Big oil braced for safety overhaul after BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico

[dmcowen674]

Dome failed, tar balls washing up in Alabama

Telling ya, only option is to nuke it.

 

[JSt0rm]

well now that pumping the oil failed i guess they will actually close it now.

 

[WHAMPOM]

Oil spill still? Methane ice clogs the dome? BP underestimates the problem again? Well yes, 1000, er 5000 barrel per day spill may may now actually have been over 20,000 barrels due to how fast the dome filled up.

 

[CaptnKirk]

Dome failed, tar balls washing up in Alabama

Remember back when only Hawaii was known for having Black Sand beaches?

 

[WHAMPOM]

Oh please excuse my earlier post for not using the Corporate Correct *oil leak* oil spill is so crass.

 

[CaptnKirk]

Here's a somewhat highly reactionary evaluation of the oil spill/leak.

It is the absolute worst case scenario - and although most of what is said is based in fact, there are a few deviations.
It's probably in the 75% credible range, and some 'facts' need updating - like '100 miles off Louisiana's coast' to 50 miles,
it does show the potential hazard if they can't shut this thing down.

Have a nice day.

http://pesn.com/2010/05/02/9501643_Mother_of_all_gushers_could_kill_Earths_oceans/

 

[DAGTA]

any news today?

 

[werepossum]

One of most interesting things about hydrates is the speculation that ship losses in the Bermuda Triangle might be due to methane hydrates breaking loose. Say a massive bed of methane hydrate crystals are a mile down and due to a small earthquake a large amount breaks loose. As the methane rises and warms it all converts to gaseous form and spreads out, drastically lowering the density (and thus flotation) of the water and causing any ship caught in the area to sink immediately. This makes me wonder if the reason the safety equipment failed was that the methane bubble was not only inside the pipe, but also all around it, thus fueling both the initial explosion and the subsequent fire.

 

[Thump553]

BP, RIG and HAL executives to testify before Congress today. Here is a Dow Jones article summarizing their prepared testimony:
--------------------
=DJ Senate Hearings Seen Sharpening Scrutiny of Oil-Rig Cementing


By Siobhan Hughes
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Halliburton Corp. (HAL) will tell the U.S. Senate on Tuesday that a procedure it undertook at an oil rig that exploded last month isn't intended to be a complete line of defense against blowouts, and that underwater conditions may prevent the work from having the highest levels of integrity.
The testimony, from Halliburton's chief health, safety and environmental officer, Tim Probert, comes as the first congressional debate on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill sharpens scrutiny of cementing. The technique, which involves filling up a space between the hole bored into the sea floor and the casing, or pipe, inserted into the hole, is an early line of defense against a surge of oil or gas from a reservoir. The procedure also has been associated with other oil-rig accidents.
"Cement is used at specific designated spots and is not designed to be a complete barrier through the entire wellbore," Probert will say in the text of prepared remarks. He will say that "while every effort is made to complete a cement job with the highest levels of mechanical and hydraulic integrity," conditions such as variability in a well's geometry "may prevent this."
Transocean Ltd. (RIG) Chief Executive Steve Newman will testify that "the one thing we know with certainty" is that in the April 20 explosion "there was a sudden, catastrophic failure of the cement, the casing or both." BP America Inc. president Lamar McKay will remain silent on the issue of cementing.
Halliburton's executive will not say whether the company's cementing work was faulty, but will say that "confirming cement integrity" is up to the well owner, who can always "elect to perform remedial action" by perforating the well's casing and "squeezing cement into the remaining voids to improve the integrity of the original cement." He will also say that the company is "confident" that the cementing work on the Mississippi Canyon 252 well "was completed in accordance with the requirements of the well owner's well construction plan."
BP will say that the key question is why a device known as a blowout preventer that is supposed to shut off the well in the event of a catastrophic blowout malfunctioned. A blowout preventer is considered a final barrier against a gush of oil into the deepwater.
Cement is "perhaps the most difficult barrier to install and control," F. E. Beck, a petroleum engineer at Texas A & M University, will tell the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Former Minerals Management Service regulator Bud Danenberger will testify that 18 of 39 blowouts during the 15-year period from 1992-2006 involved cementing operations.
Federal regulators have at times relied on the industry to address the issue of cementing on its own. In 2000, the MMS said it would leave it up to oil companies to decide the best practices for each cement job, due to the complexity and variety of cementing operations. The agency said that poor cementing practices are "among the main primary causes of sustained casing pressures on producing wells."

----------------------
The news report I heard on the way in this morning also said that the blowout preventer BP is pointing a finger at (designed and built by Cameron) was owned by RIG (Transocean), which is news to me. If true this is a significant step towards BP trying to foist the legal responsbility off on RIG.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

More bad news for BP. They're the only ones I remember associated with fossil fuel accidents / screwups. Texas City - 15 dead, Prudhoe bay spills.

I think this is actually bad news for the people who have to deal with the consequences of this clusterfuck rather than bp, who pays a minimal fine, does some nominal cleanup and goes on their merry way.

 

[marianne]

Sickening, disheartening, should have never happened.
There were not the appropriate safeguards in place, and heads should roll over this one.
http://news.suite101.com/article.cf...roleum-to-big-polluter-in-csr-setback-a235924

 

[PottedMeat]

I think this is actually bad news for the people who have to deal with the consequences of this clusterfuck rather than bp, who pays a minimal fine, does some nominal cleanup and goes on their merry way.

yeah that's probably true.


here comes the blame game:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100511/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill

...so would BP pay for some cleanup, then sue someone ( transocean/halliburton/etc. ) for the costs?

 

[ahurtt]

Please forgive me on this if the thoughts I am about to lay forth have already been discussed in the thread but I don't particularly feel like reading through the entire 11 page history. It just seems to me that if the big oil companies knew what was best for them in the long run, they'd ALL be pitching in to help BP clean up this mess and contain this catastrophe. Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, etc...the whole lot of them. Instead the greedy myopic executives of these big oil corporations are probably sitting in their ivory towers wringing their hands and laughing maniacally at the misfortune of their competitor. But to hear BP tell it, the crew that operated the rig that failed was not their own but that of one of the largest offshore drilling and oil services corporations on the planet, Diamond Offshore. Tell me that no other big oil company uses services or rigs that are owned and operated by this company. . .

If there was any hope of making the US less dependent on foreign oil (thereby helping to shore up our national security) by opening up our own coastal waters to drilling, it has certainly been smashed to oblivion by this single catastrophe for any time in the foreseeable future. This tarnishes not just BP, but big oil in general (as if their image wasn't bad enough already) and the other oil corps should be quick to recognize this if they ever have any hope of getting in on any domestic offshore drilling operations. They are ALL in this together whether they realize it or not and this could just as easily have happened to ANY of them. But it didn't. It happened to BP and so they alone bear the brunt of the responsibility for picking it up. But if any of the other big oil corps actually cared about the planet that we ALL share even half as much as they'd have us all believe in their "Green" advertising campaigns, every one of them would be out their doing their part to right this catastrophe. This is their chance to be heroes, put their money where their advertising mouth is, and do what is right. But in their inaction, their true stripes are revealed. IS there any such thing as a good corporate citizen? We all want to beat out the competition but at what cost? To put my feeling into analogy, if your next door neighbors house is burning down and the flames are threatening to spread to your house and consume your home as well and your neighbor is out there with a garden hose trying desperately to contain the flames by himself, do you sit idly by and wait for your house to go up in flames along with his? This is the perdicament I see big oil in over this Gulf oil catastrophe. They just don't realize yet that BP's misfortune is their own as well because the fallout has not hit them yet. But soon enough they will see and then they will wish they had been out there next to their neighbor with their garden hoses as well. Hindsight is always 20/20 I guess. Always has been always will be.

If big oil companies would take just some fraction of what they typically spend on "green" advertising and divert it to help clean up the gulf oil spill, the effects could be dramatic. And I couldn't think of any more effective advertising than actually going out there and DOING and HELPING, plainly and visibly, rather than just talking about it in print, radio, and television, etc... So I challenge big oil to put their money where their mouth is and get out their and help their fallen brother, BP, if truly any of them even give even half a shit about the world we all share together. Sadly my challenge will probably go unanswered, but I hope that they prove me wrong in my pessimism.

 

[Zedtom]

"It's their fault!"

 

[werepossum]

BP, RIG and HAL executives to testify before Congress today. Here is a Dow Jones article summarizing their prepared testimony:
--------------------
=DJ Senate Hearings Seen Sharpening Scrutiny of Oil-Rig Cementing


By Siobhan Hughes
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Halliburton Corp. (HAL) will tell the U.S. Senate on Tuesday that a procedure it undertook at an oil rig that exploded last month isn't intended to be a complete line of defense against blowouts, and that underwater conditions may prevent the work from having the highest levels of integrity.
The testimony, from Halliburton's chief health, safety and environmental officer, Tim Probert, comes as the first congressional debate on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill sharpens scrutiny of cementing. The technique, which involves filling up a space between the hole bored into the sea floor and the casing, or pipe, inserted into the hole, is an early line of defense against a surge of oil or gas from a reservoir. The procedure also has been associated with other oil-rig accidents.
"Cement is used at specific designated spots and is not designed to be a complete barrier through the entire wellbore," Probert will say in the text of prepared remarks. He will say that "while every effort is made to complete a cement job with the highest levels of mechanical and hydraulic integrity," conditions such as variability in a well's geometry "may prevent this."
Transocean Ltd. (RIG) Chief Executive Steve Newman will testify that "the one thing we know with certainty" is that in the April 20 explosion "there was a sudden, catastrophic failure of the cement, the casing or both." BP America Inc. president Lamar McKay will remain silent on the issue of cementing.
Halliburton's executive will not say whether the company's cementing work was faulty, but will say that "confirming cement integrity" is up to the well owner, who can always "elect to perform remedial action" by perforating the well's casing and "squeezing cement into the remaining voids to improve the integrity of the original cement." He will also say that the company is "confident" that the cementing work on the Mississippi Canyon 252 well "was completed in accordance with the requirements of the well owner's well construction plan."
BP will say that the key question is why a device known as a blowout preventer that is supposed to shut off the well in the event of a catastrophic blowout malfunctioned. A blowout preventer is considered a final barrier against a gush of oil into the deepwater.
Cement is "perhaps the most difficult barrier to install and control," F. E. Beck, a petroleum engineer at Texas A & M University, will tell the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Former Minerals Management Service regulator Bud Danenberger will testify that 18 of 39 blowouts during the 15-year period from 1992-2006 involved cementing operations.
Federal regulators have at times relied on the industry to address the issue of cementing on its own. In 2000, the MMS said it would leave it up to oil companies to decide the best practices for each cement job, due to the complexity and variety of cementing operations. The agency said that poor cementing practices are "among the main primary causes of sustained casing pressures on producing wells."

----------------------
The news report I heard on the way in this morning also said that the blowout preventer BP is pointing a finger at (designed and built by Cameron) was owned by RIG (Transocean), which is news to me. If true this is a significant step towards BP trying to foist the legal responsbility off on RIG.

I would think that primary responsibility may well devolve on Transocean and/or Halliburton, but if it's like other construction they can only be sued through BP. This may well devolve into an "Act of G-d", but hopefully it will at least stimulate additional mandated safety measures, better procedures (mandated by law), and pre-positioned, pre-funded, well-trained oil leak remediation teams standing by. As more difficult to drill deep wells are sunk this becomes even more important. Also, the Gulf is subject to periodic significant natural spills as well, which might well increase (or decrease) as underground pressures change from drilling operations. A spill like this which occurred during (or even during one caused by the drilling accident) a significant natural spill and/or a second drill failure (statistically more likely as more wells are drilled) would be truly catastrophic on ecology as well as economy.

 

[ahurtt]

Please forgive me on this if the thoughts I am about to lay forth have already been discussed in the thread but I don't particularly feel like reading through the entire 11 page history.

..blah blah snip snip snip...

So I challenge big oil to put their money where their mouth is and get out their and help their fallen brother, BP, if truly any of them even give even half a shit about the world we all share together. Sadly my challenge will probably go unanswered, but I hope that they prove me wrong in my pessimism.

Ok, to take some of the wind out of my own sails I did find this article which, if true, then hats off to those few (Chevron, Royal Dutch, Exxon-Mobil) mentioned in the article that have volunteered help.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idAFN0325322520100503

I guess it would make me happier if I saw all the companies openly banding together to form a coalition to stop this mess and clean it up and made it their top priority until it is fixed. Every day I think about this mess it just makes me crestfallen and depressed. It just doesn't seem that they can possibly contain/burn/disperse this oil as fast as it's gushing out on a sustained basis...Maybe the problem is just that nobody has an idea that will work, I dunno. I just feel so helpless and powerless watching in horror as this catastrophe unfolds day after day. It's so frustrating.

 

[RedCOMET]

<snip>
But to hear BP tell it, the crew that operated the rig that failed was not their own but that of one of the largest offshore drilling and oil services corporations on the planet, Diamond Offshore. Tell me that no other big oil company uses services or rigs that are owned and operated by this company. . .

<snip>

I believe you meant TransOcean. They owned the rig.

 

[JSt0rm]

This may well devolve into an "Act of G-d", .

how the hell could you come to that conclusion?

 

[JSt0rm]

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/sseop/photo.pl?mission=ISS023&roll=E&frame=32397

A picture of the oil slick from the space station. Thats not good.

 

[werepossum]

how the hell could you come to that conclusion?

First, that is what the company will be angling for, to limit liability. Second, all the Congresscritters the company and the industry can buy will be angling for that as well. Third, it might well even be true - if the methane bubble that caused this was around the well on the sea bed, or if the bubble came from an internal collapse that could not be foreseen, then it might well be that no particular system or safety measure failed, but rather an unforeseeable event happened.

This will be an indication of Obama's sincerity in allowing limited offshore drilling. Conservatives often claim he was being disingenuous, knowing that his allies in government and in environmental groups will prevent any new exploration and production. If so he'll certainly seize on this to stop it, probably with a moratorium to "study" the dangers. (Unfortunately he may well do that even if he is sincere, and most of us will be hard pressed to know the difference.)

 

[JSt0rm]

First, that is what the company will be angling for, to limit liability. Second, all the Congresscritters the company and the industry can buy will be angling for that as well. Third, it might well even be true - if the methane bubble that caused this was around the well on the sea bed, or if the bubble came from an internal collapse that could not be foreseen, then it might well be that no particular system or safety measure failed, but rather an unforeseeable event happened.

you had me until 3. If I stick my dick in a girl and she gets pregnant is it an act of god? Fact is BP stuck their dick where it didn't belong and got shit on it. No act of god needed.

 

[werepossum]

you had me until 3. If I stick my dick in a girl and she gets pregnant is it an act of god? Fact is BP stuck their dick where it didn't belong and got shit on it. No act of god needed.

So you support no offshore drilling? Should we get our oil only from other nations (using borrowed money), or do you propose a Magic Cupboard of energy too?

 

[JSt0rm]

So you support no offshore drilling? Should we get our oil only from other nations (using borrowed money), or do you propose a Magic Cupboard of energy too?

How did we get from you saying it was a act of god to me saying no offshore drilling? :hmm:

 

[werepossum]

How did we get from you saying it was a act of god to me saying no offshore drilling? :hmm:

you had me until 3. If I stick my dick in a girl and she gets pregnant is it an act of god? Fact is BP stuck their dick where it didn't belong and got shit on it. No act of god needed.

Granted, I assumed BP's "dick" was an allusion to "drill" and "where it didn't belong" an allusion to "offshore". Feel free to correct me.

 

[JSt0rm]

Granted, I assumed BP's "dick" was an allusion to "drill" and "where it didn't belong" an allusion to "offshore". Feel free to correct me.

im not totally against drilling I'm saying if you fuck up its not a act of god. The very fact that the drill into such a dangerous place means they went to it not god came to them. It's not an act of god.