I have no idea, but I would take this beat around the bush response from BP as it's something they don't even want to think about. COVINGTON, La. (AP) â BP spokesman John Curry says the company does not know how much oil is contained the vast reservoir nearly three miles beneath the seafloor. Curry said Sunday that the company didnât have time to properly analyze how much was in the discovery well. He says if the oil rig had not exploded, BP PLC ultimately would have drilled another well to complete that analysis. Curry says the uncertainty over how much oil is in the reservoir does not change BPâs response. The company has been trying to stop the gusher for nearly six weeks and the realization that oil could be flowing into the Gulf for months is setting in for Gulf coast residents. © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
There seems to be no let off in pressure. If you think about how quickly the pressure in a balloon goes down when you let just a bit of it out it indicates how much is left. Do you remember that experiment with the coke bottle when you filled it with water and then pierced it the distance the water travelled from the bottle fell when the level of the water fell very quickly. It is the same principle. Surely if the reserve was waining it would be declining in pressure. So far it seems stable.
I'm searching now for where I saw it, but early on I remember reading that if left unresolved, the well would continue to spill for roughly 7 years...
Just some quick numbers for your plug idea- The diameter of the riser pipe is 21 inches. This yields an area of pi/4*21^2 = 346 square inches. The pressure is roughly 2500 psi where the oil is escaping the BOP. 346 square inches * 2500 pounds per square inch = 866000 pounds. Your simple plug will need to weigh at least that amount to simply counteract the force of the flowing oil. To create an effective seal, you'll need much more force. This is a very bad idea anyways though because they believe the well casing has been compromised subsurface, and they fear that if they try to stop the flow (increasing the pressure on the subsurface parts of the well), the well could blow out again (more or less) underneath the sea floor. That is very bad news because it could 1) blow off the BOP, causing even more oil to flow forth or 2) the relief wells would be dealing with many more unknowns, and it would be possible the kill effort would be unsuccessful due to the kill fluids flowing out of all the unknown orifices in the casing.
Well, if it's say 100 million barrels and it's currently estimated at about 12-19,000 BBL leaking daily. Let's take 100 million divided by 15,000 = 6,666.6 days:eek: (Scary number), divided by 365 =18.26 years. WOW!