*** Must Watch *** -- 60 Minutes Report on Deepwater Horizon Explosion

[Zorkorist]

When they hit rubber..., the deck boss is instructed tp tell me how he has found bubblegum.

-John

 

[RedCOMET]

The one thing that is clear is that the Blow Out Preventor, failed to function.

Thanks for your response.

My brother is an oil man, and he calls this a catastrophe.

-John

John, I work offshore on TOI rigs. Right now, I'm assigned to a TOI drillship. i don't know any of the 11 men that were killed... the people that i do know that worked on rig are safe. I was speechless and then like WTF when i read about the explosion on google news and then started watching the the cable news channels about.

The BOP stack is the first and really only line of defense for when a well becomes unstable. An event like this should not have happened with the all the testing, equipment , knowledge and safety empowering culture that is present on offshore facilities now a days.

I look fwd to reading any report that can identify the root causes of this disaster. This is not going to be as simple as saying BP decided to jump the gun, or that the cement job wasn't up to snuff. There is going to multiple events /failure that led to this tragic outcome. i could go on but meh.

To say this is a catastrophe, well the rig sinking was a catastrophe. The well not being sealed even after 3+ weeks is something on whole other level.

 

[Zorkorist]

Now you are scaring me, redcomet.

Thank you for your straight-forward responses to my thoughts.

-John

 

[Zorkorist]

FWIW, I am honestly scared, when oil men use the word catastophe.

It's just no good.

-John

 

[JSt0rm]

the oil rig spill in the east timor sea spilled for 4 months D: it was only 400 barrels a day. Imagine what could happen here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montara_oil_spill

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Red Comet, thank you very much for sharing your knowledge with us laypeople.

Something I have been wondering, is, how does a rig drill a hole, cap it, leave, and then have another vessel come along and find the exact same spot on the ocean floor? Does the drill pipe remain in place, sticking out of the water so that another rig or vessel can come along and attach itself to it?

Also, I have been wondering about how you can extend a pipe down over a mile into the ocean, drill into the crust, and not have the movement of the rig on the surface snap the pipe. Wouldn't ocean waves push the rigs around?

 

[JSt0rm]

I think they use gps for all that

 

[WhipperSnapper]

I think they use gps for all that

Yeah, but you still have to hit the well head (or whatever you'd call it) on the bottom of the ocean dead-on. It almost seems like the amount of precision required to do that would be near-impossible.

 

[RedCOMET]

Red Comet, thank you very much for sharing your knowledge with us laypeople.

Something I have been wondering, is, how does a rig drill a hole, cap it, leave, and then have another vessel come along and find the exact same spot on the ocean floor? Does the drill pipe remain in place, sticking out of the water so that another rig or vessel can come along and attach itself to it?

Also, I have been wondering about how you can extend a pipe down over a mile into the ocean, drill into the crust, and not have the movement of the rig on the surface snap the pipe. Wouldn't ocean waves push the rigs around?

Hey gang, I'll be traveling on the road quite a bit today, so i may not be around to answer all your questions in a timely manner.


The wellhead sits somewhere about 3-10' above the mud line underwater. it should have the well name on it. They confirm they are at the right well head by using the ROV sub. The ROV can also assist with getting drill pipe to stab into the well head when they are doing riserless operations, or during the attempt to latch on to the wellhead. The ROV can is also used to read pressure gauges and other panels on the BOP Stack itself.

Station keeping of the vessel is maintained by GPS, and acoustical beacons they set on the on the ocean floor with the ROV.

The ocean waves, and current can move the rig around. But the riser system is designed to have some flex in it via telescopic slip joints that can move in a variety of directions to compensate for rig heave/movement. Normal drill pipe is has a good deal of flex to it also, so that they they can drill directional, ie non vertical wells. Over the course of 4k-10k ft of riser, the rig may move less than 5 degress from vertical. 5 degrees may not sound too large/small, what ever, but we have some flexibility. Rig's riser tensioner system, along with its heave compensator take care of keeping the riser and drill pipe, all good.


Capping the well and leaving it for another vessel to come is called Temporary Abandonment. What the DW Horizon did, run production casing, cement and start doing cement plugs. Mind you, they are talking about 2-300' worth of cement being poured in more than one casing string. This is fluid system, and the casing along with the heavier than water drilling mud and cement are doing their job to keep the system in equilibrium. if the system is in balance and the cement jobs were done correctly, they can safely disconnect the bop stack from the well head and move along their hunky dorey way.

http://www.glossary.oilfield.slb.com/Display.cfm?Term=drilling%20riser
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riser_tensioner
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_compensator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drill_string_compensator


Pop Mech did a story about drilling for oil off the coast of texas on another rig. It highlights the endeavors of a rig called the Noble Clyde Boudreax in the development of the Perdidio Field for Shell. Interesting read, although, the article only focuses on rig personal and does not really give shout out to the other service personal ( "sub contractors like halliburton, Schlumberger, Baker hughes, etc) for the equipment and expertise provided. The article has some good graphics in it.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/engineering/4255407

The Pop Mech articles also mentions briefly that getting helicopter flights to a rig, especially medi-vac flights, are costly and time consuming. IE. its cheaper for the company if people operate in a safe manner, and its better for the rig people to operate in a safe manner b/c it can take 90+ minutes before that helicopter gets to the rig and it can take 60+ for you to go from the rig to the hospital. So, if you get hurt offshore, getting to the hosoptical will take a while. THe rig paramedic is the one that will care for you, and stabilize you before you get off the rig, heaven forbit there is a serious accident.



Here is a video of what the Wall street Journal did about the vessel I'm currently working on.

http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&bra...owPlaylist=true&from=IV2_en-us_v11HP&fg=gtlv2

 

[Fear No Evil]

yes. amazing isn't it. Here check this one, "I wish cancer upon you"

 

[William Gaatjes]

Kudos to CBS that i can finally watch a documentary from the US without getting that annoying "This content is not available at your location" message i see so often when trying to view content.

Thank you for posting the link. Very disturbing that greed and stupidity can reach such heights while already making so much profit.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Fine, if we cannot pin the blame on BP, or Haliburton or whomever, it's an all skate, everybody plays, everybody pays.

 

[BladeVenom]

RedCOMET, thanks for the info and first hand knowledge.

 

[Darwin333]

LOL, Let me get this straight...

You're saying rubber comes up the pipe all the time?

-John

Not all the time, just when they put rubber down the pipe (on purpose) and then drill through it (again on purpose).

 

[RedCOMET]

hey gang, here's an article from WSJ.com about the night of the explosion. I'm linking it because it another angle of information about what happened that night. I feel the articles title is misleading, so please read the whole thing.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704113504575264721101985024.html?mod=

There Was 'Nobody in Charge'
After the Blast, Horizon Was Hobbled by a Complex Chain of Command; A 23-Year-Old Steps In to Radio a Mayday

In the minutes after a cascade of gas explosions crippled the Deepwater Horizon on April 20, confusion reigned on the drilling platform. Flames were spreading rapidly, power was out, and terrified workers were leaping into the dark, oil-coated sea. Capt. Curt Kuchta, the vessel's commander, huddled on the bridge with about 10 other managers and crew members.

Andrea Fleytas, a 23-year-old worker who helped operate the rig's sophisticated navigation machinery, suddenly noticed a glaring oversight: No one had issued a distress signal to the outside world, she recalls in an interview. Ms. Fleytas grabbed the radio and began calling over a signal monitored by the Coast Guard and other vessels.

"Mayday, Mayday. This is Deepwater Horizon. We have an uncontrollable fire."

When Capt. Kuchta realized what she had done, he reprimanded her, she says.

"I didn't give you authority to do that," he said, according to Ms. Fleytas, who says she responded: "I'm sorry."

Part Two of a Journal investigation finds the doomed oil rig was unprepared for disaster, hobbled by a complex chain of command and a balky decision-making structure.

An examination by The Wall Street Journal of what happened aboard the Deepwater Horizon just before and after the explosions suggests the rig was unprepared for the kind of disaster that struck and was overwhelmed when it occurred. The events on the bridge raise questions about whether the rig's leaders were prepared for handling such a fast-moving emergency and for evacuating the rig—and, more broadly, whether the U.S. has sufficient safety rules for such complex drilling operations in very deep water.

I know this in P&N, but the OTer in me wants to let you know that Andrea is a good looking gal. I remember her from the few times i worked on that rig..she was in charge of fwd lifeboat muster area.

 

[Zorkorist]

It didn't really matter what she did, or what the people in command did, once the fire started.

I have no doubt that most men and women there, were doing there best.

Or, tryiing to.

It's not like anyone says "let me fuck up the whole Gulf of Mexico."

-John

 

[JSt0rm]

It's not like anyone says "let me fuck up the whole Gulf of Mexico."

-John

How scary it is we put the ability to fuck up on that level in the hands of actual humans.

 

[RedCOMET]

It didn't really matter what she did, or what the people in command did, once the fire started.

I have no doubt that most men and women there, were doing there best.

Or, tryiing to.

It's not like anyone says "let me fuck up the whole Gulf of Mexico."

-John

I think what the people did or didn't do needs to be known. Their actions, whether positive or negative, will certainly have an impact on future emergency operation procedures. Also, given the level of confusion (according to article) while people mustered and abandoned the rig, i think they did a damn good job of finding all those who were injured and getting them on to life boats and life rafts.

I just know from watching the 60 minutes video and reading this article I get a better picture of what the people on the rig must have gone through in order to muster at the life boats and get to safety. And this article also paints a better picture of what the command structure and though process were before the order to abandon was given.

although, I'm not sure why they focused on the DP ( dynamic position) officer.

 

[BladeVenom]

How scary it is we put the ability to fuck up on that level in the hands of actual humans.

We put the power to do much worse in the hands of politicians. They're even worse than humans.

 

[JSt0rm]

We put the power to do much worse in the hands of politicians. They're even worse than humans.

your right. But even that retard bush had to trick an entire nation to fuck up on that level. You could have some numnut with a bachelors in geology destroy 5 states worth of industry.

 

[RedCOMET]

your right. But even that retard bush had to trick an entire nation to fuck up on that level. You could have some numnut with a bachelors in geology destroy 5 states worth of industry.

Hey now... some of the numnuts out here have petroleum engineering degrees...