What a relief? BP drill closes in on oil well, has just 1 shot

Latest news regarding the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is that one of two relief wells being drilled to stop the oil spill is only day’s away from completion, although BP only has one shot at this latest attempt to stop the leak.

The first of two relief wells is within striking distance of the Macondo, about four and a half metres away from the pipe, although one wrong move as engineers break through the cement and steel pipe of the well could increase the torrent of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

In the worst case scenario, it could even trigger a blow out in the relief well, but experts agree the chances of such a disaster are remote.

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“They pretty much have one shot,” said Wayne Pennington, the chair of geophysical engineering at Michigan Tech University. “Once they hit it and they try to kill it they really just have that one chance.”

It may take as few as a couple of hours or as many as five days to decide if the effort is a success or failure.

BP executives and the leading government official for oil spill response say they are confident the DDIII rig will successfully drill through its target, the blown out Macondo well, creating the relief well intended to be the ultimate solution for stopping an oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico that has persisted for 76 days so far.

“There is a chance, a slight chance that they could nick the wellbore,” Thad Allen, the coast guard commander, said. A nick risks starting a new small leak or possibly even a collapse of a section of the pipe given that it was damaged in the explosion in ways still not fully understood.

The relief well has bored 3.8 km beneath the seabed and BP’s plan calls for the relief well to drill further down, parallel to the blown out well, and intercept it at the bottom.

Once intercepted, BP intends to pump in heavy drilling fluid to stop the oil flow and then cement to plug the leak.

“We can’t guarantee anything, but I think the technology is there,” said Kent Wells, a BP vice president. “We’ve got the best experienced people around and we’re set up to be successful here.”

If all goes according to plan, operators will install a cement plug, sealing off the oil well for good. If there are further problems, or worse, if this attempt fails and actually increases the oil spill rate then expect hell to break loose…