re: Links to live feeds from remotely operated vehicles (ROV)

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I think that it is a bubble level and they are trying to find out if the thing is cutting straight. I don't see the bubble.

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Yes, it is a level indicator according to several things I have read.
What they really want though is for that head to be plumb, so the new..doo hicky with the gasket will seat correctly and they can hook up to it to pump later on.

Risers are designed to be neutrally bouyant.

The yellow thing is a bullseye that tells you if the riser is straight, its used to tell if the rig is drectly over the BOPs.

As for the process of spudding a deewater well it goes like this.


A drilling assembly is made up using a mud motor and MWD and is lowered into about 150 feet of casing until the bit sticks just out the bottom. It's attached to the casing at the top. That is lowered down to the sea floor and when the pumps are turned on, the mud motor turns the bit. You jet that assembly until the top of the casing is a few feet off the sea floor. At that point you shut off the pumps and release the drilling assembly from the casing and continue drilling ahead to around 1,000 feet allowing all the sediments to pour onto the sea floor. All the process takes places typically using sea water unless a shallow water salt flow is encountered at which point water based mud will be pumped away. Once the desired depth is reached you run an inner string of casing and cement it in place and it is at that point that the BOP is latched up.

Weeelll, I don't know Judge, Seems that the saw is bolted to the flange so that the cut is lined up perpendicular to the flange. This is a good thing so long as they can get the pipe plumb before the...whatever that new thing gets attached.

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Is that clamp on the left coming loose?

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Sure looked like something on the cutting assembly was moving. That can't be good..

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redstick13

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thank you for the insightful information.

Youtube site that has animations.

LINK

I asked yesterday about cementing casing and liner hangers. An animation of how it's done.

LINK

BP confirms the saw is stuck. Second saw is an option. Sucks no progress while I slept.

I'm sure everyone is sick of hearing ideas, but I don't understand how this didn't work, or why it wouldn't work. Instead of trying to attach a pipe of the same diameter, why couldn't a tapered pipe that surrounds the whole BOP not work? I know this is basically the cofferdam, but instead, I would not put the top so close as to where the hydrates would form. Just have a huge upside down funnel controlling the flow into normal pipe. Another similar idea I have heard is one using a flexible material instead of a pipe to "funnel" the oil, a material like kevlar.


But what makes the most since to me would just be a huge pipe to guide the flow, until the relief well is done.

Really crappy picture to give a visual:

The drilling riser and BOP alone push the limits of what these rigs can support. This contraption would weigh enough to sink 10 rigs.