Oil FAIL: The next acronym is LMRP (Lower Marine Riser Package)

Sat, 05/29/2010 - 8:39am — lambert

Houston Chronicle:

In the event of failure, BP's further options also involve risks.
The company also is drilling two relief wells to intercept the one that blew out, but that process could take another two months.
The company said Friday it has stopped drilling one of those wells so that its blowout preventer, or BOP, can be prepared for a later procedure if the top kill fails.
The backup plan would involve placing the new blowout preventer on the failed one that now sits on top of the Macondo well.
Because that would require cutting the damaged riser pipe that once linked the blown-out well to the surface, BP first would attach a device called a lower marine riser package cap. The LMRP cap would help control the flow of oil, which BP expects to increase by 5 percent to 15 percent if the riser is cut.
“We wanted to be fully prepared if top kill didn't work to be able to move straight to the LMRP cap and then follow that with the BOP on BOP option,” Suttles said. “We don't want any unnecessary delays.”

Of course, even as we board the LRMP FAILboat, we've got differing interpretations of what the LRMP is supposed to accomplish. The Houston Chronicle reporters quoted above, being from the Oil Patch, presumably have good sources and know what they're talking about. But here's London's Financial Times:

In the event of failure, BP's further options also involve risks.
The first would be a new cap to put on top of the BOP to capture most of the oil and allow it to be to collected by a ship on the surface. This would involve cutting away the broken pipe emerging from the top of the BOP to expose what is known as the lower marine riser package (LMRP), so that the cap could be fitted.
The cap is already in place on the sea bed and could be deployed in three to five days after being given the go-ahead.
The danger is that when the broken pipe is cut away, it will remove one of the obstructions preventing oil escaping and the leak will become even stronger.
A similar risk accompanies the next plan, which would be to drop a new blow-out preventer on top of the failed one and then close it off, as the original BOP should have closed.
Again, this would require cutting away some of the pipe at the top of the old blow-out preventer, risking a faster release of oil.

The FT reporters quoted, being from the London, where BP's world headquarters are located, presumably have good sources and know what they're talking about. But they mention a surface ship, and Houston does not. The captured oil could, of course, be resold.
Just seems, to this media critic, odd. But it's also of a piece with all the confusion about when pumping operations start and stop, and their success or failure. Recall that, to this day, we've got no authoritative estimate of flow rate. And yet, there's massive computer modeling being done at the behest of the unified command, and flow rate(s) have to be parameters for the modeling! We've got video of everything, but the video timecodes are all screwed up, and there's no archive available -- and whatever the government owns, people should be able to see ("most transparent government in history," and all).
Is it that BP's public relations people aren't controlling the story? Or is it that confusion, obfuscation, and disinformation are their method for controlling the story?
NOTE Meanwhile -- and it sure is odd that the "kill shot" operation would conclude on Memorial Day weekend, isn't it -- The Oil Drum gives the state of play:

What I believe is going on is that BP is running a series of "junk shots" with the Nat Lab "junk"*, and after they run one they fill the well with mud to see if it has changed anything. To date, while there are changes (you stop doing this when there aren't) they haven't been enough. But after each time that they fill the well with mud, they switch the pumps off while they go and regroup. That allows the gas and oil to push the mud back out of the way (one of these tries, perhaps, it won't and we will know that it has worked).

Why, again, aren't actual, paid journalists from our famously free press not watching the cams? In other protracted disaster stories -- Apollo 13 and the Iranian Hostage Crisis come to mind, along with Hollywood paparizzi -- we had exactly that level of coverage. An intern could do it, for free, or a stringer, for what, $20K? But the press isn't watching the cams! That, to me, is almost the oddest part of this whole story.
NOTE * The National Laboraties did some analytical work to optimize the sizes and shapes of the junk.

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'Top kill' fails, BP moves on 'to next option'

 By the CNN Wire Staff
May 29, 2010 8:25 p.m. EDT

Robert, Louisiana (CNN) -- Three attempts to pump mud and 16 tries to stuff solid material into a breached Gulf of Mexico oil well failed to stop the flow, top BP executives said Saturday, and engineers and executives with the oil giant have decided to "move on to the next option."

That option: Place a custom-built cap to fit over the "lower marine riser package," BP chief operation officer Doug Suttles said. BP crews were already at work Saturday to ready the materials for that option, he said.

Suttles said three separate pumping efforts and 30,000 barrels of mud -- along with what chief executive officer Tony Hayward described as "16 different bridging material shots" -- just didn't do the trick.

"We have not been able to stop the flow," a somber Suttles told reporters. " ... Repeated pumping, we don't believe, will achieve success, so we will move on to the next option."

Suttles and other officials said that the "top kill" attempt to stop the flow did so -- but only as long as they were pumping. When the pumping stopped, the oil resumed its escape. And Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry said that BP would resume using undersea dispersants for the new attempt to trap the oil.

Suttles said the lower marine riser package cap "should be able to capture most of the oil" that has fed what is now the largest oil spill in U.S. history, but he cautioned that the new cap will not provide a "tight mechanical seal."

"We're confident the job will work, but obviously we cannot guarantee success at this time," he said.

Engineers should be ready in about four to seven days to make the fresh attempt, he said. Landry said officials were "disappointed in today's announcement," but noted that the immediate efforts to stop the flow were never intended to be permanent.

"The real solution, the end state, is a relief well," she said. BP currently is working on two relief wells, but they are not expected to be ready until August, Suttles said.

Earlier, Suttles said that BP engineers would try to place a second blowout preventer -- the piece of equipment that failed when the Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20 -- should the lower marine riser package fail. The failed blowout preventer is a 48-foot-tall, 450-ton apparatus that sits atop the well 5,000 feet underwater.

Suttles and Landry praised the clean-up efforts, however, in light of the failure of the "top kill" attempt to stop the flow.

"It's a tribute to everybody that we only have 107 miles of shoreline oiled and only 32 acres of marsh," Landry said.

Meanwhile, teams in Louisiana were working Saturday on a clean-up project aimed at protecting coastal marshes. Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser has said that machines would suck oil out of marshes Saturday after crews determined where to deploy them.

But Nungesser told CNN that BP needed to "step up to the plate tonight to save our wetlands" by using its might to create sand barriers to prevent the oil from moving into the marshes.

"BP needs to say it will pay to move those dredges and pump that sand berm," he said. "We are gonna die a slow death if we don't get that berm. We've got to have that barrier island."

President Barack Obama, who toured the area Friday, said federal officials were prepared to authorize moving forward with "a portion of" an idea proposed by local officials, who want the Army Corps of Engineers to build a "sand boom" offshore to keep the water from getting into the fragile marshlands.

But Nungesser said the marshes couldn't wait and that the effort needed to start immediately to save the Louisiana wetlands.

Government scientists on Thursday said as many as 19,000 barrels (798,000 gallons) of oil were spewing into the ocean every day, making this disaster perhaps twice the size of the Exxon Valdez incident.

Previously, BP officials and government scientists had said 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons) of crude were flowing out daily.

"This is clearly an environmental catastrophe," Hayward said Friday. "There's no two ways about it."

In an e-mail message sent out after the announcement Saturday, Hayward said he was "disappointed that this operation didn't work."

"The team executed the operation perfectly, and the technology worked without a single hitch," he said. "We remain committed to doing everything we can to make this situation right."

Obama's visit to the region came under intense political pressure to take control of the situation.

"We want to stop the leak, we want to contain and clean up the oil and we want to help the people in this region return to their lives and livelihoods as soon as possible," the president told reporters.

About 25 percent of the Gulf of Mexico exclusive economic zone has been put off limits, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and fishermen are worried the gushing oil will take a more serious toll than Hurricane Katrina did in 2005.

"Katrina was nothing but rain, water and wind. This is poison. It's gas," oysterman Arthur Etienne said.

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GULF OF MEXICO OIL SPILL UPDATE: New Rules & Presidential Visit

Outgoing U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen has now said the government team calculating the extent of the oil spill in the Gulf if close to announcing its findings. According to the latest CBS Evening News poll, just 35 percent of Americans approve of the Obama Administration’s handling of the oil spill.

Congress continues to grapple with the question of how much BP and other oil companies should be on the hook to pay for major oil spills such as the one in the Gulf. Senator David Vitter (R-Louisiana) has now become the third Republican to block Democratic efforts to raise the liability cap for oil companies. He blocked a unanimous consent sought by Senator Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey) to pass legislation that would make the cap unlimited, up from $75 million.

Senator Vitter and Energy and Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) have introduced another bill to codify BP’s commitment to paying all the costs associated with the cleanup in the Gulf from the Horizon spill. Senator Vitter said on the floor of the Senate on Tuesday that his bill would only address the Gulf spill rather than other oil companies and future spills.

BP officials are continuing to run diagnostics on the blowout preventer above the leaking well, a final step before the top kill effort gets underway today or tomorrow. BP has also now given details of another backup plan if the top kill doesn’t work. This would involve what BP calls the LMRP cap, for Lower Marine Riser Package. The very top of the blowout preventer would be severed using the robotic submarines and a new containment dome would be lowered onto the blowout preventer that would capture much more of the oil than has been captured thus far.

President Obama faces growing pressure from fellow Democrats who say he should take stronger action to step the BP oil spill. Republican criticism of the Administration’s handling of the spill is also escalating. Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming said yesterday, “the cloud of confusion over how much oil is spilling into the Gulf is very concerning. And it’s also very unclear who was in charge.”

Meanwhile, BP is under fire for their continued use of the chemical dispersant Corexit that the EPA calls toxic. Scientists and legal experts have said the chemical may be toxic to marine life.

On Thursday, President Obama will announce new permitting procedures for oil rigs and tougher inspections to ensure safety and environmental rules are being followed. The President is also scheduled to receive a report on Thursday from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on the cause of the BP spill. The President also heads to the Gulf coast on Friday, his second visit in about four weeks, as the administration is under fire over how well it is overseeing a complex fix-it effort.

The Interior Department’s new regulations governing safety and environmental practices will replace a system of largely self-regulation by the oil companies and will include mandating additional inspections of rigs after their construction is complete to ensure that safety features are installed properly.

Tropical Storm Risk this week predicted that the 2010 hurricane season in the Atlantic will be 'active' and produce 16 tropical storms, including eight hurricanes, four of them intense, with a 74 percent chance that more storms than normal will hit the continental US. The 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, which starts June 1, is expected to be among the most-active on record. Academic and commercial forecasters are calling for the storm total to range from 14 to 18 named storms by the time the season ends December 1. As the number of hurricanes rises, so do the chances of one striking the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf is home to about 30 percent of U.S. oil and 12 percent of U.S. natural gas production according to the US Energy Department.

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