Marine artwork by JL Daeschler and Karen Danenberger:
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
For your weekend viewing pleasure….
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged JL Daeschler, Karen Danenberger, marine artwork on August 9, 2024| Leave a Comment »
The Secret Service, OCS incident data, and high consequence events
Posted in accidents, drilling, Offshore Energy - General, Uncategorized, tagged BSEE, drilling blowouts, high consequence events, OCS incident data, performance measures, Secret Service on July 16, 2024| Leave a Comment »
As is the case with many Federal and corporate entities, the Secret Service website is long on promotion and short on substantive details and performance data. The limited “Measurable Impact” statistics on their webpage advise that the Secret Service protected 6623 foreign and domestic visits “without incident” in Fiscal Year 2022, which ended 22 months ago.
Their 2024 budget request overview includes a bit more information (pasted below). The Secret Service gives themselves a perfect score if protectees arrive and depart safely. When your scores are always 100%, your performance measures are clearly inadequate.
Like drilling blowouts, assassinations are low frequency, high consequence events. Prevention requires gathering data on lesser events, identifying leading indicators, and tracking high-potential precursors. You don’t prevent high consequence events by only tracking high consequence events.
Inspections are also critical. Does the Secret Service inspect events to assess protective measures such as verifying that the surrounding areas are cleared and being observed? If so, what do those numbers look like.
BSEE, the OCS safety regulator, does a good job of collecting data, but fails to compile and post updates in a timely manner. Their latest incident tables are for 2022, and even those data are incomplete. Panel investigations, which are conducted for the more serious incidents, now take 2.5 years to complete. This is unacceptable for an organization with BSEE’s talent, resources, and safety mandate.
“The most common error of a smart engineer is to optimize a thing that should not exist.” ~Elon Musk
Posted in accidents, Uncategorized, well control incidents, tagged common error, Elon Musk, engineers, Gaza pier, macondo, Montara, Santa Barbara blowout on July 15, 2024| Leave a Comment »
This is very true, but engineers may not have a choice when directed to optimize a flawed decision.
For example, the installation of the Gaza pier was a political decision imposed on military engineers without assessing the operational risks. The $230 million pier was in operation for only 20 days, long enough for several serious injuries to result from the reckless decision.
Some of the worst offshore drilling incidents were largely the result of culture or management driven attempts to save time and money. Modest cost savings were prioritized over verifying well integrity during both the Montara and Macondo well suspensions. The Santa Barbara blowout was the result of eliminating a casing string during development drilling, which virtually assured an uncontrolled flow in the event of a well kick.
JL Daeschler – Renaissance Man
Posted in Offshore Energy - General, UK, Uncategorized, tagged art, France, JL Daeschler, National Assembly, subsea engineer, Total, UK, Zapata on July 12, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Jean-Louis Daeschler, is an artist and pioneering subsea engineer. A native of France (Brittany), he has worked in the offshore industry worldwide and lives in Scotland. His wife is from Singapore and his children and grandchildren live in England and Canada.
Before beginning his engineering career, JL had the distinct honor of exhibiting his artwork at the French National Assembly (Parliament) in Paris (article below). How many offshore engineers can say that? None would be a good guess.
JL also exhibited in le Havre, Singapore, Houston, Edinburgh, Calgary, and elsewhere. He works mainly with acrylics, and his preferred subjects are boats, maritime scenes, harbors and the working environment associated with the sea. Of course!
JL worked on an early semi-submersible rig offshore Malaysia in 1969 (see his account of a serious near-miss), met with George HW Bush when he was building a new rig for Zapata Offshore, was instrumental in the first production in the UK sector of the North Sea (1975) from a converted semi-submersible drilling rig in the Argyll Field, designed a new BOP concept, and holds patents for seabed drilling templates and subsea control systems.
When he was called upon to work in Total’s onshore office, his boss told him “the best offshore job is in the office!” The photo below suggests that JL made the most of those onshore assignments! 😀
Congratulations to JL on his many contributions to the offshore industry, art, and society!
Ray Charles continues to light up the Fourth!
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged America the Beautiful, Fourth of July, Ray Charles on July 4, 2024| Leave a Comment »
On the 4th of July 🇺🇸 this is what independence looks like
Posted in energy policy, Uncategorized, tagged 4th of July, Independence Day, natural gas production, ND, oil production, PA, private land, technology, TX on July 4, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Chutzpah Award winner! 🏆
Posted in California, energy policy, Offshore Energy - General, Regulation, Uncategorized, tagged BSEE, chutzpah, Exxon, law suit, lease extensions, Santa Ynez Unit on July 2, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Followers of the US OCS oil and gas program have observed some impressive chutzpah over the years, but a new law suit challenging the extension of Santa Ynez Unit leases raises the bar.
Groups that helped block every attempt to resume production in the Santa Ynez Unit are now suing to terminate the leases for non-production. Brilliant!🥇
“Without these extensions, each of the leases would have expired and ExxonMobil would have been required to permanently cease its oil and gas operations, plug its wells, and decommission its other infrastructure.” See the full text of the law suit.
More posts on the Santa Ynez Unit saga.
“Say Hey” Willie! RIP
Posted in energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, Uncategorized, tagged basket catch, OCS Lands Act, Say Hey, Willie Mays on June 20, 2024| Leave a Comment »
This action figure of Willie Mays making his signature basket catch has been a prized possession since 1957. Baseball was, by far, the most important American sport back then and Willie was a megastar. I was a Phillies fan, but loved Willie, as did baseball fans everywhere. Below is a 7 minute video that nicely captures the man and his game.
From an offshore energy perspective, the US offshore program also had “rookie” status when Willie joined the Giants in 1951. BSEE’s borehole file lists 93 wells spudded prior to July 1, 1951 in what became the Federal waters of the Gulf. Per BOEM’s structures file, 27 platforms had been installed by that date. The Submerged Lands Act and OCS Lands Act were enacted 2 years later to provide a framework for the leasing and development that followed.
One of the first Americans on Utah Beach during D-Day …
Posted in energy policy, Offshore Wind, Uncategorized, tagged Bald Eagle Energy, Buchenwald, D-Day, Lynn Ramsey, Rick Carrier, Utah Beach on June 7, 2024| Leave a Comment »
…Rick Carrier became the first allied soldier to discover the Buchenwald concentration camp. The next day, April 11, 1945, he marched into the camp with Patton’s Third Army and liberated the prisoners.
More than a half century later, and after leading a successful effort to protect the American bald eagle, he was the first person to submit an offshore wind application to the Minerals Management Service.
Rick wanted nothing from the government except the opportunity to demonstrate his green hydrogen concept with a single turbine in the Atlantic. He did not ask for any subsidies or research grants. This war hero from the greatest generation just wanted to continue doing great things for the country and the world.
Unfortunately, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 had yet to be enacted, and the framework for permitting such projects had not been established. While we tried to find a way to make the project possible, the legal obstacles were too great.
It was an honor to have worked with Rick on his green hydrogen initiative. RIP.
Azerbaijan’s Caspian oil patch – “Stalin’s Atlantis”
Posted in decommissioning, Offshore Energy - General, Uncategorized, tagged Azerbaijan, Caspian Sea, Neft Dashlari, offshore city, Oil Patch's Venice, Rigs-to-Relics, Rigs-to-Ruins, Stalin on June 6, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Lars Herbst brought this interesting article to my attention – Rigs-to-Ruins? Rigs-to-Relics?
“In the 1950s, Soviet engineers built a massive city in the Caspian Sea off the coast of Azerbaijan. It was a network of oil platforms linked by hundreds of kilometers of roads and housing 5,000 workers, with a cinema, a park and apartment blocks. Gradually disintegrating but still closely guarded, this astonishing place inspired a fiery scene in a James Bond movie.“
Neft Dashlari (Black Rock), as the town is known, is no doubt the most unique oil town in history – the oil patch’s Venice! 😉
“In Neft Dashlari’s heyday, some 2,000 drilling platforms were spread in a 30-kilometer circle, joined by a network of bridge viaducts spanning 300 kilometers. Trucks thundered across the bridges and eight-story apartment blocks were built for the 5,000 workers who sometimes spent weeks on Neft Dashlari. The voyage back to the mainland could take anything between six and twelve hours, depending on the type of ship. The island had its own beverage factory, soccer pitch, library, bakery, laundry, 300-seat cinema, bathhouse, vegetable garden and even a tree-lined park for which the soil was brought from the mainland.“
Decommissioning lesson: “Dismantling Neft Dashlari properly would probably be more expensive than simply keeping it going with a scaled-down oil production.” Sound familiar?
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 