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Posts Tagged ‘macondo’

Macondo End Game Confusion – Part 3

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

We are currently working with BP engineers and our science team to look at test results and do investigations to lead us to the best way to mitigate any risk of intercepting the annulus and increasing the pressure in the annulus. Admiral Allen

This insistence on drilling into a “killed well” reminds me of the Unified Command’s plan to end to end the “well integrity test” and vent the well after it had been successfully capped on July 15.  Fortunately, the Command showed good judgement and reversed that decision. Perhaps they should do the same with the relief well intercept, which no longer appears to be necessary and may be hazardous.

The obvious next step is to re-enter the well from the top, perforate the production casing and squeeze cement into the annulus, and proceed with the plugging and abandonment operation.  If the Command has reasons why this would not be the best approach, we’d like to hear what they are.

Despite the repeated “my way is the relief well” pronouncements, I trust that the Command will choose the option that accomplishes the objectives with the fewest risks to safety and the environment.

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Residents of all 50 states submit Macondo spill claims

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 16, 2010| Leave a Comment »

The filing of claims from far away “gives you some idea of the creativity of the claimant population.” Kenneth Feinberg, Administrator of BP Spill Fund

Link

Hopefully, Feinberg will be able to weed out most of the scammers.  Sadly, some of the people who are most deserving will be too proud to submit a claim.

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Macondo End Game Confusion – Part 2

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 14, 2010| 1 Comment »

Letter from Admiral Allen to BP:

… in response to BP’s request to consider foregoing the relief well, the government scientific technical team has determined that the benefits of the bottom kill procedure outweighs the risks.

  1. Did BP really ask to forgo the relief well or was this just a point of discussion?  If so, it would be nice to hear BP’s side of this.
  2. Is BP confident the annulus is plugged?  If so, what is the basis for their confidence?
  3. If the annulus is plugged, what is the objective for the relief well?  To confirm that cement is in place?  Inject additional cement? Is there sufficient information to properly assess the risks associated with such an injection procedure?
  4. If not unprecedented, it is certainly unusual to drill a relief well into a well that has been killed.  Could measures taken during the abandonment operation (e.g. cut the production casing and set a plug over the production casing  stub) assure the Unified Command that the annulus is sealed?

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Macondo End Game Confusion

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 14, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Yesterday we were watching the evening news and the reporter raised concerns about a rise in well pressure.  I hadn’t heard anything about that, so I checked the transcript from Admiral Allen’s briefing, and he said no such thing.  Here is a direct quote from the transcript:

Finally, we have finished approximately 24 hour period of doing an ambient pressure test on the well head.  The pressure has not changed depreciably (must mean appreciably) over that time period.  So the one thing we can rule out right now that it has direct communication with the reservoir.  Had the pressure risen, we would have known that there were hydrocarbons being forced up from the reservoir.  So we know there’s some kind of a – something that is between the annulus and the reservoir that is not allowing the flow of hydrocarbons forward.

Given the absence of technical details and people to explain them (an ongoing issue), one can understand the reporter’s confusion.  Attempting to read between the lines, I would assume they conducted a negative pressure test (reduced pressure at the wellhead to ambient or that of a column of sea water), and that pressure readings remained constant for the duration of the test.  This would imply that there was no influx of oil and gas up the annulus.  Perhaps the annulus was sealed during the recent cementing operation or flow up the annulus is otherwise blocked.

Of course, we are still waiting for the Unified Command to comment on the well’s flow path.  While this information is fundamental to the root cause analysis of the blowout, there is no apparent political pressure (unlike with flow rates) to inform the public about the latest thinking in that regard.  This is interesting because some of the prescriptive responses to Macondo that are already in progress may be based on erroneous information about the cause of the blowout.

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Colin Leach Reports From Gulf Shores, AL

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on August 11, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Weather: Hot and Sunny

Food: Wonderful

Water: Clear and Warm – Have disturbed fish and crabs!

Beach: White Sand – Clean

Folks need to come down, see and enjoy!

Colin notes that the resort is not nearly as busy as usual.  We all know why. The beach contamination scare spread much farther than the oil.  The Evening News in Norfolk warned viewers that Macondo oil was headed for Virginia Beach!  Should these fear-mongers contribute to BP’s compensation fund?

With regard to Macondo, Colin astutely offers the following:

the story is now quite complex with the flow on the inside, but the potential outside flow the heavy influence on the way forward…….I think that for future incidents we have to have a full and open set of information….suspect that this would have resulted in an easier, faster solution

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Macondo’s Heroes

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 10, 2010| 3 Comments »

We have heard plenty about Macondo’s real, imagined, and convenient villains, but very little about the heroes.  Let’s pay tribute to them:

  1. First and foremost the eleven men who lost their lives exploring for energy for our economy and security.  Sadly, were it not for the massive spill, their sacrifice would have received little public attention.
  2. The rescue crews who brought the other 115 workers safely to shore.
  3. The responders who worked under difficult conditions to minimize the environmental effects of the spilled oil.
  4. The relief well crews who demonstrated how complex drilling operations should be conducted.
  5. The ROV and well intervention teams.  The performance of the ROVs and subsea tools is perhaps the biggest Macondo success story.  Their pioneering work will be studied in developing the well intervention, capping, and collection plans that will be a part of future drilling programs.
  6. The people of Louisiana, who despite their personal adversity continue to believe that energy, fishing, and other offshore interests can and must co-exist.
  7. The MMS oil spill research program.  In the lean years following the Valdez oil spill research surge, 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.
  8. The Unified Command scientists who are providing comprehensive scientific data about the effects of the spill, and refuse to be swayed by sensational media reports.
  9. Oil consuming bacteria!
  10. Others?

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Tiger Mike Talk Continued

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 9, 2010| Leave a Comment »

My former colleague Clarence Kershaw, a retired USGS/MMS inspector and a very knowledgeable offshore oil and gas guy, has run into some Tiger Mikes in his career. Clarence has shared some thoughts on the subject:

I liked your comments on “More Mike Talk”.  I personally think organizations (Military, Government and civilian) are too obsessed with superior/ underling relationships.  It is acceptable for “Mike” types in a superior/owner position to issue instructions-orders-regulations to lower echelon personnel, but is is not always accepted (or sometimes allowed) for lower echelon personnel to “correct” or point out even possible errors made by superiors.

There are a lot of lower echelon personnel who have made an attempt to correct a mistake by a superior and then been rebuffed.  After that they tend to accept errors and say “It’s not my job, man.”  I’ve seen engineers get indignant when something they approved in error was pointed out by an inspector or secretary.  I knew one District Supervisor who did not like to have his writing corrected by an excellent secretary.  She would end up bringing it to me to point out to him, because he would not accept it from her.  He didn’t always accept it from me either.

My point is if you had a “Tiger Mike”  type running the rig just prior to the blowout, it wouldn’t make any difference to him how unstable the well was if he had already made up his mind to continue operations.

No, I don’t know the answer.  One person has to be in charge, but each individual must have over-riding “stop work” authority to assure safety!!!  The problem is magnified if a disagreement occurs and management consistently backs up the one in charge.

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BP audit of DWH leaked

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 8, 2010| Leave a Comment »

A newspaper says it has obtained an internal audit conducted by BP PLC on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that details severe safety flaws months before the Gulf of Mexico spill.

link

Comment: Was this a planned leak?  If so, how does this strengthen BP’s legal position?  The DWH had deficiencies (bad for Transoocean), but BP knew about the deficiencies and didn’t ensure that they were corrected (worse for BP?).  As indicated by the poster below (More “Mike Talk”), the poor working relationship between the operator and contractor may have been the real core problem.

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More “Mike Talk”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on August 8, 2010| 1 Comment »

From a poster who has requested anonymity (for background about this topic, see the 2 preceding posts):

There has been a lot of hard work done to update Mike and bring him into the modern world.  I too have had experiences with “Mike” and at a minimum they are distracting and most cases unsafe.  Mike and those like him are bullies, plain and simple.  They may have technical skills, however their people skills are lacking.  Mike doesn’t only work for Operators.  I don’t think there is an appreciation of the complex people relationships that are laid over the technical issues and inevitably there are culture clashes.  It appears that regardless of Transocean and the Deepwater Horizon having worked for BP, the relationships between senior BP and TO personnel was extremely disfunctional.  As someone with multiple decades of experience, I was amazed that what I believed were top flight organizations appear to have not progressed out of the stone age.  I’m not sure what the solution is here.  The competance of all individuals expecially those in senior positions is very important, however the skill set must include more than technical competance alone.  Significant time and money are spent in well control schools, but when the people involved can’t communicate, all such training doesn’t realize much benefit.  It may be trite, but there needs to be a TEAM.  I thought the major players had that concept in their management schemes but the recent history, at least for this incident, does not appear to indicate this.  It appears there is another big task to add to the long list of items needing attention to prevent another such occurance like Macando … and Montara.

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Just ‘Roo It!

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , on August 6, 2010| Leave a Comment »

G’Day Australia.  There are now only 2 weeks until the Federal election. Ironically, the election, which may have delayed the release of the Montara Inquiry report, will be held on the first anniversary of that blowout.

This report will play an important role in keeping our workers safe, protecting our environment and safeguarding our energy security. Minister Martin Ferguson

BOE fully agrees with Minister Ferguson’s statement about the importance of the Montara Inquiry report and hopes that he or his successor promptly releases the report after the election.  The lessons learned at Montara will not only prevent accidents in Australia, but elsewhere in the world. In light of the disturbing similarities between the two blowouts, it is possible that closer international attention to Montara might even have prevented the Macondo blowout.

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