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Ruh Roh.
Ban all arguments.
I saw a web report that Schlumberger was involved that day, too, and did not agree with the shutdown plan.
I don’t know why, but I have a feeling that liberal pantywaists everywhere would be offended at the tone of the heated discussions between roughnecks on a rig miles at sea.
All 3 are all lawyered up, did it a month ago
WTH
I wonder how many commenting here have ever been on an offshore platform, or on a drilling rig or site?
Or know the job titles associated with running a rig?
Or know the component parts of equipment involved?
I do know completing a well in 5,000 ft. of water is something that not very many people know much about.
I highly doubt that BP intentionally cut corners on safety.
When I was 20 years old I was on workover rigs, as an engineering technician (work clothes, not suits).
We often had two or even three people doing the math to determine exactly how deep we were, so as to not damage the expensive tools, and lose time.
Sometimes things went wrong. Things going wrong in the oilfield is not unusual.
I don’t expect the news media, politicians , government regulators to solve the damaged wellhead problem.
I don’t beat up on the big capitalist oil company about it.
That job is reserved for liberals, democrats, anti-capitalists.
Profit is a wonderful thing, providing wealth, jobs, goods and services.
The opposite is old USSR and Cuba.
Interesting post on the oildrum.com
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6493
With appropriate caveats:
BP contracted Schlumberger (SLB) to run the Cement Bond Log (CBL) test that was the final test on the plug that was skipped. The people testifying have been very coy about mentioning this, and you’ll see why.
SLB is an extremely highly regarded (and incredibly expensive) service company. They place a high standard on safety and train their workers to shut down unsafe operations.
SLB gets out to the Deepwater Horizon to run the CBL, and they find the well still kicking heavily, which it should not be that late in the operation. SLB orders the “company man” (BP’s man on the scene that runs the operation) to dump kill fluid down the well and shut-in the well. The company man refuses. SLB in the very next sentence asks for a helo to take all SLB personel back to shore. The company man says there are no more helo’s scheduled for the rest of the week (translation: you’re here to do a job, now do it). SLB gets on the horn to shore, calls SLB’s corporate HQ, and gets a helo flown out there at SLB’s expense and takes all SLB personel to shore.
6 hours later, the platform explodes.
Pick your jaw up off the floor now. No CBL was run after the pressure tests because the contractor high-tailed it out of there. If this story is true, the company man (who survived) should go to jail for 11 counts of negligent homicide.
6 posted on Tuesday, May 25, 2010 6:44:02 PM by ScreamingFist
This is obviously referencing the argument that was previously reported in the Wall Street Journal where everyone was kicked out of the room except for the primary participants. With the result that the decision was made by BP - after coordinating with and receiving approval from the government oversight agency - to remove the driller’s mud before placing the concrete plug that would have sealed the casing.
BP Spill Biggest Energy Insurance Loss in 20 Years (Update1)
Piper Alpha was in 1988.
Brown said Transocean's crew leaders—including the rig operator's top manager, Jimmy W. Harrell—strongly objected to a decision by BP's top representative, or "company man"...
"The company man was basically saying, 'This is how it's gonna be,' " said Mr. Brown, who didn't recall the name of the BP representative in question.
Mr. Harrell "pretty much grumbled in his manner, 'I guess that is what we have those pinchers for,' " Mr. Brown testified. He said it was a reference to the shear rams on the drilling operation's blowout preventer, which are supposed to sever the main pipe in case of a disaster.
The blowout preventer failed to stop gas from rising to the surface, causing the explosion, BP has said.
Donald Vidrine, listed on Transocean's documents as BP's "company man" on April 20, couldn't be reached. Mr. Vidrine was supposed to testify Thursday but dropped out, citing an undisclosed medical issue... Another top BP official who was scheduled to testify Thursday, Robert Kaluza, declined to do so, asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
It sounds to me like Donald Vidrine is the BP version of NASA's Lawrence Mulloy.
Well, as in war, bad leaders make disasters. There was nothing wrong with the WWII Italian army that a good officer corps could not have fixed.
“It wasn’t clear what Mr. Harrell objected to specifically about BP’s instructions, but the rig’s primary driller, Dewey Revette, and tool pusher, Miles Randall Ezell, both of Transocean, also disagreed with BP...”
That’s the nice thing about land rigs - you can walk off them. Although the two summers I worked on a rig the company man knew who the bosses were.
I heard stories that accidently dropping a 48-inch pipe wrench off the drill deck as the company man walked by below was helpful in putting him in his place too.
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