Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged accidents, blowouts, Bob Bea, Center for Catastrophic Risk Management, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, macondo, oil spill, safety, UC Berkeley, well control on March 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Bob Bea
Dr. Bob Bea, UC Berkeley Center for Catastrophic Risk Management, and his Deepwater Horizon Study Group have issued their final report on the Macondo blowout. I look forward to reading the full documents.
Bob has been at the vanguard on risk management issues for many years. While he jokes that there are two things engineers can’t deal with – uncertainty and people, Bob is an engineer who understands both! Kudos to Bob and his group for their leadership and initiative.
Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged accidents, blowouts, BOP, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, forensics, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, offshore drilling, safety, well control on March 20, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Per the Platts Oilgram report that we posted on 17 March, here is the complete court filing..
These are the additional tests recommended by BP’s consultant Ralph Linenberger:
Is anyone else surprised that some (all?) of these tests hadn’t already been conducted? That would seem to be the biggest revelation from the BP court filing.
Posted in accidents, tagged accidents, Air France 447, black box, blowouts, BOPE, drilling, safety on March 19, 2011| 1 Comment »
Specialists are launching a fourth undersea search effort next week for the plane’s so-called black boxes, or flight recorders.
‘We are convinced if we find the black boxes we’ll be able to reconstruct what really happened on this tragic flight Air France 447,’ Enders said. Airbus officials say the search is a company priority.
Air France and Airbus will finance the estimated $12.5 million cost of the new search, in which three advanced underwater robots will scour the mountainous ocean floor between Brazil and western Africa, in depths of up to 4,000 meters (13,120 feet).
Already $27.5 million has been spent on three previous search attempts that failed to find Flight 447’s voice and data recorders. Daily Mail
Aviation safety proponents have argued that it’s time to start replacing black boxes with satellite systems that stream critical data real time. Similarly, as we have previously suggested, it’s time for real time monitoring of wellhead and BOP pressures and functions. This relatively inexpensive improvement would support testing and maintenance programs, improve our understanding of BOP performance, assist with well control decisions, and facilitate investigations.
Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged accidents, blowouts, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, offshore oil, oil spill, safety, well control 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
Posted in accidents, Uncategorized, well control incidents, tagged accidents, blowouts, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, offshore oil, oil spill, safety, well control 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.
Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged accidents, blowouts, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, oil spill, safety, well control 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.
Posted in accidents, tagged accidents, blowouts, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, MMS, offshore oil, ohmsett, oil spill, Valdez 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:
NWS Earle Executive Officer Claudill, Kevin Costner, and Ohmsett Manager Bill Schmidt (1999 photo at Ohmsett)
Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged accidents, blowouts, BOP, chemical safety board, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, offshore oil, safety, well control 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.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged accidents, blowouts, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, MMS, National Commission 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
Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged accidents, blowouts, BOP, Deepwater Horizon, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, offshore oil, transocean, well control 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
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 