Posted on 04/29/2010 10:03:48 AM PDT by anonsquared
~snip~
The report reads, "the incident appears as if it was either the product of gas migration through the cement sheath as it was setting or that the act of displacing the riser to seawater reduced the hydrostatic head enough that it caused the well to start flowing though cement that was not yet hard. With casing in the ground, these two possible explanations seem by far the most likely, although its impossible at this point not to rule out some other cause or contributing factor such as a blowout preventer or a CASING INTEGRITY ISSUE."
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
I don’t want to be part of the black helicopter/ tin foil hat set, but with the out of control progressivism going on in this country it fits right in. If this leak goes on for 90 days as they are now predicting, the damage will be devastating and even staunch supporters of “drill here drill now”will not be able to overcome the legacy.
That’s just it - it was an accident and accidents happen all the time in the oil patch- you just don’t hear about them... Materials fail, humans make mistakes - doesn’t mean that that the next question should be that it’s must have been intentional or jumping to the conclusion that it must have then been intentional. 1+2 never equals 500...
Contrary to belief, oil rigs are one of the most regulated and “safest” places to work because of the hazards. It’s a damn dangerous job but the amount of safety training and precautions that take place daily make a very hostile environment safer... I have no problem going on any rig or platform owned and run by a majority of companies but you’d i get nervous as hell when I get on something like a public ferry because the level of training and skills required of the crews are a whole different ballgame than what you find in the oil patch. That being said, you’d never find me stepping foot on a Chinese owned/run rig...
My very first word in my very first post was IF.
It is because I know that safety is number one on the rigs that all of the coincidences don’t add up. Heck, if it even looks like a blustery day (thanks, Pooh!) they evacuate everyone off the rigs even if the helo drivers get exhausted and risk lives making multiple trips offshore to bring everyone onshore.
Life is a game of chess. If you are not aware you are a pawn whose only purpose is to be sacrificed, then you are already out of the game.
Time for the pawns to quit playing by the rules, make moves that are not allowed, surround the king, and take him down.
Now that I’ve has a beer, taken my boots off and blown off some steam - if you want to look for the “insider”, look at where the steel from the casing came from... Many suppliers have gone to overseas vendors for supplies as it’s cheaper but you get what you pay for... I wouldn’t be surprised to find that it wasn’t manufactured in the US but from somewhere overseas... If the cause was casing failure (which does happen but not as catastrophic as this), I would suspect it was because some supplier cut corners to make a buck.
I also wouldn’t be surprised to find that the rig actually sunk because of all the water that was sprayed on the rig trying to put the fire out... Dump enough water on a boat and it will sink...
The point of my frustration is why even bring up the possibility when it makes no sense. Had the rig exploded away from the wellhead, then some might be legit in speculating (like the torpedoing of the S. Korean ship).IF the mine fire in W. Virginia turns out not to be due to gasses in the mine that occur all the time ignited, I’m not gonna jump to a possible scenario where I would imply that possibly a raghead snuck in there at night and set off and IED... In that case, there might even be an absolute slim possibility but there is no possible way could of happened based on what the reported public and private reports occurred on the Transocean...
Go Pawns Go!
You mean like the Japanese pipe welded with in incompatible German rod that was used in many of the nuclear powerhouses during the 70s? And people wonder why there were issues.
Accident, corruption, or intentional the results are the same, the American taxpayers are chained to their gerbil wheels paying for it all.
White House: Spill could have impact on drilling (Obama steps back on drilling pledge after spill)
Just to clarify, I never implied “a raghead snuck in there at night and set off and IED.”
I said “Islamic Middle Eastern oil states” meaning the moneyed interests of those states. Maybe I should have been clearer. Nothing religious or political about it. It’s all about the money.
How long has that off shore drilling rig been operating?
I have heard NO info that would indicate that it was newly placed.
I just heard a news report that they were getting ready to move it. Just don’t believe everything you hear on the news.
Had you not started your initial point with the comment “If a bomb had been attached to the casing, would that cause an integrity issue?”, I wouldn’t have an issue with the rest of your comment... The implication is that a bomb could have been responsible and thus the ME states would profit is trying to connect dots and it doesn’t make sense. Are some guys happy that drilling on our own shores might be curtailed, sure but it’s too much of a stretch to imply that they directly caused this accident and that’s what set me off... (Disclaimer: I too make more money and have better job security when the prices are high as it directly affects my employment...)
Correct - as I understand it, the well was completed (i.e the drilling was done) and casing was being cemented in place to be “temporary abandoned” until some point in the future when the well could be connected to a platform for production...
Not being an engineer, my choice of phrase was unfortunate. My meaning was that it might not have been accidental. I’m sure there are many things that can be messed with on a rig to cause an accident, but then it isn’t an accident, is it?
Are you a roughneck?
No - I’m a guy who puts the “X” on the map and says drill here but I’ve spent a lot of time offshore around the globe wanting to see firsthand if my educated guess paid off...
A “insider” report in “plain english” that I received including a bunch of photos you haven’t seen on the news and I can’t post:
“The rig had apparently just finished cementing steel casing in place at depths exceeding 18,000 ft. The next operation was to suspend the
well so that the rig could move to its next drilling location, the idea being that a rig would return to this well later in order to complete the
work necessary to bring the well into production.
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. The flames were visible up to about
35 miles away. Not the glow – the flames. They were 200 – 300 ft high.”
I would have done my own calculations to be sure the Engineer's matched. I guess that they have their own programs now, not just your scratched out formulas from your bible and a TI calculator.
I still have my old cementer's bible.
Actually, I have...
Not my end of the food chain but everything out there is double checked as well as sent to shore for consensus. Add in computer apps that visualize the whole wellbore down in 3D and the calculations of cement amount, annulus volume, etc are pretty damn sophisticated... We can land wells within single feet of where we want them to 5 miles away, especially in these high-dollar environments where price for these wells isn’t an issue... (not the same accuracy but still pretty good with some of the “cheap” blow-and-go operations onshore where the cheapest rigs and tools are still used, not much has changed there since my dad was drilling wells in the 60’s...)
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