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Archive for March, 2011

DNV Deepwater Horizon BOP Forensic Report Released

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Just released.

The DNV report will be discussed in the upcoming hearings:

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE)/U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) Joint Investigation Team, which is examining the Deepwater Horizon explosion and resulting oil spill, today announced that it will hold a seventh session of public hearings the week of April 4, 2011. The hearings, which will focus specifically on the forensic examination of the Deepwater Horizon blowout preventer (BOP), are scheduled to take place at the Holiday Inn Metairie, New Orleans Airport, 2261 North Causeway Blvd., Metairie, La.

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Deepwater Horizon Study Group releases final report and papers

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Professor Robert Bea

Bob Bea

Dr. Bob Bea, UC Berkeley Center for Catastrophic Risk Management, and his Deepwater Horizon Study Group have issued their final report on the Macondo blowout. I look forward to reading the full documents.

Bob has been at the vanguard on risk management issues for many years. While he jokes that there are two things engineers can’t deal with – uncertainty and people, Bob is an engineer who understands both! Kudos to Bob and his group for their leadership and initiative.

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Update on Gulf Oil Slicks

Posted in accidents, tagged , , , on March 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Our oil spill expert, Cheryl Anderson, has been monitoring the Gulf of Mexico slick reports, and has provided the following update:

Excerpt from a NOLA.com article below published 4-5 hours after yesterday’s Coast Guard media briefing regarding the source of the latest slick in Louisiana state waters :

A state official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of a continuing Coast Guard investigation, said the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries traced the emulsified oil on the west side of the river to its apparent source at West Delta Block 117. He said tests by a state-contracted lab confirmed that was the source of the oil.

Wildlife and Fisheries officials found the source of the oil Monday evening and encountered workers in a boat trying to restore a cap on the well using a remotely operated submarine.

There was a USCG Media Briefing at 2 pm local time Monday [4-5 hours before the NOLA.com article was published]. The briefing confirmed that the 100-mile sheen on Saturday was not petroleum, just sediments from water disturbances.

With regard to the most recent slick, the Coast Guard said:

–no source had been identified,

–no active spill incidents had been identified,

–spill had been Federalized,

–testing showed that it was Louisiana crude, and

–LSU was still working on the tests to see if the oil matched the Macondo well or any recorded previous spill incident.

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Thinking deep; is it time for seafloor drilling?

Posted in drilling, offshore, Offshore Energy - General, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 22, 2011| 1 Comment »

from SeabedRig.com

Advances in drilling technology tend to be evolutionary, not revolutionary. Floating rigs, dynamic positioning, top-drive systems, measurement-while-drilling, automated rig floors, and other important advances were logical next steps, not radical makeovers.

Many of us have long been fascinated by the possibility of locating drilling equipment on the seafloor, particularly for deepwater wells. Why operate from a massive floating vessel that requires a sophisticated stationkeeping system and a long riser to connect to the wellhead? Why link surface personnel to seafloor risks? Why increase the complexity of balancing well pressures (without fracturing formations) by adding thousands of feet to the mud column? Why heave and roll on the surface when you can operate from the seafloor?

It’s not that easy, of course, and there are many questions and issues. While fully automated drilling systems are no longer a reach, what about reliability and repairs?  How will casing be set and cemented? How will downhole measurements be transmitted to the control center? Cuttings samples? Coring? Well testing? The list of challenges is daunting.

At least one company, Seabed Rig, is committed to developing and demonstrating seafloor drilling technology. Earlier this month, Seabed Rig reached agreement with NASA to create the first autonomous drilling rig. While a lot of work remains, Seabed Rig and other pioneering companies are applauded for their innovative thinking and willingness to challenge conventional practices and wisdom.

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Two US votes of confidence for Petrobras

Posted in Offshore Energy - General, oil, tagged , , , , on March 21, 2011| Leave a Comment »

  1. The Petrobras Cascade-Chinook project, which includes the first Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) facility in the Gulf of Mexico, received final approval.
  2. The US will be a major purchaser of Brazilian (Petrobras) deepwater oil production. Will some of the tankers pass through US offshore areas that are closed to exploration and production?

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Kudos to the Coast Guard and responsible journalists

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on March 21, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Kudos to:

  1. The US Coast Guard for promptly analyzing the Gulf of Mexico sheen that was reported over the weekend and determining that it was not associated with offshore oil and gas production.
  2. The many news organizations and journalists who ignored the irresponsible speculation, and waited for the Coast Guard to complete its investigation.

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Coast Guard: Gulf Sheen likely from dredging

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on March 20, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Wall Street Journal:

What was reported as a miles-long oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico is likely a plume of silt emanating from a dredging operation on the Mississippi River, a U.S. Coast Guard spokesman said Sunday.

So much for the hysterical post-Macondo rush to judgement by a few reporters.

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Gulf sheen: new information or irresponsible reporting?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 20, 2011| Leave a Comment »

The Examiner is reporting the following:

The oil sheen is suspected of coming from the Matterhorn field which includes a deepwater drilling rig, Matterhorn Seastar that is owned by W&T Technology.   The oil is suspected from coming from a leak in the well which is a producing well.

Suspected by whom? Does the reporter have legitimate information or is this rank speculation? The Coast Guard is sorting this out, so we should know something soon. A statement from W&T would be helpful.

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Coast Guard investigating reports of large Gulf of Mexico sheen

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on March 20, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Coast Guard news release

The Coast Guard said in a news release that it received a report of a three-mile-long rainbow sheen off the Louisiana coast just before 9:30 a.m. local time on Saturday. Two subsequent sightings were relayed to the Coast Guard, the last of which reported a sheen that extended from about 6 miles south of Grand Isle, La. to 100 miles offshore.

Though the Coast Guard was able to confirm that there is a substance on the water’s surface, it has not yet been able to determine if it is oil. Wall Street Journal

 

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More on the Deepwater Horizon BOP Forensics Testing Dispute

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 20, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Per the Platts Oilgram report that we posted on 17 March, here is the complete court filing..

These are the additional tests recommended by BP’s consultant Ralph Linenberger:

  • Removal and forensic analysis of each annular element
  • Hydraulic signature testing of the annular preventer operator and ram preventers operators
  • Disassembly and inspection of the annular preventer and ram preventer bonnets
  • Laser scanning of (i) the entire BOP wellbore; (ii) the upper annular packer and upper annular cap; (iii) the inside of the riser kink; and (iv) the wellbore-facing surfaces of the casing shear ram bonnets
  • Hydraulic circuitry pressure test
  • ST lock circuit confirmation
  • Solenoid pie connector pin measurement and corresponding female receptacle analysis.

Is anyone else surprised that some (all?) of these tests hadn’t already been conducted? That would seem to be the biggest revelation from the BP court filing.

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