WATCHING WASHINGTON ADVICE ON WELL KILLS
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) held a brainstorming session in Washington, D.C., last week to develop some new ideas for extinguishing the oil well fires in Kuwait.
Participants included Kuwait Oil Co. (KOC) officials, American oil company drilling specialists, U.S. government officials, and an array of U.S. scientists across several disciplines.
About 500-600 wells are burning in Kuwait and another 80-90 are flowing onto the ground. Only about 15 have been controlled. Eight teams, soon to be 11, are fighting the wild wells.
NEED FOR INNOVATION
Henry Kendall, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology physics professor who chairs UCS, said there is a great need for innovative technology that could help stem the pollution within months, rather than years.
The scientists focused not so much on how to douse the fires-oil industry specialists have tried and true methods to achieve that-but on how to get crews near the well sites.
Kuwait presents a double challenge for wild well fighters. Not only are there hundreds of wells blowing, but many of them are surrounded by land mines and booby traps. Pools of oil sometimes cover the land mines.
Ralph Brown, KOC's director of new business development, said the meeting resulted in "some extremely practical ideas" for using existing equipment in new ways.
John Turley, Marathon Oil Co.'s manager of worldwide drilling, said the nonindustry scientists advanced a number of straightforward suggestions with "tremendous credibility."
He stressed the scientists don't want to interfere with the work of well-fighting teams, only to offer them some new tools for the job.
William Wattenburg, a California State University researcher and Defense Department consultant, said one of the best ideas is to mass air compressors to blow 10,000 cfm.
He said that would be about a hundred times more powerful than the normal sand blaster.
Booms could be used to extend air nozzles as much as 100 ft ahead of tractors, so compressed air would blow sand off land mines near well sites or blow the mines away so they will detonate when they land. Also, the very high pressure air could be used with sand to cut through concrete and steel at the well site.
A ROLE FOR HELICOPTERS
Another proposal was to use large helicopters to help explode mines. They could drag sleds or chain nets through well sites or drop such gear near well sites so winches could pull them through.
That effort would be greatly helped if well fighters could use some of the large U.S. military helicopters in the area.
Wattenburg said military forces are being as helpful as they can, but there is no policy that says the help will continue.
Participants offered ideas for using robotics to perform well kill operations and even digging short tunnels as a last resort to get to underground well casing.
Frank Lane, Fluor-Daniel Corp.'s manager of system engineering, sees a pressing need for better data on the burning wells.
He said Kuwait needs a central planning body to gather specific data on the wells and disseminate ideas on the best way to kill each of them.
Copyright 1991 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.