Golmer's Blog

@TheScienceGuy Bill, I understand you are taking ideas for how to kill the oil well. First of all, if my method winds up being used now or in the future, I want to claim full rights to any patents that come forth from it (even though this will probably go right in the bit bucket).

The standing riser that comes off of the blowout preventer is 22” in diameter. The drill pipe designed to fit down the riser is somewhat smaller than that - say somewhere around 10 or 15” in diameter. 

It is assumed that, even at uncontrolled blowout pressures, the drill pipe could be inserted a few meters into the riser, and perhaps (depending upon how much internal damage there is) a few meters into the blowout preventer. The further, the better, but a few meters would be sufficient.

A rifle cleaning brush is basically made of a pipe (or twisted stiff wire core) with bristles attached to that core. The brush is inserted into the barrel and the wire bristles engage the inside surface of the barrel to clean it.

Anyone who has ever cleaned a rifle knows that, when using the proper-sized brush, one can shove a wire cleaning brush DOWN the barrel of the rifle, but it is practically impossible to stop halfway down and pull it backwards. This is because the bristles bend backward while pushing the brush forward, and “lock in” to the sides of the barrel sufficient to prevent it from being pulled back. 

The scenario is exactly similar to the riser tube and drill pipe scenario on the well - except one would have to add bristles to the affair. I propose that a section or two of standard drill pipe be modified by welding properly sized steel wire cable lengths to a section of the drill pipe in a helical pattern to make a giant “bottle brush” that could be inserted into the riser tube and even down into or past the blowout preventer. The end of the section, of course, would have to have a sufficiently long bare section to allow insertion under pressure to get the whole affair started. A standard drill rig could be used to insert the modified drill pipe, and it could even be rotated as it is inserted to help the brush go down. You could also add a weighted section of drill pipe above the brush section to help force it into the riser. (Of course this would be dependent upon severing the riser near the top of the blowout preventer).

The brush would not be used to directly stop the flow - actually it wouldn’t do that at all - (and if it did directly stop the flow it would be practically impossible to insert) - it would merely be used to provide a base for aggregation of “junk shot” material, mud, and concrete that would actually be what stops the flow. i.e. once in place, it wouldn’t be able to be forced back out by the pressure of the well, and it would accumulate material like a blood clot in an artery sufficient to allow the riser to be blocked. 

This would probably work even if there are still mangled pieces of drill pipe in the riser/blowout preventer.

One or more of these simple-to-make modified drill pipe sections could be stored on every single oil rig and disaster recovery vessels on the planet for use in such emergencies.