"We've got an unstable hole," laments Bill Kirton, who's overseeing the project for the oil giant BP.
The drill, suspended from the Enterprise's derrick through a swimming-pool-size gap in the hull, has penetrated 17,000 feet (5,180 meters) below the seafloor. Instead of boring straight down, it has swerved more than a mile sideways, around a massive plume of rock salt. But now, with 2,000 feet (610 meters) to go, progress is stalled. Water has begun seeping into the well from the surrounding rock, and the engineers are determined to stem its spread before drilling farther. Otherwise, the trickle of water could turn into an uncontrolled surge of crude. "There's a lot of oil down there wanting to come out," says Cecil Cheshier, a drilling supervisor, after struggling all night with the unruly hole. "You can cut corners and take chances—but that could cost you a lawsuit or cause a spill into the Gulf of Mexico, and then deepwater drilling gets shut down."
1 comment:
You are delusional if you think world oil prices twist and turn on the fate of drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
And there is plenty of drilling going on in the Gulf including in the deep Gulf - speaking as someone employed by a major oil services firm.
Worth remembering:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0406/feature5/fulltext.html
June 2004
"We've got an unstable hole," laments Bill Kirton, who's overseeing the project for the oil giant BP.
The drill, suspended from the Enterprise's derrick through a swimming-pool-size gap in the hull, has penetrated 17,000 feet (5,180 meters) below the seafloor. Instead of boring straight down, it has swerved more than a mile sideways, around a massive plume of rock salt. But now, with 2,000 feet (610 meters) to go, progress is stalled. Water has begun seeping into the well from the surrounding rock, and the engineers are determined to stem its spread before drilling farther. Otherwise, the trickle of water could turn into an uncontrolled surge of crude. "There's a lot of oil down there wanting to come out," says Cecil Cheshier, a drilling supervisor, after struggling all night with the unruly hole. "You can cut corners and take chances—but that could cost you a lawsuit or cause a spill into the Gulf of Mexico, and then deepwater drilling gets shut down."
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