Epic Oil Spill...FUCK!
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3113
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What Og said. A word used to describe an enigmatic device (gadget) that may look overly complicated or hastily cobbled together; the technical name for it is unknown (if it has one), and how it works is a mystery, so it's called a "contraption."
The word usually has a derogatory feel to it--like those using the term doubt the "contraption" is going to work.
3113
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So...big screws are out, huh?Another idiot wanted to know why they just didn't bolt something to the ocean floor to cap it. Yeah, like there are place to bolt things on an ocean bottom that made up of light silts.
TxRad
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If they are three or four thousand feet long and a couple of feet across they might work. Got a couple or four in your pocket?
SeaCat
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D
DeeZire
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Okay, Mr. Civility, if they have nothing to attach a riser to, as you explained in your quote above, what are they going to do with the new riser attached to the box as explained in your quote below? (BTW, I don't drive an SUV, I drive an old Nissan pickup - approximately 5,000 miles per year.)
ETA: Since you appear to be the designated drilling expert around here, would you care to comment on the opinion below?
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xssve
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You're just upset because your BP stock fell. Some lilies just collect the profits of other peoples labor and call it "work".
TxRad
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The new riser will not be the thick monster they use for drilling but a lighter weight production type. They will also have to move in and anchor another rig or production platform if any are available.
The reason this well was being plugged and capped is that the production facilities and pipelines were not already in place. This well and several more that were already drilled with no problems are part of a deep mapping program to evaluate the value and size of the discovery.
The cost of drilling these 17,000 foot foot wells here on dry land is roughly 3.5 million dollars per well. That does not include any costs for the production end. So you can figure the cost of drilling offshore in 5000 feet of water to be double or even triple. If the field is too small it may never be produced until the price of oil goes way up again.
Opinions are like the assholes that write them, slanted to the side they write for.
The deep hole shut off valve is not a requirement. It is something Shell Oil came up with to use bottom hole pressures to be able to drill faster. It's more of a pain in the ass than anything and it sure isn't a safety device. It's basically a hydraulically controlled stainless steel flapper valve mounted inside the casing. It has no seals of any type, just metal on metal.
As for how deep they drilled and if it is below permit depth, I have no idea. Permits are changed before, after, and during drilling all the time. Since they bought the mineral rights to that block and the well was basically a wildcat, they were within their rights to go deeper.
The depth they drilled to has no bearing on the blow out. A bad cement job on casing and a failed casing packer are the cause of the blowout, so quit trying to make this a political deal. It ain't.
dr_mabeuse
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Finger-pointing Time!!
Feds let BP avoid filing blowout plan for Gulf rig
Yahoo news Emphasis added.
NEW ORLEANS – Petrochemical giant BP didn't file a plan to specifically handle a major oil spill from an uncontrolled blowout at its Deepwater Horizon project because the federal agency that regulates offshore rigs changed its rules two years ago to exempt certain projects in the central Gulf region, according to an Associated Press review of official records.
The Minerals Management Service, an arm of the Interior Department known for its cozy relationship with major oil companies, says it issued the rule relief because some of the industrywide mandates weren't practical for all of the exploratory and production projects operating in the Gulf region.
The blowout rule, the fact that it was lifted in April 2008 for rigs that didn't fit at least one of five conditions, and confusion about whether the BP Deepwater Horizon project was covered by the regulation, caught the attention of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.
Following a tour of a boom operation in Gulf Shores, Ala., Salazar said Wednesday that he understood BP was required to file plans for coping with a blowout at the well that failed.
"My understanding is that everything was in its proper place," said Salazar.
But an AP review of government and BP documents found that the company had not filed a specific comprehensive blowout plan for the rig that exploded April 20, leaving 11 workers dead and spewing an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil a day.
Instead, a site-specific exploration plan filed by BP in February 2009 stated that it was "not required" to file "a scenario for a potential blowout" of the Deepwater well.
When questioned about the exemption claim, BP spokesman William Salvin said provisions for handling a blowout incident were actually included in the firm's 582-page region oil spill plan, though he had difficulty pointing to specific passages.
He later maintained that the Deepwater location was not subject to the blowout scenario requirements because it triggered none of the conditions cited in the MMS's April 2008 notice to operators about a loosening of the rules.
Still, Salvin insisted the company was prepared to handle a blowout and catastrophic spill at the project through provisions included in its regional plan.
"We have a plan that has sufficient detail in it to deal with a blowout," Salvin said, while acknowledging that the ongoing crisis at the Deepwater site is "uncontrolled."
The lack of a specific plan for the Deepwater project raises questions about whether BP could have been better prepared to deal with the ongoing disaster and whether MMS is fulfilling its regulatory oversight.
Robert Wiygul, an Ocean Springs, Miss., environmental lawyer, said the lack of a blowout scenario "is kind of an outrageous omission, because you're drilling in extremely deep waters, where by definition you're looking for very large reservoirs to justify the cost."
"If the MMS was allowing companies to drill in this ultra-deep situation without a blowout scenario, then it seems clear they weren't doing the job they were tasked with," he said. "The MMS can't change the law just by telling people that they don't have to comply with it. I think it really indicates that somebody at MMS was asleep at the switch on this."
Brendan Cummings, a Joshua Tree, Calif.-based lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity, said the exploration plan submitted by BP for Deepwater Horizon failed to adequately analyze the project's oil spill risks. Cummings has filed a notice of intent to sue the government over another offshore drilling operation, by Royal Dutch Shell in Alaska.
"The technology used on the now-sunken Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf was supposed to be the most advanced in the world, including various mechanisms to prevent or cap a blowout," Cummings wrote in the filing. "None of these mechanisms worked, and the state-of-the-art technology completely failed to stop the spill."
In its 2009 exploration plan for the Deepwater Horizon site, BP strongly discounted the possibility of a catastrophic accident. Similarly, Shell's environmental impact analysis for its Beaufort Sea drilling plan asserts that the possibility of a "large liquid hydrocarbon spill ... is regarded as too remote and speculative to be considered a reasonably foreseeable impacting event."
The Deepwater Horizon disaster is not the first time MMS has been criticized as being too close to the oil industry.
In 2008, the Interior Department took disciplinary action against eight MMS employees who accepted lavish gifts, partied and — in some cases — had sex with employees from the energy companies they regulated. An investigation cited a "culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" involving employees in the agency's Denver office.
MMS workers were given upgraded ethics training.
===============================
I like that: "upgraded ethics training."
This is a problem with all Government regulatory agencies. They ALL become cozy with the businesses they regulate. Why? Because government regulators don't earn much, so after watchdogging some industry for a few years, they find they can make a lot more money by quitting the agency and becoming consultants to the industry they were regulating, advising them on how to get past the very regulations they used to enforce.
This happens with the FDA and the IRS, and I'm sure it happens with most other regulatory agencies. There's a revolving door between business and government, and money (surprise, surprise) makes it go round.
Feds let BP avoid filing blowout plan for Gulf rig
Yahoo news Emphasis added.
NEW ORLEANS – Petrochemical giant BP didn't file a plan to specifically handle a major oil spill from an uncontrolled blowout at its Deepwater Horizon project because the federal agency that regulates offshore rigs changed its rules two years ago to exempt certain projects in the central Gulf region, according to an Associated Press review of official records.
The Minerals Management Service, an arm of the Interior Department known for its cozy relationship with major oil companies, says it issued the rule relief because some of the industrywide mandates weren't practical for all of the exploratory and production projects operating in the Gulf region.
The blowout rule, the fact that it was lifted in April 2008 for rigs that didn't fit at least one of five conditions, and confusion about whether the BP Deepwater Horizon project was covered by the regulation, caught the attention of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.
Following a tour of a boom operation in Gulf Shores, Ala., Salazar said Wednesday that he understood BP was required to file plans for coping with a blowout at the well that failed.
"My understanding is that everything was in its proper place," said Salazar.
But an AP review of government and BP documents found that the company had not filed a specific comprehensive blowout plan for the rig that exploded April 20, leaving 11 workers dead and spewing an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil a day.
Instead, a site-specific exploration plan filed by BP in February 2009 stated that it was "not required" to file "a scenario for a potential blowout" of the Deepwater well.
When questioned about the exemption claim, BP spokesman William Salvin said provisions for handling a blowout incident were actually included in the firm's 582-page region oil spill plan, though he had difficulty pointing to specific passages.
He later maintained that the Deepwater location was not subject to the blowout scenario requirements because it triggered none of the conditions cited in the MMS's April 2008 notice to operators about a loosening of the rules.
Still, Salvin insisted the company was prepared to handle a blowout and catastrophic spill at the project through provisions included in its regional plan.
"We have a plan that has sufficient detail in it to deal with a blowout," Salvin said, while acknowledging that the ongoing crisis at the Deepwater site is "uncontrolled."
The lack of a specific plan for the Deepwater project raises questions about whether BP could have been better prepared to deal with the ongoing disaster and whether MMS is fulfilling its regulatory oversight.
Robert Wiygul, an Ocean Springs, Miss., environmental lawyer, said the lack of a blowout scenario "is kind of an outrageous omission, because you're drilling in extremely deep waters, where by definition you're looking for very large reservoirs to justify the cost."
"If the MMS was allowing companies to drill in this ultra-deep situation without a blowout scenario, then it seems clear they weren't doing the job they were tasked with," he said. "The MMS can't change the law just by telling people that they don't have to comply with it. I think it really indicates that somebody at MMS was asleep at the switch on this."
Brendan Cummings, a Joshua Tree, Calif.-based lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity, said the exploration plan submitted by BP for Deepwater Horizon failed to adequately analyze the project's oil spill risks. Cummings has filed a notice of intent to sue the government over another offshore drilling operation, by Royal Dutch Shell in Alaska.
"The technology used on the now-sunken Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf was supposed to be the most advanced in the world, including various mechanisms to prevent or cap a blowout," Cummings wrote in the filing. "None of these mechanisms worked, and the state-of-the-art technology completely failed to stop the spill."
In its 2009 exploration plan for the Deepwater Horizon site, BP strongly discounted the possibility of a catastrophic accident. Similarly, Shell's environmental impact analysis for its Beaufort Sea drilling plan asserts that the possibility of a "large liquid hydrocarbon spill ... is regarded as too remote and speculative to be considered a reasonably foreseeable impacting event."
The Deepwater Horizon disaster is not the first time MMS has been criticized as being too close to the oil industry.
In 2008, the Interior Department took disciplinary action against eight MMS employees who accepted lavish gifts, partied and — in some cases — had sex with employees from the energy companies they regulated. An investigation cited a "culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" involving employees in the agency's Denver office.
MMS workers were given upgraded ethics training.
===============================
I like that: "upgraded ethics training."
This is a problem with all Government regulatory agencies. They ALL become cozy with the businesses they regulate. Why? Because government regulators don't earn much, so after watchdogging some industry for a few years, they find they can make a lot more money by quitting the agency and becoming consultants to the industry they were regulating, advising them on how to get past the very regulations they used to enforce.
This happens with the FDA and the IRS, and I'm sure it happens with most other regulatory agencies. There's a revolving door between business and government, and money (surprise, surprise) makes it go round.
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Huckleman2000
It was something I ate.
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Yup. Because greed is good, and government just gets in the way. Oil spills. Mine disasters. Financial industry meltdowns. Those are just acts of god. God, who in this case appears to be a golden calf.
Dragonlipz
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It's an act of God, right? Obama's God, though, not a white God....A white God would never do that to white people.......
TxRad
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From the account, I have to wonder where the methane gas came from. The casing was set to bottom and cement had been pumped. It sounds like a bad cement job. Gas and/or Oil can cut cement if it's not done right. Gas cut cement won't set up properly and stays soft and chalky.
Cement setting up does generate heat but all the methane should have been behind casing. Sounds like the cement let go and released the gas. At that time, it's game on and every second counts. First you have a geyser of salt water and then gas to surface.
The article mentioned ignition sources. I'd love to know what they were supposed to be. Everything electrical on an offshore rig is run in explosion proof boxes. All electrical connections are explosion proof (sealed). The drillers booth is sealed and pressurized. The only sources I can think of would be the galley and the motor room on the other end of the rig. If that was the case then that was one hell of a gas cloud.
Someone earlier posted an article that mentioned they drilled deeper than their 18,000 foot permit. I've talked to a few people and found out that yes the well was deeper as Measured Depth (MD 24,000') but not deeper by True Vertical Depth (TVD 18,000'). Measured depth is the length of the drill string. TVD is the depth measured straight down from sea level.
The wells I drill here in North Louisiana are MD 17,400 feet but we seldom get below 12, 550 feet TVD. The hole they drilled was straight down to a point and then high angled out to give them more length through the pay zone. This has become a standard procedure on high profile wells and of course horizontal wells like we drill.
I was also told that, that rig had one of the highest and best safety records of any in the Gulf. Accidents happen and there is no way to see the bottom of a well bore.
Right now, we are working to control a high gas situation. The well is producing more gas than our mud weight can hold back. It's nothing like they had but it's enough of a problem that we've spent the last three days raising our mud weight.
To add to the problem, the formation is breaking down above us and taking mud so we are having to add Lost Circulation Material to the mud to seal the lost circulation zones as we raise our weight. Too much weight too quickly and everything will go south for a while and then it'll come see us as it did the rig off shore.
This happens everyday on a rig somewhere. You'd be surprised at how many disasters like the one off shore happen every day and get controlled as standard operating procedure. The oil field is a dangerous place, it always has been and it always will be.
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D
DeeZire
Guest
TX - I realize my uninformed musings annoy you, but for the sake of the layman, could you consider the following:
Years ago, when excavating for sewer lines and such, cave ins were an accepted risk, and men died in what we now know were preventable "accidents". Then they got the bright idea to drop a steel box into the hole to protect the workers from a cave in. Could we come up with similar safety measure for oil drillers?
If they have two or three seconds between when the sea water erupts and when the gas bubble that's propelling it follows, why couldn't they flip a switch that would not only activate the BOP (that doesn't always work) but also open a relief valve at the top of the rig, so the ensuing gas bubble and the oil that follows would be routed off the side of the rig and into the ocean (or a tanker ship), rather than allowing it to shoot straight up?
I recall you mentioning that if the well had been properly monitored, the accident could have been avoided, or at least minimized. This is the aspect of the tragedy that seems to remain unaddressed in the news accounts. In other words, from the layman's point of view, I see negligence and a failure to utilize technology as the cause of the disaster, and I don't accept the idea that these accidents are an acceptable risk inherent in the process. Years ago, cave ins were an accepted risk for ditch diggers, but we managed to figure that one out.
TxRad
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A drilling rig is somewhat more complicated than digging a ditch or even a hole in the ground.
During normal drilling operations the well bore is capped with a high pressure rotating head that does divert any gas or oil away from the drillers. But and this is the critical but, they had finished drilling and steel casing had been run and cemented. At this point the well should have be safely dead.
They had place a down hole packer (retrievable Plug) and had displaced the heavy oil based drill fluid with salt water. They were in the process of setting an upper packer, which can't be done through a rotating head.
The fact that the well was cemented and plugged made someone or several people let their guard down. As you drill, the well will tell you what it's doing if you know what to watch for but under the circumstances they were working under, it was too fast to catch unless someone was on their toes.
The fact that big wigs from BP were on board should tell you how safe it was supposed to be. Suits don't show up until things are safe. That's just the way they are.
You don't annoy me. You just keep coming up with all these opinions about how unsafe everything is and how we need this and that, that we already have. Like all accidents, this one came from something unexpected and someone missing a small cue to start with. Once the genie of oil or gas is out of the bottle, disaster in inevitable.
Never hurry is the first rule in drilling from the old days. Lately, companies are trying to drill faster and faster to save money. They also try to hurry other operations. This is the real culprit in this whole thing. I know what was going on at the time even if i wasn't there. the fact that 9 drillers and 2 engineers were killed on the floor tells me a whole hell of a lot. 38 years experience gives me a lot of hind sight.
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TxRad
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Those icelike crystals are methane gas. Oil may be spilling from the well but it is saturated with methane gas. Oil from the well will have a yellow or yellow green color to it from the saturated methane. After the methane comes out of solution the oil will turn blue green.
Pump these crystals toward the surface and they will melt and expand just like the ones that blow up the rig. This is going to be a tricky proposition.
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TxRad
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It might also dislodge the obstruction.
trysail
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The possibility of gas hydrates clogging the containment structure was foreseen and understood as a potential problem right from the start.
It's good to see cooperation between engineers of companies active in deepwater GOM exploration. PEs employed by ExxonMobil, Shell and Chevron are formally engaged in drumming up ideas to solve the problem. There are a lot of engineers noodling around the clock. With all the public, media and political attention, it is necessary to guard against a risk of adopting precipitous action merely for the sake of appearing to "do something." The last thing anyone wants to see is operation of the law of unintended consequences and a bad situation made worse by an ill-advised gamble.
Though not fully understood, the existing wellhead stack is clearly choking off a lot of the well's open flow potential.
Songcatcher
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BP gets more money from insurance than the loss from this oil spill. The victims' family get none.
Incredible.
Incredible.
Handley_Page
Draco interdum Vincit
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" BP is legally required to cover economic damages from the spill up to $75 million. But Florida Sen. Bill Nelson has introduced legislation that would raise the liability cap to $10 billion."
Is that legal ?. Oh, I see, our team's loosing; shall we move the goal posts ?
Pity they cannot get he methane out separately; It's useful fuel.
Is that legal ?. Oh, I see, our team's loosing; shall we move the goal posts ?
Pity they cannot get he methane out separately; It's useful fuel.
Huckleman2000
It was something I ate.
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It would appear that the "law of unintended consequences" and "ill-advised gamble" have long-ago made their appearance for the purposes of this discussion. I think it was about the time that additional fail-safe measures and a plan to deal with a spill were both waived by regulators. Certainly, those phrases lapsed into gross understatement at the time the oil rig exploded, killing eleven people (in the initial blast) and fouling a huge swath of the Caribbean and southern coasts.
TxRad
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I keep wondering how far offshore this rig was. I also keep wondering how far out the Federal jurisdiction goes. Three miles? Hell, I've been a rig 127 miles out and we were only in 350 feet of water. Whose laws apply out off the continental shelf?
Songcatcher
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Did BP hire George Bush Snr's CIA front companey Zapata Off-Shore Drilling?
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