The Special "TOP HAT" Cover on Top of the BOP has Apparently Blown Off!

Im not sure about what I'm seeing here, well besides oil and gasses spewing out and with a vengence.

What is that tall thing swaying near the BOP?

Sorry I guess I haven't kept up with things very well today.

[edit on 25-6-2010 by sweetliberty]

Originally posted by sweetliberty
What is that tall thing swaying near the BOP?

I believe I heard mentioned that it's a built-up of barium sulfate crystals. I heard that the stuff could be building up inside on the pipes as well as the top hat thingy.

Originally posted by Divinorumus

Originally posted by sweetliberty
What is that tall thing swaying near the BOP?

I believe I heard mentioned that it's a built-up of barium sulfate crystals. I heard that the stuff could be building up inside on the pipes as well as the top hat thingy.

Would that be a good thing? Would it obstruct the flow of oil? Would it assist the top kill or relief well friction mud?

Whatever it is, it's all but hitting the top cap area. Can someone say TIMBERRRR.

I dont think this is good at all

reply to post by Ceriddwen

Thank you also for posting. I appreciate it very much.

Unfortunately I haven't figured out how to do screenshots of these live feeds. Be glad if someone would tell us. The video I posted back on page two (that shows the top of the BOP sans LMRP cap) was done the hard way: I videoed my laptop's screen and then put the vid through windows movie maker and then uploaded it here. But it was better than nothing.

Right now I'm keeping an eye on the BOP's tilt in a very rudimentary way. I have a clear plastic set square placed with its bottom edge along the lower edge of my laptop's screen, so that the vertical edge gives me as good a reference point as I can get with a live feed. If there has been any more tilt of the BOP in the past couple of hours it has not been enough to notice by this method. But I'll keep an eye on it and hope they keep at least one ROV
on the LMRP cap.

Right now I'm monitoring Skandi ROV 1 as it has the best image for judging any change in tilt. I'd wager that the experts are also doing exactly the same thing.

I can say this much: that BOP is not going to tilt itself straight again. From now on there are only two possibilities. Either it stays right where it is... or it tilts further. If it does they might decide to pull that LMRP cap to reduce the mass sitting on it. Hard to say which way they'd want to play it.

Mike

Originally posted by getreadyalready
Would that be a good thing? Would it obstruct the flow of oil? Would it assist the top kill or relief well friction mud?

I don't think it's a good thing. I found this information at The Oil Drum on this page.

It definitely looks like it has tilted quite a bit since early this morning. Whatever that arm thing is that looks kind of shredded- well, it used to be right up next to the main pipe & it was always floating around wildly. It is now almost totally still & a lot farther away from the pipe than it ever has been. I wish I could take a screen shot but I can't get it to work.

In response to all those discussing the tilting of the BOP, last night during the ring cutting and examination, the ROV involved was able to get some great views of the BOP stack as a whole and its is clearly tilting more. From what I saw I would say the tilt was in the range of 15-20 degrees off center.

reply to post by GATruthseeker

I've just shot some video by filming my laptop's screen, as I did with the video I posted on page 2 of this thread. I'll get it processed and hope to have it uploaded on to ATS and linked in this thread in about ten minutes.

Mike

Originally posted by JustMike
Unfortunately I haven't figured out how to do screenshots of these live feeds. Be glad if someone would tell us. The video I posted back on page two (that shows the top of the BOP sans LMRP cap) was done the hard way: I videoed my laptop's screen and then put the vid through windows movie maker and then uploaded it here. But it was better than nothing.

To do a screen capture, just hit your PRTSC key, and then paste it into a graphics program (such as photoshop) and save it. Also, you can download the VLC Media Player for free and record these feeds (I'm recording a couple right now).

I've recorded lots of video from them ROVs instead of sitting around watching it all the time so I can play it back later at 16x.

(sorry, OT, but someone asked .. )

The oil has pressure

Here is a screen shot of what the leaning looks like before I head to bed.

reply to post by Divinorumus

Thank you! It's not really OT as this thread is relating to observing the "top hat" and hence also the BOP, and so being able to record it is part of the observation process.

Thank you also for that link. The print screen option has not worked for me and I've seen that others have had the same issue. I'll try the program you've suggested and see how that goes. Has to be better than using a vidcam to tape my laptop's screen!

Meanwhile, if you could upload a little of what Skandi ROV 1 is "watching" right now, that would be excellent. It's always best if we can document things.

Mike


[edit on 25/6/10 by JustMike]

reply to post by JustMike


If you need help with VLC, ask away. Recording is not so straight forward as just pressing a record button (it's done via the MEDIA::Convert/Save menu function). Odd that your print screen button does not work for screen captures (that feature has worked on Windows since forever).

I'll see if I can catch the top hap moving around and upload it somewhere. Right now it's not moving much (barely noticeable if at all for the moment).

Ah, now it's moving around again. I decided to upload it to rapidshare. I never uploaded here before, and upon clicking the upload media link here I noticed it said it could take 1-5 minutes per MB. YIKES, no thanks, too darn slow for me. So, here's a link at rapidshare (available for the first 10 to grab it):

rapidshare.com...

It's about 33mb unedited (I don't have time to reduce it down, too many other things running on my computer right now). Watch near the end, watch the fin on the right side of the top hat, you'll notice it going up and down.

added: play it at 8 or 16 x in Windows Media player and you can see it dance! BTW, it could also be moving because something is pulling on the pipe that leads up to the surface too.

[edit on 25-6-2010 by Divinorumus]

reply to post by Divinorumus

Thank you! I won't download a copy from rapidshare as I'd rather other members get the chance to do that.

Meanwhile I'm posting a link to the video I shot around 45 minutes ago. It looks weird because I am videoing my laptop. You will see that I've placed a set square with the vertical part lined up by the formerly-vertical section atop the BOP. The set square gives us a "true vertical" frame of reference.

Note: turn down the sound when watching as my vidcam picks up extraneous outside noise such as the inevitable police car howling past with sirens going. (This is Murphy's law when you want to quietly film anything.)

Okay here's the link. I have tried to figure out how to embed it but the instructions I found don't make sense, so it's just the link:

BOP tilt video clip

Apologies for poor quality but at least it's on the record.

Mike

[edit on 25/6/10 by JustMike]

reply to post by JustMike


Ah, you can download it, no big deal (maybe someone else can convert and upload here, and I can always upload there again if need be). Anyhow, play that video at higher speed. You can see a lot more when playing this stuff back at a higher speeds (i.e. 8x) as opposed to watching a second hand moving in real-time. Near the end of that video it looked as if it was ready to take off for the moon .. almost.

reply to post by Divinorumus

Okay, I'm taking a copy now.

If need be we can either upload it here or put it on megaupload or a similar place that doesn't have rapidshare's absurdly low download limit for non-collector or non-premium accounts.

Have also dl'd and installed the VideoLan. Now just trying to figure out how to (a) get it to play anything and (b) how then to save it. I went to their help page but it's all about entering command lines (somewhere or other) and that's beyond my knowledge.

Meanwhile, to keep OT, I'll report that the Skandi ROV 1 feed is holding steady, the tilt of the BOP seems unchanged, and the LMRP cap seems to be more-or-less sitting in one place.

By my Lord...that thing belches an awful lot of oil/gas/whatever else... I know we know that, but it's still appalling to see it.

Mike

EDIT to add and not do so many separate posts:

Originally posted by Moriarty
In response to all those discussing the tilting of the BOP, last night during the ring cutting and examination, the ROV involved was able to get some great views of the BOP stack as a whole and its is clearly tilting more. From what I saw I would say the tilt was in the range of 15-20 degrees off center.

How I missed your post I have no idea. Thank you very much for sharing that info. As I have posted either here or elsewhere (on ATS), a couple of days ago during one of their early-morning prowls I got a look at the lower end of the BOP including its junction to the well head and the tilt might have been 5 deg but probably not much more. If it's now even 10 deg and not the 15-20 you estimate that is still a serious deterioration.

Looks like I might be up very very late to night. (So what else is new?)

We need to watch this around the clock because if/when the BOP goes over people might need to be warned.

[edit on 25/6/10 by JustMike]

I am still awake. SIGH.

I have noticed that on Ent 1 ROV feed on the right side...earlier I could only see one soot covered fin. Now there are obviously two, so it has rotated and dipped since my first post here today.

Originally posted by JustMike
Have also dl'd and installed the VideoLan. Now just trying to figure out how to (a) get it to play anything and (b) how then to save it.

Yeah, there's a learning curve involved with that application, but it does it all.

Select MEDIA::Convert/save

When the Open Media box appears, click the Network tab.

In the Network Protocol Address box enter your address.
(i.e. for Skandi ROV 1 I've been using: mms://a214.l9789245685.c97892.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/214/97892/v0001/reflector:45685 although an HTTP link should work too)

Then click the Convert/Save button on the bottom of the dialog box.

In the Destination file space enter the path and name of file to save to (i.e. bp-sucks.mpg).

Check the display the output box if you want to watch what you are recording.

In the Settings Profile option select whatever you prefer.
(i.e. I use Video - H.264 + AAC (TS))

Then click the START button and wait about 15 seconds. It should begin recording and also displaying what you are recording.

NOTE: If you stop the recording and press play again, it will over write your previous file.

Let me know if you need any more assistance.