dammit, hydraulics attached to new cap has a leak. i would have thought they would have checked all this before using it. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/us/16spill.html "The company stopped collecting oil from the well on Wednesday afternoon, laying the groundwork for the test. But a BP spokesman said the company had found a hydraulic leak on the line attached to one of the valves, and that they were repairing it before moving forward."
the leak is fixed and testing the cap will resume. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/us/16spill.html?hp
BP oil well is no longer leaking into the Gulf of Mexico | NOLA.com Cross your fingers and pray that this holds. Pressure is being monitored and low pressure would indicate a leak forming somewhere else.
the cap that was put on a few days ago? you sure they couldnt have tested that before they put it a mile under? (of course i dont KNOW what im talking about, but it seems to be a reasonable guess)
""BP PLC's well integrity test survived the night as pressures steadily rose showing that a newly placed cap might have the ability to complete shut-in an overflowing well in the Gulf of Mexico, a company vice president said Friday morning. Pressure continues to rise," BP Vice President Kent Wells said during a teleconference. The pressure on the cap is over 6,700 pounds per square inch, Mr. Wells said. " good news so far. any one know why the pressure rises slowly? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704913304575371131773344468.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
The pressure will rise slowly while gas/oil is flowing into the drilled hole. When the pressure pushing on the cap(Understand that the same force is also pushing back at the fluid flowing into the hole) becomes greater than the force pushing the fluid into the hole, the pressure will stop rising. If the force that the pressures equalize is greater than the cap can contain, it will leak/be pushed off/have to have a valve open. In the worst case, that pressure will be greater than some other place in the well hole can contain. If that happens, it will fracture the casing/formation, and cause an underground blowout. Basically the well will be flowing from one spot underground, into another spot underground, and could come up through the sea floor. It would be very nearly impossible to stop at that point. That is why they are monitoring it so closely. If the pressure starts dropping, they have broken down the formation down hole (because the pressure can't be lost if the well is closed with the cap), and they will have to open the cap quickly and pray it didn't fracture far enough that it flows into that formation.
