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Posts Tagged ‘accidents’

Deepwater Horizon BOP Examination – incomplete?

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , on March 17, 2011| Leave a Comment »

From Platts Oilgram News:

BP seeks Macondo BOP access to perform tests Washington—BP is seeking access to the Deepwater Horizon blowout preventer so it can run tests the company says the joint investigation has failed to perform. BP filed a motion in US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana in New Orleans March 9, asking Judge Carl Barbierto allow the company access to the BOP after the joint investigation being run by the US Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, is finished with it. The BOP, a five-story stack of valves, sat atop BP’s Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexicoand failed to suppress a blowout April 20,2010. The blowout killed 11 workers fromTransocean’s Deepwater Horizon rig and triggered a massive oil spill. The joint investigation, under the supervision of the Department of Justice, has been conducting tests on the BOP at a NASA facility in Michoud, Louisiana. DNV Columbus washired to conduct the forensic tests and BP,Transocean, and Cameron, which made the BOP, have been observing.The test results are supposed to be delivered to the joint investigation by March 20. Hearings on the BOP are scheduled for the week of April 4. In its motion, BP said it submitted to the Joint Investigation Team a list of highly technical tests it felt should be conducted, but that the final list of approved tests did not include several of the items BP and other companies had requested.“BP, however, believes that performance of these forensic activities will add value to an analysis of why the BOP did not work as intended on April 20, and recommends they be completed,” the company said in its court brief.— Gary Gentile

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Deepwater Horizon – The Movie?

Posted in accidents, Uncategorized, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , on March 17, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Summit Entertainment, Participant Media and Imagenation Abu Dhabi, have announced that they’ve acquired the film rights to a 2010 New York Times article on the BP oil spill.Forbes

This is the excellent New York Times piece referenced in the quote.

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Good Opinion Piece by Loren Steffy (Houston Chronicle)

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Jason Anderson, Dale Burkeen, Donald Clark, Stephen Curtis, Gordon Jones, Roy Wyatt Kemp, Karl Kleppinger, Blair Manuel, Dewey Revette, Shane Roshto and Adam Weise.

They are the 11 workers who died when the Deepwater Horizon burned and sank in the Gulf of Mexico last year.

Their names need to be stated, to be remembered, because they were clearly forgotten as the industry gathered for the CERAWeek conference in Houston this week. Houston Chronicle

Comment: The sad truth is that the Macondo tragedy would have received very little attention if the fatalities were not followed by a major oil spill.  There would have been no moratorium, no National Commission, no Chemical Safety Board review, and no Justice Department investigation.   The last major multi-fatality accident in the Gulf, the South Pass 60 B fire that killed seven workers in 1989, received almost no national attention.  A minor spill offshore California receives more coverage than a multi-fatality event in the Gulf.

When every casualty, every gas release, every well control incident, and every structural failure is fully and publicly reviewed, we will be well on our way toward preventing not only injuries and fatalities, but also spills and environmental damage.

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“No spill response improvements since Valdez.” WRONG!

Posted in accidents, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Ohmsett

The seemingly endless crowing about the absence of improvements in spill response capabilities is a story by itself. This topic warrants a full discussion when time permits, but for now I’ll offer a few comments and observations:

  • The Macondo offshore spill response was unprecedented and impressive, and the lessons learned will be applied to improve spill response preparedness around the world.
  • Those who claim that there has been no progress in spill preparedness either have no real interest in spill response or have not been paying attention.
  • Even in the lean years following the Valdez oil spill research surge, the much-maligned 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 (pictured above).  This research was effectively applied during the Macondo spill and smaller, less publicized incidents. Click here for a nice summary of the program and here for the very extensive list of projects and links to the reports. Domestic and international partnerships, most notably with Norway and Canada, helped sustain this important research.
  • Despite periodic attempts to reprogram Ohmsett funding, MMS was able to continue to support this outstanding research facility.  Learn more about Ohmsett.
  • During the blowout, the networks featured the snake oil salesmen and hucksters who peddle super-sorbents and oil-consuming substances during every major spill.  That time should have been given to response experts and serious oil spill researchers.
  • Former industry executives with no real spill response experience trumpeted, without any documentation, claims of extraordinary recovery rates elsewhere (usually in places where no one gets to watch). Their favorite concept, supertanker response systems, received a lot of air time until the “Whale” tanker-skimmer flopped as predicted.
  • You would think that Kevin Costner’s very good separator (tested at Ohmsett in 1999!) was the only advance in response technology. Perhaps more movie and TV stars should get involved with spill response. Charlie (Oil) Sheen would no doubt attract interest to the cause. 🙂

NWS Earle Executive Officer Claudill, Kevin Costner, and Ohmsett Manager Bill Schmidt (1999 photo at Ohmsett)

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Interesting Platts Update on DWH BOP Testing

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 3, 2011| 2 Comments »

From Platts Oilgram News article by Gary Gentile:

The team examining the BOP in Louisiana conducted tests in January and February of this year that showed that with the proper amount of hydraulic fluid pressure, the rams on the BOP would close, according to Dan Tillema, an investigator with the US Chemical Safety Board.

Portions of drill pipe were found in the BOP and the pipe was cut, Tillema said—a sign that the rams did close at some point during the incident.

But Tillema cautions against making any assumptions based on the test results sofar. Some reports have suggested that rubber gaskets around the rams were worn awayby the massive flow of oil and gas gushing from the Macondo well, overcoming the BOP’s capacity. That is just one of several possibilities, Tillema said. “We haven’t made any conclusions yet,” he said.

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Noteworthy Macondo finding that has received little attention

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on March 3, 2011| 2 Comments »

In recent years various bodies have concluded that certain MMS offices and programs have violated ethical rules or guidelines. In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, some questioned whether ethical lapses played any role in causing the blowout. The Chief Counsel‘s team found no evidence of any such lapses.

National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, Chief Counsel’s Report, page 261

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Partial recovery of the Deepwater Horizon? BOP testing about to conclude?

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 28, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Transocean Ltd., the world’s largest offshore oil driller, may attempt to recover some or all of the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded and sank during last year’s Macondo well disaster. Bloomberg

U.S. Attorney Steve Overholt told District Judge Carl Barbier that testing of the failed blowout preventor (BOP) that led to the Deepwater Horizon oilrig explosion should be done by the end of this week. Louisiana Record

 

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Capping stacks and containment systems are important, but well integrity is critical

Posted in accidents, Uncategorized, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on February 28, 2011| 2 Comments »

Good Nola.com article on the well containment systems

Comments on well capping and containment:

  1. Capping and containment systems, while important and necessary, are for blowout response, not blowout prevention. Their use, successful or otherwise, would only occur after a series of unacceptable failures.
  2. Having two capping and containment consortia in the Gulf of Mexico (and none anywhere else in the world) does not seem to be very cost effective or efficient.
  3. What are the plans for subsea capping and containment systems elsewhere?
  4. A capping/containment capability would not have saved a single life on the Deepwater Horizon. Verified barriers must be in place to prevent flow from the well bore.
  5. The well responsible for our other major drilling blowout spill (Santa Barbara – 1969), was capped at the surface by closing the blind ram on the BOP shortly after flow began. However, capping doesn’t work if you don’t have a competent well bore. The well flowed through numerous channels back to the seafloor.
  6. Capping subsea wells is safer than capping surface wells.
  7. Capping the Montara blowout (2009) in only 80m of water was neither safe nor technically feasible because of the way the well was suspended. Despite the complete absence of a capping option at Montara, the capping of surface wells has received little attention.
  8. The more critical, but less publicized, post-Macondo initiatives pertain to well design, construction, and verification. In that regard, important new standards, including the Well Construction Interface Document, are scheduled to be completed soon. That work must not be delayed.
  9. While capping stacks and containment systems will only be used in the event of a series of major failures, design and construction procedures are critical every time a well is drilled. The importance of the initial design decisions continues into the production phase and beyond, even after the well has been plugged and abandoned.

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BOP Hearings in Early April?

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 26, 2011| Leave a Comment »

These hearings should be interesting:

The JIT expects to hold another set of public hearings the week of April 4 to focus specifically on the BOP and findings from the forensic examination. BOEMRE and the USCG expect to issue a joint release regarding the investigation by mid-April.

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Houston Chronicle on BOP Failure

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on February 25, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Giant metal shears successfully sliced and closed pipe full of runaway crude in the early moments of last April’s Deepwater Horizon disaster, but the oil blasted through rubber gaskets around the blades and unleashed the nation’s largest spill, according to sources familiar with an ongoing investigation. Houston Chronicle

That would be consistent with the video evidence recorded on the Q4000, but we still need a lot more information about the timing of the shear ram closure, the position of the ram and drill pipe before and after shearing, maintenance, and other important BOP issues.

Kudos to the Chronicle for their ongoing coverage of Macondo issues.

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