Part 1
[audio:http://citadelcc.vo.llnwd.net/o29/network/Levin/MP3/ShowAudio/OilRigWorker1.mp3]Part 2
[audio:http://citadelcc.vo.llnwd.net/o29/network/Levin/MP3/ShowAudio/OilRigWorker2.mp3]There is no argument that the explosion and sinking of Transocean’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico – injuring 17 and presumably killing the 11 men missing who were on the main level of the platform – is a tragedy. No less tragic than the loss of life and injuries is the environmental impact the ensuing oil spill will have on fragile US Gulf Coast ecosystems and economy. As all hands hit the deck… from private contractors and military… to contain the spill heading towards land masses, fueled by weather, there is much the rest of us can ponder.
How vast can the damage be? And how should this affect Obama’s recent nod to offshore drilling?
It was only yesterday when Obama and Gibbs announced they remained committed to offshore drilling exploration. But today’s a new day. Whether bowing to Congressional peer pressure, or simply stunned by the speed at which the tragedy escalated, the POTUS shifted gears and today declared all plans are on hold until the Dept of Interior and Homeland Security complete their investigations for the cause.
It’s too early to tell, but already speculation has begun. The rig is a fifth generation engineering feat… but all the advancements in the world cannot eliminate the risk of a blowout. Transocean acknowledges that something happened in the hole… some abnormal build up of pressure. But at least two oil rig savvy engineers find that surprising, with the complex safeguards built in to minimize that event.
As for the damage estimates, the jury is still out on the Horizon’s impact. According to a CBS story yesterday, it would take two months for the 5000 bbls (or 210,000 gallons) daily, continuing to leak from the seabed floor, to equal the volume of the Exxon Valdez 11,000 million gallon spill in Alaska’s Prince William Sound. in 1989. The question is, how much time will it take to turn off the oil tap?
It remains unclear how much oil will flow into the Gulf before the flow can be cut off. The teams of state, federal and company officials charged with the cleanup have tried unsuccessfully to activate an underwater cutoff valve and now say they plan to dig a relief well half a mile away – a process that could take weeks or months. (BP, the company that leased the sunken rig, is currently leading the cleanup effort but has asked the military for assistance.)
While British energy giant, BP – singled out by the POTUS as the fiscally responsibly culprit – remains the corporate spokesman for the press, the rig was actually under lease contract. The Deepwater Horizon was designed, constructed, maintained and operated by Transocean LTD, headquartered out of Switzerland. As of Feb 2009, Transocean owned, had partial ownership interests in or operated 136 mobile offshore drilling rigs. The Deepwater Horizon is only one of 12 of the company’s ultra-deepsea rigs, drillerships or semi-submersibles in the Gulf. They have a commendable safety record.
When assessing the risks, there are two major categories… the loss of life in oil rig accidents, and any ensuing oil spills.
In the first category, the loss of life, the Deepwater Horizon doesn’t even come close to measuring up to the nine deadliest rig disasters. The most horrific toll of life was in 1988 aboard Occidental’s Piper Alpha Platform on the UK Continental shelf, where 167 of some of the stoutest industry workers lost their lives due to a gas explosion and fire. There was no oil spill. The 9th position deadliest disaster was in October 2007 on Petróleos Mexicanos Perforadora Central Usumacinta Jack-Up in Kab Field, Bay of Campeche, Gulf of Mexico. Twenty-two workers died during a storm collision between the platform and the vessel, the Usumacinta.
The adverse weather conditions caused oscillating movements of Usumacinta jack-up from around 1200 hours on the 23 October. These movements caused the cantilever deck of the Usumacinta to strike the top of the production valve tree on the Kab-101 platform, resulting in a leak of oil and gas. At 1420 hours, the subsurface safety valves of wells 101 and 121 were closed by PEMEX personnel, but the valves were unable to seal completely allowing the continued leaking of oil and gas. At around 1535 hours on 23 October, the 81 personnel on the Usumacinta were evacuated by lifeboat, with the ship Morrison Tide providing fire support. Rough seas hampered the rescue operation and appear to have caused the break-up of at least one liferaft.
Well control personnel were despatched to the Kab-101, with operations delayed by further bad weather and H2S release. Well control operations commenced with attempts to inject heavy mud followed by cement. Operations were again delayed on 13 November when a spark initiated by on-going work caused a fire to break out. The fire was extinguished the following day on 14 November at 2350 hours. A second fire broke out on 20 November, causing the collapse of the Usumacinta’s derrick and major damage to the cantilever and connecting bridge. The fire was extinguished the same day with no injuries.
Several phases of work then commenced, including debris removal from the Usumacinta, the attachment of a valve for controlled flaring, the installation of a blow-out preventer and finally the shutting in of the well followed by killing with heavy mud and plugging with cement. By 17 December 2007, PEMEX reported complete control of the well.
The resulting spill was “…circa 422 barrels per day of mostly light crude, of which 40% was estimated to have evaporated.”
As even the current POTUS noted just 18 days before the Horizon tragedy, oil rigs generally are not the source of oil spills.
I don’t agree with the notion that we shouldn’t do anything. It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. They are technologically very advanced. Even during Katrina, the spills didn’t come from the oil rigs, they came from the refineries onshore.
The lib/prog site, FireDogLake, was quick to point out that that rigs do indeed create oil spills on occasion…. 124 of them alone during Hurricane Rita and Katrina. However, lacking a perspective, FireDogLake doesn’t put the amounts it cites into proper perspective. The total of all those spills was 743,700 gallons – a mixture of crude and condensate, plus refined oil. Compared to the Horizon’s output, that’s the equivalent of leaking 3.5 days, and containable.
In fact, when it comes to oil spills, oil rigs are not the culprit. Using The Mariner Group’s statistics of oil spills from 1967 to 2004, there’s noted record of 120 major oil spill occurences. Out of those, approx three were the result of oil rigs… two of them on the same rig operated by Brazil’s Petrobras – a company with a record of violations and less than stellar safety record. The other was a Canadian rig in Nov 2004.
Approximately eight of those 120 were pipeline breaks, and one from an exploratory well accident.
The rest? Oil tankers take up the bulk of these. And not necessarily accidents. Often it’s just a common, but illegal, discharging of the tanks they do while underway at sea.
When taken into perspective, do we need to turn overprotective and skittish because of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy, backing away from a practice that historically has a good record for safety and performance?
And if we decide to punish oil rigs and offshore drilling with a kneejerk reaction, what will be the reaction to the true largest offender – the oil tankers crisscrossing the seas 24/7?
It’s likely the public will never get the true dose of reality on oil rigs and oil spills from the MSM… or even the infrequency of such accidents. Because I’m quite sure this will be seized upon for political purposes… And I’m equally sure that the political battle will rage, and take center stage even while all powers that be race to minimize the loss of wildlife and environmental damage.
It’s time we pulled our perspectives into focus. We do experience crises and accidents. There is no power in the world, or even the best laid of precautions, that will eliminate accidents – no more than a mother can keep her son, who broke his arm while climbing a tree, safe by moving him to the desert for the rest of his life. This is a great tragedy. But we must also temper our reactions with a hefty dose of reality.
Transocean Ltd. Provides Deepwater Horizon Update
ZUG, SWITZERLAND, Apr 26, 2010 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) –Transocean Ltd. (NYSE: RIG) (SIX: RIGN) today provided the following update on the Deepwater Horizon and the company’s role in supporting BP Exploration & Production, Inc. and the Unified Area Command in stemming the flow of hydrocarbons from the well.The Deepwater Horizon is insured for total loss coverage and for wreck removal, to the extent removal can be carried out and is required. The total insured value of the rig is $560 million.
The rig sank in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico after an explosion and fire last week, and it is now located on the sea floor approximately 1,500 feet northwest of the well center and away from any subsea pipelines. Transocean is committing all necessary resources to support ongoing efforts to stop the flow of hydrocarbons from the well.
Transocean is the world’s largest offshore drilling contractor and the leading provider of drilling management services worldwide. With a fleet of 139 mobile offshore drilling units plus three ultra-deepwater units under construction, the company’s fleet is considered one of the most modern and versatile in the world due to its emphasis on technically demanding segments of the offshore drilling business. Its worldwide fleet is more than twice the size of the next-largest competitor. The company owns or operates a contract drilling fleet of 45 High-Specification Floaters (Ultra-Deepwater, Deepwater and Harsh-Environment semisubmersibles and drillships), 26 Midwater Floaters, 10 High-Specification Jackups, 55 Standard Jackups and other assets utilized in the support of offshore drilling activities worldwide.
Statements regarding any future aspect of the incident on the Deepwater Horizon, the effects, damage assessment, support of efforts by others, insurance coverage, as well as any other statements that are not historical facts, are forward-looking statements that involve certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions. These include but are not limited to actions by the Unified Area Command and governmental agencies, actions by insurers, customers and other third parties, results of investigations and assessments, and other factors detailed in Transocean’s most recent Form 10-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which are available free of charge on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those indicated.
Vietnam era Navy wife, indy/conservative, and an official California escapee now residing as a red speck in the sea of Oregon blue.
I live in Pensacola and the news is frenzied about this oil potentially ruining our ecosystem. It won’t. As I suggested to my friends, they shouldn’t buy into the hysteria that the MSM is pushing, nor should they believe the hagiography that will be the result of Ozero’s triumphal reaction to events.
Natural oil seeps in just the Gulf of Mexico leak more than TWO Exxon Valdez’s a year into our waters. Not many that I made that claim to believe that, but it is true:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/01/000127082228.htm
Sitting in Alaska during the Exxon Valdez oil spill, I saw the bad and the good. The bad was the environmental damage and then all the blame against the oil companies. The good was the amount of people that went to work cleaning up the mess, and the amount of money Exxon spent to get the job done.
This might not be the time….but this may be the light at the end of the tunnel for unemployment. Obama will see a major decline in unemployment numbers for the rest of the year. BP will spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $8 billion or more in cleanup, and this $8 billion will go further and be more successful than the $787 billion stimulus money spent by Washington D.C.
Of course Obama will take all the credit for the decling unemployment numbers that we are about to see. Alot of people will be put to work cleaning up this mess, and BP will be opening up a bottomless checkbook to get it done.
Now, if we can only figure out why the Obama Administration is rolling out SWAT Teams to other oil rigs? Did we have an accident or a ‘man made disaster’?
hummmm what does Carl Pope have to say about this??
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carl-pope/drill-baby-drill—-or-wh_b_558473.html
Deepwater Horizon is also having impacts on American politics and public policy. The reputation and credibility of the oil industry, which repeatedly asserted that such a disaster could never happen again in the U.S. given the industry’s safeguards, are as badly shattered as the rig itself. In applying for its permit, BP certified that the maximum potential spill from any disaster at the site would not exceed 162,000 gallons a day. By Thursday, the rate of leakage had already passed 200,000 gallons a day.
Early investigations have revealed that BP did not bother to install — and that U.S. regulations do not require — a backup device to provide another layer of protection in case the “fail-safe” shutoff valve failed (which is exactly what happened). Brazil requires such a device, and oil companies like Shell install it routinely even in the U.S. BP didn’t because, at $500,000, it was “too expensive.”
Looks like MORE REGULATIONS could have saved another mess!!!
Did some idiot say “drill baby drill”??
CRAP… other than the fact that whenever you appear on one of my authored threads, I feel the need for another bath… you obviously do not read before you type hotlinks to that braintrust, Huffpo. (And to boot, Sierra Club’s Carl Pope. Conflict of interest much?)
BP does not own, operate, nor did it design or build the Deepsea Horizon. Considering they are leasing the rig from Transocean, why would they be “installing” anything? Why don’t you lease a car, and install a new airbag, bubba?
Furthermore, the investigations as to the cause are no where near conclusion. In fact it was only late on the 27th that they sorted out ground rules and jurisdiction for the investigation. Therefore your statement … “… which is exactly what happened” leads me to the conclusion that your new re’employment is not in either the oil industry, nor in the investigative world.
It then becomes even more hilarious when you and your Sierra Club guru hold up Brazil as an icon – Brazil, who’s company Petrobras is one of the biggest violators of safety in the oil rig biz.
All the regulations in the world will not defend against either a flawed safety measure, or some event that affects that safety measure to operate as designed. I suggest before you further blow horse manure out your posterior, you wait for the real experts to determine the cause and stick to licking envelopes.
A gentleman on the Deepsea Horizon when it exploded is actually going thru the chain of events live on the Mark Levin Show. The blowback protector was tested, passed, and they were reverting back to normal operations when something happened. Says gasback isn’t uncommon, and especially in this particular well. And the amount of enormous pressure is hard to predict.
When I can get an audio… or if anyone else gets it first – let’s get it posted here. He’s on the Mark Levin Show at approx 4:50p Pacific Time.
Uh… may be a stupid question, but why are we not blowing the crap out of the well head to seal the well…. so it will not leak further?
Seems like shaped charges placed by deep subs would work… didn’t we do that some of the wells Saddam set on fire during Desert Storm? (don’t really know… I was on a ship then, just had to breath the stuff… was pretty cut off from “news”).
More from the Levin interview with the rig man… says it could have been a once in a lifetime catastrophe, or it could have been negligence. Sometimes they don’t win the battle against Mother Nature. But the Minerals Management Service (Dept of Interior) has been out doing their safety inspections like clockwork, and no inspection has resulted in any reason to shut down the 2001 rig.
@Romeo13, he touched on the issues of dealing with the well cap in the interview. Says that all the issues of both the odorless gas releases and pressure… tho released by the explosion… are still present. They have to get thru the tangled wreckage of the rig itself as well.
I’m not sure, with the extreme depths of this particular well (it’s about 5000′ down, and that doesn’t include the well depth, of a record 32,000 ft, below the seabed surface), and the presence of those gases that simply setting some charges wouldn’t result in even more damage. But I’m sure they are running thru every scenario in their minds. Relief well is coming up alot. All time consuming, tho. No immediate fixes.
The guy did say they had to approach it very carefully, as it’s extremely volatile.
I’ve worked with 10,000 psi blowout preventers. They’re massive and rent out at a half million per month. With the platform gone, they’re gone. This fail safe valve(not familiar with it) could have been damaged with the platform collapse. If the casing, which is cemented in, has been disturbed- major, major, major trouble. The explosion happened on the platform( drilling mud not heavy enough, under balanced drilling, blowout procedures too slow). If gas has h2s in it( detectors not working properly, who’s monitoring the acidity of the mud?). I’m just thinking out loud. This is going to take time and deep pockets. The precedent sending out swat and lawyers- the Chicago response.
oil guy from Alberta, the rig worker said there was a ship there taking on the rig’s mud when it happened. They disconnected, and moved out a mile to stand by for rescue operations.
And as I said in my post… the politics will be moving swiftly for an agenda… and as you also reinterated, Waxman’s already announced … wait for it… *hearings*! groan…. Guess his time got freed up when he couldn’t assail Deere and other companies reporting their fiscal loses from O’healthcare.
I’ll catch the Levin replay at 20:00 MTN time. Not enough info here to analyze somewhat. If i catch something important, I’ll report and explain. Later.
That would be oh so appreciated, oil guy. If you get the full three hour show, it’s near the 3rd quarter of the second hour, and he brings him in for more at the start of the third hour. (oops… lost an hour there before editing….:0)
BTW, I see where Mr. Sierra Club, Carl jive-talking Pope, get’s his fingerpointing. From a CNN report where BP CEO, Tony Hayward, was prematurely pronouncing the investigation results – that Transocean’s “fail safe” mechanism as failed. Based on what? Probably trying to make sure they pick up some of the costs of cleanup, and take the Congressional heat. But that’s already in the works. Waxman’s hauling Transocean in as well…. hopefully they have some of their 20,000 employees available to go sit in front of the elected elite for a dog and pony show while everyone else works on containment.
Link to Levin audio – “James” was on the oil rig that blew in the Gulf – calls the Mark Levin Show and explains what occurred.
http://www.marklevinshow.com/Article.asp?id=1790422&spid=32364 (Parts 1 & 2)
Thanks WTD…. Mark sure got that up quick. I’ve added it as an update to the post above.
I put the audio directly onto your post Mata.
The earth ain’t fragile, it will be here long after we’re gone. It’s taken way worse than we could ever throw at it.Period. Oil seeps from the ocean floor every day in every ocean in large amounts. A concentration in an oil spill is a very temporary inconvenience at worst.
I read an article on Michael Savage web site that in Russia it is being shared the rig was hit by a North Korean sub torpedo. The WH immediately stopped any major media from sharing the story. Perhaps a conspiracy theory but one that could be true.
MATA;you have done extraordinary POST and more of it ;thank you, 🙄
Disenchanted, I trust neither Savage or the soviets.
While it may be a terrorist act, I’ll gladly wait to see if that is the case.
I recently saw a special on oil rig safety and I’m a little surprised at the accident. Unless it was built before the changes were in place, it does seem suspicious.
ok, I’ve heard some of it. The blowout preventer is on the ocean floor. That’s your failsafe and that makes sense. That’s the plug that they’re talking about. You got lower pipe rams, blind pipe rams(that sheers the drill pipe) and upper pipe rams and the hydril. All are hydraulically controlled and when there’s no electricity, nitrogen can be used as a propellant to close any or all as necessary. If all else fails, there are huge valve handles that can used to close the rams manually. At 5000 ft. below sea level good luck.
I also heard that there may have been up to 40k psi coming out the rig floor. Sounds impossible to me, but i heard from a rig hand. Don’t know about that one. If that’s true, they never had a chance. They were displacing drilling mud with sea water after the the hole was shut in at the seafloor. They say 5000 feet. Remember, when methane starts to rise from a bubble at 10,000 feet, when it hits the rig floor it surfaces like a freight train. The oil coming from the wellhead and they cemented the production casing means black gold like crazy if contolled. 5000 barrels a day-super well.
President “Miss me yet” and Vice President McHallibuton would know what to do. Precedent welfare organizer, strong arm the banks for mortgages, and stuff the ballot miscreant sends in the swat teams. Well done and done.
Rough transcript:
Levin: James, Dallas Texas, WBAP, go right ahead sir.
James: Just wanted to clear up a few things as a petroleum engineer.
Everything you said was correct. I was actually on the rig when it
exploded and was at work. We had
Levin: Slow down. Whoa, whoa, whoa, all right, slow down.
all right, so you were working on this rig when it exploded.
James: Yes Sir.
Levin: OK Go ahead.
James: We had set the bottom cement plug for the inner casing string which was the production liner [toward the well? -unclear]. And had set whats called a fuel assembly which in the top of the well. At that point the BOP stack, that he was talking about, a blowout preventer
was tested. I don’t know the results of that test, however,it must have passed because at that point they elected to displace the riser, the marine riser from the vessel to the sea floor. They displaced all of the mud out of the riser preparing to unlatch from the well two days later. So they displace it with sea water. When they concluded the test for the BOP stack and the inner liner, concluded everything was good.
Levin: Let me slow you, slow you down. So they do all these tests to make
sure that the infrastructure can handle whats about to happen, right?
James: Right. They were testing the negative pressure and the positive pressure
of the well, the casing, and the actual marine riser.
Levin: OK. I’m with you, go ahead.
James: So after the conclusion of the test, they simply opened the BOP stack
Levin: And the test, the best as you know was sufficient?
James: : It should have been. Yes, sir. Or they would have never opened it back up.
Levin: OK. Next step. Go ahead.
James: Next step, they opened the [anular – unclear], the upper part of the BOP
stack
Levin: Which has as its purpose, what. . .hold on . . .which . . why do you do that?
James: So that you can gain access back to the well bore.
Levin: OK
James: When you close the stack, that’s basically a humongous hydraulic valve that is
closing off everything from below and above. It’s like a gate valve at the, on the sea floor.
Levin: OK
James: That’s a very simplistic way of explaining a BOP, a very complicated piece of equipment.
Levin: OK Basically, it’s like a plug. But go ahead.
James: Correct. Once they open that plug to go ahead and start cementing the top of the well, the well bore, we would cement the top and then basically we would pull off that another rig would slide over and do the rest do the rest of the completion for the work. When they opened the well is when the gas, the well kicked, and we took a humongous gas bubble kick right through the well bore. It literally pushed the sea water all the way to the crown of the rig which was about 240 feet in the air.
Levin: Let’s see, so gas got into it and blew the top off of it. Now don’t hang up. I want to continue with you because I want to ask you some questions related to this, ok? Including has this sort of thing happened before? And why you think it may have happened. . .OK?
Levin: Alright, we’re back to James, that’s not his real name. Dallas WBAP, I’m not going to give the working title of what you did there either, James, but I wanted to finish, So, the gentleman was right about the point that obviously some gas got into the, I’ll call it the funnel, ok?
James: Correct, and that’s not uncommon, Mark. Anytime you’re drilling an oil well, there’s a constant battle between what the mud plate, the drilling fluid that we use to maintain pressure on the well bore itself. There’s a balance where if the well is pushing one way and you’re pushing mud the other way. So there’s a delicate balance that has to be maintained at all times to keep the gas from coming back in, what we call kicks. You know, we always get gas back in the mud, um, but the goal of the whole situation is to try to control the kick, you know, not allow
the pressure differential between the vessel and the well bore .
Levin: Well, in this case, obviously, too much gas got in.
James: Correct. And this well had not had a bad history of producing lots of gas. It was touch and go, you know, a few times.
but it’s just generally not that uncommon. You are almost always going to get gas back from a well. We have systems
that deal with the gas.
Levin: So, what may have happened here?
James: Well the, probably the sheer volume and pressure of gas that hit all at once was more than the safety and
controls we had in place could handle.
Levin: Is that like a mistake on somebody’s part? Or that just Mother Nature every now and then kicks up? What?
James: Mother Nature every now and then kicks up. The pressure we’re dealing with out there, drilling deeper and deeper. Deeper water, deeper volume of the depth itself. You’re dealing with 30-40,000 pounds per square inch range. Serious pressures.
Levin: By the way, we just, not to offend you, we just verified you are who you say you are, which I’m sure you already knew that. Uh, I would like to hold you over to the next hour because I want to ask you a few more questions about this as well as what happened exactly after the explosion, during the explosion. Can you wait with us?
James: Sure. I don’t know how much of that I can share, but I’ll do my best.
Levin: Alright. I don’t want to get you in trouble so to the extent you can fine, to the extent you can’t, we’ll understand.
END OF PART ONE 5:30
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
TAPE 2
Levin: We’re talking to a caller under an assumed name. He was on the rig when it blew up and we’ve been talking about how it happened. And now James, I want to take you to a point when it happened. What exactly happened? You are standing where?
James: Uh, obviously the gas blew the sea water out of the driver once it displaced all of the sea water, the gas began to spill all over the deck up through the center of the rig floor. The rig – you have to imagine a rectangle about 400 feet by 300 feet with a rig sitting directly in the center. As this gas, now heavier than air starts to settle into different places, from that point, something ignited the gas which would have caused the first major explosion.
Levin: Now what might ignite the gas? Do you know?
James: Any number of things, Mark. All rig floor equipment is what they consider intrinsically safe, meaning it cannot generate a spark so these type of accidents cannot occur. However, with as much gas that came out as fast as it did, it would have spilled over the entire rig fairly rapidly. Within a minute, I would think that the entire rig would be enveloped in gas. Now, a lot of this stuff, you can’t smell, you can’t taste it. It’s just there and it’s heavier than air and it’s heavier than oxygen. Now as it settled in, it could have made it to a space that wasn’t intrinsicly safe. Something as simple as static electricity could have ignited the first explosion which set off, of course, a series of explosions.
Levin: Um hmm. So what happened? You’re standing where? You’re sitting somewhere? What happened?
James: Well, I was in a location that was a pretty good way from the initial blast. I wasn’t affected by the blast. I was able to make it out and get up forward where the lifeboats stayed. The PA system was still working. There was an announcement overhead, to uh, that this was not a drill. Obviously, we had fire drills every single week to prepare for emergencies like this – fire and abandonment drills. Every intercom gave the order to report to lifeboats one and two, that this was not a drill, that there is a fire and we proceeded that way.
Levin: So the eleven men who died, were they friends of yours?
James: Yes sir. They were.
Levin: Did they die instantly?
James: I would have to assume so. Yes sir. I would think they were directly inside the bomb when it went off,
Levin: How did you get off there?
James: . . .the gas being the bomb.
Levin: OK. So the bomb being the gas in the explosion, you’re talking about?
James: Correct. They were in the belly of the beast.
Levin: Now let me ask you. We’re going to have to be careful what we say cause people will run wild with ideas so I just want to make sure. So let me ask you this. By the way, why would the government send in a SWAT team to a rig? What’s that all about?
James: Believe it or not, funny you should mention that. TransOcean maintains a SWAT team. the drilling company. Their
sole purpose, they’re experts in their field. The BOP, the blow out prevent-er, they call that subs?? equipment, they have their
SWAT team they send out to the rigs to service and maintain that equipment. They are specialized and highly trained.
Levin: I’m talking about, what are Interior SWAT teams. What is that?
James: Well Interior, from the government now, that. . .I don’t have any idea about that. That’s beyond me. And the other gentleman mentioned that USGS, that comes out to do the surveys. I’ve been on that particular rig for three years Offshore, five years and I’ve seen the USGS one time. What we do have on a regular basis is the MMS which is the Minerals
and Mines Service.
Levin: They are all under the Interior Department.
James: OK. We did have, as a matter of fact, we were commended for our inspection record from the MMS. We had actually
received an award from them for the highest level of safety and in environmental awareness .
Levin: I thought that you were going to receive that award. Didn’t they put that on hold?
James: No. We had actually received that award last year. We may have been ready to receive that again this year.
Levin: Let me ask you this, the lifeboats. So how did you get on the lifeboats? Where are these lifeboats?
James: There are actually four lifeboats. Two forward and two aft depending on where the emergency or tragedy is
taking place .
Levin: I mean, did you wind up jumping in the water to get on the lifeboats? Sometimes you have to do that.
James: Um, I’ll just say that there were five to seven individuals that jumped and the rest went down in lifeboats.
Levin: All right. I won’t ask cause you don’t want to identify yourself that clearly. Good point. How fast were rescue efforts? How fast did they reach you?
James: Well, there was, it’s common to have a very large work boat standing by, bringing tools out, bringing groceries bringing supplies. It’s a constant turnaround. So we actually had a very large vessel close by. It was actually alongside with a hose attached, taking mud off of our vessel onto his own, that had to disconnect. You know, in the emergency he disconnected and then pulled out about a mile to stand by for rescue efforts, so it was fairly quick.
Levin: How quick till the coast guard got there?
James: Mark, it’s hard to say. Between forty-five minutes to maybe an hour when I recall seeing the first helicopter.
Levin: Which is actually pretty fast because you are out a hundred thirty miles off shore, right?
James: Correct. If you look at the nearest bit of land, which would be Grand Isle, Louisiana, somewhere in that area,
we’re maybe at fifty miles as the crow flies. From civilization such as New Orleans, it would be two hundred miles.
We’re talking about the helicopter, maybe 80 to 100 miles away.
Levin: You are going to be beset by lawyers with the government, others looking for an opportunity to make money. It’s going to get very very ugly. And um, officials are going, with no background or experience, climate change and so forth. To what extent is that going to help anything? Silly.
James: Yeah, This seems all knee jerk. The number one focus right now needs to be containment. You know, I like the idea they are going to try to lower down the boom, down into the water to tray and capture the leak. All this other
Levin: And how long might that take? I’ve been reading about this boom and it says it could take thirty days to do that.
James: It very well could. You’ve got to remember the challenge of that environment. It’s 5,000 feet deep. There’s a tangled wreck of a rig with all that marine riser still connected and twisted up into a big wad down there. So, I mean, it’s going to take some time to get all that stuff in place. You know, the engineering has to be there and you obviously don’t want to rush into it. You want to move expediently but you also have to . . .you’re risking the lives of those men that are going to go out there and try to attempt this.
Levin: I was just going to say that. That’s very dangerous, I mean extremely dangerous.
James: Absolutely. There’s going to be oil, there’s going to be natural gas. All the same things that caused us to explode are still present. They’re there. The pressure has been cut off dramatically, from the simple fact of the bolting of the riser. Basically it took this great big garden hose and kinked it over several times.
Levin: How old is this rig? How long has it been there?
James: It was put in service in 2001. It’s a fairly new rig.
Levin: And um, what is the sense of shutting down every rig in the Gulf of Mexico in response to this?
James: Absolutely no sense whatsoever. It very well could be a once in a lifetime freak accident or it could be negligence. That’s for other people to figure out, but from my position, it just seems like, every now and then, you can’t win against Mother Nature. She throws you a curve ball that you’re not prepared for.
Levin: But to shut down every rig, I mean, in response to this? I mean I’m not sure why that
James: There’s no . . .This BOP tests are literally mandated from the Minerals Management Service and they are conducted like clockwork. I mean, and if one of those tests ever failed, they would immediately stop the operations, seal the well up, pull the BOP stack back up on the deck which is 48 hours minimum. And make the necessary repairs, order replacement parts and then go back down, reconnect, retest and keep testing until it passes or keep repairing it until it passes.
Levin: So this was a, I mean this was incredibly harrowing to you to experience something like this.
James: That’s putting it mildly.
Levin: Um hmmm. Yeah. Anything else you want to tell me?
James: No, I just got in the truck to make a short trip and I heard the gentleman say something about possible terrorism and I wanted to put all that to bed now. I understand you have a large audience. I appreciate your point of view. I try to listen to you as much as I can. It was just . . .the terrorism and all that needs to leave everyone’s mind and let’s focus on the eleven men that are dead and the survivors. That’s where the folks of this country need to be at now.
Levin: All right, my friend. We wish you all the best. I’ll tell you, it’s really God’s blessing that you survived. It really is.
James: Yes sir. I completely agree. We’re here for a purpose.
Levin: All right James. Well thank you very much for calling and we appreciate it.
James: Thank you Mark.
Levin: God bless.
End of Part 2 10:49
Open hole plug failed? No check before running plug? Where’s the engineer to check this? This is negligence, mark my words. Where’s the check after the cement plug? Bad cement? Who checked after the plug? Who checked before dispacing the mud? This is a lawyer’s dream case.
No more Oil Drilling… what logic… I guess GW should of responded to 9/11 by ending all air traffic.
roflmao
@Curt thanks for the audio embed, Curt. And a thanks to you, WTD, for the transcript provided for quick and easy review.
But most of all, thank you, oil guy, for your most imformed input after listening to “James'” account. I am confused at something you said, tho.
I’m under the impression, from what “James” said, is that they did test the BOP. Or does this have something to do with “cementing the top of the well”… which I assume is the opposite of the bottom cement plug for the inner casing. So I guess I’m wondering which “plug” you believe was not tested.
And when he says “cement”, is he being literal with the material? Or just a special sealant?
If it proves to be human error, there’s a worker or two who will have some serious problems sleeping at night for being careless. This is a lot of human lives and damage to live with day to day as your responsibility.
@ilovebeeswarzone … thank you, Ms. Bees. Just kept reading and reading, and decided to share.
Mata you re learning, and good for you. I’ve never seen pressures above 20k psi. This looks like a gas lock above the blow out preventers, in the conductor barrel or riser as you guys call it. 5000 feet, very possible. This is all speculation, i know.
The cement you talk about is quick set cement, calcium rich. You should wait 24 to 48 hours to let it set.
Another thing I have to stress, if that explosion took out the hydraulic controls, you have major problems. I’m not an offshore driller, but there are other panels to shut the well in. We have them.
You run plugs above the first high pressure zone and let the service rig handle it. This has been going on for 70 years.lol
I’m sorry. This is serious. Just talking to my oil patch son, who knows it all.lol. Man , what a problem and to think we can figure it all on a computer. We have high pressure zones while drilling and still cope with them. We have major blowouts also. Part of the business. Deaths also.
@Mata and wtd…Kudos to the both of you for doing the MSM’s job for them. Excellent work. I am relatively new to FA, but find myself in good company and have enjoyed my time here so far.
Let us remember Rahm’s philosophy: Never let a good crisis go to waste. Can’t wait to see what El Presidente will be doing with this one.
No one thought al Qaeda would bring down the WTC, and nearly wreck our financial system, until they did. Of course the Democrats finished the job …
Last time I looked scuba gear, drug submarines, and other nefarious gear was readily available if you have the cash and a few nuts to use it. Or you could just slip a small bomb on board the rig, put in the right place …
And motive, well how about save the planet, ending fossil fuel use, the list gets rather long, starting with governments that want a share of trillions of dollars of wealth transfer payments, the save the earth crowd, fanatics of all kind … Remember Bill Ayers, Obama’s buddy, and what he was up to?
Just a thought, why isn’t the FBI neck deep in a massive investigation of this drill rig explosion, instead of the GS show trials.
Questions, good investigators know motive when they see it.
Here’s more ideas. Was the drilling mud heavy enough? Specific gravity of water is 1.0. High pressure zones should face mud weights of 2 or 3 times heavier than water. You mix weight material (barium disulfite)- like powdered lead to load your mud.
5000 barrels per day, looks like seepage around your surface casing?
They say the riser is like a convoluted or kinked garden hose and could be leaking? Best scenario.
Plans to seal the bop tree with a cement cap. Suspicious me thinks its a surface casing problem?
Not enough info. Is info purposely withheld?
Bet you 10 to 1, that Safety Boss out of Red Deer, Alberta will be called. They are the world leader in blowouts. Yes they beat Red Adair and Boots and Couts.
Great thread, Mata.
John Cooper, I can take no credit for the evolution of stellar debate and commentary of the contributors (sans the token FA bozo, CRAP, that is…). So it is I who should thank (almost… ahem) all of you for your contributions.
Mattard:
It appears your assumptions about who is making decisions on this oil rig maybe a bit flawed.
http://www.scandoil.com/moxie-bm2/news/transoceans-deepwater-horizon-drills-worlds-deepes.shtml
Maybe YOU should check YOUR facts before assuming that Carl Pope was incorrect!!
Oil Man thanks for your professional opinions and input. Excellent post Mata, this will probably be in the news for years, its good to know we can get the straight story here at FA, despite the comments of wild eyed Lib fanatics.
Reading the opinions and facts from professional oil men and astute analysts like Mata will be needed to keep from being distracted by ridiculous tangents and conspiracies being promoted by our enemies.
Bill, any kind of scuba is, of course, out. The deepest dive on record is a mere 330 meters, or 1082 feet. The seabed is at 5000 ft, or 1524 meters. This is only possible with deep sea submersibles.
At this point, I’m not inclined to think it’s any conspiracy theories and deliberate. Like “James”, and oil man say above, it could be negligence or Mother Nature winning that particular battle. But with the sequence of events, it’s more likely something went seriously amiss during an operation.
INRE an explosion, again I think they are quite busy thinking of all possible scenarios. I’m no demo expert, but with the pressure, the gases, and the tangled rig and riser, what kind of guarantee any explosure would not do anything more than exacerbate the situations. This is a hole in the earth’s crust, 32,000 ft below the seabed. The pressure there must be enormous. Simply covering it with debris doesn’t logically appear to be sufficient to combat that pressure. How long would it be before yet another rush of pressure just blew the lid off the natural covering, much like a volcano blows it’s top?
The next post? The knee jerk reactions already beginning….
@CRAP you bozo. Apples, oranges, or “the meaning of ‘is’… is” argument. I am well aware of the Transocean press release when the rig reached record depths because it is already archived in my links. Of course there are BP drillers and/or employees on the rig’s crew. [See my comment below which shows the crew employer breakdown… 79 Transocean, 6 BP, 41 indy contractors]
However they are not those responsible for the rigs design, operation and construction of the rig’s safety features because BP is not the owner of the leased mobile deepsea rig.
Additionally, you seem to imply that Transocean employees, or that company were not involved at all. This is not how the rig was operating.
BP was subcontracting, and running payroll plus funding thru Transocean. They were not merely in a “here’s your keys sir” relationship. Nor would they be. They would be likely to be a mixed crew of BP drillers, and Transocean crew for the rig’s operation and maintenance. It’s called delegation of responsibilites and expertise.
This should also be evident because Transocean was involved when Nigerians seized hostages aboard one of their rigs leased by Royal/Dutch Shell and TotalFinaElf back in 2003. Now why would Transocean be speaking on behalf of Shell and TotalFina if they were not involved in the crew and operations in some form?
duh The depths of your pomposity, not to mention your hard headed insistence to stick to a losing argument, never cease to amaze me.
In a court of law for fiscal responsibility for clean up recourse, BP will, of course, be held liable right along with Transocean. While they are not responsible for the rig’s design and upgrades, they are responsible for their well. However examining BP’s “safety record” for rigs they don’t own is the height of media (and your) stupidity… unless, of course, BP owns the rig.
The analogy remains the same… you don’t lease a vehicle for business, then become responsible for installing the safety air bags or improving that vehicle for new standards. It was Transocean’s decision and responsibility to adhere, or not to adhere, to US regulations. They chose not to. However there is no evidence at this time that an additional fail safe would have changed the outcome of this high pressure explosion one iota. Therefore your strawman argument is merely an attempt to point the finger at one company.. because they are a petroleum giant… over another.
You remain a worthless contributor to this thread, and instead continue to politicize this with horse manure points to match your own agenda.
Here’s another “dose of reality” INRE Transocean’s involvement with the rig’s crews…. why? The majority of those present on the rig were Transocean employees.
Logical translation for the comprehension impaired? (that would be you, CRAP…). The Transocean crew was responsible for “driving” the rig while the BP E&P guys had the map to the destination.
I repeat… you’re an idiot.
@CRAP…Ouch! Burn! Tell us, what is it like to get schooled like that? You know, you might want to research your facts before you take on Mata, because as I have observed, she never opens her mouth before having her facts straight – a concept you fail to grasp.
She is correct when she says that you are only politicizing this tragedy. People lost their lives, CRAP. Or is your lust to push your agenda so great that you over look that “minor” point?
Tell me, just how in the blue hell ARE you a “real American patriot?” Because I just don’t see it.
Pat Dollard has the following posted [pasting entire thing here because of possible malware at source link/ EU Times]:
Bah…
Puts on his Command ballcap from ComSubPac….
Plant a Nuclear Depth Charge… blow it when the area is clear….
Theres very few problems that can’t be fixed with the proper application of enough explosive force…
/Sarc… or… maybe not…
sigh… I guess we have to include the conspiracy theories here for consideration. But gosh darn, so sorry to hear Pat Dollard has posted this as anything representing credibility.
Burning questions:
1: If, suppposedly, the NK “sub” torpedoed “assumably” the riser between the platform and the seabed cap, why was not the well gushing with a broken connection on the first blast instead of just a platform fire?
2: If the NK “sub” supposedly blew itself up “under” the platform, why is the riser still bent, but intact?
And perhaps oil guy from Alberto would like to weigh in on the “conspiracy” theories you presented (via Pat Dollar, via Savage, via Russian “media”….). But frankly, I don’t see the timeline damage supports this theory. And I’d have to grasp wildly for a motive. What would NK… who’s constantly holding their hand out for US dollars – stand to gain by doing this? The enviro wackos I can see with an agenda, but not thery don’t possess the know how or money for the speciualized “sabatage” equipment. But NK??? Come on. What is it I’m missing, since NK needs US dollars strong and intact.
Other than that, I consider this stuff a waste of time. I’m still, at this writing and based on the first hand observations, on board with either being defeated by Mother Nature by a high pressure well, or negligence by the crew.
MataHarley, according to offshore-technology.com, Transocean owned the platform, but it was leased by BP.
And remember, BP is the same company that was responsible for the deaths of 15 men when the BP Texas City refinery blew up in 2005. Just this last November (2009) OSHA fined BP $87 million for not yet completing the safety regulations that they had been found guilty of in the Texas City explosion over 5 years ago. The Galveston Daily News reported on 11/1/09:
“On Friday, OSHA proposed the fine — the largest ever for the agency, for a lack of compliancw with safety regulations and agreed-upon improvements at its Texas City refinery after the March 23, 2005 explosions that killed 15 people. The agency said it found hundreds of new safety violations at the nation’s third-largest refinery.
U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said that, during 17 inspections since the explosions four years ago, OSHA found 270 cases in which BP failed to comply with changes to systems at the Texas City refinery as required in its agreement with the government when BP was fined $21 million, which until this week was the largest fine ever issued by the agency.”
There is going to be a lot of CYA here between Transocean and BP, but if we bother to look at BPs safety record, and the fact that they are THE largest business in Great Britain, we have to assume that paying the nearly $1 billion in fines was cheaper than doing the safety improvements that should have been done.
With that said, being a Texas whose mother lives in Texas City, and having many friends in the oil industry, I can tell you that BP is not well respected because the company seems to care little about safety of its employees. But when they are the biggest game in town, and people need work, they will do whatever it takes to feed their families.
And one has to ask, if BP was found to be negligent in making the agreed to safety changes to the Texas City refinery, four and a half years after that explosion, why were they not on the top of someone’s scrutiny list? Why were they just slapped on the hand with a fine, that they can well afford, and not required to shut down the TC refinery until such safety measures WERE put into place. The TC refinery is just another accident waiting to happen.
The damage that is going to be done to our coast ecosystem is unimaginable. No one at this point knows just how bad it will be. The lastest reports are that the oil slick is not only going to hit the Gulf coastal region, but winds may drive it around the Florida Keys and up the Eastern seaboard.
And now, the NYTimes is reporting that the thumb twirling done by the Obama administration, waiting eight days to wake up to the reality of the catastrophe, will probably make it worse. Obama sat on his thumb, waiting for BP to make this right and not checking out how serious the spill actually was.
This is not Obama’s Katrina; this is Obama’s Bay of Pigs.
Rally ‘Round The Flag confirms reports in the Eurpopean Times about a possible sabotage by a North Korean mini submarine that was launched from Cuba that attacked the oil rig then blew itself up with suicide bombers. All of these rigs in the Gulf have survived major hurricanes of at least a category 5 in recent years. The magnitude of this disaster does not corroborate the story that we have been told.
Our oil platforms are very solid and have excellent safeguards and very experienced oil riggers….was this really an accident? Will our media investigate these allegations? Let us dig for the TRUTH in honor
of the lives that were lost in this horrific disaster. Our prayers go out to the families and loved ones.
(Please read the European Times for more information.)
uh… retire05, not to be disrepectful, but did you even read my authored post? Did you read my comments back and forth with CRAP @here, and @here, and @here?
Again, not to be disrespectful, but tell me something that I don’t know, and that isn’t a fact central to my authored post.
I will once again remind you, along with CRAP, on of how this oil rig was operated. BP had a crew of six… let me reiterate that *SIX*…. aboard the Deepsea Horizon. The rig was designed, owned, operated and majority manned by a Transocean crew. The BP staff of six aboard was most likely the BP E&P guys with “the map” to their discovered oil field for the Transocean operations to tap into.
Therefore whatever refinery operation ashore has nothing to do with a Transocean owned and operated oil rig, nor BP’s record. And again, if you *read my post*, you will note that the highest offenders of oil spills is not land based refineries nor oil rigs, but oil tankers. Another fact, again as I reiterated in my post, Transocean rigs have a stellar safety record.
BP owns the well/oil field yield. Transocean was the drilling contractor they used, tapping into the oil field BP discovered. So what’s your point about BP’s safety record somewhere else when they aren’t the rig operators??
Here’s another viewpoint: One of my sister’s customers works out of Houston to support these oil rigs. He explained that most oil rigs in the Gulf are anchored securely to the ocean floor. The rig in question was a Chinese design. Instead of being anchored to the ocean floor, it is designed to float — which is why rigs like this performed so well during Katrina. However, if there’s an explosion on an anchored rig, the rig (for the most part) remains standing. If there’s an explosion on a floating rig, it sinks like an air mattress. He also told her not to hold her breath waiting for the media to report the Chinese connection.
Toothfairy, Transocean is a major oil rig designer, builder and operator, based in Switzerland. What “Chinese connection” are you speaking of?
Mata, sorry I managed to get your Hanes all in a wad. I simply wanted to point out that anything that has to do with BP is bound to have a dismal safety record. And I NEVER mentioned what was the worst cause of oil slicks. So perhaps you should re-read my post.
As to the Chinese connection; well that doesn’t float. This rig was build in South Korea.
As to BP being the owner and Transocean being the riggers, depending on how the lease read, that would determine who is responsible for the inspection system. My ranch currently has a oil lease given to Weber Energy out of Dallas. And while the well was constructed by another company, Weber also did their own inspections, actually duplicating the inspections done by the well construction company. On top of that, the State of Texas also inspected the construction of the well, and continues to do so while it is producing and will up until the time it is ever capped.
While that may seem like overkill, there is a reason that inspections are done by multiple organizations. Offshore rigs are no different that land based rigs. These multiple inspections are to catch errors that might be missed by the first company.
I didn’t mean to get your dander up. I simply wanted to point out to you that one of the major companies involved in MC252 has a terrible safety track record.
No problem, retire05. Just confused as to what point you are trying to make. And I guess, to that end, I’m still confused.
The Hyundai shipyard in SK built the Horizon, yes. That’s a “Korean” connection, not a “Chinese” connection. China has it’s own shipyards, as well as Japan, Australia, the US, Germany and a few other places. Hyundai has about 15% share of the shipbuilding market.
Again I need to point out, BP was *not* the owner nor the operator of the Horizon. It was leased, along with Transocean crew, for the drilling operation. There’s vast links above that substantiate that fact, along with the amount of Transocean crew present on the rig in ratio to BP.
As I said to CRAP, this doesn’t leave BP in the clear INRE litigation. It’s their well and, like any contractor who uses subs, will be held liable for damage, along with Transocean. This is appropriate. But the point is, BP’s safety record doesn’t come into play here. The media is using someone else’s safety record specifically to call oil rigs into question. Transocean’s rigs and crews have a very good safety record.
BP’s records are appropriate for their land based operated refineries under their own control and crew. But you cannot apply BP’s safety record to a Transocean owned and operated rig. You might as well say (hypothetically) that we’re going to apply your driving record, with multiple accidents, against me because I’m your personal chauffeur.
Allow me to reiterate my point with the entire original post, retire05. Oil rigs, and most specificially Transocean, have good safety records, and are not the source of the majority of oil spills. I linked to the stats in the original post. That’s the reason for the title… a tragedy with a dose of reality. This is not a common occurrence for oil rigs, and they are not the largest risk for oil spill damage. Far from it.
Finally some Congressman got it this AM… Lamar Alexander also pointed out that 96% of the world’s oil spills come from tankers and shipping. To succumb to kneejerk reactions, and cease exploration and drilling in the Gulf, means we need to put more tankers on the ocean to transport the 25% of oil we would no longer get from our local offshore wells. This only increases the chances of oil slicks, since more tankers mean more oil spill risks statistically.
I have no doubts this event will be used as a political football. And I doubt that evoking the reality about Transocean’s very good safety record for rig operations is going to make much of a difference in that agenda. It’s already been a concerted media and government effort to apply BP’s land based safety record to Transocean in order to demonize the oil rig industry. But it sure grates on my nerves to hear this misinformation repeated by pundit after pundit, on all channels. These guys need to do their homework.
I see we’re still at it.
This is a drill ship and not a static platform. Makes sense with the hurricane alley its in.
They could twist the riser off and recover it in 90 foot sections, say 60 stands at most, reel in all hydraulic, nitrogen, and pressure sensing lines and move out well within 24 hours.
When displacing that heavy mud, there may have been a pocket of gas or super saturated gas mud mixture in the riser. I can’t see the BOP leaking because that’s tested thoroughly and you don’t want to mess with the law on this. The mud ship could tell how much mud was displaced or were they finished?
A thermite torpedo or other vandal type ignition source with a rig floor saturated with methane- the timing would have to be absolutely perfect. I believe “James” that the ignition source came outside 100′ which seems to be standard worldwide(ignition proof equipment within the 100′).
The sinking drill ship may have damaged the BOP stack. That riser being a 5000′ lever. All conjecture, of course!
Mata, don’t get me wrong; I am a drill here, drill now person. I see absolutely no reason to leave our resources in the ground. No other nation does that that wants to have a healthy economy. And I benefit from home based drilling when the check comes every month.
And I know that this oil slick will be used by the current administation as an excuse to label ALL of offshore drilling as environmentally unsafe in order to shove their more expensive “alternate energy” crap down American’s throats.
No job comes without risk, least of all rigging. Hell, the guy who repairs the phones by hanging off a pole, just inches from enough power to fry an elephant, takes risks.
If you consider the number of offshore rigs sitting our there off our Gulf coast line, and the number of accidents on those rigs, the safety record is stellar.
That was not my point; my point being that there are companies, like BP, who find it easier to ignore safety rules and just pay the fines. That was it.
There’s an acoustic trigger device available for installation on offshore wells that can remotely shut down the flow when all else fails, even if everything topside is gone. They cost half-a-million bucks each. Norway and Brazil require them on all offshore wells. The UK doesn’t, but BP has installed them anyway on wells they operate off the UK. US regulations don’t require them either. BP elected not to use them in US waters.
In retrospect, a couple of very dumb calls on the part of both our regulatory authorities and BP. Catastrophic environmental damage and catastrophic financial losses might have been averted.
When this becomes widely known, there will be political and legal fallout.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704423504575212031417936798.html
Is reading a lost art here, Greg? First of all, you’re only several calls behind CRAP who attempts to assert the same argument that this particular part would change the outcome. Let’s revert to what you guys prefer not to read and absorb as realities, okay?
1: BP doesn’t own the rig. As my post and ensuing comments point out, it was Transocean’s rig and decision to install any additional mechanisms post it’s construction. Please see the comments from the BP CEO. BP just leased the rig.
I repeat… as I did to CRAP. Would you lease a vehicle for business, and then install your own safety airbags? This is not BP’s call. It’s Transocean’s. Why is this so difficult for a few of you to grasp? Authorities are clearly outlined. All BP could do was refuse to honor their lease contract if Transocean did not install any particular upgrade feature. Even at that, one would have to read the lease contract, and find out if they had that authority and ability to break a lease based on that demand.
2: There is NO guarantee… as your comment implies… that this mechanism that turns off a BOP at the well cap on the ocean floor (which already exists on this rig, BTW) survives and functions after a high pressure blast such as this. This is speculative, and nothing more than a politlcal assumption on your part that is not supported by any findings relating to this event. Fact is, it could have had that feature, and the very same result would have happened. Please note comments by “James” and oil man from Alberta. Could such a mechanism survive a blast of that strength intact and functional? At this point, no one knows until an investigation is concluded.
As the WSJ article states, such a safeguard is a back up to an already present fail safe that generally works. Whether is performs when the other doesn’t is purely speculative.
Let me bring this down to something simple. I’m in a m’cycle accident. I’m not wearing a helmet. You guys argue I would have survived if I did. Yet my autopsy reveals I died from internal chest injuries or bleeding. Would a helmet “safety requirement” save my life then? Of course not. It’s all horse manure.
Is yet one more back up system on the rigs a good idea? Of course. But if the dang physical mechanism that closes the value at the well is damaged in the blast, no remote and back up systems are going to close what doesn’t function. Kapisch?
Until the final investigation as to what happened with the built in safety mechanisms is available — and yes, that 2001 rig had safety mechanisms — stop spreading propaganda, and stick the the facts.
UPDATE: Informative article coming (inadvertently) from lib/prog forum commenter ch3cooh on Upstream.com.
Skipping the political, self-servicing crap elsewhere on the threads, the below is an alternative “solution” currently being explored – a BOP (blowout protector) atop another BOP – and posted from an article appearing on Upstream.com (NOTE: Upstream is a specialized Oil/Gas industry publication)
Yo… oil guy from Alberta? You still out there? Is this feasible as a “cure”?
I’m exactly not sure what the debate is here. To blame BP or not? I think ultimately BP will be responsible for in the same way a General contractor is responsible for the subcontractors he hires. But that’s besides the point.
The real issue is how will respond to this in the future. If there is some additional technology available that MAY HAVE prevented this then should we require that oil rigs use them? We now know that a spill of this magnitude is possible so should we now raise the bar of ‘worst case scenario’.
This oil spill could have a devastating effect on the Gulf region for several years. We’re still going to drill in the Gulf and new rigs will go online in the future so what new safety requirements should those new rigs have?
Can we not stuff Henry Waxman into the leaking pipe and plug the leak until the well can be cemented?
NO! We don’t want Waxman or any other far left fool from Congress near that rig. They will just find a new way to tax it…
@james, my original point is that we should not allow the obvious political football game to take place because of this tragedy.
Yes, as I’ve pointed out far more than once, the “general contractor”, BP, will be held liable… along with Transocean (a less inviting villian because they have a good safety record), and now the bonus of Halliburton.
But to allow this tragedy and crisis to affect offshore policy is absurd. As my post points out, the main culprits for oil spills(approx 96%) is not offshore drilling, but oil tankers and maritime accidents. After the Exxon Valdez, should we have banned tankers? In fact, to choke the Gulf oil supply, 25% of the nation’s source, would mean replacing that with shipped oil from elsewhere, increasing the risks of oil spills. Brilliant….
In fact, even loss of life is rare with offship drilling or platforms. The link to historic rig events is in the original post…. not many in the past four decades.
Thus the spill and damage needs to be dealt with expediently, and the event needs to be placed in it’s proper prospective. Kneejerk reactions by this WH and Congress should be fought. But we sure are guaranteed some kneejerks reacting.
@Mata, I don’t disagree with you. A knee jerk reaction is never good. However, I believe I correct in assuming that the “Drill Baby Drill” mantra requires an adjustment. The meme was that it made no sense not to drill in any place where there where oil is located. No one could ever perceive an event like what is taking place in the Gulf. Now, the individual state will re-calculate their risk assessment and you can imagine states like California and Florida will be much more hesitant with offshore drilling.
When I read about a Governor calling the spill and act of God, I can’t help but think he doesn’t get it. A hurricane is an act of God, this was a mechanical failure. It’s beyond my capacity to know if anything could have been done to prevent this spill from taking place. But I don’t believe that it is a knee jerk reaction or surprising that this is giving pause to a lot of folks out there.
[…] already been targeted… BP as the icon of the evil big oil corporations. But as I pointed out my April 30th post, the drillship rig was owned and operated by Transocean LTD, and only six BP staffers were aboard […]
I have 35 years experience in the upstream oil industry mainly in drilling and down hole production, so I know very well what I am talking about:
1. Transocean is a contractor working for BP, they are responsible for the rig but not for the well. For the well they shall do what ever BP asked for and they are paid for that. So all drilling operations including the well safety are under the BP supervision, and no contractor can do anything in the well or on the well without BP order or at least authorization.
2. The large number of Transocean employees on the rig are working for the few people from BP who are supervising operations, that is the way it is.
3. BP selected the rig and contracted it to drill the well according to the drilling program fixed by BP. Before starting the job, BP should have inspected the rig (or made it inspected by a third party) to certify it suitable for the intended operations from all aspects including safety.
4. Now either the rig is not fully suitable to drill the well (modified BOP, etc) then BP are guilty because they contracted the rig and accepted it to drill the well, or it is fully suitable and then the well operations and safety are the full responsibility of BP, unless they can prove that what happened is due to the contractor personal mistake or equipment failure
5. As far as I know, we are talking about operation mistakes: displacing mud with sea water, accepted BOP failed tests, may be also not waiting for cement to set and not testing proporly the cement plug, but never about contractor personnel mistakes or contractor rig failure, so where is the responsibility of Transocean on all that?
6. It is completely wrong and misleading to compare a rig to a car, because cars are standard manufactured with some few options. Rigs are built for specific jobs and they are equipped differently according to the job to be done. Further more, any Dilling Contractor will add subtract or modify the equipment on the rig according to the client request who will pay for that, as did for example Transocean on the Deep Water Horizon on 2005 at BP request.
7 NK or any other party could destroy a riser or the rig but they could never blowout a well unless they are operating it.
BP failed so far to control the well but they highly succeeded to create confusion about their responsibility and about what happened on April 20th, among a large public as we see for example here (but even worse anywhere else). They called for solutions to control the well but they never gave any information about the well (profile, depths, temperatures, pressure, etc.), and the technical operations with timing during at least the 48 h preceding the blowout (or am I wrong, please correct me). Are they serious or is-it another way to keep the public away from what exactly happened.
It is really sad.