Oil Rig Explosion

[allvol123]

I'm not sure where you come down on off-shore drilling, but if you think that it should be expanded, then I think that is an unfair position. I don't know if you are doing this, but I don't think it is fair to call for drilling to be allowed by companies, but then say that the government is the ultimate gatekeeper for anything bad that might happen. It can be argued that the government failed to regulate to the full extent necessary and it can also be argued that BP failed to practice due diligence in their design. My guess is that this is unprecedented and will result in a paradigm shift.

I am for expanded drilling. But I fail to see the purpose of all the regulation given this scenario. Again, I would imagine these companies jump through crazy hoops to be able to do this along with paying mega dollars. Inevitably BP will be required to pay for all this, so what useful role do all the federal agencies play in this?

 

[TennTradition]

I am for expanded drilling. But I fail to see the purpose of all the regulation given this scenario. Again, I would imagine these companies jump through crazy hoops to be able to do this along with paying mega dollars. Inevitably BP will be required to pay for all this, so what useful role do all the federal agencies play in this?

This is the first oil spill from an off-shore rig in US history. The question is how many have been prevented because of regulation.

BP was willing to operate this rig without safety measure in place that do exist elsewhere in the world for the sole reasons that they were not required to do so and they did not see the benefit. They will now pay the price for that decision.

What should lead me to believe that they would have undertaken other safety protocols that they are required to put in place if that requirement had not been enforced? The companies will make their decision at the cost of the safety feature vs. its possible benefit. That benefit includes both a factor of the cost of potential cleanup/response as well as a societal cost (image). That balance sheet didn't lead them to put acoustic switches in place in this instance...I'm not sure I believe that it would have led them to put other lesser safety features in place either...safety features they may (I don't know if they have or not) have prevented accidents thus far, but were only put in place because they were required to do so.

The costs to this region may far exceed the costs of cleanup, or perhaps not. I don't know. Perhaps BP will be sued by the states. I really don't know. But, I think that regulation is in place to mitigate against these sorts of accidents. Prevention is a big word, unfortunately...and regulation rarely achieves prevention at reasonable societal cost.

I haven't seen these guys slacking on either side, so I'm not ready to start pointing fingers. I don't have all the facts, either, so I leave that opinion open to change.

 

[Velo Vol]

No, I'm just putting more of the blame or lack of imagination on the government.

Exactly what resources do you think the government should have had out there within the first 48 hours? Be specific.

Sounds to me like we're watching a building burn down and you're blaming it on the fire department because they arrived in eight minutes instead of five.

 

[MG1968]

Exactly what resources do you think the government should have had out there within the first 48 hours? Be specific.

Sounds to me like we're watching a building burn down and you're blaming it on the fire department because they arrived in eight minutes instead of five.

Despite plan, not a single fire boom on hand on Gulf Coast at time of oil spill | al.com

If U.S. officials had followed up on a 1994 response plan for a major Gulf oil spill, it is possible that the spill could have been kept under control and far from land.

The problem: The federal government did not have a single fire boom on hand.

 

[jvol1]

"They said this was the tool of last resort. No, this is absolutely the asset of first use. Get in there and start burning oil before the spill gets out of hand," Bohleber said. "If they had six or seven of these systems in place when this happened and got out there and started burning, it would have significantly lessened the amount of oil that got loose."

That makes no sense.

 

[IPorange]

Prepare to be disappointed in government every time, if you think they are capable of preventing every disaster.

 

[volinbham]

Prepare to be disappointed in government every time.

fyp

already there :hi:

 

[IPorange]

fyp

already there :hi:

Just think it's funny that people always turn to the government in shock, as if they have a magic wand that can fix every problem. "Government" is an abstract entity. You can't touch "government." You can't see "government." Only "parts" or "representatives" of it. It's a figment of our collective imaginations, that we make real.

 

[droski]

This is the first oil spill from an off-shore rig in US history. The question is how many have been prevented because of regulation.

BP was willing to operate this rig without safety measure in place that do exist elsewhere in the world for the sole reasons that they were not required to do so and they did not see the benefit. They will now pay the price for that decision.

What should lead me to believe that they would have undertaken other safety protocols that they are required to put in place if that requirement had not been enforced? The companies will make their decision at the cost of the safety feature vs. its possible benefit. That benefit includes both a factor of the cost of potential cleanup/response as well as a societal cost (image). That balance sheet didn't lead them to put acoustic switches in place in this instance...I'm not sure I believe that it would have led them to put other lesser safety features in place either...safety features they may (I don't know if they have or not) have prevented accidents thus far, but were only put in place because they were required to do so.

The costs to this region may far exceed the costs of cleanup, or perhaps not. I don't know. Perhaps BP will be sued by the states. I really don't know. But, I think that regulation is in place to mitigate against these sorts of accidents. Prevention is a big word, unfortunately...and regulation rarely achieves prevention at reasonable societal cost.

I haven't seen these guys slacking on either side, so I'm not ready to start pointing fingers. I don't have all the facts, either, so I leave that opinion open to change.

you think it's a coincidence we have had a domestic oil rig spill on 60 years? how about oil tanker spills? now since if i don't drill domestically i have to get my oil from tankers which are far more likely to create oil spills drilling domestically REDUCES the potential of a major spill.

 

[TennTradition]

you think it's a coincidence we have had a domestic oil rig spill on 60 years? how about oil tanker spills? now since if i don't drill domestically i have to get my oil from tankers which are far more likely to create oil spills drilling domestically REDUCES the potential of a major spill.

I'm not sure I understand your first point. I don't think its coincidence. I think that chemical/industrial safety regulations have likely prevented previous accidents.

 

[droski]

whoops my bad. i didn't read the may part of "The costs to this region may far exceed the costs of cleanup, or perhaps not."

 

[overseasorange2]

you think it's a coincidence we have had a domestic oil rig spill on 60 years? how about oil tanker spills? now since if i don't drill domestically i have to get my oil from tankers which are far more likely to create oil spills drilling domestically REDUCES the potential of a major spill.

Let's not bring logic into the discussion. When this kind of thing happens...some people want a hanging.

 

[Velo Vol]

They aren't going to stage a fleet of berms, oil vacuuming ships, etc. on standby so they can clean up BPs huge potential leaks. If they did, they would be derided for huge government waste.

This is a key issue. Of course the government can have a better safety net in place. But what happens when it spends tens of millions of dollars on equipment that could go for years without seeing active service? It gets trashed for being wasteful. People are going to fault it either way.

 

[KB5252]

Was there any reasoning given for having SWAT inspecting these rigs, that just doesn't make any sense to me.

 

[TennTradition]

Was there any reasoning given for having SWAT inspecting these rigs, that just doesn't make any sense to me.

I didn't hear the original statement, but when I saw it in print I just assumed that it was an analogy...like a safety/response SWAT team. Is that off-base?

 

[KB5252]

I didn't hear the original statement, but when I saw it in print I just assumed that it was an analogy...like a safety/response SWAT team. Is that off-base?

That would make much more sense.

 

[rjd970]

I can't link the full article because I got it in a PDF without a link, but here are a few facts from an insider that knows (I have no reason not to trust this guy):

The rig belongs to Transocean, the world’s biggest offshore drilling contractor. The rig was originally contracted through the year 2013 to
BP and was working on BP’s Macondo exploration well when the fire broke out. The rig costs about $500,000 per day to contract. The full
drilling spread, with helicopters and support vessels and other services, will cost closer to $1,000,000 per day to operate in the course of
drilling for oil and gas. The rig cost about $350,000,000 to build in 2001 and would cost at least double that to replace today.

The rig represents the cutting edge of drilling technology. It is a floating rig, capable of working in up to 10,000 ft water depth. The rig is
not moored; It does not use anchors because it would be too costly and too heavy to suspend this mooring load from the floating
structure. Rather, a triply-redundant computer system uses satellite positioning to control powerful thrusters that keep the rig on station
within a few feet of its intended location, at all times. This is called Dynamic Positioning.

I thought this was particularly interesting:

It is thought that somehow formation fluids – oil /gas – got into the wellbore and were undetected until it was too late to take action. With a
floating drilling rig setup, because it moves with the waves, currents, and winds, all of the main pressure control equipment sits on the
seabed – the uppermost unmoving point in the well. This pressure control equipment – the Blowout Preventers, or ‘BOP’s” as they’re
called, are controlled with redundant systems from the rig. In the event of a serious emergency, there are multiple Panic Buttons to hit,
and even fail-safe Deadman systems that should be automatically engaged when something of this proportion breaks out. None of them
were aparently activated, suggesting that the blowout was especially swift to escalate at the surface.

In the coming weeks they will move in at least one other rig to drill a fresh well that will intersect the blowing one at its pay zone. They will
use technology that is capable of drilling from a floating rig, over 3 miles deep to an exact specific point in the earth – with a target radius
of just a few feet plus or minus. Once they intersect their target, a heavy fluid will be pumped that exceeds the formation’s pressure, thus
causing the flow to cease and rendering the well safe at last. It will take at least a couple of months to get this done, bringing all available
technology to bear. It will be an ecological disaster if the well flows all of the while;

There is also some pretty cool pictures taken right after, including a neat satellite photo. If anybody wants the full article with pictures shoot me a pm with an email address and I will send it your way.

 

[allvol123]

Couple of interesting comments from the CEO of Tengasco on local radio this morning.


1) If this leak kept going at the current rate for another 60 days it still would not fall into the top 100 spills of all time.
2) He basically said government regulations force drilling farther out in deeper depths. Obviously it would be easier to stop the leak in more shallow waters was one of his points.

 

[TennTradition]

I suppose he's right about point 1, but it's a bit misleading. The Exxon Valdez was one of the costliest spills in history, and the largest in US history. However, at approximately 11,000,000 gallons (or 250,000 barrels), it ranks down the list of world-wide oil spills by volume.

The estimate that has been stated most frequently for the Deep Horizon leak is 5,000 barrels a day, or 210,000 gallons a day. So, that's over a million gallons every 10 days. This spill would rival Exxon Valdez if allowed to go unchecked for approximately 90 days.

I suppose there's give and take about the deep water drilling. I don't have a good feel for it, so I'll take his comment at face value. Obviously the upside is that you have more response time before the oil hits land...but if you simply can't get to it, then that time may not help.

 

[Velo Vol]

Despite all the high-tech gadgetry, BP said engineers are not able to determine with any degree of precision how much oil is leaking.

"It's very difficult with the cameras down there and the way the lighting is impacted by the water to get a decent sense of perspective," Salvin said. "There is no way for us to put a flow meter on the oil that is coming out."

It doesn't give me a lot of hope that they're going to be able to stop the flow with domes when they can't even see it well enough to tell how much oil is leaking out.

 

[Velo Vol]

It doesn't give me a lot of hope that they're going to be able to stop the flow with domes when they can't even see it well enough to tell how much oil is leaking out.

One reason, of course, is how can they design the domes if they don't even know how much flow they have to capture?

In a closed-door briefing for members of Congress, a senior BP executive conceded Tuesday that the ruptured oil well in the Gulf of Mexico could conceivably spill as much as 60,000 barrels a day of oil, more than 10 times the estimate of the current flow.

 

[TennTradition]

I haven't read anything about it, but my thought was that these domes would be vented at the top, and that the vent would be fitted with a remote controlled valve. If they can lower the dome over the well, they don't have to catch all of the oil that will leak from the well, they just have to get it into good position and then close the venting valve. The oil/water/gas mixture inside the dome will be lighter than the surrounding water, so the dome just have to weigh enough or have sufficient anchors to overcome that buoyancy. On second thought, some sort of anchoring may also be needed to counteract well pressure.

I can't imagine they are going to try to capture all the flow coming off.

 

[BigPapaVol]

I haven't read anything about it, but my thought was that these domes would be vented at the top, and that the vent would be fitted with a remote controlled valve. If they can lower the dome over the well, they don't have to catch all of the oil that will leak from the well, they just have to get it into good position and then close the venting valve. The oil/water/gas mixture inside the dome will be lighter than the surrounding water, so the dome just have to weigh enough or have sufficient anchors to overcome that buoyancy. On second thought, some sort of anchoring may also be needed to counteract well pressure.

I can't imagine they are going to try to capture all the flow coming off.

If they can counteract well pressure, seems to me they have at least a temporary solution.

 

[TennTradition]

If they can counteract well pressure, seems to me they have at least a temporary solution.

How big are these things? Is it possible that they've designed them so large so that they can counteract well pressure without anchoring (because I can imagine that anchoring might be difficult down there if they can't see). They could also have remotely-triggered pneumatic spikes along the bottom that would at least provide some stabilization/anchoring. But, that's a little much. If they could rely on weight alone, I'm sure that's what they want to do. They are probably a little gun shy right now of over-active controls...weight is a good passive control.

 

[TennTradition]

Another thought on this dome is that they are in very deep water. I wonder how well pressure compares to pressure on the ocean floor?