Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘offshore oil’

Macondo is dead

Posted in accidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 4, 2010| 3 Comments »

I awoke to an email message from Odd Finnestad linking the BP announcement.  It’s only fitting that Odd delivered the news. He and I have been following Montara and Macondo on a daily basis since August 21, 2009, the day the Montara well blew out in the Timor Sea.  A few thoughts:

  • The real end date for the blowout was July 15th, when the containment cap shut-in the well.  It was an uncertain ending with the capping described as a temporary integrity test and talk about re-opening well vents. Fortunately, good judgement and common sense prevailed, and the well remained shut-in.
  • The efforts to prevent recurrence can now proceed with fewer distractions. It’s difficult to calmly address the issues while video images of oil gushing into the Gulf are being broadcast worldwide.
  • We need to do more than react to Macondo, and every offshore operator and contractor needs to be involved. Only 20% of Gulf of Mexico operators attended a critical industry-government hurricane conference after Katrina and Rita.  (No, I’m not going to stop ranting about this!)
  • Industry needs to look at EVERY aspect of offshore operations, not just the drilling issues associated with Macondo.  Fixing what happened at Macondo doesn’t prevent production, pipeline, and other types of drilling disasters.  Helicopter safety, lifting operations, and workplace safety issues also need to be further addressed.
  • This is a major effort and everyone needs to participate.  If you aren’t committed to improving overall safety performance, in the US and worldwide, you shouldn’t be in the business.

Read Full Post »

A Tale of Two Spills

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »

In the less than 3 week period since Macondo was capped, we have transitioned from “doom and gloom” to “all is well.”  What next?

Click to read an interesting USA Today article.

“Oil doesn’t really kill marsh plants,” says John Pardue, director of Louisiana State University’s Hazardous Substance Research Center, who has studied the effects of oil on marshes. “You can put several inches of oil on the vegetation surface and you won’t kill the plants.”

Read Full Post »

Macondo spill rate – 53,000 bopd before capping, 62,000 bopd at outset

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , on August 2, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Those are the latest official numbers provided by the Unified Command’s Scientific Teams. Once again, no assumptions or calculations are provided. Why? What was the range of estimates for the different methods (videos analyses, reservoir modeling, acoustics, and extrapolations based on recovery volumes)? Show us the data!

Read Full Post »

Macondo Monday

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 2, 2010| Leave a Comment »

End game mysteries?:  As BP prepares for the static kill operation, the well’s flow path is still not clear.   While the consensus seems to be that the flow originates in the annulus outside the production casing, irregularities during the cementing and testing of that casing suggest the possibility of flow inside the casing.  The condition of the well bore and casing strings is also uncertain. Perhaps of greatest importance will be the inspection of the BOPE after the well is plugged and the stack is pulled.  This inspection process should be closely supervised by the regulators.

Press conference etiquette?: After admitting that they joined yesterday’s Unified Command press briefing late, two reporters asked questions that had been answered earlier.  Perhaps they think their time is more important than Admiral Allen’s, or that of the other attendees, viewers, and listeners.  One of these questioners asked when the static kill operation would begin.  Admiral Allen, who answered the question politely and patiently, should have asked when it would be most convenient for the reporter. Surely, the Unified Command would want to accommodate the reporter’s busy schedule. 😉

Dispersants: As has been demonstrated at oil spill workshops and conferences for the past 30 years, you can always stir up passions by questioning the use of dispersants.  Dispersants, unlike burning and skimmers, don’t remove oil from the water (at least not directly).  The On-Scene Commander (OSC) must consider the tradeoffs and make the decisions that he or she thinks will minimize the net impact of the spill.  Given the magnitude of location of the Macondo spill, I think the OSCs made the correct calls.  Dispersants were also used (not without controversy of course) in responding to last year’s Montara blowout in the Timor Sea.

Read Full Post »

Bacteria to the Rescue

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , on July 31, 2010| Leave a Comment »

oil-eating bacteria

ABC News reports: Undersea Plumes Nowhere to Be Found as Tests Show Seafood to Be Safe

“When a large amount of oil comes into the environment, then they quickly muster, if you will, and they can sometimes grow to 1,000-fold,” said Jay Grimes, a professor of microbiology at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Read Full Post »

Relax Parrotheads; it’s official – southern Florida, the keys, and the Atlantic coast are not threatened

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , on July 30, 2010| Leave a Comment »

“For southern Florida, the Florida Keys, and the Eastern Seaboard, the coast remains clear,” said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “With the flow stopped and the loop current a considerable distance away, the light sheen remaining on the Gulf’s surface will continue to biodegrade and disperse, but will not travel far.”

The scare is over, return to your stations and enjoy the sunsets.

Dr. Lubachenco’s announcement is no surprise to the savvy readers of this obscure blog, but it’s nonetheless good to hear the official word.  Don’t expect any apologies from the fear mongers who predicted that the loop current superhighway would carry oil to east coast beaches as early as the first week of May or from the media folks who were eager to report the pending doom.

Read Full Post »

Which Tony Hayward assessment will prove to be closer to the truth?

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , on July 30, 2010| Leave a Comment »

A. The environmental effects will be modest  (initial Hayward assessment made shortly after oil started gushing into the Gulf)

or

B. Environmental catastrophe (revised Hayward assessment while on the political hot-seat)

It’s much too soon to make a call, but the early data seem to favor A.  The Telegraph and Time have posted interesting articles on this topic.

Read Full Post »

NY Times Article Confirms What We Expected

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , on July 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »

The oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico appears to be dissolving far more rapidly than anyone expected, a piece of good news that raises tricky new questions about how fast the government should scale back its response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

A very good article in the New York Times confirms what experienced oil spill observers expected – oil from the Macondo spill is disappearing rapidly as a result of natural processes (see SINTEF diagram below).  While marsh and coastal damage could be significant, more oil from Macondo shouldn’t add to those problems.

SINTEF Weathering Diagram

Read Full Post »

Deep Water is Not the Problem

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 27, 2010| 1 Comment »

In the Gulf of Mexico, deepwater drilling is more risky because that is where the high-rate wells are, not because the water is deep.
  • Water depth had little to do with the well integrity problems at Macondo. Similar errors in planning and execution would have yielded similar results in any water depth or on land.  Has Montara already been forgotten?
  • Subsea BOP stacks have a much better performance record than the surface stacks used in shallow water drilling (more on this later in the week).
  • Historical data indicate that blowouts occur less frequently in deep water, not more frequently (more to follow).
  • Obviously, blowouts involving high-rate wells are likely to do more damage.   This applies regardless of the water depth.   You can reduce the spill risk by prohibiting drilling in the areas with the highest production potential, but that wouldn’t be very sound energy policy and you won’t find many buyers for the leases.
  • It is safer to conduct intervention and capping operations on subsea wells.  Regulators would not even allow surface capping to be considered at Montara because of the high risk to workers.  The subsurface ROV work is perhaps the biggest Macondo success story.
  • If the Macondo well was in shallow water (with the wellhead above the water surface), and well integrity concerns precluded a risky surface capping operation, how would the flow have been contained and collected?
  • Other things being equal, the environmental risk is less at deepwater locations which tend to be farther from shore.

Water depth is just one well planning consideration.  Abnormal pressures and temperatures, shallow gas, hydrogen sulfide, ice, permafrost, storms, currents, extended reach targets, and horizontal completions are some of the others.  To prevent another Macondo, in the US or anywhere else in the world, we need to focus our attention on the 3 categories of issues listed below.  These issues are important in all water depths and in all environments.

  1. Well integrity including design, construction, barriers, verification, and monitoring.
  2. BOPE performance and reliability under all conditions.
  3. Capping, containing, and collecting oil in the event of a blowout.

Read Full Post »

Information on Marine Well Containment Company

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 24, 2010| 2 Comments »

Click on photo to enlarge.  MWCC information sheet.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »