Ideas to Contain and Recover the Oil in the Gulf

I feel I have a solution to stop any more of the oil from spreading throughout the Gulf until you are able to fix the well in the next 2 to 4 months by drilling the relief wells and then closing off this one. This Idea could save the environment.

 Now take a moment and think outside of the box, just a little. Everyone is thinking that the oil has to come up from the well head in a pipe. The oil is rising without a pipe right now so a pipe is not needed, the oil as we see it rises by it's self, but is not controllable and is spreading all over where ever the ocean currents take it even before it reaches the top surface of the water. Still with a cap on the well there is hundreds & hundreds of barrels of oil a day coming out of the well and BP is only managing to collect a few hundred barrels a day, leaving hundreds to spread onto our shore lines damaging the ecosystem. 

Now if you were to take an endless plastic tube like a silage bag for putting hay bales in, these bags are made as long as you want, they make them about 6’ to 15’ in diameter. With a bag or this plastic tube of about 10’ to 15 ‘ diameter pull it all the way down and put it over the top of the well head and tie it there. It is so much bigger than the pipe coming out of the ground that it does not need to hold any pressure, it needs only to contain the oil & water coming up to the surface. It will be a very large column and you will need to have it open at the bottom to allow water to come up inside of the tube to help the flow of oil up to the top. As it reaches the top, where you have the plastic tube connected to a floating oil tank that is 20’ to 30’ in diameter an about 50' to 100’ long and when floating upright in the water about 20’ to 30’ of the tank will be out of the water. It may have to be longer so that about 50' is out of the water. With the bigger diameter oil tank, the water that came up with the oil would keep the oil and gas in the top part of the tank where it will be pumped off and the water would separate out at the bottom of the tank and this will help to stabilize the tank at the same time. This would allow the oil to be contained and pumped onto tankers at the surface.

A top or cover could be placed on the tank so you then could have a flare stack connection. You then could connect to a pipe/hose to run a flare away from the floating tank and the oil tankers could pump from the connections that are put on the floating oil tank. Because of the larger diameter of the floating oil tank the pressure would be nil or close to it as long as the tankers where pumping off the oil, one would have to keep safety in mind first. This safety tube is something that maybe or should be considered on any oil well under water.

There may be some salt water with the oil but that can be separated out either in the floating oil tank or after it has been pumped on to the oil tankers. The plastic tube may very well have to be of a stronger material but it would have to remain very flexible.  I want to help were I can with this oil spill.

I think all of you involved are doing a great job at trying to fix it. Keep up the good work and I hope this will help to contain the oil so it can be picked up before it spreads in the water any more.

You have my web address www.DuaneFoster.com

Here is my Ph # to contact me 250-421-3009 or my direct line is 250-420-2358, email is dfoster@ekrealty.com

You may want my toll free # it is 866-426-8211 ext 358 

I am in Cranbrook, British Columbia, Canada.

Thanks for the time, please let me know how it works.

D