Hydrates : Dissociation or dissolution...?

Hydrates have been on the table for discussion for quite some time, there have been many conjectures about methane, venting of the seafloor, giant methane bubbles, etc, etc. I would like to take a stab at describing some possibilities that might explain some of the things we have all been seeing on the ROV feeds.

Especially the " white things " everyone sees " swimming " around on the live feeds and can't decide whether they are hydrate chunks, gas bubbles ,crustaceans , marine snow, silt, floating bacterial mats, oil ,...or alien fire bugs,lol.

 I'll give you a hint....

It's 7 out of 8 things I just mentioned.

And most interesting,...free floating hydrate chunks exhibit what is called " wiggling "

There is a big difference between the acts of dissolution and dissociation in hydrates.

 " Dissociation is due to inherent instability (similar to melting of ice) with or without water (although presence of warm water may increase the dissociation rate). Dissociation of methane hydrate into gas and water is similar to ice melting and is controlled by heat transfer. Hence dissolution is relatively slow and dissociation is rapid. "

 " Dissolution is due to instability in the presence of seawater (similar to dissolution of NaCl in water) and is controlled by mass transfer. "


 Hydrates  form where they can and when they can. If rock or mud is already saturated than hydrates will not form, the gas will vent upwards through the seafloor because it has to, although there are such things as gas traps, they are not know to be the size of Rhode Island..it would be almost physically impossible unless there were a massive upturned cup structure ( a fold ) in the bedrock consisting of very non-porous rock, and it would have to be massive, and it would have had to have had a massive "washout " to excavate the cavity for the gas to collect in , in the first place....highly unlikely.

Originally, I had become curious about hydrates and the characteristics of the gas I was seeing on the live feeds.

In particular, I noticed bubbles of gas that were leaking from a certain pressure-fit connection between the original BOP stack and the additional " 3-ram capping stack  ". The feeds were showing the buildup of hydrates on the structure, but was most puzzling to me was the way the bubbles were rising up hitting the hydrates....and then careening straight off at a 90 degree angle....this didn't make much sense to me....you would think that a bubble would rise up, hit the hydrates, bounce off and continue upward, right ?

You would expect to see it go from a vertical trajectory to the bounce and a gradual arc as it resumed a vertical trajectory. I made the above crude diagram to demonstrate what I am talking about, where A: would be what I would expect to see, and B: what I did see. I really wish I could have gotten video captures, it was when the feeds were of higher quality.....I searched for some vids to show what I saw, but I have not found any.

Odd behavior for a bubble,I thought , so I asked a friend, this is what he said.


"Presumably the hydrate formers pickup water quickly and become more hydrophilic, they would bounce off of presumed hydrophobic oil. It may be worth looking at the surfaces of some of these things and see how they can segregate under various forces. Hydrophilic/phobic drives many things- for example protein folding that makes enzymes works can be driven by this. Pressure gradients through various size pores of course select on size, and I wouldn't ignore electrochemical issues too. A field will orient polar molecules, induce dipoles and get net-neutrals to migrate. Electrophoretic separation if you will. Interesting, but a couple of lidar hits on the different blobs would be a lot more informative. "

..lol...so basically this is a small but violent transfer of mass that sends the bubble on a horizontal trajectory.
The warmer gas escapes from a higher pressure to a lower pressure, rises up, hits the much colder hydrates where it instantly becomes much lower in temperature, in turn lowering the temperature of the water it contacts, resulting in the rapid growth of the typical crystalline structure of a hydrate ( there are 7 I believe ) and trapping a small amount of gas When the temperature differentials of the gas bubble and the hydrate and the ambient temperature converge, the reaction can longer take place, but is also halted in a very fast and (micro) violent way,ie: a sudden stop, which provides the opposite force to send the bubble careening off.

( The following is quoted from a linked paper below )

" If the bonds in the crystal are weak and hence easy to break, then interface reaction rate would be high, and dissolution would be controlled by mass transfer. If the bonds are strong and hence difficult to break, then interface reaction rate would be low and dissolution would be controlled by the interface reaction rate. "

 Then there is Snell's law, which I may be applying incorrectly to prove a point, although I have read it can also be used to describe what I am talking about, ipse dixit.

Wavefronts from a point source in the context of Snell's law.

...so that's my attempt to explain that , it is slightly ipse dixit .



..... Let's look at some things.

First , a video a good friend sent me of a venting of gas from the seafloor.





The only things that makes me question the origin of the gas in that video above are: the characteristics of what I observed in that release, compared to all of the other videos on natural methane seeps, those of which are from footage pre-Horizon. Normal natural releases of methane are released as bubbles in a fairly steady stream.


I specifically remember before they put on the " 3 ram capping-stack, that they expected to see some gas venting in the surrounding area. I also remember Ken Wells saying this gas was from a biogenic source. That video is not biogenic gas production. That is a rather large bubble of gas rising up through the mudline, breaking the surface, and being forced into a vortice by ambient pressure. I observed the same event several times when the cap was initially applied.

When the cap was installed, I saw several of these gas vortices, sans sediment, that lasted for around 45 seconds each, from the POV( point of view ) which was at least 10' off the seafloor, probably more like 20+', they were inches from the camera . The ROV operator noticed them too, he panned the camera to look at it. An undulating silver snake dancing in the depths, it was beautiful really, and I was too stunned to capture the vid...dang.

If these vortices were propwash, they would not be monitoring them , let alone from the same spot. I don't think a vortice created from an ROV thruster could generate enough power to suck gases out of the mudline against ambient water pressure,jmnsho. Gas vents from the seafloor either when the mud and rock cannot absorb anymore gas, or there is a clear/semi-clear path that has already been established, ie: a vent or chimney.

I do believe that it's possible different gases would travel differently due to their characteristics, some gas would be less prone to creep through rock pores, some would be more prone.

.......The hydrate stability zone only extends to around 1000' down.
.......Hydrates normally form in the mudline/stability zone because of contact with liquid (seawater)and temperature/pressure ( P/T )but also dependent on inhibitors to formation like salt and methanol.

....So back to the difference between dissolution and dissociation.

One is happening because hydrates are subjected to heat outside the gradients to keep them stable. Here is a video of hydrates being dissociated from heat, the gas comes up providing lift to the fluids by way of what's known as " gas lift ", basically, the gas expands as it rises, almost dragging the fluids with it, although it is not the prime mover. But observe how the CO2 behaves when clinging to this ROV....




Next is a vid of somebody parking an ROV on a bed of methane hydrates on the seafloor.

** Note : When the video text commentary says that sediment can get stuck to the Plexiglas bubble and the camera will auto focus on it....this could explain many many " sightings " of weird things people have seen.....something I suspected, but it's comical really if you think about it. It's like getting scared while looking through a telescope when a fly lands on the outer lens...lollol.

Also note around 2:20 in the video , the exposed chunks of hydrate. Notice how it's not doing anything basically because its nice and cold., but also because on a molecular level, the rate of slow release of methane from hydrates is partially dictated by the amount of methane already found in the surrounding water saturated by slow rates of dissolution.




 ...so what i really find curious is tha fact that hydrate chunks we see on the live feeds are appearing to wiggle and swim...this means they are not decaying by dissolution, but by dissociation, which provides thrust force in the form of lost mass. I am wondering if this is from preventative methanol applications remaining in the surrounding are( seawater) or from....raising of the ambient temperature of the seawater , because it would only take a raise of a few degrees to produce rapid dissociation.


Originally for me , the confusion was because the terms of biogenic, methogenic, & chemosynthetic have been used rather loosely in a fair amount of the literature I have come across.( That's about 8-10 hours a day , 7 days a week reading and studying many of these topics ) Than there was petrogenic and thermogenic gas as well. Phew..


" Preliminary Evaluation of In-Place Gas Hydrate Resources: Gulf of Mexico Outer Continental Shelf "

" The rationale is that, if there is sufficient methane flux to vent methane to the seafloor surface (in gas and/or solid phases), the available pore volume must be fully saturated, and, if biogenic gas is not available to completely saturate the section, thermogenic gas is available to do so. "

" Hydrocarbon Systems Analysis of the Northern Gulf of Mexico: Delineation of Hydrocarbon Migration Pathways Using Seeps and Seismic Imaging. "

 

 ....so after all that reading, here's some more.

" Kinetics of convective crystal dissolution and melting, with applications to methane hydrate dissolution and dissociation in seawater "

 "  Large quantities of methane hydrate are present in marine sediment. When methane hydrate is exposed or released to seawater, it dissolves in seawater or dissociates into methane gas and water. There was some confusion in the literature about the kinetics of these processes. It is critical to realize that dissolution and dissociation are two different processes. Dissolution is due to instability in the presence of seawater (similar to dissolution of NaCl in water) and is controlled by mass transfer. Dissociation is due to inherent instability (similar to melting of ice) with or without water (although presence of warm water may increase the dissociation rate). Dissociation of methane hydrate into gas and water is similar to ice melting and is controlled by heat transfer.

Hence dissolution is relatively slow and dissociation is rapid. "

Now, when I originally posted what my friend had told me, in terms of what was possibly causing the bubbles I was seeing to travel vertically, somebody at the Oil drum ( great site Btw ) asked me this .

"  Isaac - perhaps you could venture into this new topic of magnetics and how such a factor would influence the stability of the formations with forced introduction of reactive polar opposites. Very, very interesting - even if only in a speculative manner. Thanx. "

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6849#comments_top
I remembered a paper I read....

Perhaps you already read it in my " capture and tame " proposal I sent to BP, I'm sure they got a laugh.

From the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics

" Promotion of Methane Hydrate Dissociation by Underwater Ultrasonic Wave "

" The methane hydrate that exists in the abyssal floor is receiving attention as a nonconventional type of natural gas resource. An efficient dissociation technology is necessary and indispensable to achieve a steady supply of methane from methane hydrate because it does not easily dissociate in a stable environment of high pressure and low temperature. We consider that underwater ultrasonic wave irradiation may be a method of promoting the dissociation of methane hydrate on the basis of the facilitator effect. We carried out a preliminary examination using dry ice at various pressures, water temperatures, and input electric power. Methane hydrate was similarly examined. As a result, it was clarified that the dissociation time was shorted by the ultrasonic wave, and the wave was effective when the water temperature was low at the time of dissociation. "
 ...hhhmmmm...'thinks'...

Het is tijd om enkele beste knoeiboel te roken die ik ooit heb gezien.

Es ist Zeit, etwas von dem besten Durcheinander zu rauchen, das ich überhaupt gesehen habe.
Lol....so that got me starting thinking about sonar, because they are using sonar to image the seafloor,.... and doing it constantly.

そして心からの感謝への Hikaru Miura、Makoto Takata、Daisuke但馬およびKenichirou Tsuyuki

あなたの研究をするために私がたばこを吸われた挽肉料理疑うが。
Sonar operation is affected by variations in sound speed, particularly in the vertical plane. Sound travels more slowly in fresh water than in sea water, though the difference is small. The speed is determined by the water's bulk modulus and mass density. The bulk modulus is affected by temperature, dissolved impurities (usually salinity), and pressure. The density effect is small. The speed of sound (in feet per second) is approximately:

4388 + (11.25 × temperature (in °F)) + (0.0182 × depth (in feet)) + salinity (in parts-per-thousand ).

 

...ok...I'll take a stab at that for fun....sadly I took a test the other day and my math abilities are around 7th grade according to modern educational standards....lol...but then I read this from a writeup by the physicist Richard Feynman of his experiences on a school textbook review board.

 

http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm

 

4388 +

(11.25*3ºC)  = 33.75

(0.0182*5k') = 0.03014284

(salinity in ppt) = 34.9 ( average at that depth )

= 4456.08014284...that's feet-per-second, or the speed that sound would travel at this depth, pressure and salinity.

This empirically derived approximation equation is reasonably accurate for normal temperatures, concentrations of salinity and the range of most ocean depths. Ocean temperature varies with depth, but at between 30 and 100 meters there is often a marked change, called the thermocline, dividing the warmer surface water from the cold, still waters that make up the rest of the ocean. This can frustrate sonar, because a sound originating on one side of the thermocline tends to be bent, or refracted, through the thermocline. The thermocline may be present in shallower coastal waters. However, wave action will often mix the water column and eliminate the thermocline. Water pressure also affects sound propagation: higher pressure increases the sound speed, which causes the sound waves to refract away from the area of higher sound speed. The mathematical model of refraction is called Snell's law.

Types of Active Sonar

Different types of active sonars operate at different frequencies, according to their purpose.
High Frequency: High frequency sonar (>10 kHz) is primarily used for determining water depth (fathometers), hunting mines, and guiding torpedoes. At higher frequencies, the sound energy is greatly attenuated (weakened due to scattering and absorption) as it travels through the water. This results in shorter ranges, typically less than five nautical miles.

Mid Frequency: Mid frequency sonar, which includes the AN/SQS-53 system, has been in use since World War II, and is the primary tool for identifying and prosecuting submarines. Mid frequency sonar (1 kHz - 10 kHz) suffers moderate attenuation and has typical ranges of 1-10 nautical miles.

Low Frequency: Low frequency sonar (< 1 kHz) produces sound that suffers less attenuation as it travels through the water, providing greater range than other sonars. Achieving ranges up to 100 nautical miles, low frequency sonars are primarily used for long-range search and surveillance of submarines. Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System Low Frequency Active (SURTASS LFA) is the U.S. Navy's low-frequency sonar system.

 

http://www.solcomhouse.com/SONAR.htm

 

 

 ....so I am going to assume, safely, that for close-range sonar operations, they are using active sonar, high-frequency to look for gas seeps after shutting in the well., it would pointless to use anything else, although infrared has been in the back of my mind for quite some time now, because it would work quite well to look for seeps of any kind......unless the ambient temperature of the seawater has been raised....then the higher temp fluids would not show up as easily, granted they would not be very hot at all, they would loose most of their heat migrating up though the mud and surrounding seafloor, unless they were being propelled at a great velocity and high volume, which would indicate a rather large leak, I think we can rule that out, it would be visible from space.

...>10khz ....

Sonar works as follows:

• A machine sends out sound waves ("ultrasound," or ultrasonic sound)
• The sound bounces off the seafloor; the reflected sound waves are detected by the machine
• The distance between the machine and the reflecting surface can be calculated from the time the sound takes to travel to the seafloor and back
• By making measurements in different places, the contours of the seafloor can be plotted. As a general rule, the closer you can get the instrument to the seafloor, the greater the resolution of the contour map.

 ....so's I ask myself/s,...what kind of equipment would they be using to look for hydrates....and would they be looking for hydrates, ...which they wouldn't if the surrounding seafloor/mudline was slowly heating up, if it were, the methane released would be diffused in bubble form so small you wouldn't see them anyway.....you only see large bubbles when methane is either from a thermogenic release ...ie...with heat.


so anyway...Ultrasound attenuation spectroscopy is what is used. Here's a handy project from the D.O.E.


" Characterization of Natural Hydrate Bearing Sediments and Hydrate Dissociation Kinetics "

...remember, processes like extra-corporeal shock wave lithotripsy.?..the process used for kidney stones...

 

From Wikipedia :

" The successive shock wave pressure pulses result in direct shearing forces, as well as cavitation bubbles surrounding the stone "

So then with ultrasonic sonar and suspended gas being present there is what's known as "  inertial cavitation "

From Wikipedia :

" Inertial cavitation can also occur in the presence of an acoustic field. Microscopic gas bubbles that are generally present in a liquid will be forced to oscillate due to an applied acoustic field. If the acoustic intensity is sufficiently high, the bubbles will first grow in size and then rapidly collapse.

Controlled cavitation can be used to enhance chemical reactions or propagate certain unexpected reactions because free radicals are generated in the process due to disassociation of vapors trapped in the cavitating bubbles. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavitation
...so in conclusion to this particularly flatulent post,: :

I think that many of the things we see on the ROV cams can easily be explained with modern scientific knowledge. Hydrate chunks will " swim " as they lose gas, etc.

But one thing I know after all this conjecture for sure....and that's that normal established gas and oil seeps always have other established marine life where they are found.

Always.

If you have any questions just leave a comment if you can't get ahold of me in the chatbox

Thanks for reading my blog, Isaac

Well there's yer problem right there

 I remember reading about how during drilling the original well, there was a point they got the drill head stuck, and actually had to sever the drill string and drilling head, leave it in the hole , back up, cement the hole, and re-drill in a different angle.

What would cause this...?

I remember reading about lost mud during the original drilling operation too.....

I stumbled on what is called " underbalanced drilling "

    " Underbalanced drilling, or UBD, is a procedure used to drill oil and gas wells where the pressure in the wellbore is kept lower than the fluid pressure in the formation being drilled. "

 "  Underbalanced drilling is usually more expensive than conventional drilling, and has safety issues of its own. This is true when combustible and corrosive gasses like processed flue gas and oxygen are injected into the drilling mud to lower its density. Drilling underbalanced may be pointless from a formation damage standpoint if the underbalanced condition can not be maintained - which can be difficult when the drillstring needs to be removed to change a bit, or if the flow must stop in order to allow mud pulse telemetry to be sent. Information is frequently needed from the bottom of the well (knowledge of bottom hole pressure is very important in underbalanced drilling, as is information for geosteering if it is a deviated well). When gas is injected into drilling mud, standard mud pulse telemetry becomes impossible. "Killing" the well (making it overbalanced) may be necessary to send information, inducing formation damage. Underbalanced drilling also increases the chances of the wellbore collapsing in on itself. "


 ....something I noticed from the analysis of the oil.....1800ppms of nitrogen....


   " If the formation pressure is relatively high, using a lower density mud will reduce the well bore pressure below the pore pressure of the formation. More commonly, inert gas is injected into the drilling mud to reduce its equivalent density and hence its hydrostatic force throughout the well depth. This gas is commonly nitrogen, as it is non-combustible and readily available, but air, reduced oxygen air, processed flue gas and natural gas have all been used in this fashion.   "



"  The problem of differential sticking is eliminated. Differential sticking is when the drill pipe is pressed against the wellbore wall so that part of its circumference will see only reservoir pressure, while the rest will continue to be pushed by wellbore pressure. As a result the pipe becomes stuck to the wall, and can require thousands of pounds of force to remove, which may prove impossible. Because the reservoir pressure is greater than the wellbore pressure in UBD, the pipe is pushed away from the walls, eliminating differential sticking. "

"   Differential sticking is a problem that occurs when drilling a well with a greater well bore pressure than formation pressure, as is usually the case. The drill pipe is pressed against the wellbore wall so that part of its circumference will see only reservoir pressure, while the rest will continue to be pushed by wellbore pressure. As a result the pipe becomes stuck to the wall, and can require millions of pounds of force to remove, which may prove impossible. In many cases the drilling fluid (mud) weight is simply reduced, thus relieving the pressure difference and releasing the stuck pipe string. "

 From Wikipedia, on wellbore stability and drilling muds.

• Chemical composition and mud properties must combine to provide a stable wellbore. Weight of the mud must be within the necessary range to balance the mechanical forces.
• Wellbore instability = sloughing formations, which can cause tight hole conditions, bridges and fill on trips (same symptoms indicate hole cleaning problems).
• Wellbore stability = hole maintains size and cylindrical shape.
• If the hole is enlarged, it becomes weak and difficult to stabilize, resulting in problems such as low annular velocities, poor hole cleaning, solids loading and poor formation evaluation
• In sand and sandstones formations, hole enlargement can be accomplished by mechanical actions (hydraulic forces & nozzles velocities). Formation damage is reduced by conservative hydraulics system. A good quality filter cake containing bentonite is known to limit bore hole enlargement.
• In shales, mud weight is usually sufficient to balance formation stress, as these wells are usually stable. With water base mud, chemical differences can cause interactions between mud & shale that lead to softening of the native rock. Highly fractured, dry, brittle shales can be extremely unstable (leading to mechanical problems).
• Various chemical inhibitors can control mud / shale interactions (calcium, potassium, salt, polymers, asphalt, glycols and oil – best for water sensitive formations)
• Oil (and synthetic oil) based drilling fluids are used to drill most water sensitive Shales in areas with difficult drilling conditions.
• To add inhibition, emulsified brine phase (calcium chloride) drilling fluids are used to reduce water activity and creates osmotic forces to prevent adsorption of water by Shales.

 Now, I will admit,...I have been having trouble with idea of this being close to " over ".....I didn't after they initially got the " 3-ram capping stack " installed, in fact I was tickled.  But I immediately began to have doubts because of flip-flopping from Thad Allen , Ken Wells and all the other high-level persons involved in this .

 .......all of a sudden this is not appearing to be a cut-n-dry situation

 .......I think about the amount of sand/particulates in the crude....

.........where did it come from......?

.........how large a void has been created by letting this well run for almost 3 months....?

........perhaps one of the most bothersome things, for me, is the continued venting of gases from the sea-floor.

.......The hydrate stability zone only extends 1000' down.

.......Hydrates normally form in the mudline/stability zone because of contact with liquid and temperature/pressure ( P/T )

......let's say that a flow of crude has found it's way from a lower level leak around the wellbore.

.....let's also say that it has eroded a pathway through the solid lithofied layers of rock, all the way up to the mudline.

.....the oil would cool down, the contraction of the cooling oil , and the reduction in pressure from vertical migration would allow gases to sublimate from the fluid.

.....normally, this gas would start to form hydrates as soon as P/T and seawater allowed it.( as it migrated upwards through the silt/mud )

.....however, ...we have all been watching various gases venting from the seafloor for almost 4 weeks now.

.....so...in the mud/silt...there's water for the hydrates to form...

......there's gas necessary to form hydrates........

......the pressure is conducive to hydrate formations.....

......what's missing from the equation here.....?

......Temperature's cool enough to allow hydrates to form...that's what's missing.

......not only temperature,....but over-saturation of gases in the mudline.

......since any leaking oil migrating through alternate channels would be rising against ambient pressure in the seafloor, it would be rising slowly.

......so my question after all that conjecture is :

Is crude oil building in a massive deposit under the mudline....?

Basically pooling under the mudline....?

I do not for one second think that only gases would be leaking form this well at any point of damage in the bore.

It is a physical impossibility ?

This video does not share characteristics of any natural methane seep footage I have watched, that is why I am starting to question whether these "seeps" are natural, skip to 1:50 if you want to see what I am curious about.

Rorschach is laughing

Out of all the crazy theories and postulations over current events, mine included, this one takes the cake .

This gentleman has found a blob-like organism complete with a " parabolic wave system ", lol, a pulsating vein structure, and an egg-sac. It also has a " crust-like " covering...can't think about what is similar to a crust, anyway,....he has also found " alien fire bugs " that are eating the metal. His theories range from : BP drilled into a radioactive meteorite, to something about a French submarine carrying cargo of some mysterious substamce that can " morph " seawater and another "compound " into gold, which in turn " morphed " into " creatures " , which then changed the " magnetism ",...of what I haven't the slightest,lol,....and " sailors ears were bleeding ".....sounds horrible.

 Another fine example of : What we want to see, we will.

For some reason,....many people cannot use logic to deduce that if something was required to be hidden from the public view, it would not be shown to the public.

Same logic for the " gauges ".....the gauges that are shown on the ROV camera views , are nothing but hydraulic gauges for various parts of the system,....do you really think that this whole operation would be resting on very crucial pressure readings, read through a video camera under a great depth,...off of dial gauges...? ...They might as well be in Command Central looking at the computer moniter with a telescope turned backwards.

The real pressures are read with pressure transducers that are placed around the well riser and other parts of the BOP stack. Pressures are also read at all points in the system from a-b, from the pumps to the intersection point of the relief well.

Really, it is not the things we know that can be detrimental, ..it is the things we think we know..

I would like include something a friend sent to me.

 " Remember not to let yourself become jaded when all the misapplications of the science are weighed in. It is the application of the science when inappropriate or the lack of application of the science when it is appropriate that causes distress in the reasonable man."

                                                                                             --My Friend


...anywho, for some comic relief, watch these two vids.










......Aaaand the fire-lizard creature...(cat/dog)...?...lol.....Idk....

Dynamically positioned drilling rigs

     So, not that I have any experience in the " oil patch ", or the engineering of Dynamically Positioned deep-water drilling rigs, but I was looking over the design of the Deepwater Horizon after going back over the course of events in the sinking of the platform. As it's come out in the news, any of the normal measures to prevent gases from a blowout from invading the engine rooms where the generators are found, and "supercharging" the generators to the point of making them explode , were shut off. There is normally a series of alarms and switches that would normally trip and trigger preventive measures, ie, closing of intake vents and such .Of course, it has been acknowledged in the media as well, that these alarms were turned off by the personnel on the platform. One could say that had the alarms not been de-activated, that the sinking of the platform and subsequent almost uncontrollable blowout could have been avoided.

   After the initial explosion, the well continued to fuel the ensuing fire, then the platform sank. Basically, the tanks that are normally are  flooded/flushed with water to provide ballast/and total depth below the water-line, had overheated, and been cooled by surrounding vessels spraying seawater, that eventually, the metal expanded and contracted enough to allow water to invade and sink the rig.

What's wrong with this picture...?

   Why would a giant platform designed for all practical purposes, to be able to slowly sink into the water at varying depths, but still maintain buoyancy ....to slowly burn and sink..? Normally...you would think that there are many redundancies built into any type of complicated structure/machine that comprises a drilling rig in it's totality. . .but wait...there is cost efficiency analysis to be taken into consideration as well.

How expensive is how safe ?

http://www.dynamic-positioning.com/dp2000/power_foss.pdf

Is it cheaper to locate backup generators next to the generators they are supposed to be " backing up "..?

....Yes.

 Especially when the alarms are shut off.


 Then there is no redundancy in power re-routing in case of failure either

 ....from the next layer of this onion...

POWERPLANT SESSION :The Deepwater Horizon
A Unique 10,000-ft Water Depth Dynamically
Positioned Semisubmersible Drilling Vessel

M. W. Cole, Cole Engineering, Inc.
C. V. Wolff, R&B Falcon
J. J. May, R&B Falcon
D. R. Weisinger, Vastar Resources, Inc

http://www.dynamic-positioning.com/dp1999/Pphoriz.pdf


" Loss of an engine room "

" Loss of an engine room with its associated diesel engine/generator set and switchboard
due to fire or flooding will cause loss of the thruster and the 480V bus loads assigned to
that switchboard. "

Given that dynamically positioned rigs use GPS to calculate position and ,the vector-specific angle and momentum of thrust applied at the bottom of the platform, there are the problems of loss of positioning information due to solar activities, but in the event of a loss of one generator from explosive failure, having them all together prevents any emergency power from being diverted to ballast pumps in the case the event eventually destroys all generators in the area, ...which it did.

So why would an engineering firm and oil company spend so much for a piece of equipment, then allow engineers to be constrained by costs, when they are designing the system, especially considering it doesn't add that much to alter the placement of various components in a system, depending on the layout....but  a square should be pretty easy...compared to something like an assembly line.

So why would emergency thruster control and ballast operation not be designed into the system in the event of an evacuation of the platform when they operate on real-time information from satellites to keep them stably located in the first place...?

It would seem if you can operate a satellite from Earth, you could operate an oil rig from this planet too......just in the event of an emergency .

Here is some great info on the deepwater Horizon and DP rigs in general.

http://www.dynamic-positioning.com/dp1999/Sessions.PDF

What happened to the mud and cement ?

Hello all, sorry I haven't been around so much, I have been busy with a new project.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

When BP released this photo on their website, the blogosphere was on it, like butter on an English muffin...in all the nooks and crannies.

Ask yourself this :

Why was the "leg" of mud considered to have "killed" the well...measured from the ship to around 5k' down the well.... , and not from the wellhead down.?
   When they had originally stated the beginning of the base oil injectivity testing, they also stated that the mud pumping operation would probably go on for a little while, the mud was going to be the type that does not clog rock and formation pores too much, ie:, a non-caking mud with small particle size( I am sure after all the press coverage, you know that they use anything and everything to plug cracked formations...sawdust...coconut husks...shredded tires....etc etc..), specifically to allow for the mud to travel further .

  One of the things I noticed, and I'm sure a few others did too, was that the mud pumping operations suddenly proceeded before the estimated original time for the operation to start. If you lok at the chart below, you can see on the right-hand side, the projected ideal gradients for the injectivity parameters, ie: the pump pressures, mud rates of injection, pressures at various points in the system,..the gentle arcs plotted on the right-hand side are the "ideal" plots.....the two thicker lines on the left-hand side of the chart are the actual pressures of the testing done.

PT-3K-2 was the pressure at the gauge monitoring the kill line.
PT-C was the pressure at the gauge monitoring the choke line.
PT_B301 was the pressure at the gauge monitoring the bottom of the old BOP.


(PT stands for pressure transducer, it's what is really used to measure flows in the pipes, the yellow boxes you have seen for weeks with wire frame handles)

Looks like PT-B301 flat-lined at 5841 psi, while PT-3k-2 211 was at 5161 and dropping @ 369.8 bbl of 13.25 ppg mud.

Look at the left side over the guy's head.

" PT-B301 flat-lined at around 5841 psi "

So if the pressure needed from the pumps would steadily decrease as the leg of mud gets established, then we would see an arc plotted. If the pump pressure flat-lined at the same time the mud volume was plotting an arc...would this not indicate a rather large loss...?

Normally , a "static kill: would be considered to be successful when a mud leg is established in the wellbore...it was not...it was from a little ways down the bore...and all the way up to the surface. On top of that, they never did reach true static equilibrium, they were gradually pumping mud the entire time, the rate of loss was determined to be around 1b/minute.


I think that the test itself is what could cause problems..hypothetically speaking,...the leak location was established by the fact that they could not get to a hydrostatic equilibrium,ie: the point where you could saw the entire stack off and nothing would come out....if there were a shallow leak, and fluids were forced through it, this in itself, would make them larger due to erosive qualities of the flow. So really...the only way to see where the oil and gas would vent in the surrounding area would be to shut the well in....but at the same time, by doing so, you could cause larger pathways for the leak. I look at this like stress testing materials. You never stress test something...and then use it in the manufacture of a product, for you destroy what you observe in the course of the test. So I think they might have realized, that by the fact they had to continuously pump mud into the well, without ever reaching equilibrium, that that mud pumped IN , would represent roughly the mud lost, per pore counts and such. So maybe the sudden switch to cementing could be attributed to the "pucker factor" of perhaps causing a larger fluid migration path than before...?

So after the cementing operations they tell us in the briefing that they pump approx 200 bbls into the first formation...just the first....they said they had established a leg of cement reaching 5000', from the seafloor, to the bottom of the leg. So there is a shallow leak that has been identified, it also would explain all the venting we are seeing on the ROV cams, BTW, there are 3 cams on each ROV, we get to only see 1.. 

So let's next look at the reworked diagram from Alex Higgins' blog ( Which I would highly recommend ) so we can get an idea of exactly how far they have really gotten in the overall operation of shutting this well down for good.

                                                      http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/

....so, my wild guess, is that they will have to stop cementing from the top. This will leave a long length of wellbore with trapped fluids. They will intersect the wellbore from the bottom and start to slowly squeeze in mud from the bottom, this will, in my mind, produce a rather large amount of fluid and gases to vent from the deeper layers again. If you envision an oil-filled shock absorber with a hole/holes, getting compressed, than you can visualize what happens during this process. The oil in the wellbore has to go somewhere....

I'm thinking about the mud "bubblers" in Yellowstone, and how the bubble would travel up through the fluid, granted THAT mud is a fairly homogeneous blend so travel is smooth, for the most part. Now I think about what is the likely composition of what the ocean floor is made of where we see this little "volcano". Probably mainly silt, some larger particulates, maybe even bone fragments...and microbial mucous, natural polymer precursors ...same snot we see floating around, I think it's refereed to as " marine snow ", and probably a little asphalt. So if it's traveling up through a thick layer of softer materials, then we would tend to see eruptions as these "bubbles" came up through the muck, as opposed to a steady stream of fluids/gas, like what would be coming through a crack in a rock formation. I think it's natural that we will continue to see more fluids coming up, especially when they start squeezing from the bottom. Somebody over at the Drum( a reservoir engineer in the field ) said that the mud they had used indicated a very porous formation of sandstone around 13k' down.

We'll see, but I think anything migrating up through the muck won't create a pathway, the muck will close the channel behind the fluids/gas.

I am keeping my hopes high.