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Posts Tagged ‘capping and containment’

Observations from the Ministerial Forum on Offshore Drilling Containment

Posted in conferences, drilling, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , on April 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

International Guests

  • The conference was nicely organized by the folks in the Department of the Interior and BOEMRE
  • Angola, Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom, Russia, and the US were represented. The European Union also participated.
  • Brazil was represented by two Petrobras managers, rather than governmental officials. This raised some eyebrows.
  • Australia formally announced yet another offshore regulators’ conference, the International Offshore Petroleum Regulators and Operators Summit in Perth (10-11 August). Do we need better coordination of the coordination conferences? Isn’t the International Regulators’ Forum (IRF) the best means of managing all of this?
  • The need for expanded offshore oil and gas operations was recognized by all participants.
  • Malcolm Webb of Oil and Gas UK, announced that UK operators would have a capping capability for subsea wells by the end of the summer. However,  no well containment system is planned. This omission, which was attributed to North Sea weather and sea conditions, is surprising. Capping is not an option if well integrity concerns prevent a well from being shut-in, either with the BOP or a cap (if the BOP failed). The absence of a well containment option would seem to be a significant gap in their response capability.
  • A working group was formed to consider a new or strengthened international organization for offshore safety and pollution prevention. In my view, the best option would be to enhance existing cooperation mechanisms, most notably the IRF. International cooperation on safety is not a new concept. The IRF, which was mentioned positively by many of the speakers at the Ministerial Forum, has existed since 1994 and has an ongoing international standards effort. A related group, ICRARD, has been coordinating offshore safety research for more than 15 years. Various industry organizations have international programs. ISO has a good system for developing and managing standards. The International Maritime Organization has official committees that address certain offshore safety and pollution issues. Making better use of existing committees and forums would seem to make more sense than starting new ones.

With BOEMRE dynamos - (Kona) Kevin Kunkel and July (Ms. COOL) McQuilliams

link to videos

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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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