<p>I’ve been wondering how they shut off these wells once they aren’t productive. Do they use the BOPs for that purpose?</p>
<p>And what do you think they should do to prevent this sort of accident in the future (technically, I mean - leaving politics out for now)? Force them to drill relief wells at the same time they drill functional wells??</p>
<p>
But the best chances for sealing off the leak are two relief wells, the first of which won’t be ready until August. The spill has already leaked between 19.7 million and 43 million gallons, according to government estimates.</p>
<p>For the relief well to succeed, the bore hole must precisely intersect the damaged well, which experts have compared to hitting a target the size of a dinner plate more than two miles into the earth. If it misses, BP will have to back up its drill, plug the hole it just created, and try again.</p>
<p>“The probability of them hitting it on the very first shot is virtually nil,” said David Rensink, incoming president of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, who spent most of his 39 years in the oil industry in offshore exploration. “If they get it on the first three or four shots they’d be very lucky.”</p>
<p>The trial-and-error process could take weeks, but it will eventually work, scientists and BP said. Then engineers will then pump mud and cement through pipes to ultimately seal the well.</p>
<p>On the slim chance the relief well doesn’t work, scientists weren’t sure exactly how much — or how long — the oil would flow. The gusher would continue until the well bore hole collapsed or pressure in the reservoir dropped to a point where oil was no longer pushed to the surface, said Tad Patzek, chair of the Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Department at the University of Texas-Austin.
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