Now, I will admit,...I have been having trouble with idea of this being close to " over ".....I didn't after they initially got the " 3-ram capping stack " installed, in fact I was tickled. But I immediately began to have doubts because of flip-flopping from Thad Allen , Ken Wells and all the other high-level persons involved in this .
.......all of a sudden this is not appearing to be a cut-n-dry situation
.......I think about the amount of sand/particulates in the crude....
.........where did it come from......?
.........how large a void has been created by letting this well run for almost 3 months....?
........perhaps one of the most bothersome things, for me, is the continued venting of gases from the sea-floor.
.......The hydrate stability zone only extends 1000' down.
.......Hydrates normally form in the mudline/stability zone because of contact with liquid and temperature/pressure ( P/T )
......let's say that a flow of crude has found it's way from a lower level leak around the wellbore.
.....let's also say that it has eroded a pathway through the solid lithofied layers of rock, all the way up to the mudline.
.....the oil would cool down, the contraction of the cooling oil , and the reduction in pressure from vertical migration would allow gases to sublimate from the fluid.
.....normally, this gas would start to form hydrates as soon as P/T and seawater allowed it.( as it migrated upwards through the silt/mud )
.....however, ...we have all been watching various gases venting from the seafloor for almost 4 weeks now.
.....so...in the mud/silt...there's water for the hydrates to form...
......there's gas necessary to form hydrates........
......the pressure is conducive to hydrate formations.....
......what's missing from the equation here.....?
......Temperature's cool enough to allow hydrates to form...that's what's missing.
......not only temperature,....but over-saturation of gases in the mudline.
......since any leaking oil migrating through alternate channels would be rising against ambient pressure in the seafloor, it would be rising slowly.
......so my question after all that conjecture is :
Is crude oil building in a massive deposit under the mudline....?
Basically pooling under the mudline....?
I do not for one second think that only gases would be leaking form this well at any point of damage in the bore.
It is a physical impossibility ?
This video does not share characteristics of any natural methane seep footage I have watched, that is why I am starting to question whether these "seeps" are natural, skip to 1:50 if you want to see what I am curious about.
BP live feed from Ocean Intervention III ROV 2 seabed is broken now [?]
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV3U_r2gMAg