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Thread: BP, Oil and big gaping holes in the ground!

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    HEXUS.social member Allen's Avatar
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    BP, Oil and big gaping holes in the ground!

    Couldn't think of a better title.

    As we all know, BP have been having a lot of fun lately in the Gulf of Mexico. This has brought up a lot of conversations and got me thinking. I had a chat with my Dad about it a while ago, but neither of us really knew the answers and so I am asking here.

    It's not really about the spill per se, but the reports show that hundreds of millions of gallons of oil have leaked out into the ocean. Now, even though I'm pretty sure that this oil reserve under the bed of the ocean is (or maybe was) extremely highly compressed, I'm sure that hundreds of millions of gallons of oil would take up a fair amount of space. So, my question is, once all this oil had leaked out, what happens to that space that it used to occupy?

    Does it fill up with water from the ocean? Does the bed of the ocean drop down into it's space? Does magma rise from the centre of the Earth to fill the space?

    They are all probably ludicrous suggestions, but I really have no idea what goes on down there, so a little explanation would be nice. Or a link to a site which explains it, as I haven't come across anything so far in my searches.

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    Seething Cauldron of Hatred TheAnimus's Avatar
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    Re: BP, Oil and big gaping holes in the ground!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure

    In a nutshell, something has been compressed, a little too much, what leaves nothing will 'need' to fill, equilibrium has been achieved by venting.

    The best analogy I can think of, is a plastic bottle of water been squeezed in a vice. You keep tightening it, quite quickly the lid blows off (pretend the sides don't split). A bit of water gushes out of the top, but due to the reduced size of volume, there is no air filling it, still just water.
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    Hexus.trombonist
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    Re: BP, Oil and big gaping holes in the ground!

    Quote Originally Posted by TheAnimus View Post
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure

    In a nutshell, something has been compressed, a little too much, what leaves nothing will 'need' to fill, equilibrium has been achieved by venting.

    The best analogy I can think of, is a plastic bottle of water been squeezed in a vice. You keep tightening it, quite quickly the lid blows off (pretend the sides don't split). A bit of water gushes out of the top, but due to the reduced size of volume, there is no air filling it, still just water.
    However, oil is less dense than water, so shouldn't the oil naturally make its way out once the pressure equilibrium has been reached and be replaced with an equal volume of water?

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    HEXUS.social member Allen's Avatar
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    Re: BP, Oil and big gaping holes in the ground!

    Quote Originally Posted by TheAnimus View Post
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure

    In a nutshell, something has been compressed, a little too much, what leaves nothing will 'need' to fill, equilibrium has been achieved by venting.

    The best analogy I can think of, is a plastic bottle of water been squeezed in a vice. You keep tightening it, quite quickly the lid blows off (pretend the sides don't split). A bit of water gushes out of the top, but due to the reduced size of volume, there is no air filling it, still just water.
    I dun geddit...

    OK, I understand that if it's highly compressed and some comes out the rest will just expand to fill the void (as per a lighter or aerosol cans etc), but we're talking hundreds of millions of gallons here...

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    Senior Member KidChameleon's Avatar
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    Re: BP, Oil and big gaping holes in the ground!

    I was thinking about this the other day as well. Do they drain all the oil out of the hole, or do they let the pressure push the oil out until it's in equilibrium? If they leave oil in the hole due to it being in equilibrium, wouldn't that be a waste of oil? If they suck out all of the oil, what fills the gap?

    Obviously I have no idea about this stuff and might be asking irrelevant and overly simplified questions.

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    Senior Member Lanky123's Avatar
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    Re: BP, Oil and big gaping holes in the ground!

    Wikipedia is your friend...

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_well#Completion

    The sections on completion, production and abandonment appear to be relevant. It looks like most wells are of sufficiently high pressure for the oil to just spurt up to the top when you drill through to them. Once the pressures reach equilibrium oil companies can pump various substances down to replace the oil and force more up to the surface, if it is economically viable.

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    Senior Member Kata's Avatar
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    Re: BP, Oil and big gaping holes in the ground!

    Oil and gas resides in the "pore spaces" in the rock; tiny, tiny holes in the rock structure. The oil has to be forced out, it doesn't just leave of its own accord!

    In a traditional reservoir, you have an dome shaped cap of non porous rock. Below that you'll have a gas-cap, then an oil layer, and water below that. Gas and Oil is less dense than water, and has a lower hydrostatic head; therefore, the gas and oil is at a higher pressure than the water table surrounding the reservoir.

    When the reservoir is drilled, this means that the gas and oil is forced out as water rises from below due to the pressure difference. You'll normally aim to "complete" the well in the oil layer, to give maximum possible oil production before the gas and water breaks through.

    Now, this is not an efficient way to get oil; there's lots left! There are many ways of enhancing your production. I'll briefly address two:

    One is "artificial lift". You either use down-hole pumps, for example the traditional "nodding donkeys", or you inject gas down the well to lower the mean density of the oil colum in the well and allow it to keep flowing.

    You can also inject things into the reservoir to maintain pressure and force the oil out. This could be water or gas, or even special polymers that "sweep" the oil ahead of it. This all costs money, of course.

    The space vacated by the oil is filled by water, gas, or polymer. However, the reservoir pressure has lowered and in some cases this can lead to subsidence of the land above; this is rare however, and usually only a problem in shallow reservoirs.


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