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Archive for the ‘well control incidents’ Category

Statoil Publishes Report on Gullfaks C Incident

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , on November 8, 2010| Leave a Comment »

The incident occurred on 19 May 2010.  We appreciate Statoil’s timely completion and public release of the report.  The report is in Norwegian, but an English summary is provided.

What happened:

  1. A platform well on Gullfaks C was drilled in managed pressure drilling (MPD) mode to a total depth of 4800 meters.
  2. During the final circulation and hole cleaning of the reservoir section, a leak in the 13 3/8” casing resulted in loss of drilling fluid (mud) to the formation.
  3. The loss of back pressure led to an influx of hydrocarbons from the exposed reservoirs until solids or cuttings packed off the well by the 9 5/8” liner shoe.
  4. The well control operation continued for almost two months before the well barriers were reinstated.

Statoil’s near-term action items:

  1. Develop new acceptance criteria and best practices for MPD on Gullfaks.
  2. Update pressure prognoses for the field.
  3. Document that the shear ram is capable of cutting the drill string.
  4. Change the shift relief plan for the Drilling Supervisor and Toolpusher on Gullfaks C.
  5. Review the procedures for communication and mustering with the emergency preparedness organization.

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National Commission Hearing: 8-9 November

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 7, 2010| Leave a Comment »

The hearing will focus on the causes of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and will be broadcast live on C-SPAN2.  The panelists and speakers are listed here.

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Day 139 of the Montara Report Vigil

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , on November 4, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Those who read this obscure blog regularly know that we have been railing about the release of the Montara Inquiry Report since it was delivered to Energy Minister Ferguson on 18 June 2010. The report has now sat on the Minister’s desk for nearly twice as long as the Montara well flowed into the Timor Sea at an announced rate (cough, cough) of 400 barrels per day.

BOE wants to thank Minister Ferguson for helping teach us the virtue of patience, an important life skill that some of us had not previously mastered. In our newly enlightened state, we are becoming more observant. As a result, we noticed that the Australian Senate has already passed legislation strengthening the National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority (NOPSA).

After reviewing information about the legislation here and here, I am a bit confused about the changes being enacted.  However, if the concerns (below) of Tina Hunter, an Assistant Professor at Bond University who had previously submitted testimony to the Montara Inquiry, have not been yet been addressed, Parliament needs to revise the legislation.  Multiple regulators are a problem, not a solution.  (The US needs to take notice.)

These legislative changes proposed will still split the responsibilities for Well Operations Management Plans between NOPSA and the responsible Delegated Authority (who assesses the well design and construction and drilling applications)….Furthermore, the regulatory amendments do not consider the environmental regulation of well operations and integrity, which also remains with the relevant Commonwealth or State Authority. Therefore, whilst in principle these proposed legislative amendments will provide benefits for the regulation of well integrity, it will still split the regulatory responsibility of well integrity between multiple regulators. Tina Hunter

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Macondo spill cost estimate is now $40 billion

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

BP is now estimating total Macondo response and damage costs at $39.9 billion. I would guess that only 4 or 5 other operating companies could have survived this type of hit.

Hopefully, every offshore operator is keeping this in mind when formulating safety management programs and training, research, and standards budgets.  Companies claiming that such disasters couldn’t happen to them are simply demonstrating that they could, because no company with a proper safety culture would make such a statement.

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Chevron tests point to flawed Macondo cement

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on October 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »

National Commission letter

Chevron Cement Report

Chevron’s report states, among other things, that its lab personnel were unable to generate stable foam cement in the laboratory using the materials provided by Halliburton and available design information regarding the slurry used at the Macondo well. Although laboratory foam stability tests cannot replicate field conditions perfectly, these data strongly suggest that the foam cement used at Macondo was unstable. This may have contributed to the blowout.

Further:

The documents provided to us by Halliburton show, among other things, that its personnel conducted at least four foam stability tests relevant to the Macondo cement slurry. The first two tests were conducted in February 2010 using different well design parameters and a slightly different slurry recipe than was finally used. Both tests indicated that this foam slurry design was unstable.

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Two Interesting Items from Upstream

Posted in accidents, well control incidents on October 26, 2010| Leave a Comment »

1. BP CEO Bob Dudley pokes media, politicians and oil industry:

A great rush to judgment by a fair number of observers before the full facts could possibly be known, even from some in our industry.

Comment: Bob Dudley is correct, but the attacks and distortions were entirely predictable.  Human responses to high-profile disasters will always be excessive, and you won’t have a lot of friends when you are a public target. Add this negative outcome to the list of more important reasons for avoiding offshore disasters – protecting workers, preventing pollution, and preserving assets.

2. PTT and Indonesia continue to battle over Montara damages.

Comment: This will be a long and interesting international battle.  I wonder if PTT has any assets in Indonesia?  I can’t really tell from their website.

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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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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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