Are Deepwater Relief Wells a Guaranteed Fix?

(CBS)  Kill the well - that's the ultimate goal.

"There's no doubt that the ultimate solution is a relief well," BP CEO Tony Hayward said.

Since 1969, oil companies have drilled seven deepwater relief wells in the Gulf of Mexico - all but one of them successful - although BP's current drilling would be the deepest ever.

"They're not reinventing the wheel, if you will," said retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen. "It's something they've done before."

Special Section: Disaster in the Gulf

BP's challenge? Make it work, without making it worse. Around the clock, the two relief wells sink lower, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann. Both run parallel to the gushing well. One is two weeks ahead of the other, now 17,000 feet below the Gulf's surface. Nine hundred feet lower, electromagnetic sensors will find the best spot for a diagonal cut into the broken well bore, the most precise step of all. Then four pumps will push in heavy mud, to overcome the broken well's ferocious upward pressure. And finally, cement, to plug it permanently.

"It's not a solid dunk," said Eric Smith, a deepwater drilling expert. "It's going to take some work."

Smith said two things could go wrong. The cut could miss the broken wellbore, and BP would just try again, or engineers could drill into hidden gas pockets.

"When you are drilling into that you have to be careful of a kick, a blowout in the relief well," Smith said.

BP leaders have showed supreme confidence in their relief wells.

"I fully expect that the well itself will be shut off in August," said Bob Dudley, BP's point man on the spill.

But recently? More caution.

"The drilling of relief wells, there's nothing guaranteed," Dudley said.

And if this fix fails?

One reported option is sub-sea pipes, to pump contained oil to a platform several miles away.

"I'm actually pretty confident they'll get it on the first pass," Smith said.

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In Destin, Fla., Ryan Olin says it has to work. The bed and breakfast he manages has already lost $200,000.

"When you lose trust in everything they say and they keep coming up with different things that fail, but we're really hoping it works," said Olin, who manages Henderson Park Inn.

The absolute worst-case scenario: the well gushes until it runs dry, which could be as long as four years. But most oil experts agree that relief wells are the answer.

[TVO1CITW]

The title of this tells me that the media has not progressed in the field of reporting. Where have we heard that kind of headline before? Sheeesh!

[spaceatoms]

And I will post for the nth time and I even emailed the White House with the solution. It is to build a box 100Mx100Mx100M with an unlimited amount of hoses coming out on top up to tankers but more realistically around 50. It would be a gigantic box that would cover all of the leaks including secondary leaks, it would allow the oil to come out and expand into different byproducts and would also allow dispersants to be pumped into the box breaking up the oil with some input pipes, but not harming the sea. Nobody will respond to my emails though.

[GreenGestalt]

I say just "Nuke" it. It's a deep well, and as deep into the ground as under the ocean. A nuke on top off to the side will shift the earth, crushing, burying and cutting the pipe in several places. There's been enough underground nuclear tests to know how much power to move how much earth.


IMO, the well is to tap then maybe cap. They want the well, it's a gusher. That's why they didn't succeed in sealing it.

[GreenGestalt]

I think BP just wants to "Tap" not "Cap" that well.


After all, they were what, $50 million behind schedule for a "Gusher" that's proving quite viable?


IMO, the first one will go down and tap, the top one will try to block above it. Then they'll just start pumping oil, after all, they got bills to pay to investors and lawyers to pay to get the government off their backs.


And, again one man's opinion, that is why they used every bit of influence they had to keep the "Nuclear Option" off the media. It could have been sealed in a week. Get a tactical nuke, put it in the ground, or a large nuke on the ocean bottom. Detonate it. The rings of force, the shockwaves will shift the ground in different levels of movement, cutting, crushing, and burying the pipe in several places. The well is miles deep, then two miles into the earth's crust. A nuclear device does not have the power (outside of MOAB level) to punch a hole and release the oil, if it did there'd be a new 'volcano' issue. All it'll do is compact the crust.


But I see by an above comment, they have all these shills and toady lickspigots trying to spread disinfo about a "Nuke".

[amos333]

This leak cannot be fixed. The "top kill" did not work neither will the 'bottom kill' work. Every attempt will only make the leak worse.

Read A.A.Allen's "Vision of America" he received on July 4th, 1954. In that vision he saw the "Statue of Liberty" choking todeath in the Gulf of Mexico. Read the 'vision' before you comment, you may be suprised.

[sbbarnhart]

Lest we forget, there is huge amounts of oil in Montana and Dakotas

[consh8theusa]

Yes there is, and some fools want to risk releasing ALL of it into the Gulf by using explosives to try and stop the leak, amazing isn't it, the short sightedness and stupidity of the American public? Quick, someone show a picture of a starlet without panties so that the US public can wander off into some other media storm.