Posted on 05/01/2010 8:36:33 AM PDT by TornadoAlley3
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more. Here's another update on the disaster that befell Transocean Ltd. (RIG: NYSE) and BP (BP: NYSE) last week in the Gulf of Mexico. (Thanks to OI reader Steve, in Texas, for sending some of the photos in today’s alert.)
As you know by now, the drilling vessel Deepwater Horizon exploded, burned and sank last week, with the loss of 11 workers and injuries to many more. What happened? What's happening now? What's going to happen? I've spent the weekend working to piece things together.
An Ill-fated Discovery
According to news accounts, at about 10 p.m. CDT last Tuesday, Deepwater Horizon was stable, holding an exact position in calm, dark seas about 45 miles south of the Louisiana coastline. Water depth in the area is 5,000 feet. The vessel manifest listed 126 souls on board.
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. So Deepwater 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. Evacuate and Abandon Ship
There was almost no time to react. Emergency beacons blared. Battery-powered lighting switched on throughout the vessel. Crew members ran to evacuation stations. The order came to abandon ship.
Then from the worst of circumstances came the finest, noblest elements of human behavior. Everyone on the vessel has been through extensive safety training. They knew what to do. Most crew members climbed into covered lifeboats. Other crew members quickly winched the boats, with their shipmates, down to the water. Then those who stayed behind rapidly evacuated in other designated emergency craft.
Some of the crew, however, were trapped in odd parts of the massive vessel, which measures 396 feet by 256 feet -- a bit less than the size of two football fields laid side by side. They couldn't get to the boats. So they did what they had to do, which for some meant jumping -- and those jumpers did not fare so well. Several men broke bones due to the impact of their 80-foot drop to the sea. Still, it beat burning.
With searchlights providing illumination, as well as the eerie light from the flames of the raging fire, boat handlers pulled colleagues out of the water beneath the burning rig. In some instances, the plastic fittings on the lifeboats melted from the heat.
The flames intensified. Soon it was impossible for the lifeboats to function near the massive vessel. The small boats moved away from the raging fountain of fire fed by ancient oil and gas from far below.
The lifeboat skippers saved as many as they could find -- 115 -- but couldn't account for 11 workers who were, apparently, on or around the drill deck at the time of the first explosion. Nine of the missing are Transocean employees. Two others work for subcontractors.
Damon Bankstonto the Rescue
Fate was not entirely cruel that night. Indeed, a supply boat was already en route to the Deepwater Horizon. It was the Tidewater Damon Bankston, a 260-foot long flat-deck supply vessel.
Damon Bankston heard the distress signal. Her captain did what great captains do. He aimed the bow toward the position of Deepwater Horizon. Then he tore through the water, moved along by four mighty Caterpillar engines rated at 10,200 horsepower. Soon, the Damon Bankston arrived on scene, sailed straight into the flames and joined the rescue.
Meanwhile, Coast Guard helicopters lifted off from pads in southern Louisiana, and Coast Guard rescue vessels left their moorings. "You have to go out," is the old Coast Guard saying. "You don't have to come back."
The helicopters flew in the black of night toward a vista of utter disaster. Arriving on scene, the pilots watched in awe as columns of flame shot as high as a 50-story building. The helicopters were buffeted by blasts of super-heated wind coming from the flames, while chunks of soot the size of your hand blew by.
The pilots hovered in the glow of the blazing rig, while Coast Guard medics fast-roped down to the deck of Damon Bankston ... The medics quickly assessed the casualties, strapped critically injured crewmen to backboards and hoisted them up to the helicopters. Then the pilots turned north and sped ashore to hospitals.
Uninjured survivors returned to land on the Damon Bankston. And others came out to fight the blistering flames.
But the Deepwater Horizon wasn't going to make it. The situation deteriorated, to the point of complete catastrophe. The ship was lost.
At about 10 a.m. CDT on Thursday morning, 36 hours after the first explosion, the Deepwater Horizon capsized and sank in 5,000 feet of water. According to BP, the hulk is located on the seafloor, upside-down, about 1,500 feet away from the Macondo well it drilled.
Still Spilling Oil
On Friday, I told you that the oil well drilled by the Deepwater Horizon was sealed in. The "official" word was that the well wasn't gushing oil into the sea. My sources were no less than U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry, of the New Orleans district, as quoted in The New York Times.
But over the weekend, Rear Adm. Landry and The New York Times reported that the well IS leaking oil, at a rate of about 1,000 barrels per day.
The on-scene information comes from remotely operated underwater robots that BP and Transocean are using to monitor the well and survey all the other wreckage of the Deepwater Horizon. There's now a large amount of equipment and pipe and a myriad of marine debris on the seafloor near the well. It's a mess.
Apparently, the blowout preventer is not controlling the flow of oil. According to Transocean, the blowout preventer on Deepwater Horizon was manufactured by Cameron Intl. (CAM: NYSE).
What happened? We don't know that just yet. Earlier reports that underwater robots sealed the blowout preventer were wrong. It's possible that the blowout preventer is only partially closed. We'll find out, eventually. Meanwhile, BP and Transocean have announced that they will make another effort to activate the blowout preventer. They need to stop that oil.
These people are very brave working incredibly dangerous jobs. The technology and complexity is incredible. What is going to really suck is the Dems will demonize oil exploration for their friends in the middle east who produce oil.
Domestic energy production (and we have 4x more than the Saudis) is the ONLY way to recapitalize America because it creates WEALTH. Nothing creates wealth like energy production. Not high tech, farming, etc. The only thing close is manufacturing.
If domestic energy production is slowed and not expanded - American will go broke - period. This is what they want.
Because as we all know, BIG OIL is the most evil force on earth and is causing everything from global warming to earthquakes.
Save for later.
Excellent article and a very informative read. It sounds like we do in fact have the technology to stop this leak, and it will be very interesting to see what they come up with.
If you are running a pinglist on this, please add me. At the least, if you see another article from this fellow, please let all of us know.
Meanwhile, this reads like an adventure novel, very few facts.
My old room mate called me yesterday. I had been worried about him since news of the explosion. He’s the captain of the crew boat that shuttles crew and supplies to that rig.
He told me about his boat sustaining heat hot enough to blister the paint on the boat, but was okay and now working like crazy to help in any way they tell him to.
The disturbing part about our conversation was about the captain of the oil rig itself. He went on to tell how the captain was a huge a-hole with a bad temper. The crew would tip toe around him so as to not upset him.
When things started unfolding with the disaster the captain was asleep in his stateroom and was left undisturbed because the crew thought they could handle things and not have to disturb the captain. It wasn’t until things got out of control that he was finally awakened.
We may never know but his involvement earlier may have prevented this disaster.
I agree with everything you’ve said. Let’s not forget the “unintended consequences” — in this case, all of our gulf drilling must be far removed from shore and therefore at much greater depths than those the Chinese are doing with the Cubans, the developers near Venezuela, etc. Our developers have to drill at 5,000 feet below sea-level — and now there’s a problem and they’re struggling to plug the well at that depth. Will anyone in the “blame game” consider our own Federal regulations and what the unintended consequences have been? And when we decide to ban off-shore drilling, will anyone in the MSM raise the obvious point that this isn’t going to stop the Cubans/Chinese in their part of the Gulf nor the Venezuelans in their waters, etc. etc. etc. around the globe.
Yes, I wish that shut-off valve was working... and I wish they were only required to go down 1,000 feet to now fix the problem.
Thanks.
They’re suing one of the victims family? Crazy!
“
“You have to go out,” is the old Coast Guard saying.
“You don’t have to come back.”
“
First time I was made aware of that motto was while touring the naval
exhibit at Galveston.
It was the caption of (presumably) a WWII photo of a deceased
naval/CG drapped over his gun station.
The CG and civilians that rushed to an inferno like this oil instillation
were very brave as well.
If it was my well, I'd sure have something place to freeze it down below if any kicking occurred.
At those depths the pressures are fantastic, can you imagine the 30,000 to 40,000 psi James was talking about?
I'd love to harness that up to a turbine or something to generate electricity while harvesting hydrocarbons.
[ ... ummmm... yes, that's on another FReeper thread ... LOL ... ]
Sure wouldn't want to have been holding Cameron Intl shares.
And that the oil is under even greater pressure if it is pushing out through it?
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