Part 1- The farcical 3 leaks on the broken riser story - cont.

BP's 3 leaks on a single riser were not only ridiculous but impossible.

BP claimed the first leak(1) was at the kink of the riser (bent riser) on top of the 70ft blowout preventer (BOP). BP admitted that most of the oil was gushing out into the Gulf was from the secondary leak (2). The smaller gas leak at well A could not be capped until the real rogue well (BE) aka leak(2) was sealed or bottom-killed 18,000 ft bsl (reported since July 2010).

The third leak (3) was a just puny gas leak flowing out of the open end of a drill pipe. Figure 165-0 gives the various schematic illustration of the 3 leak points on the riser, based on BP sourced information. Besides adding the labels for clarity, the only other item added to figure 165-0a was the NW SE fault line. This fault line, as we shall see in later articles, was the critical factor in the shallow gas problems encountered in all the 3 wells.

Simple logic dictates that it was physically impossible for these 3 leaks to occur on a single riser from a single blowout. Certainly not the way BP explained it. Figure 157 in Another Physical Impossibility 2 Leaks On The Broken Riser gave some of the discrepancies noted on Leak(1) and Leak(2) as early as Aug 2010. Note that leak(3) was allegedly sealed by capping the open ended drill pipe. Later articles will also show how BP tried to buy time by going through the charade of junk shot kill, top kill, top caps and giant domes etc, while the teams on site set up another BOP and reattached the Bent Riser at well A, to start the “dog & pony show” from mid May of 2010 onwards.

In addition to the 6 discrepancies found in comparing leaks (1) and (2) in figure 157, here are a few more:

The open ended 5½ inch drill pipe at leak(3) is of different physical dimension from the pipe (casing) at leak(2) and the Bent Riser on top of the BOP at leak(1). See the marked differences in figures 165-1b and 165-2.

At leak(3) the 5½ inch drill pipe should have been inside the 21 inch main riser pipe with the attached Choke, Kill, booster and hydraulic supply lines. It is physically impossible to explain how a long “naked” drill-pipe could have been stripped off its 21-inch Riser pipe casing at the mid-section of the riser string. More impossible still was the fact that it was sticking vertically out of the seabed with the weak gas plume. The naked standing drill-pipe could only be possible if it was ejected from the blown well itself.

If the riser was carrying the same drill pipe string (5000 ft long), how did the pipe at leak(2) suddenly become several times larger than the drill pipe shown at leak(3), immediately after the blowout?

In comparison with the other broken segments of the riser string lying on the seafloor, why was leak(2) so special and different if it was also broken from the same riser string? Fact: leak(2) could not possibly be from the same riser string.

BP claimed that leak(3) was sealed by capping the drill pipe. Why couldn't the drill-pipe within the riser at leak(2) be similarly capped? There were many reasons they couldn't. The main reason? Leak(2) was the blown crater of well no. 3 (well BE) and not the broken riser carrying the drill-pipe within.

Leak(3) was undeniably an open ended disconnected pipe just as leak(2) was. There could only be one severed open end in the riser segment still connected to the BOP. It can only be leak(2) or leak(3) and not both.

How did the oil “jump” across leak (3) and continue to flow to leak (2) as illustrated in 165-0a and b?

The later illustration (165-0c) corrected the leak(3) anomaly by placing it after leak(2). Only problem then, how do you explain the “open ended pipe” at leak(2)?

Figure 165-2 and BP's investigation report confirm that there were two 5½ inch drill-pipes within the Bent Riser. This means that the drill-pipe string within the riser was already disjointed near the BOP. How could oil/gas flow through a disjointed drill-pipe to leak out at leak(3) more than 500ft from the BOP?

The black oil plume at leak (2) was obviously more voluminous than the lighter orange-brown gas leak at leak(3) or leak(1). The color of the oil / gas plumes is consistent with the differences in the flow rate and volume noted in all the three leaks. Fact: the leaks are from different ground sources.

The videos show that the riser string was completely severed at several points and all the severed sections showed no gas/oil leaks. If Leak(1) was on the same riser string as leak(2) and leak(3) why was it not showing any oil/gas leaks until after mid May 2010 (more than 20 days later).

The earliest video on 23 April 2010 clearly showed a steep sided blowout crater with no “surface” riser going into the crater. The oil spewing pipe at the base of the deep crater, had to originate from the well below. With no visible supply of oil (through the surface riser), the obvious oil supply had to be vertically beneath the crater. This further confirms that leak(2) was the blown third well (BE). See the close-up view at figure 165-5.

The bent riser on top of the BOP was not leaking at all in the early videos before BP publicly broadcast leak (1) in mid May (20 days later). If leak(1) at well A was the primary leak, it does not make sense to show the secondary leak(2) first. Not unless the primary leak(1) at well was non-existent and had to be set up first?

Setting up well A as the “primary leaking well” was not in the original plan. It was a backup plan. This explains the more than 20 days media blackout on the supposedly primary leak(1).

The riser piping could not have bent and twisted like a pretzel and yet still remained intact, as the astonished experienced driller from Drilling Ahead believed (more of this later).

The riser string did in fact break at several places as seen in figures 165-1a and 1b. Again how could oil flow through these “severed discontinuities” in the riser? Fact: There was no oil flow as the ROV inspections showed.

The clearest evidence is the photo-shot of the vertically standing riser section (speared into the seabed). There was no oil spill emanating from it or in its vicinity. This clearly refutes the ridiculous official story that a neutrally buoyant riser with floats could dig itself beneath the seabed (like a buried pipeline) only to spew out the oil hundreds of feet away. Physics of Impossibility does not get more ridiculous than that.

If the well was already gushing out oil from the instance of the first blowout on 20 April 2010 (reported by BP to fuel the rig fire) why was there no immediate oil spewing out of the broken riser as it was sinking. The rig fire was in fact fed by more than 700,000 gallons (60% of max capacity) of diesel stored onboard the rig. Why was more than 60% of fuel still onboard the rig at the end of its long 3 months drilling campaign? Why was BP so certain free flowing crude from the well was fueling the rig fire without evidence?

It is now confirmed (see figure 165-3) that it took less than 16 seconds to fully bend from an upright (slightly inclined) position. The DWH (falsely reported as having sunk at 10:22 CDT) could not have sunk 5000ft to the sea bottom within a minute. Thus the riser pipe had to be deliberately broken near to the BOP; possibly less than 1000ft. Otherwise how could a marine riser which could withstand 80 mph Hurricane Ida, break at mid-section in very calm water? A shorter break segment from the BOP could also explain the extremely fast bending event. Now the question is how did the riser break? Subterfuge comes to mind.

The fact that there was no visible oil gushing out of the broken end of the riser as it sank, further confirms that the base plug at the bottom of the well had not yet breached completely (more of this in later articles) at 10:22 CDT 22 April, 2010.

If this was the case, why did BP, blog forums and the coast guards repeatedly stressed that “oil from the reservoir was freely flowing into the rig through the riser and feeding the intense fire on the burning rig”? Were they speculating or preparing the public for the anticipated massive oil spill that was planned but yet to happen? Again this shows that blowing up and burning the rig just for insurance claims were not the main objectives. BP's apologists have frequently stressed that this objective was pointless and they were right. The oil spill was their main objective and a blowout without the spill is like having dinner without the main course. It would be less than fulfilling especially after years of elaborate planning.

Rov inspection of the BOP and the seafloor around the well (BE) on 22 April 2010, showed no signs of gas plumes, blow holes or oil emanating from the well head. That would explain why the Bent Riser did not have any gas leaks on 22 April where most of the doctored-relooped footage were shown. Then 20 days later, BP showed the same Bent Riser with the orange-brown gas plume (at well A). If BP could turn on and off the gas leaks, why should there be a massive oil spill in the first place? Alternatively, BP switched wells. That is pretty obvious, is it not?

Even if the riser was still intact (despite the twists and bends), how could the “supposedly long riser string” plant itself inside a deep (at least 5m) crater without disturbing the overlying cemented drilling mud and sediment?

There are many more flaws in BP’s official story but we shall reserve them for the coming articles. But how could entire teams of federal regulators and investigators, all failed to recognize and investigate into the flaws of BP’s official version of the disaster? Willful Blindness and Complicity come to mind. 

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. ~ Abraham Lincoln

back to section 1

(http://bklim.newsvine.com/_news/2012/02/10/10376634-bps-deception-in-the-gulf-part-1-the-farcical-3-leaks-on-the-broken-riser-story)