Another 24 to 48 hours before we know – …

Another 24 to 48 hours before we know – what happened is consistent with my theory. When they had the well “balanced” and stopped pumping in mud, the well started spewing gas and oil again. My belief is that when they stopped pumping in new mud, the mud in the well (being heavier than the oil/gas) continued to descend down the shaft – reducing the pressure above the mud – until the oil/gas overcame the the falling pressure of the mud and pushed its way back out…. the mud goes down at the same time the the oil is going up… they apparently did get some “stuff” to stay stuck inside the BOP which has slowed the flow somewhat….

When I was working in Chicago, I experienced the Chicago Flood which has interesting similarities and pointing out the dangers of pinning your hopes on government agencies solvling problems. A contractor for the city replaced a pier protecting a bridge, and the city approved him moving the location (without consulting the maps of the underground tunnel system). An inspector who might have noticed that they had punched a hole into the underground tunnel system didn’t find the problem because he couldn’t find a place to park his car. The problem was discovered by employees of the cable TV system during a routine inspection. After the city was told of the impending emergency, they failed to hire someone to fix the problem – they got tied up in paperwork (or if you’re cynical, they were waiting for the bribes to come in)…

So one morning, all of the basements in downtown Chicago started flooding. Once they realized the cause, the city’s first reaction was to dump truckloads of gravel into the river. That didn’t work. Then someone remembered being trained in the Navy to use mattresses if your ship sprung a leak. So they threw mattresses in the river to “plug the hole”. Keep in mind this is maybe 20 feet of water, not 5,000. That didn’t work. Then they tried pumping the water out faster than it was coming in – that didn’t work. Someone proposed putting a hole in a shaft that goes downward to a flood control system – had they done that, they would have flooded large areas of downstate illinois and undermined the foundations of the buildings….

Eventually they got an expert involved and relaxed that it wasn’t going to be fixed in a day. They drilled a new shaft and dropped sand bags down the hole – the point was not to stop the leak (not possible) but to slow the rate of flow of the water. With the hole partially plugged, they drilled another shaft and poured in concrete. With the water not immediately washing away the concrete, it was able to “set up” and the tunnel was completely filled and the flood stopped. They had to repeat the process on the other side of the river (at two different places). But it did work. Until next time….

Did I mention this happened in Chicago, Barack Obama’s city?