[seahorse2]

I would like to know how deep water wells are "abandoned."

According to the MMS permit on DWH, they were going to drill and "abandon" two Wells, Wells A and B. Well A was planned to be drilled and abandoned by July 09. Well B, which blew out, was scheduled to be drilled and abandoned in April 2010.

When a well is "abandoned" how is it left? Do they leave a BOP there or is the BOP removed. What is left on the sea floor if the BOP is removed?

Does anyone have any link to Well A? Did they hit oil?

[Tami]

I would recommend heading over here and asking that question:

http://www.theoildrum.com/

They've got oil guys, science guys, oil science guys, drillers, mathematicians, underwater repair guys, economists, pictures, cool references and all sorts of articles discussing all angles of this stuff. And they are posting hundreds upon hundreds of posts a day.

Not to be rude, but the top topics here are currently tax refunds, anti-immigration rants about California towns, how awful Americans are and convoluted nonsense to try and prove it, yet more claims of a depression, another California story and a dispute as to whether or not Exxon Valdex oil cleanup people are all dead, or just most of them.

<ducking and running before some religious America firster neocon nut gets a clean shot at me for mentioning the obvious>

[obixman]

It's been a while since I've been involved, but here it goes:

All removeable equipment is pulled from the well.
The well bore is filled with a special fluid that is heavy and sets up, but doesn't penetrate far into the formation.
In the top portion of the well ( say a 1000 feet or so) this fluid is displaced with cement to ensure that the formation doesn't communicate with the shallow formations.
The well bore is cut off some distance (20 feet??) below the mud surface of the sea bed and is removed.
The hole left by all this work is back-filled and left as found.
All equipment is removed.


If done sucessfully this removes all evidence (except possibly some magnetic reading from the rest of the well's casing). This can be extremely effective if done well. Gulf drilled some wells int he 50's in some Florida keys and when the enviromentalists tried to find the sites to demonstrate the enviromental "damage" in the 90's they were unable to locate the drill sites.

... and that was from the 50's when things weren't done nearly as well as now.

[seahorse2]

Thanks Obix. Very helpful. I'm also trying to find out what happened with Well A which was the first well dug by BP at Macondo. Well B is the one that blew. I've heard various people talking on tv about Well A, but I would like to know where they get their info. Is there any info filed with the MMS on this? I did download the original drilling permit from MMS.

Tami, you don't give the site enough credit.

[Tami]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seahorse2', '
')Tami, you don't give the site enough credit.