U.S. oil drilling regulator ignored experts' red flags on environmental risks

Washington Post ^ | Tuesday, May 25, 2010 | Juliet Eilperin Washington Post Staff Writer

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The federal agency responsible for regulating U.S. offshore oil drilling repeatedly ignored warnings from government scientists about environmental risks in its push to approve energy exploration activities quickly, according to numerous documents and interviews.

Minerals Management Service officials, who can receive cash bonuses in the thousands of dollars based in large part on meeting federal deadlines for leasing offshore oil and gas exploration, frequently changed documents and bypassed legal requirements aimed at protecting the marine environment, the documents show.

This has dramatically weakened the scientific checks on offshore drilling that were established under landmark laws such as the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, say those who have worked with the MMS, which is part of the Interior Department.

"It's a war between the biologists and the engineers," said Thomas A. Campbell, who served as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's general counsel under President George H.W. Bush. "They just have a very different worldview, and sometimes the engineers simply don't listen to the biologists."

Interviews and documents show numerous examples in which senior officials discounted scientific data and advice -- even from scientists elsewhere in the federal government -- that would have impeded oil and gas companies drilling offshore.

Under the Bush and Obama administrations, red flags raised by scientists at NOAA and the Marine Mammal Commission have gone unheeded. Obama officials say they are taking steps to ensure that science guides drilling decisions; former agency officials say such questions are rarely as simple as they seem.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

This is kind of piling on....where is the article about bad engineering on the actual well...?

[Frantzie]

No spills under Bush. Obama’s fault.

idiots in America who watch TV support the regime because all of TV supports Obama including Fox/Saudi News.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

From the Oil Drum:

Gulf Deepwater Oil Spill Open Thread - Dispersants, Flow Rate Technical Team, and other topics

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Posted by Gail the Actuary on May 23, 2010 - 10:51am
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: deepwater horizon, oil spill [list all tags]

The purpose of this thread is to discuss current issues with respect to the oil spill. Two issues I have noted are

1. BP has released a letter, saying that COREXIT, the dispersant it currently is using (that has been on the market for 20 years), seems to be the best choice for now. Dispersant monitoring data is also being posted now.

2. A Flow Rate Technical Group is analyzing the size of the spill, and expects to have a report by "early next week". (Since the letter is undated, it may really mean "early this week".)

Other updates can be found on the Deepwater Horizon Response site.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Just picked this out of the comments...looks interesting:

Transocean Deepwater Horizon Explosion-A Discussion of What Actually Happened?

[RobbyS]

You have it. Bad engineering. Sort of like the “O-ring”problem on the space shuttle. or the wiring on Apollo XIII. This is very very HARD stuff, and somewhere,somehow, someone drew up a flawed well design. Probably a designed that HAS worked but now breaks down because someone —probably—does something wrong. It happens. They messed up on the construction of the Titanic and her sister ships. They found out what after the ship sank.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

From link at #5:

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Deepwater Horizon was finishing work on an exploration well named Macondo, in an area called Mississippi Canyon Block 252. After weeks of drilling, the rig had pushed a bit down over 18,000 feet, into an oil-bearing zone. The Transocean and BP personnel were installing casing in the well. BP was going to seal things up, and then go off and figure out how to produce the oil -- another step entirely in the oil biz.

The Macondo Block 252 reservoir may hold as much as 100 million barrels. That's not as large as other recent oil strikes in the Gulf, but BP management was still pleased. Success is success --
certainly in the risky, deep-water oil environment. The front office of BP Exploration was preparing a press release to announce a "commercial" oil discovery.

This kind of exploration success was par for the course for Deepwater Horizon. A year ago, the vessel set a record at another site in the Gulf, drilling a well just over 35,000 feet and discovering the 3 billion barrel Tiber deposit for BP. SoDeepwater Horizon was a great rig, with a great crew and a superb record. You might even say that is was lucky.

But perhaps some things tempt the Gods. Some actions may invite ill fate. Because suddenly, the wild and wasteful ocean struck with a bolt from the deep.

The Lights Went out;
and Then... 

Witnesses state that the lights flickered on the Deepwater Horizon. Then a massive thud shook the vessel, followed by another strong vibration. Transocean employee Jim Ingram, a seasoned
offshore worker, told the U.K. Times that he was preparing for bed after working a 12-hour shift. "On the second [thud]," said Mr. Ingram, "we knew something was wrong." Indeed, something was very wrong.

Within a moment, a gigantic blast of gas, oil and drilling mud roared up through three miles of down-hole pipe and subsea risers. The fluids burst through the rig floor and ripped up into the gigantic draw-works. Something sparked. The hydrocarbons ignited. In a fraction of a second, the drilling deck of the Deepwater Horizon exploded into a fireball. The scene was an utter conflagration.

[FlingWingFlyer]

If we were allowed to drill on land, this wouldn’t have happened. It’s your baby, ENVIROLOONIES!!!!!! Eat it!

[richardtavor]

No kidding. The way that this hit piece is written is that the MMS employees get bonuses directly from the oil industry. This is an incredibly misleading article by a political hatchet//

[gleeaikin]

I’m glad they are separating the mineral managment office into two independent departments, one for leasing, and one for safety.

[ScaniaBoy]

Here is a discussion about the technicalities of the oil well: What caused the Deepwater Horizon disaster?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Conclusion of the note...see link at #5:

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Welcome to the World of Deep-water Risk 

As I've said before, this accident is Mother Nature's wake-up call to everyone. Deep-water drilling is a high-stakes game. It's not exactly a "casino," in that there's a heck of a lot of settled science,
engineering and technology involved.  But we're sure finding out the hard way what all the risks are. And it's becoming more and more clear how the totality of risk is a moving target. There's geologic risk, technical risk, engineering risk, environmental risk, capital risk and market risk.


With each deep well, these risks all come together over one very tiny spot at the bottom of the ocean. So for all the oil that's out there under deep water -- and it's a lot -- the long-term calculus of risk and return is difficult to quantify.

There's more to discuss, but I'll end here today. I'll update you as things evolve. This is big news all through the offshore industry. There are HUGE environmental issues, and certainly big political repercussions. I won't go there just now. For now, I'll just send out collective best wishes to the people at Transocean, BP, the Coast Guard, Minerals Management and so many more. I'm sure they're doing their best.

Thanks for reading...

(Name Withheld)

Tags: cause, deepwater, discussion, explosion, happened, horizon, transocean, what

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[ScaniaBoy]

And here is a practical suggestion and some relevant questions asked by our favourite governor: Big Oil: Learning from Alaska’s Experience, Sarah Palin.

(What ever convinced the WH it was a good idea to fight Sarah Palin on this issue???)

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Here is a link to a blog...which has a video of the 60 Minutes interview I had heard about but have not seen...not sure what else:

60 Minutes: Deepwater Horizon Blowout

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Adding this:

Macondo Blowout (Seabed Video)

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

More from link at #5....detail on the "RISER":

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According to the Transocean website, the riser devices on the Deepwater Horizonwere manufactured by VetcoGray, a division of General Electric Oil & Gas. The specific designation is a "HMF-Class H, 21-inch outside diameter riser; 90 foot long joints with Choke & Kill, and booster and hydraulic  supply lines."

Here's a photo of something similar. These are Vetco risers sections that I saw on another vessel, the Transocean Discoverer Inspiration, when I visited that ship last month:



The different color stripes on the risers indicate differing amounts of buoyancy. The idea is to put heavy riser pipe down at the bottom, connected to more buoyant risers above. The buoyancy
keeps the entire riser system in more or less neutral buoyancy, so that the drill ship doesn't have to somehow hoist up the huge weight of all that pipe.

As you can see, there's a large-diameter pipe in the middle of each riser. That pipe is then encased in a buoyant foam substance. The risers are bolted together at the flange sections. The bolts are about as big as the arm of a very strong man. The nuts, which tighten things down, are the size of paint cans.

After the risers are assembled and hanging down from the drilling vessel, the drilling personnel lower and raise drilling pipe through the large-diameter center riser pipe. All the drilling mud stays inside the drill pipe on the way down hole, and inside the riser pipe on the return.

On the side of the riser sections, you can see smaller-diameter pipes. These are choke & kill, booster and hydraulic pipe components. The pipes run parallel to the large-diameter inner pipe. These pipe systems run down to the blowout preventer on the seafloor.

The idea is to keep the drilling process an enclosed system. All the "drilling stuff" -- the drill-pipe, drilling-mud and drill-cutting returns -- stays inside the large-diameter pipe. The smaller pipes
hold fluid to transmit hydraulic power and help control drilling. In particular, the pipes on the side aid in communicating with and controlling the blowout preventer.

Technical Specs 

Ideally, when the risers are working as intended, nothing leaks out into the sea. Then again, you're not supposed to twist and bend the riser sections like a pretzel. So how strong is a riser
system? Extremely strong, actually.

According to technical literature from GE Oil & Gas, the riser equipment is "designed for use in
high-pressure, critical service and deep-water drilling and production applications." The pressure-containing components are rated for working pressures of 15,000 psi. That's the same as the Cameron blowout preventer on the Deepwater Horizon. The materials used in risers have
exceptional tensile and bending load characteristics.

According to Vetco paperwork that I've seen, the Class H riser sections have a 3.5 million pound
load-carrying capacity. That's the equivalent weight of about four fully fueled
Boeing 747s. These risers are super strong.

Still, it's not just any one single piece of riser section that does it all. These sections all get bolted
together, for 5,000 feet in this case. The riser sections all have to work together as a system. The whole string is only as strong as the weakest spot. And yes, even the strongest steel will break if you apply enough stress.

It all has to work together. You've got the riser sections, along with things called HMF flanged riser connectors. Then there are HMF riser joints; flex joints; telescopic joints; and, near the top, things called "fluid-bearing, nonintegral tensioner rings." Together, these all comprise the marine riser system.

In general, the riser components compensate for heave, surge, sway, offset and torque of the drilling vessel as the ship bounces around on the sea surface. The bottom line is to maintain a tight seal -- what's called "integrity" -- between the subsea blowout preventer stack and the surface
during drilling operations.

Down at the bottom, at the seafloor, the risers are connected to the blowout preventer by a connector device. The GE-Vetco spec is for a device that accommodates 7 million foot-pounds of bending
load capacity. That's about eight fully fueled Boeing 747s.

What's the idea? You want a secure connection between the high-pressure wellhead system and
the subsea blowout preventer stack. That's where mankind's best steel meets Mother Nature's high pressures.

High pressures? You had better believe it. And in this case, Mother Nature won. So looking forward, there's going to be a lot of forensic engineering on the well design and how things got monitored
during drilling. Transocean drilled the well, but BP designed it. So the key question is how did the down-hole pressures get away like they did?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

See #16....massive pipes....

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

More from the comments at #5:

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Reply by Johndoug on May 2, 2010 at 3:23pm

There is an hoax afoot started by David Booth, a well known internet hoax initiator who goes by the name of Sorcha Faal which lays out the N Korean theory you described. It is BOGUS. Elsewhere on this site is an excellent radio interview by a survivor of the tragedy who explains exactly what happened on the rig.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Another comment ....see link at #5:

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Reply by Alvis Harding Jr. on May 3, 2010 at 3:05pm

They have managed to activate the annular BOP!

http://blog.al.com/live/2010/05/bp_official_weve_significantly.html

Could someone explain what that means? Does this help provide a seal around the drill pipe so if there was a communication into the riser space it's now stopped because of the annular BOP? So now there is only oil emanating from the drill pipe itself?

I'm looking at this image. http://www.nov.com/Drilling/Drilling_Pre....rical_BOPs.aspx

[PA Engineer]

So the key question is how did the down-hole pressures get away like they did?

I have a question for you. My experience has been onshore, however I am somewhat familiar with offshore opps.

When we had problems we had many devices from Dresser that we could count on, even under emergency conditions. In your opinion is it possible to install a custom couple and then hot tap or valve? The couple would give you a clean riser that can be attached like a pipe clamp externally. After the installation, maybe a valve or combination tap can be installed and robotically closed.

Thanks.