re: #389 Fat Bastard Vegetarian

I thought it was five thousand feet deep… what’s the 18,000…

Five thousand feet to the sea-bed from the surface, then the well is 18,000 feet below that to reach the pay zone. The first few hundred feet is muck, but it, and the 5,000 feet on water add to the weight of about 17,000 feet of rock.

Thus the oil in the well is under tremendous pressure, with the gas mostly dissolved.

As the hot oil and gas comes up the well, the gas starts to come out of solution and expands greatly, thus the added pressure and “kicks” of up to 16,000 psi. Think of a two mile long straw in a sealed Pepsi bottle, then multiply that many times over.

Look at that oil and gas shooting out of the leak. It is a fraction of the full well pressure - 400 - 500psi - yet is shoots through the 2,200 psi water like a jet of steam. Let’s hope we never see the 8,000 psi of the full well shooting out should the wellhead or BOP blow up.