Page 8 - Drill Pipe News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Withstand winds of 40 miles an hour, if it got up to that high, they'd start breaking apart and start drifting away so they didn't want that to happen. they started disconnecting them, bringing them inland and now this area and much the areas along the coast are pretty much defenseless right now as of what is left of that storm continues to push that oil around. so they're hoping they'll be able to get all of these protective measures back out on the water, and back where they belong as quickly as possible. don? >> so, david, what about the status of those relief wells? >> reporter: what we're...

They want to see if there is oil on the annulus. if there isn't, that's good news. they can go straight into the drill pipe and plug there. if there is oil through the outer ring, they would plug that and drill further into the drill pipe and plug that. it's a multistep process. >> we're all learning so much about the engineersing here. it's a weird byproduct. >> reporter: had you ever heard the word ç"annulus" before? >> actually, a world premiere on capable news at this point. nbc chief environmental correspondent and annulus pronouncer, anne thompson. really appreciate it. did you hear ...

The first relief well is within 30 feet of getting to where it needs to get so they can lay the final casing in. it is approaching the ruptured well at a two-degree angle. and then once they lay the final casing in, they have to drill another 100 feet before they intersect it. and when they intersect it, ç they'll look at two things, rachel. first of all, they'll look on the outside -- they'll intersect the well and think of it as tree rings. there is an annulus on the edge. they want to see if there is any oil coming up on the annulus. if there isn't, that's good news. they can go straight ...

Until they know exactly where they are. they are going to be two miles below the sea floor and try to intersect a drill pipe that's seven inches in diameter. that's why this is going slow and why we're not coming off the mid-august prediction of when it will be done. why wasn't this done earlier, i'm as assuming you're talking about the capping stack. it had to be designed, built, tested, brought to site and procedures to put it on there, and as you see, there are some leaks we have to fix and things like that. there have been a range of capping devices that have been developed. we got a clean...

We're probably, the relief well is a little over 100 feet above the proposed intersection point. but they're pulling the bit back to the last cased section. that's where they have the pipe in. there's another section they're going to pult pipe in and they haven't done that and they're going to withdraw and have the rest of the wellbore filled with mud all the way down and we're going to sit there until we have a couple hours of testing to make sure the increased pressure on the wellbore and the increased pressure. we'll take a step and see what happens. >> well, they're in the last portions. t...