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Posts Tagged ‘Malcolm Sharples’

BOE Receives Report Card from WordPress.com

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on January 4, 2011| 2 Comments »

The folks at WordPress.com sent us a blog health report and it looks like we are doing surprisingly well:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow!

WordPress.com added:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 71,000 times in 2010. If it were an exhibit at The Louvre Museum, it would take 3 days for that many people to see it.

In 2010, there were 470 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 412 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 97mb. That’s about 1 pictures per day.

We did okay for an obscure blog that accepts no sponsorships, advertisements, or donations, and focuses on niche safety and regulatory issues.  Thanks for your support.

Among the many BOE contributors, special thanks go to Odd Finnestad, Colin Leach, and Malcolm Sharples. These internationally recognized experts have voluntarily provided suggestions, data, and and informed analyses. It’s a pleasure working with them and the others who have contributed, some of whom prefer to remain anonymous.

Over the past year, I have heard from many dedicated energy professionals and safety leaders.  Because of their commitment and enthusiasm, I am optimistic that we will resolve our issues and move forward in a manner that benefits the offshore industry and society.

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Long Overdue: Failure Reporting System for BOPE

Posted in drilling, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 23, 2010| Leave a Comment »

BOP stack awaiting post-Macondo inspection (from gCaptain.com)

In my 11 May 2010 testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, I made ten recommendations. While many of the issues raised in that testimony are being addressed, one of the more important recommendations (no. 4) has received little or no attention. This recommendation calls for a public or private system for collecting and assessing failure date for blowout prevention equipment.  To the best of my knowledge, the only publicly available performance data for BOPE were collected by MMS and SINTEF and pertain to failures during BOP pressure testing, not failures during other operations.  How can we have a credible safety system without comprehensive failure data for such critical well control equipment?

Dr. Malcolm Sharples, an important BOE contributor, identified a number of BOP performance issues since Macondo.  Here are a few examples:

  1. During routine tests on the device, the locking system of one of the rams jammed in a locked position. Sevan is working with Petrobras and the supplier, Cameron, to find a solution.
  2. Reliance suspended all drilling work in the block after the Transocean rig Deepwater Expedition developed technical problems in its BOP. Reliance was drilling the KGV-D3-W1 well in the contract area since April 2010.
  3. The rig was offshore Australia for Shell early last month when newly installed BOP components failed during operations. Following several unsuccessful attempts to rectify the problems in the field, the failing BOP component is currently undergoing repairs in Singapore.

How is this information not important to every operator, regulator, and drilling contractor?  A comprehensive BOP failure reporting system should be a high and immediate priority for the offshore industry.  The information should be verified and published so that all may learn and future performance improved. Requirements for providing such information should be included in contracts and, if necessary, regulations.

An other major void that I have been talking about for years, without much success, is the absence of a comprehensive and verified international incident reporting system.  I assumed this would be universally recognized immediate necessity, and a critical element of the offshore industry’s initiatives agenda. Apparently that is not the case.  More on this to follow.

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Wind Turbine Safety

Posted in Offshore Wind, Wind Energy, tagged , , , , on April 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Like offshore oil and gas development, wind turbine projects have safety, structural, and operational issues that require careful consideration by operators, contractors, suppliers, and regulators.  The National Academies Marine Board recently held a workshop to address these issues.  Of particular interest was a presentation by Dr. Malcolm Sharples that addresses some of the challenges faced by offshore wind energy developers.

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