No Relief Well in Sight

An anonymous commenter to my original article on BP having to wells caught on camera asked me a very interesting question. He asked if BP are drilling two relief wells not in case one failed to intersect underground the only well they claim exists, but because they mean one to tap into both Well A and Well B. It does make sense if there are indeed two wells down there to drill two relief wells.

The story on the news was that BP started drilling two relief wells simultaneously in case one of them missed intersecting the relief well. They described it something like trying to hit a straw thousands of feet below ground with a drill the size of another straw. The BOP's pipe diameter above ground is 18.75 inches, according to Transocean's web page about Deepwater Horizon, and the well bore itself underground is I believe 16 inches, with another inch or two of steel casing around it, what is left of that casing, anyway.

So trying to hit something that small with a drill going down thousands of feet is a tricky task. It would be a good cover story for BP to say they're drilling two relief wells if they were only publicly trying to hit Well A but were secretly planning to tap Well B underground as well, that is if hitting them were not as difficult as they claim.

They probably couldn't get away with secretly drilling another pair of relief wells for Well B because the presence of two additional drilling rigs sitting above MC252 drilling rigs would be obvious, and they would have no publicly-admitted purpose being there. And with directional drilling, BP don't have to have the rigs positioned in any particular spot in order to hit either Well A or Well B. They can change direction underground.

Notice that even though the media always mentioned twin operations to drill relief wells when they started being drilled but now mostly talk about "the relief well" in the singular and when it will be finished. I'd like to thank the "3:22PM Anonymous" commenter from my old post. I think he may very well be correct and that BP may never have meant the second relief well to go down and hit Well A underground. We'll never be able to prove this theory either way, since there are no ROVs down under the ground, monitoring the operations. The only people who know where the relief wells are being drilled to are those operating the drills.

If I and Anonymous are correct and there are two wells involved in this oil disaster I sure hope there is a whistleblower out there who will start making noise to the media. Because Transocean itself, the derelict company with a terrible safety record who owned Deepwater Horizon have now gotten the contract to raise the wreckage of their stricken rig. Transocean faces possible criminal charges along with BP in the deaths of the 11 men aboard their rig and massive civil damages in addition. Yet they are being given sole custody of the evidence which could be used to damn them. Deepwater Horizon had multiple "black box" recorders on board, monitoring its systems and computers. You can bet that these will never be admitted to have been found, even if they are indeed brought up from the depths.

Transocean, BP and the government are colluding to hide the truth of this disaster from us. I can't say for certain if the second relief well is in fact, as Mr. or Ms. Anonymous thinks, going down to Well B, but it makes sense. No one can say for certain because BP will not show us. For them, out of the public's sight is out of the public's collective mind.