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re: if top kill fails-keep pumping sea water

Posted on 5/29/10 at 10:25 pm to
Posted by redstick13
Lower Saxony
Member since Feb 2007
40439 posts
Posted on 5/29/10 at 10:25 pm to
When I first started in the oilfield my company had a rig which took a kick and lots of the pipe blew out through the hydril and curled up like spaghetti on the deck. I remember they came out with nitrogen and froze the pipe which allowed them to cut it into sections with the pressure still inside of it.

I've wondered if that could be an option with the temperatures at the mud line.
Posted by redstick13
Lower Saxony
Member since Feb 2007
40439 posts
Posted on 5/30/10 at 1:20 am to
So I thought about this some more and I was all messed up originally. First I was using the column of kill mud as part of my hydrostatic calculations but because there is no annulus full of kill mud to surface that is inaccurate. The hydrostatic head that would be generated would be the mud that actually went down the annulus at the wellhead however many feet before the gas forced it up.

Because a 14.0 ppg MW was needed that puts the formation pressures at ~13,000 psi. Since the annulus has been vacated of drilling mud they would have to pump kill mud down ~10,000 feet below the mud line to overcome the formation pressures. That's using a hematite mud at 25 ppg.
There's no way they would get drilling mud that far down just pumping from the top.
This post was edited on 5/30/10 at 1:44 am
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