Oil Rig Explosion

#127
#127
droski said:
they seem to be more at blame than Haliburton or Transocean and yes they have the deep pockets. i think we've seen a situation where these guys have gotten away with not following protocal and cutting corners for a while and it hasn't caught up to them till now. easy to see how this happens with a multi year good safety record.
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I have a friend who worked with Schlumberger until recently. He mentioned that BP has had some reasonably serious safety issues world-wide over the last 3-4 years.
 
#128
#128
depends what you consider serious. explosions aren't uncommon on any rigs and that is why they pay very well. this type of spill is pretty unprecidented though.
 
#129
#129
droski said:
depends what you consider serious. explosions aren't uncommon on any rigs and that is why they pay very well. this type of spill is pretty unprecidented though.
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I don't know what they were, but he said that they were stand-outs in the industry. I didn't inquire much more...
 
#131
#131
#135
#135
volinbham said:
I like the "blast the hole full of old tires and golf balls" strategy.
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images
 
#136
#136
the ole junk shot

Another BP brainstorm -- GazetteXtra

“Junk shot” is Option C, after “containment dome” and “top hat.” Or maybe we should be counting “blowout preventer” as Option A, in which case “containment dome” and “top hat” are really Options B and C, which makes “junk shot” Option D. Unless, of course, they come up with something else in the meantime, which is entirely possible, in which case…

They do seem to be making this up as they go along, don’t they? Or do you think that something called “junk shot” represents the triumph of scientific inquiry and environmental stewardship?

“Junk shot” meaning—and I’m paraphrasing here—“jamming a lot of stuff into the hole.”

Now why didn’t we think of that?! You’ve got a broken well pipe and a gusher that threatens to bring on a decades-long nightmare for the entire Gulf region and everyone whose livelihood depends on it. All your fancy equipment has been of absolutely no use in shutting the gusher down.

So how about some golf balls?

Some golf balls, and some shredded rubber tires—just shove ’em down into the hole and maybe that’ll make it stop. That’s what the boys from BP are thinking. Seriously.

That’s what a “junk shot” is: golf balls, and shredded rubber tires. With some heavy mud on top. (Can’t forget the heavy mud—that’s called a “top kill.”)
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#141
#141
volinbham said:
I'm seriously a fan of this technique - just think it's funny that where technology fails, trash prevails.
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The concern here may be that you somehow damage the blowout preventer even further. Right now, it is doing at least part of the job it should do. Ideally, you shove a bunch of junk up it and clog it. The flip side is that in the process of cramming junk up into it, you damage something further and it stops working at all - meaning considerably more flow. That may not be a valid concern, but it could be on the table..not sure.

Could I have said shoving and cramming junk more in that paragraph? Probably.
 
#142
#142
isn't the leak at seriously high pressure? I'd like to see the device that's going to shoot the junk down the pipe ...

The BP disaster and Hobson?s choice of oil production
(It should be noted that the term “leak” is misleading: Oil is currently spewing forth from a 5”-6” diameter pipe under nearly 20,000 psi at a rate of 200,000 gallons a day and may get much larger if the ocean floor wellhead fails. Some are saying as much as 100,000 barrels a day.)
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#143
#143
It's a good question. The blowout preventer is still on the well-head and the leak if downstream of it. Without knowing exactly how the blowout preventer works, it's hard to say how difficult clogging it via external input would be.
 
#144
#144
More on the time frame immediately proceeding the explosion. Missing rig data and allegations of a phantom safety check.

Houston attorney Tony Buzbee, who represents several rig workers involved in the accident, questioned whether what he called "the phantom test" was even performed.

"I can just tell you that the Halliburton hands were scratching their heads," said Buzbee, whose clients include one of the Halliburton crew members responsible for cementing the well to prepare for moving the drilling rig to another site.

Buzbee said that when Halliburton showed BP PLC and Transocean officials the results of the pressure tests that suggested gas was leaking, the rig workers were put on "standby." BP is the rig operator and leaseholder.

Buzbee said one of his clients told him the "Transocean and BP company people got their heads together," and 40 minutes later gave the green light.

The attorney said the Halliburton crew members were not shown any new test results.

"They said they did their own tests, and they came out OK," he said. "But with the phantom test that Transocean and BP allegedly did, there was no real record or real-time recordation of that test."

Buzbee suggested that BP and Transocean had monetary reasons for ignoring the earlier tests.

"The facts are as they are," he said. "The rig is $500,000 a day. There are bonuses for finishing early."
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The log confirms that three pressure tests, conducted from the morning to the early afternoon of April 20, indicated unseen underground leakage into the well. But there is no mention of a fourth test that BP and Transocean say was conducted and that they say indicated it was safe to proceed.

In the hours leading up to the explosion, workers finished pumping cement into the exploratory well to bolster and seal it against leaks until a later production phase. After the tests that indicated leakage, workers debated the next step and eventually decided to resume work, for reasons that remain unclear.

At the same time, heavy drilling fluid — or mud — was being pumped out of a pipe rising to the surface from the wellhead, further whittling the well's defenses. It was replaced with lighter seawater in preparation for dropping a final blob of cement into the well as a temporary plug for the pipe.

When underground gas surged up uncontrollably through the well, desperate rig workers tried to cap it with a set of supersized emergency cutoff valves known as a blowout preventer. However, the device was leaking hydraulic fluid and missing at least one battery, and one of its valves had been swapped with a useless testing part.
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It seems whoever decided to keep moving forward during that 40-minute pause period committed big boo boo.
 
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#145
#145
So, there's a professor from Purdue who is saying that there is no way that the oil leak is at 5,000 barrels a day. His estimate, based on frame-by-frame velocity analysis, is that it is closer to 70,000 barrels a day. BP's response has actually not been to shoot this down, but to say that all along they have said they can't accurately measure what it is, but they think it is about 5,000 barrels.

The thing I am not sure of is the validity of the professor's analysis. If the only thing coming out of the well were oil, then maybe his numbers make sense, but to the best of my knowledge that is three phase flow (oil, water, and gas), and only a portion is oil. That would seem to change his numbers, and as far as I can tell, he hasn't taken that into account. I'm sure he's not an idiot, so maybe he has a way to address it...but I haven't seen it.

Gulf oil leak rate much higher than reported, professor says - latimes.com
 
#146
#146
It is just a guesstimate.

Informed speculators looking at the video clip seem to be mostly in agreement that it's more than the "official" 5,000 barrel estimate, but it varies from there.

I've read a few people estimating an amount in the 20,000 barrel range, based on the diameter of the hole and the apparent flow.

A NY Times piece notes that they do have some sort of a device to measure deep sea flows, but thus far BP has not invited/allowed researchers to use it.
 
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#149
#149
I just hope they can get this leak stopped. I find it petty and divisive that everyone involved is trying to access blame instead of focusing all attention to the immediate problem. This goes for BP, platform owners and government, pretty much everyone involved.
 
#150
#150
Has anyone ever seen any numbers regarding what fraction of each cut (oil, gas, water) this well was producing before the explosion? I really wonder if the Purdue professor included that in his analysis...
 
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