BP has confirmed that the failed blowout preventer (BOP) on its Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico is tilting sideways at an acute angle 12 to 15 degrees from perpendicular. Geologists and petroleum engineers are now debating the worst case scenario: growing evidence that the Macondo discovery well’s casings beneath the ocean floor have been irreversibly damaged, possibly to such an extent that it may be impossible to cap the well.
...Remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) are streaming video feeds of high pressure columns of oil and gas bubbling up from fissures in the sea floor — flowing from likely stress fractures in the underground piping.
A much talk-about anonymous posting at The Oil Drum, a blog often frequented by petroleum engineers and other oil-industry specialists, captures the fears of many scientists and environmentalists alike:
Learn more about the tremendous impact of the Gulf Oil Disaster.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
[blowout preventer]?…the more it will transfer to the leaks below. Just like a
leaky garden hose with a nozzle on it.
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