U.S. NAVY SALVAGE REPORT DEEPWATER HORIZON ... - ESSM

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Response
6/28/2010 SITREP
Admiral,
The attached drawing depicts the next phase of BP's MC252 well containment and disposal plan (CDP). I will discuss
the principle aspects of this plan as shown in the drawing.
Current situation:
1. Discoverer Enterprise is producing 15-18 M BOPD (thousands of barrels of oil per day) and 30-40 MM SCFPD
(millions of standard cubic feet of gas per day) via LMRP cap #4, installed above the cut MC252 marine riser.
2. Q4000 is flaring 6-8 M BOPD and 18-19 MM SCFPD via, in series; the MC252 kill line, a flexible jumper to a
manifold on the seabed (the old dynamic kill manifold), a flexible jumper to a riser termination package, the Q4000
drill string inside the Q4000 marine riser.
The short term goal is to increase product capture to the point where the LMRP cap can be removed and a
combination BOP stack/valve manifold installed onto the MC252 LMRP. This would allow complete capture of all
product w/o the risk of over-pressurizing the well bore and releasing product into the adjacent subsea formation, and
subsequently the water column. Before the well can be completely capped (vice the partial cap that is currently
installed w/four vent valves releasing product into the sea) additional product must be captured to eliminate the risk of
over-pressurization.
Short term plan to capture additional product:
1. The MC252 choke line is already connected to the old dynamic kill manifold with a flexible jumper. Jumpers will
now be connected in series from this manifold to a new manifold (CDP Manifold in the drawing) and from there to a
free standing marine riser (Free Standing Riser #1 in the drawing). The CDP manifold is on the seabed and Free
Standing Riser #1 has been installed. Unfortunately, the jumper installation has not gone well (missing gaskets,
crimped goosenecks) and as of tonight, only one of the four required connections has been made.
2. A transfer line will be installed on top of Free Standing Riser #1 and connected to a buoy that can be pulled into a
production vessel, securely latched into that vessel and then used to transfer product from the riser to the vessel.
This is existing Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) technology. Once these connections have been
made, and appropriate valve alignments on the manifolds completed, product can flow from the MC252 choke line,
through the jumpers and two manifolds, into free standing riser #1, through the transfer line, into the buoy and then
into the production vessel. In the drawing, this vessel is listed as Toisa Pisces. However there has been a change
and production vessel Helix Producer (HP) will be used instead of Toisa Pisces. Tanker Loch Rannoch will be used to
lighter product from HP once HP's tanks are full.
This system will allow capture of 20-25 M BOPD, enough to initiate the next phase in BP's plan, removing LMRP cap
#4 and attaching a BOP stack/valve manifold to the MC252 LMRP. I will not discuss subsequent phases of the overall
plan in detail in this report b/c multiple options are being studied and the short term work is not yet complete.
Short term prognosis:
Jumper installation will probably not be completed on night shift tonight. The seas are making up and I expect that all
subsea installation work will be put on hold tomorrow until the weather improves. Estimate for re-initiation of subsea
work based on current track of TS Alex is Saturday 7/3.
Figure 5-19. Sample SITREP from ICP Houston.
3. Lastly, NAVSEA 00 needed someone who was familiar with the activities in Houston to
be able to respond to questions about the operation and suggestions for employing Navy
assets. Questions ranged from those generated by U.S. Congressional staff to those
asked by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. COMNAVSEA would typically forward
them to SUPSALV for generating the response. Suggestions ran the full gamut from
thoughtful and potentially useful to off the wall. Because many of these suggestions were
not practical or would actually be detrimental to the effort, COMNAVSEA needed
someone who could speak with authority on the pros and cons of those suggestions.
The range of suggestions encountered included sending the SEALs in to stop the leak or
to send a nuclear tipped torpedo down the well. A typical response to one of these
suggestions would include the words “We have drawn on the insight and expertise of
NAVSEA engineers (embedded for over a month with the crisis engineering team in
Houston, TX) The proposed concept for this innovative suggestion is…”, “However,
there is no current short-fall in that capability.”
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