Explosion – Deep Water Horizon Drilling Rig in GOM, USA

[James McLauchlan]

Source: http://www.bp.com/

Work begins to drill relief well to stop oil spill. BP has announced that work has begun to drill a relief well to intercept and isolate the oil well that is spilling oil in the US Gulf of Mexico. The new well, in 5,000 feet of water, is planned to intercept the existing well around 13,000 feet below the seabed and permanently seal it. The new drill site is about half a mile on the seabed from the leaking well in Mississippi Canyon block 252, and drilling is estimated to take some three months.

Three months…. mmm… scary thought.

Source: http://www.bp.com/
Clarification on Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Flow
Release date: 03 May 2010

BP would like to clarify that, contrary to some media reports, the actions it has taken to date on the blow out preventer have not resulted in any observed reduction in the rate of flow of oil from the MC252 well.

I just love this… BP Public Relations at it’s best 😉

Images and graphics

All about the relief effort and not one shot (that I can see) about the total mess offshore! Talk about deflecting the real deal.
To be fair though… I’d try to do the same if it were my company.

[James McLauchlan]

Deep Water Horizon, BP Oil Spill, Gulf Of Mexico. Recent news can be found at:

Deepwater Horizon Response is a Unified Command of cooperating agencies working together to control the leak

Tweets by Oil_Spill_2010

[James McLauchlan]

Some facts gleaned from the web.

The leak in the Deepwater Horizon oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico could cause the worst ever oil pollution in the history of the United States.
Until this point in time oil platforms have seldom caused major environmental disasters.
Before this point in time the biggest environmental disaster caused by an oil platform was in March 2001 when the P-36 belonging to Brazil’s oil company Petrobras leaked. The oil slick was estimated to have measured 400 square kilometres.
By comparison: the Deepwater Horizon spill already covers an area of almost 10,000 square kilometres.

Prior to this event the worst oil disaster (until now) in US was the US tanker Exxon Valdez in 1989, which ran aground in William Sound off Alaska.

In 1978
360 kilometres of the coast of Brittany was polluted with oil from the Liberian tanker Amoco Cadiz, which broke in two.

1988 – Piper Alpha
The worst ever oil platform disaster was the explosion on the North sea Almost 200 kilometres north of Aberdeen in Scotland. 167 people were killed and the damage amounted to almost a billion €Euros. 62 workers survived, many of them by diving into the sea.

In 1992
The Spanish Galician coast was polluted after the Greek tanker Aegean Sea broke in two and exploded.

In 1999
Erika, a tanker registered in Malta, ran into rocks off Brittany and polluted 200 kilometres of the French coastline.

In the 1980s in particular, many oil platforms capsized across the world as the result of hurricanes, with hundreds of people losing their lives.

My thoughts…
Over the near future we may notice a change in the way governments allow oil companies to carry out their offshore operations. It will not be…. business as usual for sure. I feel that, despite all the ‘Safety First‘ signs we all see plastered all over the place offshore, the enquiries that follow this disaster will highlight lack of training, the employment of cheap foreign labour (combined with communication issues) and lack of quality control. Net effect… you get what you pay for.

Some debate on this would be good!

[Rons_ROV_Links]

Noble boss says ‘Macondo almost personal’
Noble Energy chief Chuck Davidson today said the offshore industry must find out what happened at BP’s Macondo well blowout in the deep-water Gulf of Mexico and "fix it so it never happens again".
http://www.upstreamonline.com/live/article214059.ece

Valve set on Macondo drill pipe leak
BP has successfully attached a valve to the end of the broken drilling pipe at the Macondo well in the US Gulf and plans to try to shut that leak later today.
http://www.upstreamonline.com/live/article214055.ece

Dutch oil spill response team on standby for US oil disaster
Two Dutch companies are on stand-by to help the Americans tackle an oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico. The two companies use huge booms to sweep and suck the oil from the surface of the sea. The US authorities, however, have difficulties with the method they use.
http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/dutch-oil-spill-response-team-standby-us-oil-disaster

[Jason Garic]

For the record, Oceaneering, Subsea 7, C-Innovations, HOS, and Veolia have been involved with remediation on the BOP and riser. The Boa Sub C having most of the BOP intervention.

the enquiries that follow this disaster will highlight lack of training, the employment of cheap foreign labour (combined with communication issues) and lack of quality control. Net effect… you get what you pay for.

Some debate on this would be good!

You will find that none of that had anything to do with this catastrophe. It will probably come down to decisions that underestimated the stability of well control. For those ROV operators that engage themselves into well operations, you know those decisions come from the beach and through the upper management of the rig(BP/Transocean).

I knew three of the eleven lost souls. All were senior leadership on the drill floor and were the most professional/knowledgeable pushers and drillers I’ve ever worked with.

You would be hard pressed to find an American operated rig/vessel in the GOM with cheap foreign labor onboard.

[Rons_ROV_Links]

Health & Safety Executive UK

Enforcement Notice 300202328 (30/11/2006):

The muti-purpose tool used in blow-out preventer pressure testing was not so constructed as to be suitable for the purpose for which it was provided: and failed in service, exposing persons to risks that endangered their safety on 29th April 2006.

Link: http://www.hse.gov.uk/notices/notices/Notice_details.asp?SF=CN&SV=300202328

[Craig Thorngren]

Some facts gleaned from the web.

Prior to this event the worst oil disaster (until now) in US was the US tanker Exxon Valdez in 1989, which ran aground in William Sound off Alaska.

James, this is why I rarely trust web based news…

At an estimated 5000 bbls a day release it will take almost 52 days of spilling to EQUAL the Valdez incident… The way the news article your quoting makes it seem like this is the worst ever…

I don’t think (actually I’m pretty sure) you won’t see cheap foreign labor as a reason for the accident… In fact I’d be willing to be the vast majority of those on board belonged to a Union…
You are correct that goverments will take drastic and draconian measures so as to be seen as doing something, when in all reality they are doing nothing but interferring.

Chief

[Craig Thorngren]

Dutch oil spill response team on standby for US oil disaster
Two Dutch companies are on stand-by to help the Americans tackle an oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico. The two companies use huge booms to sweep and suck the oil from the surface of the sea. The US authorities, however, have difficulties with the method they use.
http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/dutch-oil-spill-response-team-standby-us-oil-disaster

A patently false and outright lying Article… The US has hundreds of skimmer vessels. In fact many are being used to combat this spill. The reason we don’t want this companies vessels is because they throw oil back into the water. With the skimmers that are being employeed right now, they suck the oil up, the mixture (oil and water) is run through an OWS (Oily water separator), the oil is placed into storage holds and the water, which doesn’t contain oil is put back over the side.

Why don’t we strive for a little quality rather than quantity…

Chief

[Anonymous]

Chill out chief.

I’m really not sure what your getting at saying that they were union members not cheap foreign labour?Very strange. I would say its cheap local union labour

Lets not get to emotional & see how it all pans out. I think BP should be commended for the sterling work they are doing when it was clearly transoceans equipe. systems & proceedures etc etc

[James McLauchlan]

Chief

In response to your comments on my input…. good points for debate.

Thanks for the constructive reply.

[Craig Thorngren]

We’re already seeing government officials making idiotic statements…

Robert Gibbs, Press Secretary for the President…"‘We’re going to keep the boot on the throat of BP"

Sounds like a true democracy… BP has said they will stop this and pay for this, the problem is too many people are going to try and come up with an excuse to try and get some money when they don’t deserve it

Chief

[Paul]

…The US has hundreds of skimmer vessels…

We do? I suppose that depends on what you define to be a "skimmer" vessel. As far as I know, MSRC ( http://www.msrc.org/ ) has two dedicated "oil spill recovery vessels" in the vicinity of the spill, the "Gulf Coast Responder" and "Mississippi Responder". Those are also the only two dedicated oil recovery vessels I’ve seen in photos in the press. What other dedicated oil recovery assets are in the area?

[Craig Thorngren]

…The US has hundreds of skimmer vessels…

We do? I suppose that depends on what you define to be a "skimmer" vessel. As far as I know

Paul,

I guess it comes down to "You don’t know what you don’t know…" So a little education if you will.

Every US Coast Guard 175′ & 225′ Buoy Tender is equipped with a VOSS system. VOSS stands for Vessel of Opportunity Skimming System. It can be deployed on many different types of vessels. The USCG Strike Teams also have these at their disposal. There are others that are strategically located around the US also.

The MSRC vessels you refer to aren’t the only one’s out there… There are also a lot of private contractors who do this sort of thing for a living…

Chief

[Rons_ROV_Links]

Every US Coast Guard 175′ & 225′ Buoy Tender is equipped with a VOSS system. VOSS stands for Vessel of Opportunity Skimming System. It can be deployed on many different types of vessels. The USCG Strike Teams also have these at their disposal. There are others that are strategically located around the US also.

Here’s a video explaining the USCG VOSS system.

[Rons_ROV_Links]

From Upstreamonline.com:

BP carries out ‘BOP brain surgery’
BP is carrying out surgery on the “brain” of the subsea blowout preventer (BOP) it recovered yesterday, with plans to reinstall it in the hopes it will provide accurate readings of the pressures inside the Macondo oil well blowout in the deep-water Gulf of Mexico. Link

Transocean admits India BOP ‘issues’
Transocean is looking into problems experienced with another blowout preventer (BOP) involving its drillship Discoverer Seven Seas off India earlier this year as part of an urgent investigation into the reliability of its equipment and the performance of its global deep-water rig fleet in the wake of the Macondo well blowout disaster. Link

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