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Archive for the ‘accidents’ Category

Olé, Olé, Olé, Olé! Drillers to the Rescue

Posted in accidents, drilling, tagged , , , , , on October 13, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I’ve been saving  this interesting comment from the CEO of the company that drilled the successful rescue well. Now that the miners are being rescued and we can smile, I’ve pasted it below 🙂

The pressure really started to build. We’re not used to drilling for people. Andrew Schmitt, CEO, Layne Christensen Co.

Here is a little information on the rescue well:

The Layne-Geotec team worked carefully, starting with a 5-inch hole dug through 2,300 feet of the hard rock until they broke through. From there, they made another pass, this time expanding it to 12 inches. Finally, with a third pass, they increased the hole to the 26 inches needed for the rescue capsule, all the while concerned about a collapse. They finished the job in 33 days, well ahead of predictions.

Comment: In the past year, we have seen the tragic consequences of a drilling operation that went awry.  We have also seen the industry’s technical precision demonstrated in drilling the Macondo relief well and have watched drillers save lives in Chile. Regardless of how you feel about drilling, the intentions are good – to find and produce commodities that are in much demand (typically oil, gas, or freshwater) , and to make a return on your investment.  The challenge is to minimize the safety and environmental risks associated with these operations, and to do so consistently, effectively, and efficiently.

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Drilling Ban to End This Week

Posted in accidents, drilling, Offshore Energy - General, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 12, 2010| Leave a Comment »

The White House said Tuesday the government will lift a moratorium on deep water oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico “very soon” – likely this week. Washington Post

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Too many distractions before Macondo blew?

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on October 9, 2010| Leave a Comment »

There were so many simultaneous activities — starting with the displacing of mud to the pumping of fluids overboard — it was difficult to see what was going on. John Gisclair, Sperry Sun (see Times Picayune summary of yesterday’s BOEM-Coast Guard hearing)

 

John Gisclair

 

Too much at once? Hurrying to finish the job? Cost concerns?  No one in charge? Distracted by managers visiting the rig? One or more of these human and organizational factors appears to have contributed to the blowout.

Similarly, the rigid commitment to “batching” the development wells (for efficiency reasons) seems to have been a factor contributing to the Montara blowout in the Timor Sea.  If after removing the corrosion cap on the production casing, the work on the H1 well had continued in series (i.e. casing tied-back, BOP installed, and well secured) before moving on to another well, this blowout may have been prevented.

At both Macondo and Montara, time pressures (perceived or real) may also have affected the way negative-pressure tests were conducted or assessed.  These tests should have detected the influx of hydrocarbons via the shoe track.

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And here is the final SEMS rule

Posted in accidents, Regulation, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on October 7, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Safety and Environmental Management Systems

This rulemaking will incorporate in its entirety and make mandatory the AmericanPetroleum Institute’s Recommended Practice 75, Development of a Safety andEnvironmental Management Program for Offshore Operations and Facilities, with respectto operations and activities under the jurisdiction of BOEMRE. This final rule will applyto all OCS oil and gas and sulphur operations and the facilities under BOEMREjurisdiction including drilling, production, construction, well workover, well completion,well servicing, and DOI pipeline activities.

The rule will become effective on November 15, 2010.

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National Commission Releases 4 Draft Staff Papers

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 6, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Decision Making Within the Unified Command

The Use of Surface and Subsea Dispersants During the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

The Challenges of Oil Spill Response in the Arctic

The Amount and Fate of the Oil

 

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Two Items From Yesterday’s CG-BOEM Macondo Hearings

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 6, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Absent live streaming or television, the Times Picayune seems to be providing the best coverage of the Coast Guard – BOEM Macondo hearings in New Orleans.  While the legal sparring has attracted the most press interest, two other items in this Times Picayune article caught my attention.

Part of Keplinger and Fleytas’ duties was to monitor indicators of gas detectors and alarms from the bridge. Keplinger was busy showing visiting BP and Transocean officials a video-game-style simulator for 45 minutes to an hour before the explosions, he said, but he insisted that Fleytas was keeping him abreast of readouts of the rig’s systems.

Comment: Just as school teachers shouldn’t have been flying in the space shuttle, “tourists” shouldn’t have been visiting a complex drilling operation when the crew was in the process of setting production casing and suspending a potentially dangerous well. While the visit was well-intended, the last thing the crew needed on that night was to be distracted by a group of corporate executives.  The distraction they caused was comparable to driving on a dangerous highway while getting text messages from your boss. Visiting windows should be limited to relatively low-risk operations (e.g. when drilling ahead prior to reaching target intervals), and these windows should immediately close if complications develop.

Keplinger flashed some anger at Capt. Curt Kuchta, captain of the Deepwater Horizon rig, during his testimony. He noted that a fellow rig worker, Chris Pleasant, had to ask Kuchta three times whether to disconnect the rig from the wellhead before he got the go-ahead.

Comment: One of the benefits of drilling from a floating and dynamically positioned rig is the ability to move off location if trouble arises.  The failure to disconnect the riser and move away from the well at the first indication of flow contributed significantly to the tragic consequences.  The technical and human factors that prevented such a disconnect must be thoroughly examined.

Further comment: The absence of live streaming of these important safety hearings is inexcusable.  If a senator or governor were testifying, I expect that the cameras would be there.

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Complaints: C-SPAN Says “No” and Transcripts Too Slow!

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 5, 2010| 2 Comments »

  • C-SPAN has opted not to cover this weeks BOEMRE – Coast Guard Macondo hearings.  Instead, they are presenting recordings of political rallies, assorted senatorial and gubernatorial candidate debates, and similar fare.  In other words, all three channels will be dedicated to the usual political posturing that already receives non-stop national coverage, and the investigation into one of the more significant accidents in US history will be ignored.
  • Why does it take 3 weeks to post the transcripts of these hearings? The Australians posted each Montara transcript within hours after the day’s session ended.

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Joint BOEMRE-Coast Guard Panel Resumes Questioning

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 2, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Capt. Hung Nguyen, David Dykes, and Jason Mathews question the witness. Sylvia Murphy and Kirk Malstrom monitor attentively from the 2nd row.

The panel that is most closely investigating the technical and operational aspects of the Macondo blowout reconvenes on Monday morning at 0800 CT in New Orleans.

I would assume that one of the CSpan stations will be covering the hearings, but their broadcast schedule for next week has not yet been posted.

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Drilling and Safety Management Rules Announced

Posted in accidents, Offshore Energy - General, Regulation, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 30, 2010| 2 Comments »

Today, BOEM released fact sheets describing the Drilling Safety and Safety and Environmental Management (SEMS) rules. The complete documents will be available for review as soon as they are published in the Federal Register.

Based on the fact sheet, the Drilling Safety Rule does not appear to include any significant surprises.  The rule seems to be generally consistent with the recommendations in Secretary Salazar’s 27 May Safety Measures Report to the President (the “30-Day Report”).  This is an Interim Final Rule that will be effective upon publication.

According to the fact sheet, the SEMS Rule will incorporate all elements of API RP 75 into BOEM regulations.  This is an improvement, in my opinion, from the proposed rule which incorporated only 4 elements of RP 75.  The effective date for this rule is not indicated in the fact sheet.

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Industry Response Needs To Go Beyond Deepwater Drilling

Posted in accidents, tagged , , on September 29, 2010| Leave a Comment »

BP has announced a new safety unit and other organizational changes. For more on the changes, see the Upstream report.

From a BOE perspective, the most interesting comment in the BP release was this Bob Dudley quote:

Our response to the incident needs to go beyond deepwater drilling. There are lessons for us relating to the way we operate, the way we organize our company and the way we manage risk.

I hope the rest of the offshore industry has the same view and is prepared to work together to assess and mitigate operational risks. To date, industry has reacted impressively to issues raised since the Macondo well blew out on 20 April.  However, what is being done to identify operational and safety risks that could trigger the next disaster? When will complete, consistent, and verified international incident data be collected and published?.  How do you manage risks without such data?  Why weren’t the lessons from Montara quickly disseminated around the world?  If they were, Macondo may have been prevented.

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