Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘accidents’

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

Blowout: Is Canada Next?

Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 9 pm on CBC-TV

If the title and announcement for this CBC documentary are indicators, this won’t be a scholarly review of the risks associated with Canadian offshore exploration and development. Nonetheless, those of you who can view CBC programming may want to tune in and see what they have to say.

Read Full Post »

National Commission Recommends “Safety Institute”

Posted in accidents, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 2, 2010| 1 Comment »

As presented this morning:
  • Core mission: achieve excellence in system safety across offshore oil and gas industryIndependent auditing function
  • Cannot lobby – cannot be the American Petroleum Institute
  • Company CEOs and boards of directors provide leadership and ensure engagement of employees with it
  • Institute is empowered to use real rewards and sanctions to help all industry players overcome the enemies of safety –ignorance, arrogance, and complacency.

Read Full Post »

Well Capping Operations: Montara vs. Macondo

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 30, 2010| Leave a Comment »

West Atlas Jackup and Montara Wellhead Platform

While there has been much post-Macondo discussion about the complexity of subsea containment and capping operations for deepwater wells, Macondo was ultimately capped and killed before being intersected by the relief well. The same cannot be said for the shallow water Montara well, which was killed by a relief well after flowing for 74 days.

Capping a flowing well is never routine, regardless of the water depth. However, the safety risks are greater for surface wells.  Those risks combined with the low probability of success are why a capping operation was not even attempted at Montara.  These were the concerns:

  1. The risk of a fatality was estimated at an alarming 25-30%.
  2. The risk of ignition while retracting the cantilever of the West Atlas jackup, a necessary step in the capping operation, was high.
  3. Only the 20-inch casing was tied-back to the wellhead platform. The 13 3/8″ casing was suspended just above the water surface. (According to testimony during the inquiry, the 13 3/8″ casing was not cemented back inside the 20″ casing.)
  4. Unless they were going to tie-back the 13 3/8″ casing while the well was flowing (probably not feasible and not mentioned as a possibility in the Inquiry report), they would have had to install a specially made BOP on the 20.”  If they were able to install this BOP and shut-in the well, flow would have undoubtedly broached the casing at the 20″ inch shoe.  One possible alternative may have been to install a diverter under the BOP and attempt a dynamic kill operation (i.e. direct the flow downwind and away from the rig while pumping mud down the well).  This too would have been complex and risky.

Given the very high safety risk and the low probability of success, I believe the regulator and operator made the correct decision in forgoing a capping attempt. The experiences at Macondo and Montara indicate that capping considerations must be taken into account during well planning activities for both subsea and surface wells, and that they latter pose greater safety risks.  Given the fire potential, having the wellhead at the surface is not an advantage when it comes to capping a flowing well.  It’s better to have the wellhead on the seafloor where the robotic equipment is doing the work.

Read Full Post »

Halliburton cementing study referenced in Montara Report

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 29, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I was unaware of the Halliburton study referenced in the Montara Inquiry Report:

A 2001 Halliburton study of USA Gulf of Mexico cementing failures in 4000 wells showed that (i) approximately one in six casing shoes required remedial work after primary cementing (by way of a so‐called ‘squeeze job’); and (ii) intermediate casing shoes failed shoe tests 70 per cent more often than shallower casings because they were more likely to be over‐displaced.

This paper was presented at an SPE conference in New Orleans.  Click here to purchase the paper or read a good abstract.

Questions:

  1. Have other analyses and reports been prepared using these data?
  2. Would Halliburton make the data base available for the common good if they receive legal protection?
  3. In light of the worldwide interest in better understanding well integrity risks, would Halliburton and others expand the data base to include other regions?
  4. Surely, there must be other private data bases that would be useful for assessing operational risks and developing mitigations. Are the owners willing to identify these data bases? Can they be protected from liability risks if they agree to make the information accessible?

Read Full Post »

Montara Report Released!

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 24, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Montara Blowout - Timor Sea

Our virtual vigil is over.  I awoke to messages from Odd, Anthea, and Kevin that the day had finally arrived – the Montara Report has been released. Not only do we have the Inquiry report, but also the government’s response and PTTEP’s action plan.  We’ll be digesting this over the next few days (along with a turkey dinner), but below are a few key items (direct quotes from the government’s response) that are likely to be of interest to BOE readers:

  • To create a single national regulator the Government will expand the functions of the existing National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority (NOPSA) to include regulation of structural integrity, environment plans and day-to-day operations associated with petroleum activities in Commonwealth waters. There is a fundamental connection between the integrity of structures, the safety of people, and protection of the environment. The expanded authority – to be named the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) – will also regulate safety, integrity and environment plans for minerals extraction and greenhouse gas storage activities in Commonwealth waters.
  • In recognition of the global nature of the offshore petroleum industry, and Australia’s increasingly important role, the Government intends to host an international conference for governments, regulators and the offshore petroleum industry to share the lessons from Montara and to learn from the experience of other nations. The conference will beheld in Australia during 2011.
  • An important feature of objective-based regulation is that it encourages continuous improvement rather than acompliance mentality. It is essential that a regulatory system encourage the creator of the risk to move beyond minimum standards in a continuous effort for improvement, and not just accept the minimum standard. The risk of specific standards is that they can shift the burden of responsibility from the operator to the government and stifleinnovation. The Australian objective-based regime retains the focus clearly on the operator to evaluate risk andachieve fit for purpose design in order to reduce risk to ‘as low as reasonably practicable’.

Read Full Post »

National Commission Draft Working Paper on the Macondo Well Kill Operations

Posted in accidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 23, 2010| Leave a Comment »

This well-written draft report is fascinating reading for those who closely followed the various attempts to contain and kill the Macondo well.

A couple of concerns:

  1. The report relies heavily on anecdotes and qualitative judgments attributed to unnamed individuals. For example, twelve sources are cited in the footnotes on page 6, but only one is mentioned by name.  No information is provided about the qualifications or responsibilities of the unnamed sources, so it is difficult to assess the significance of their comments.
  2. The narrative ends rather abruptly without any discussion about the decision to continue with the relief well after the successful static kill operation.  The report simply states that BP proceeded with the relief well to finally kill Macondo.  As indicated previously on BOE, this is not entirely accurate. Macondo was already killed, and the well could have been secured through conventional plugging and abandonment procedures.  The relief well was presumably continued to verify that the annulus was sealed and provide information that might be useful as part of the investigation.  However, the relief well did not kill the well and the intercept was not necessary for that purpose.

Read Full Post »

Good Macondo Blog Post

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 22, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Deepwater Horizon

Nothing new, but a but a very good Macondo commentary by Bill Campell, a retired Shell employee. Worth reading.

In my opinion this event is not so much about the well as designed but the well as installed. Installing a well is similar to any other civil engineering project in that what is installed has to be tested or commissioned before it is put into use, just as you would test a vessel or pipeline designed to contain hydrocarbons under pressure.   Wells, which are discovered to have a problem during integrity tests indicating for example a connection between the well and the reservoir, are worked over to rectify the problem and in a few hours after remedial activities have been undertaken, the integrity testing is re-commenced. Bill Campbell

Read Full Post »

More on the Gullfaks C Well Control Incident

Posted in accidents, Norway, tagged , , , , on November 20, 2010| Leave a Comment »

The Petroleum Safety Authority of Norway has commented on Statoil’s report on the well control incident at Gullfaks C:

The PSA regards the incident as very serious. It involved the lengthy loss of a barrier. Only chance averted a sub-surface blowout and/or explosion, and prevented the incident from developing into a major accident.

PSA had directed Statoil to do the following:

  1. To review and assess compliance with the work processes established to safeguard the quality and robustness of the well construction process on Gullfaks. This must include an investigation of why important deficiencies were not picked up during the work. Necessary improvement measures related to the work processes and their use must be identified and implemented.
  2. To conduct an independent assessment of why measures adopted after earlier incidents, including the gas blowout on Snorre A in 2004 with similar causes, have not had the desired effect on Gullfaks. Based on the results of this work, the company must assess the need for and implement new and tailored improvement measures on Gullfaks.
  3. To assess the results of the work done under items 1 and 2 and – on that basis – implement measures in the rest of the company.
  4. To prepare a binding plan for the way this work is to be executed and followed up. This plan must be submitted to the PSA.

Read Full Post »

NAE Releases Macondo Report

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 17, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Link

The National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council have released the interim report of the Committee on the Analysis of Causes of the Deepwater Horizon Explosion, Fire, and Oil Spill to Identify Measures to Prevent Similar Accidents in the Future. The interim report includes the committee’s preliminary findings and observations on various actions and decisions including well design, cementing operations, well monitoring, and well control actions. The interim report also considers management, oversight, and regulation of offshore operations.

Comment: No significant surprises.

Read Full Post »

Montara Development to Proceed

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , on November 15, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Montara Blowout - Timor Sea - 2009

A spokesman for PTTEP says the damaged rig will be towed away next month and a replacement will be in place by June next year subject to government approvals. ABC-Australia

Food for thought:

  • Should a major blowout automatically disqualify a company from further exploration and development within that field?
  • Should PTTEP have voluntarily agreed to (been required to) assign their Montara rights to another company?
  • Should leases or operating licenses be automatically suspended after such major accidents?
  • Shouldn’t exploration and development rights be contingent on safe and responsible operating practices?
  • Do PTTEP and other operators deserve a second chance under such circumstances? Third chance? How many?

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »