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BP Blown out well should not be pressure tested. Chris Landau (geologist)
NOTHING HAS CHANGED. THE WELL IS NOT ALIVE. IT HAS NOT HEALED ITSELF.
Mark Hafle, BP's senior drilling engineer testified to the MMS on May 28, 2010 that the well had lost integrity and that thousands of barrels of mud had been lost down this well during drilling. This meant that the formation integrity had blown out. Reports at the hearings in May also indicated that the LOW positive pressure tests on the day of the blowout on April 20, 2010 had passed but the negative pressure tests had failed, so the well was not properly sealed. This happened within a few hours of the blowout.
The cement-casing structure is compromised. The well had ballooned out and THE FORMATION HAD BLOWN OUT, long before the blowout occurred.
BP, do you not have a single geologist at your company that can tell you what that means?
It means you can not seal this well. Pressure testing will only blow the cement casing structure to pieces, if it is not already gone.
Whose brainless idea was it to drill the directional wells 5 feet away and parallel to the existing well to weaken the formation structure further, so more casing formation strength is lost? Could those pointless, worthless relief wells not have been drilled at least 150 meters (500 feet) away from the existing well and then come in at right angles to minimize formation destruction?
Solution
Let the well flow as fast as you can. As long as no oil and gas is coming through the sea floor. If it is; you have to drill 8 relief wells around this well spaced 1500 feet apart and drilled straight down to relieve the formation pressure.
I know it is your intention to develop this well to pay for the Gulf of Mexico catastrophe. So develop it. Make sure the sea floor is not leaking oil and gas and produce the well. That was the original intention anyway.
Call for independent robot surveys for 1 year to monitor the sea floor around this well for oil and gas leaks, during well production.
My advice has not changed.
I stand by it.
Chris Landau (Geologist).
07/14/2010.
