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

reply to post by BluePillOrRedPill


Yikes, he growls
The reason this thread has had so much activity is becasue JustMike has been very helpful to so many who have questions and concerns.

Along with JustMike, there are other posters on here who are just as helpful.

At this time, I assume Mike is at work but he or the other posters will try to reply to you soon and as best as they can considering what is going on is new to us all.

Thanks
Liberty

Click here for more information.

A reminder...

Please focus further responses on the Actual topic and Not each other.

Thank you

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

*WARNING*

Please get back on topic friends, which is not each other, or moderator super ninja powers will be used. Thanks for your support.

Peace

Originally posted by 12m8keall2c
A reminder...

Please focus further responses on the Actual topic and Not each other.

Thank you

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

Yeah, sorry about that. I could have just ignored him. Sorry Mod. I'll put him on block. Back to topic. I asked some basic questions on here and reposted them on the thread
www.abovetopsecret.com... If anyone can answer them kindly when they get a chance so i can better follow the situation, i would appreiciate it. thanks

reply to post by trolleleet

People are still posting questions here regarding the streams because we were already doing so some days before that "up to the minute live feed" thread came into existence. We have also been posting screen caps, video, and links to documents that are highly relevant to what is going on. You have posts on this thread going back to its first day and contributed some good comments and observations, so you'd be aware of the way the thread has developed.

Also, as what we are discussing is still relevant to the LMRP cap, what it might be doing (and what they might be doing with it), I see no reason why we cannot continue the discussion. People are free to ask questions that are relevant to the thread, and where possible we will try to answer them.

Some members post here, some on the "live feed" thread, some (like yourself) on both, and other members doubtless post on neither but glean info from these threads and many others as well. This crisis has such massive implications and is in some ways so complex that I doubt a single thread could adequately and coherently cover all aspects of it, so there can be advantages in having these various threads running.

There is certainly no compulsion for members to only use the "live feed" thread and if they wish to continue here and what they post has relevance to the well, what is happening with it and the general issues related to it, then surely that is not a problem?

EDIT to add:
reply to post by BluePillOrRedPill

I see that your queries have already been answered on the other thread you linked to. Good to see. Also glad that you resolved those differences amicably.

If you have the time, read through this thread and you will find quite a lot of information in the form of screen shots, video, and also material you can download and access. Members have posted superb information and links to material and much of it is well worth having. I have also posted a few items, such as links where you can get copies of the reports on the BOP, technical drawings of it, and a report from the Halliburton engineers that details the well's pressure, depth and many other technical parameters.

(End of edit)

Best regards,

Mike

[edit on 30/6/10 by JustMike]

Just responding to a few more posts. Easier to reply to three in one than overload the thread with new posts.

reply to post by Chance321

Yes, Skandi 2 has been displaying rather odd colors throughout. It’s been discussed quite a lot in the thread, but if you watch the video I posted here (in ATS media) back on June 27, I discuss this particular point. (The video has commentary, but you might want to turn down the volume a bit.)

What you were seeing was likely a combination of Skandi 2’s “non-true-color” imaging and “light flare” -- excessive light flooding the camera’s lens from an ROV positioned on the other side of the BOP. (Probably Enterprise ROV 1 or 2.)

reply to post by GATruthseeker

Thank you very much for providing the link to that article. I had a read through it and was surprised by the fact that they are having such difficulties getting more oil samples for testing. You’d think that as BP declares they’re capturing thousands of barrels of oil a day, they could spare a gallon or so for scientists who want to do tests.

Not that I’m suggesting that BP’s trying to hide anything or obstruct legitimate scientific research, of course. I just wonder why scientists are having so much trouble getting samples that are definitely from the source leak. (No good just scraping oil off a regional beach as it can’t be proved that it came from that well, you see.)

reply to post by ckitch

I didn’t see it, no. I was at work then. Hard to know what might have caused the bubbles. Could have been from several possible sources. Right now, though, nothing would surprise me too much about this well. It just seems to get curioser and curioser.

Best regards,

Mike


[edit on 30/6/10 by JustMike]

Thanks Justmike.

Blimey have you been watching Skandi ROV 2?? The cap is rocking furiously and I'm convinced looking at the Corexit dispensing rod (which is stationary, that the whole BOP is occasionally rocking from side to side??

Can anyone confirm they can see the same?

[edit on 30-6-2010 by ckitch]

Originally posted by ckitch
Thanks Justmike.

Blimey have you been watching Skandi ROV 2?? The cap is rocking furiously and I'm convinced looking at the Corexit dispensing rod (which is stationary, that the whole BOP is occasionally rocking from side to side??

Can anyone confirm they can see the same?

[edit on 30-6-2010 by ckitch]

I think its just the result of rough seas and the fact that the top hat is connected to a surface ship. As it rises with the seas so does the top hat.

I've been watching, and saw the same thing.

With the hurricane moving into the Gulf, even if it doesn't take a direct path towards the well it will still cause rough seas all throughout the Gulf.

Watching it bang around, I wondered if it might be safer to disconnect it now, before it smashes into the well head and makes it fall over.

Actually Justmike, I meant the BOP casing is moving in addition to the cap. Watch it in relation to the dispenser feed and the two bolted supports on the left.

Is it an optical illusion or does the BOP occasionally judder?

[edit on 30-6-2010 by ckitch]

Replying to the three posts above this one, my (hopeful) opinion is that this apparent movement of the BOP itself is purely an illusion created by movement of the ROV relative to it. I'm still trying to work out exactly what that Corexit dispersal pipe is attached to, though.

I doubt that rough seas on the surface would be so much to blame for what we're seeing. These ROV's have "umbilical chords" but they're not hanging tight on the end of a 5000-foot-long cable. If they were, they could easily be rising and falling ten to twenty feet, depending on the amount of swell up top on the sea surface.

Same goes for the cap. While there might still be a cable attached to it (and I don't know if there actually is) they certainly wouldn't have it "tight" on a cable because one decent wave or swell and it'd lift clean off, or even worse, suddenly pull sideways a few feet and put huge strains on an already tilted BOP. This would not be good and so they keep things rather loose.

In fact, as far as I've been able to ascertain, the pipes leading from the top of the cap don't just go straight up, they are led away over the sea floor to riser units that then pipe the collected oil/gas mix up to the ships. Even the pipes going down into the cap that carry the hot water and anti-freeze (methanol) would have a "half loop" in them to allow for the ship's vertical movement.

Put it this way, if that 400-plus tons of BOP is really going up and down like it seems to be, I wouldn't give it long before it keeled over. But let's hope this is just an effect from ROV movement.

Anyway as it's coming up to 11:30 pm here I'm signing off for the night. Fingers crossed that things won't deteriorate any further...

Mike



[edit on 30/6/10 by JustMike]

Just thought I would give a little update. Seems like no one is really around tonight. I wish I could post pics./links but my computer is pretty unhappy with me right now so I can only describe what I have been seeing.

Everything looks more stable than it did earlier. The top hat isn't moving as much but it looks like the flow has at least doubled. I guess it would not surprise me at all if it is no longer working as designed. It would also not surprise me if the the flow is actually increasing. Sigh....

I did get to see Boa 2 being lowered into the water. Interesting. The water did not look particularly violent. It was very black with frothy whitecaps which I am sure it normally looks like that but of course I know that it actually is black & probably full of methane bubbles. It was fascinating, yet ominous.

As Boa 2 was descending, I did see quite a few pockets of little fish. I couldn't believe it! I don't understand how they are surviving in all that mess. I also saw a flash of a shark or fish that had a spear head. In all the time that I have been watching I have only seen what looked like a big sting ray.

The other interesting thing that I saw was a large yellow & brown pipe that was sunk right into the sand. It had measurement at the very bottom. I am guessing that has something to do with the relief wells although the top was solid with no opening that I could see & nothing attached to it.

I doubt any of this helps with anything but I had not seen that before & just thought I would share.

I also wanted to mention that I was listening to C2C & heard Richard Hoagland talking about this situation. He says that from what he has heard that when the well blew, that one of the pipes, or part of the pipe shot up like a javelin & then got stuck at the top where the top hat is now. He said that was the reason that they had so much trouble attaching it.

It definitely has always looked to me like there were 2 pipes. When the top hat is removed, you clearly see 2 separate flows - one black & one brownish red. Anyone have any input/thoughts on this???? I don't know what impact it really has at this point but I thought it might explain a few things.

reply to post by GATruthseeker

Yes there are apparently two pipes there, though there should be just the one that's attached to the top of the riser adapter. I read somewhere -- on the "oildrum" site, I think -- that probably that smaller diameter pipe was part of a section that got shot up through the bop and jammed there after the BOP's lower rams partly worked and tried to cut through it.

We had some discussion back earlier in the thread about the two different flows and their apparently different "material", and I don't think any clear conclusion was reached. One scenario is that the smaller pipe, being from deeper in the well, could be carrying material that does not have so much gas/gas hydrates mixed in with it. The larger one is the flow from the leak around the annulus (still deep in the well) and contains more gas (and/or hydrates).

About your other post where you mention that yellow pipe-shaped object: was there evidence of anything attached to it, or did it appear to be set up so things could be attached to it? Anything that looked like places to connect other pipes or hardware? And was it vertical or at a tilt?

Mike

Looking at the feeds skandi rov2 and enterprise rov1 at the moment.

The cap doesn't look great today and I also have the feeling the bop's moving a bit too.

For the bop (just an impression and no confirmation of course)
enterprise rov1 moving slightly forwards-backwards
skandi rov2 moving slightly from left to right
I am not convinced it's the rov moving as I think both rovs are ankered to the bop's structure. I could be, and probably am, wrong of course

For the Boa rovs I think they are based and monitoring one of the relief wells. During the week-end I saw the drilling pipe and I think it was on one of the BOA rovs cam.