Paula Dittrick
OGJ Senior Staff Writer
HOUSTON, Aug. 13 -- Federal scientists and BP PLC on Aug. 13 studied how to best complete the relief well to kill the deepwater Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico after a pressure test indicated that the static kill procedure had resulted with cement pumped into the reservoir and also into the annulus.
National Incident Commander and retired US Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen told reporters during a news conference in Schriever, La., that the pressure test indicated a barrier between the annulus and the reservoir.
“The relief well will be finished, and we will kill the well,” Allen said. “The question is how to do that.”
The well has been shut in since July 15 when BP installed a capping stack on the Macondo well after it leaked an estimated 4.9 million bbl of which BP captured 800,000 bbl. Transocean Ltd.’s Deepwater Horizon semisubmersible drilled the well, and an Apr. 20 blowout resulted in a rig explosion and fire that killed 11 people. The rig later sank, resulting in the oil spill.
During the static kill, BP pumped cement into the top of the well. The pressure test indicates the cement plugged the well’s casing, flowed into the oil reservoir, and back into the annulus.
“How thick the cement barrier is between the annulus and the reservoir, we just don’t know,” Allen said. “It might be very thin, and we go and put pressure on that and we have a problem.”
Allen said response officials also are concerned about the possibility that pumping mud and cement into the bottom of the well could drive oil up into the well, through blowout preventer seals, and out into the gulf. Options include installing a pressure valve or another BOP on the well.
Contact Paula Dittrick at [email protected].
US Government Accountability Office.
