August 12, 2010 by offshoreenergy
from Colin:
Got a visit from the USCG today
Oil is again on the beach…probably due to the storm and a stringer that was offshore and came in.
Am impressed with the USCG personnel….very clear as to what is happening……
BP crews stood down because of “storm”, but it is certainly nothing as strong as such here
The end result is that the beaches here are not that oily, but there will be re-currences of staining (such as we have seen yesterday and today) on the shoreline after and associated with storms.
Clean is attainable….pristine will take some time. I think we have an appreciation of the impact of Macondo on the environment. The folks here certainly have an appreciation of the impact on their pocket books.
We must always remember the 11
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
August 12, 2010 by offshoreenergy
Unfortunately, Colin’s second report from Gulf Shores is not as favorable. A “band” of oil arrived on the beach yesterday. Colin reports that cleanup crews have disappeared and had this to say about the BP response center:
Communicating is very difficult and probably not effective. The person who answers on their 1-866 number has no local knowledge at all. He then has to pass on a message to the “local center”…….there is no number (confirmation or otherwise) for follow up.
Disappointing.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Gulf, Gulf Shores, oil spill | Leave a Comment »
August 11, 2010 by offshoreenergy
It may be winter in Australia, but the offshore debate is heating up. I awoke to a stream of emails from Odd Finnestad who follows the Australian news very closely. Odd noted that the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA) Safety Conference opened with a presentation on the industry response to Montara. Further from Odd:
Then, Martin Ferguson, who was apparently also present, gave an address. Quotes of his speech appear in numerous articles, and the cat is now out of the bag: The Montara report will NOT be released before the election! And, should the Gillard Labour Party win the battle, Martin says there will be a shift to a national regulator in Australia from January 1, 2012.
See this article for a good summary of Minister Ferguson’s remarks.
Creating a new all-powerful national regulator for the offshore oil and gas industry would be a top priority of a re-elected Gillard Labor government, federal resources minister Martin Ferguson said today.
While the other states appear to be on board, the West Australia government is not happy.
The most colorful quote is from APPEA CEO Belinda Robinson:
Knee-jerk reactions such as calls for moratoriums on offshore exploration were not the answer and it was important not to “overdo the self-flagellation”, she said.
BOE comment: We’re not looking for “self-flagellation,” but a little humility would be nice. Ms. Robinson and industry leaders in Australia, the US, and elsewhere need to take a close look at the safety culture of the industry they represent. The reactive studies that are necessary to satisfy government authorities are not enough. The goal should be participation by all offshore operators in organized programs that assess across-the-board risks and address problem areas before major accidents occur.
Posted in accidents, well control incidents | Tagged accidents, Australia, blowouts, Montara, offshore oil, oil spill, regulator, safety, well control | Leave a Comment »
August 11, 2010 by offshoreenergy
Weather: Hot and Sunny
Food: Wonderful
Water: Clear and Warm – Have disturbed fish and crabs!
Beach: White Sand – Clean
Folks need to come down, see and enjoy!
Colin notes that the resort is not nearly as busy as usual. We all know why. The beach contamination scare spread much farther than the oil. The Evening News in Norfolk warned viewers that Macondo oil was headed for Virginia Beach! Should these fear-mongers contribute to BP’s compensation fund?
With regard to Macondo, Colin astutely offers the following:
the story is now quite complex with the flow on the inside, but the potential outside flow the heavy influence on the way forward…….I think that for future incidents we have to have a full and open set of information….suspect that this would have resulted in an easier, faster solution
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged blowouts, Gulf of Mexico, Gulf Shores, macondo, offshore oil, oil spill, well control | Leave a Comment »
August 10, 2010 by offshoreenergy
We have heard plenty about Macondo’s real, imagined, and convenient villains, but very little about the heroes. Let’s pay tribute to them:
- First and foremost the eleven men who lost their lives exploring for energy for our economy and security. Sadly, were it not for the massive spill, their sacrifice would have received little public attention.
- The rescue crews who brought the other 115 workers safely to shore.
- The responders who worked under difficult conditions to minimize the environmental effects of the spilled oil.
- The relief well crews who demonstrated how complex drilling operations should be conducted.
- The ROV and well intervention teams. The performance of the ROVs and subsea tools is perhaps the biggest Macondo success story. Their pioneering work will be studied in developing the well intervention, capping, and collection plans that will be a part of future drilling programs.
- The people of Louisiana, who despite their personal adversity continue to believe that energy, fishing, and other offshore interests can and must co-exist.
- The MMS oil spill research program. In the lean years following the Valdez oil spill research surge, MMS continued to conduct important burning, dispersant, remote sensing, and mechanical cleanup studies, while upgrading and expanding the use of the nation’s major oil spill response test facility – Ohmsett.
- The Unified Command scientists who are providing comprehensive scientific data about the effects of the spill, and refuse to be swayed by sensational media reports.
- Oil consuming bacteria!
- Others?
Posted in accidents, well control incidents | Tagged accidents, blowouts, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana, macondo, offshore oil, ohmsett, oil spill, relief well, safety, well control | 3 Comments »
August 10, 2010 by offshoreenergy
Jet Blue Flight Attendant Steven Slater
What if Steven Slater worked for Tiger Mike? It wouldn’t last very long, but it would be very entertaining while it did.
Click here if you still haven’t heard the Steven Slater story.
The 5 Best Things About Flight Attendant Steven Slater’s Freakout
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged jet blue, steven slater, Tiger Mike | 2 Comments »
August 9, 2010 by offshoreenergy
My former colleague Clarence Kershaw, a retired USGS/MMS inspector and a very knowledgeable offshore oil and gas guy, has run into some Tiger Mikes in his career. Clarence has shared some thoughts on the subject:
I liked your comments on “More Mike Talk”. I personally think organizations (Military, Government and civilian) are too obsessed with superior/ underling relationships. It is acceptable for “Mike” types in a superior/owner position to issue instructions-orders-regulations to lower echelon personnel, but is is not always accepted (or sometimes allowed) for lower echelon personnel to “correct” or point out even possible errors made by superiors.
There are a lot of lower echelon personnel who have made an attempt to correct a mistake by a superior and then been rebuffed. After that they tend to accept errors and say “It’s not my job, man.” I’ve seen engineers get indignant when something they approved in error was pointed out by an inspector or secretary. I knew one District Supervisor who did not like to have his writing corrected by an excellent secretary. She would end up bringing it to me to point out to him, because he would not accept it from her. He didn’t always accept it from me either.
My point is if you had a “Tiger Mike” type running the rig just prior to the blowout, it wouldn’t make any difference to him how unstable the well was if he had already made up his mind to continue operations.
No, I don’t know the answer. One person has to be in charge, but each individual must have over-riding “stop work” authority to assure safety!!! The problem is magnified if a disagreement occurs and management consistently backs up the one in charge.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged accidents, macondo, management, Tiger Mike, well control | Leave a Comment »
August 8, 2010 by offshoreenergy
A newspaper says it has obtained an internal audit conducted by BP PLC on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that details severe safety flaws months before the Gulf of Mexico spill.
link
Comment: Was this a planned leak? If so, how does this strengthen BP’s legal position? The DWH had deficiencies (bad for Transoocean), but BP knew about the deficiencies and didn’t ensure that they were corrected (worse for BP?). As indicated by the poster below (More “Mike Talk”), the poor working relationship between the operator and contractor may have been the real core problem.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged blowouts, bp, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, offshore oil, oil spill, safety, transocean, well control | Leave a Comment »
August 8, 2010 by offshoreenergy
From a poster who has requested anonymity (for background about this topic, see the 2 preceding posts):
There has been a lot of hard work done to update Mike and bring him into the modern world. I too have had experiences with “Mike” and at a minimum they are distracting and most cases unsafe. Mike and those like him are bullies, plain and simple. They may have technical skills, however their people skills are lacking. Mike doesn’t only work for Operators. I don’t think there is an appreciation of the complex people relationships that are laid over the technical issues and inevitably there are culture clashes. It appears that regardless of Transocean and the Deepwater Horizon having worked for BP, the relationships between senior BP and TO personnel was extremely disfunctional. As someone with multiple decades of experience, I was amazed that what I believed were top flight organizations appear to have not progressed out of the stone age. I’m not sure what the solution is here. The competance of all individuals expecially those in senior positions is very important, however the skill set must include more than technical competance alone. Significant time and money are spent in well control schools, but when the people involved can’t communicate, all such training doesn’t realize much benefit. It may be trite, but there needs to be a TEAM. I thought the major players had that concept in their management schemes but the recent history, at least for this incident, does not appear to indicate this. It appears there is another big task to add to the long list of items needing attention to prevent another such occurance like Macando … and Montara.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged accidents, macondo, management, Montara, safety, Tiger Mike, well control | 1 Comment »
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