Scariest Thing I've Read All Year (And It's Been A Long Year Already)

Just read a well-sourced and extremely frightening piece of writing over at The Oil Drum (a trustworthy source for energy industry news written by industry insiders) by a seemingly knowledgeable source detailing why he thinks the catastrophe currently unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico could get 10 times worse.

Here's the operative paragraph, in which the author describes why, in his opinion, the entire subsurface structure of the BP well may be headed towards a blowout that could send 150K barrels of oil per day gushing into the Gulf.

"First of all...set aside all your thoughts of plugging the well and stopping it from blowing out oil using any method from the top down. Plugs, big valves to just shut it off, pinching the pipe closed, installing a new bop or lmrp, shooting any epoxy in it, top kills with mud etc etc etc....forget that, it won't be happening..it's done and over. In fact actually opening up the well at the subsea source and allowing it to gush more is not only exactly what has happened, it was probably necessary, or so they think anyway.

So you have to ask WHY? Why make it worse?...there really can only be one answer and that answer does not bode well for all of us. It's really an inescapable conclusion at this point, unless you want to believe that every Oil and Gas professional involved suddenly just forgot everything they know or woke up one morning and drank a few big cups of stupid and got assigned to directing the response to this catastrophe. Nothing makes sense unless you take this into account, but after you do...you will see the "sense" behind what has happened and what is happening. That conclusion is this:

The well bore structure is compromised "Down hole".

The whole thing is worth a read. Even if it's massively depressing, I learned more about what's going on in 20 minutes of reading than I have in a month plus of "news" coverage.

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