Posts Tagged ‘macondo’
Déjà vu
Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged accidents, Australia, blowouts, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, Montara, National Commission, offshore oil, safety, well control on November 9, 2010| 1 Comment »
Nice Work by the Commission attorneys and staff
Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged accidents, blowouts, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, National Commission, offshore oil, safety, well control on November 8, 2010| 1 Comment »
Hats off to the Commission attorneys and staff for today’s presentations and questioning. They were very well prepared, conducted themselves in a professional manner, and focused on the causes (not who should be blamed). The format was excellent with the Commission presenting their tentative findings and then asking the industry panel how they felt about each finding.
Oddly, the only real speculation was by the industry panelists, most notably the comments below about the flow path and BOP performance. Not very subtle!
Halliburton Stunner
Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged accidents, blowouts, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, National Commission, offshore oil, oil spill, safety, well control on November 8, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Based on lower than expected pressure readings during the cementing operation, Halliburton (Richard Vargo) contends that hydrocarbons entered the annulus (outside production casing) during cementing, rose to the wellhead before the seal assembly was set, and raised the seal assembly after it was set. They believe that subsequent flow was inside production casing, but that the initial burst was up the annulus. This position is inconsistent with current view of the Commission and all of the other parties.
National Commission Hearing: 8-9 November
Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged accidents, blowouts, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, National Commission, offshore oil, oil spill, safety, well control on November 7, 2010| Leave a Comment »
The hearing will focus on the causes of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and will be broadcast live on C-SPAN2. The panelists and speakers are listed here.
Macondo spill cost estimate is now $40 billion
Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged accidents, blowouts, bp, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, offshore oil, oil spill, safety, well control on November 2, 2010| Leave a Comment »
BP is now estimating total Macondo response and damage costs at $39.9 billion. I would guess that only 4 or 5 other operating companies could have survived this type of hit.
Hopefully, every offshore operator is keeping this in mind when formulating safety management programs and training, research, and standards budgets. Companies claiming that such disasters couldn’t happen to them are simply demonstrating that they could, because no company with a proper safety culture would make such a statement.
Hydrocarbon Releases
Posted in accidents, conferences, IRF, tagged Australia, hydrocarbon releases, macondo, Netherlands, Norway, offshore oil, performance measurement, UK on November 2, 2010| 1 Comment »
The above slide is excerpted from Torleif Husebo’s presentation at the Vancouver conference. Since Piper Alpha in 1988, offshore safety leaders have been gathering and assessing hydrocarbon release data. Norway, the UK, Australia, the Netherlands and other nations track these data because they are an important indicator of fire and explosion risks. The IRF reports these data as part of their performance measurement project.
Obviously, when hydrocarbons are unintentionally released at an offshore facility you have the potential for a very dangerous situation. However, because of objections voiced when the MMS updated incident reporting requirements 5 years ago, the US government does not collect the detailed information needed to track the size and cause of these releases. The US is thus unable to monitor trends and benchmark against other nations around the world.
Offshore companies have done well in responding to the drilling issues raised following the blowout. However, the post-Macondo offshore industry needs to provide broad safety leadership. A commitment to collecting performance data and assessing risk trends at OCS oil and gas facilities is absolutely essential. A good place to start would be to initiate a cooperative hydrocarbon release data gathering program.
Chevron tests point to flawed Macondo cement
Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged accidents, blowouts, cement, Chevron, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, National Commission, safety, well control on October 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Chevron’s report states, among other things, that its lab personnel were unable to generate stable foam cement in the laboratory using the materials provided by Halliburton and available design information regarding the slurry used at the Macondo well. Although laboratory foam stability tests cannot replicate field conditions perfectly, these data strongly suggest that the foam cement used at Macondo was unstable. This may have contributed to the blowout.
Further:
The documents provided to us by Halliburton show, among other things, that its personnel conducted at least four foam stability tests relevant to the Macondo cement slurry. The first two tests were conducted in February 2010 using different well design parameters and a slightly different slurry recipe than was finally used. Both tests indicated that this foam slurry design was unstable.
Posted in accidents, tagged aban pearl, accidents, Australia, Bayou St. Denis, Chile, China, Jack Ryan, macondo, Mariner fire, Montara, offshore oil, varanus, venezuela on October 14, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Now that Chile, with the help of the international community (including two companies from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania where the drilling industry began), has rescued the 33 miners, can we drill into the Australian government and rescue the Montara and Varanus Island reports?
While we are at it, can we learn more about these accidents?
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Bayou St. Denis blowout
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Others?
Let’s learn from past accidents, so we don’t need dramatic rescues in the future.
The offshore safety record will be suspect until industry and governments have credible, internationally accepted programs and policies for ensuring that accidents are independently investigated and that investigation updates and reports are released in a timely manner.
Drilling Ban to End This Week
Posted in accidents, drilling, Offshore Energy - General, well control incidents, tagged accidents, blowouts, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, moratorium, safety, well control on October 12, 2010| Leave a Comment »
The White House said Tuesday the government will lift a moratorium on deep water oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico “very soon” – likely this week. Washington Post
Too many distractions before Macondo blew?
Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged accidents, Australia, blowouts, BOEMRE, Coast Guard, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, Montara, safety, well control on October 9, 2010| Leave a Comment »
There were so many simultaneous activities — starting with the displacing of mud to the pumping of fluids overboard — it was difficult to see what was going on. John Gisclair, Sperry Sun (see Times Picayune summary of yesterday’s BOEM-Coast Guard hearing)
John Gisclair
Too much at once? Hurrying to finish the job? Cost concerns? No one in charge? Distracted by managers visiting the rig? One or more of these human and organizational factors appears to have contributed to the blowout.
Similarly, the rigid commitment to “batching” the development wells (for efficiency reasons) seems to have been a factor contributing to the Montara blowout in the Timor Sea. If after removing the corrosion cap on the production casing, the work on the H1 well had continued in series (i.e. casing tied-back, BOP installed, and well secured) before moving on to another well, this blowout may have been prevented.
At both Macondo and Montara, time pressures (perceived or real) may also have affected the way negative-pressure tests were conducted or assessed. These tests should have detected the influx of hydrocarbons via the shoe track.
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 