-)
Seriously, i'm just like you guys! im not some earth killing, right wing texan! Just a british kid who got into engineering and loves the ocean from growing up surfing etc... so always wanted to work in it... and get paid enough to enjoy life and be able to travel the work on company dimes....but - yeah i feel shitty about this spill and it's impact, it's horrible, so me, and everyone here and around the world in the Oil industry have put there heads together, no expense spared to engineer a solution. Top Killing this is up there with getting apollo 13 back - it's that level of complexity.
