Page 6 - Capping Stack News Today

All the details. this is a very significant test in the evolution of this response and our ability to increase our containment, our redundancy and capacity. illl talk about that in a lite bit. we consulted extensively with outside experts. our science team led by secretary of energy chu consulted also with other members of industry regarding potential issues we should deal with. i will zero right in on what the discussion was mainly about and be happy to answer some questions about it. we have n...

The kill line to the helix producer and choke line to the q 4000. okay? last week as you remember we removed the stub of the riser pipe and we put in what we called a flange spool. on top of that what will happen, which was significant, is weve now seeded the capping stack here and basically it has three rams, a mini blowout preventer, also has a kill line and a choke line. okay? so you basically have a small bop on top of the larger bop that is legacy to the deepwater horizon. here is how we in...

Floating production unit has been employed in the gulf coast. it was a pretty significant event. we had a chance to talk to the crew and get a brief on operations and that was very helpful moving forward. out on site today in and around the well site we had 44 skimmers, 20 of them actually within 15 nautical miles of the source. there continues to be a robust response to the oil being released while we are looking at the new stacking cap and the shift and id like to brief you on that. as i brief...

Capacity on the surface to deal with that. we will then in sequence close the middle ram here which will stop the flow out of the top of the stack and then we will take pressure readings. we will then close the kill line and take pressure readings. following that, we will use a remotely operated vehicle that will hook on to the little bar here that actually turns a valve and this choke line has been especially constructed if you looked at the video, youll see kind of a yellow object with a curve...

Its going to happen in ten days, its going to happen in two hours. this is the first time theyve done something that looks like it might work and theres been no hype. how do you explain that? why no pr on this? >> ive been confused about the whole process, chris. this cap, this containment cap that they are working on now, what they are calling the capping stack, has actually been one of their earliest ideas way back in april, and i know they have been working on this for quite some time. ive be...

Line. >> thank you for taking my call. [ inaudible ] >> okay. heres the sequence once again. there are basically three ways that hydrocarbons can come up through a blowout preventer preventer, the one thats there or the capping stack we put on. the kill and the choke lines and then the main bore up through the preventer itself. we now have a capping stack on top of that. so there are five ways that you can potentially release oil. the kill and choke line from the original blowout preventer, the ...

And we will remove the way for the hydrocarbons to exit through the kill and choke lines on the original blowout preventer. then we move to three exit points, the choke and kill lines of the capping stack and then the top opening of the capping stack. then we will in sequence, first -- there are three rams that are part of the capping stack. the middle ram will be closed. that will seal the upper opening from any hydrocarbon release and leaves us the kill and choke lines. the kill line will be c...

The integrity test today? >> we will take the pressure readings when we close the choke valve, and that will be done slowly to see if there are pressure changes as we start to restrict the flow and we dont do anything prematurely. it will also tell us something about the flow, empirical data we havent had to date. lets not get wrapped up in the six hours. thats a horizon we look at for the pressure readings. >> could you close down that vent today? >> no. the capping stack -- all three ways for ...

Left side. on the right side, you see these from earlier. the governments point man on the disaster says the testing involves closing off vents and measuring the pressure in the well. take a listen to this. >> and this exercise, high pressure is good. we have a considerable amount of pressure down in the reservoir, forcing the hydrocarbons up through the wellbore. we are looking for somewhere between 8 and 9,000 psi inside the capping stack which would indicate to us that the hydrocarbons are be...

We want redundancy in the production capability and also in the capacity so that while were doing this, we can still deal with the entire flow. for that reason, it was anticipated whether or not the capping stack works and we shut the well in that we would ultimately go to four sources of production under the new system, the kill and choke lines from the original blowout preventer and the kill and choke lines from the new capping stack. two would go to vertical riser pipes anchored on the sea fl...