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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Les H who wrote (252186)	6/5/2010 11:45:25 PM
From: Les H	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

The ultimate worst-case scenario is that the well is never successfully plugged, said Fred Aminzadeh, a research professor at the University of Southern California's Center for Integrated Smart Oil Fields, who previously worked for Unocal Corp. That would leave the well to flow for probably more than a decade. More likely, the relief wells will eventually succeed, though it might take longer than the three months predicted by BP. It took Mexico's state-owned oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos nine months to plug its Ixtoc I well after an explosion and fire in 1979. The company's first attempt with a relief well failed, so it had to drill a second. Eventually, more than 140 million gallons of crude spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, the biggest offshore oil spill on record. Last year, an explosion at a well off the Australian coast owned by Thailand's national oil company, PTT Exploration & Production, required five attempts before it could be plugged by a relief well 10 weeks after the spill began. BP has improved its odds by drilling two emergency wells at once. If a first attempt fails, it will have the second well ready to try again. The company is using techniques such as a larger well bore, raising its chances of hitting its mark, said Robert MacKenzie an analyst with FBR Capital Markets in Arlington, Va. Plugging the well is another challenge even after BP successfully intersects it, Robert Bea, a University of California Berkeley engineering professor, said. The company has said it believes the well bore to be damaged, which could hamper efforts to fill it with mud and set a concrete plug. nationalpost.com