A Standby Barge Ready To Launch A Well Capping Module

The idea as proposed is not bad, although there are some limitations: 1. You will see that barge is too small to carry everything. Your capping module technical stuff but most of all, like now 1500 m pipe or hose of a respectable diameter. 2. Not that I want to be pessimistic, but that barge will just the other parts of the world and barges don't travel that fast. 3. Not all the oil rig problems will or can be solved using this system. I hope like everyone that the spill will be contained, but this will be only a temporary fix with still a lot of risks. And the Hurricanes can come in a few months too. With the pipe or hose, probably all they get will be a floating well with an output of oil. Keeping this in place will be a main challenge too and having tankers pumping the oil out and staying in place also. This forum has already 3 posts about the oil spill and it is not my intention with this post to open a 4th one. We will see soon what the work will be and what results it will show. Thank you.

This idea was not intended to be a permanent fix,, the design would be to cap a broken pipe or leak with a module of sufficient weight massive enough to contain the psi of the leaking oil without any hose or pipes required. The module could be fitted with a pipe or hose connector for later use after the leak is stopped.

What is being accomplished here is to stop the flow in a few hours as opposed to days or weeks. Going to a steel fabrication yard on shore find material and find around the clock fabricators, crash design, build and transport a fixture, while a pipe is discharging thousands of gallons of oil, does not make sense.

The design could be a large concrete steel reinforced "box" with the right shape and weight to be lowered from a center opening of the barge to cover the leak. If this arrangement could be made cheap enough each drilling rig could have one standing by.

Roy H.

The idea is a reasonable one. I would be keeping an idea on the progress of the large cone they are going to try and lower over the wellhead, although there will probably be problems with the wreckage that fell.

So long as the crane stays in place, and the oil rises, they should still be able to capture a lot of the oil with it, until relief wells are done, or new bops stabbed in place.

Chris

Your thoughts are good but you can not set a device over a pipe and get a seal due to the slot that would be required to fit over the pipe not around the pipe.

Not all wells will use the same piping configuration to add to the problem.

To get a Idea of the task, think of standing on a diving board and lowering a soup can over a shot glass in the bottom of the deep end of a swimming pool.

The barge is a good idea it, but could be old technology before it could be of use. Who would own the barge, you would be talking about a multi-million dollar piece of equipment for that rare same event.

the time to close the barn door is before the horse escapes. I commend you on your inventiveness, but suggest that the better solutions are the ones that prevent the leak in the first place.

Every situation is very different - if you had a hundred solutions sitting on the shelf the new problem would most likely require something different.