Here’s a good article from 2009 about the first of its kind deep water rig (BP). Amazing the difficult conditions and the technology required to overcome it. They are producing lots of oil with no problem at this site (Thunder Horse) - with flow rates of up to 50,000 barrels/day per well (and multiple wells from one rig).
EXCERPT:
“One of the most obvious challenges for BP was the location of the project (Thunder Horse Project, 2009) in ultra deepwater in a region notorious for both loop currents and the menace of hurricanes. A new generation of drilling rigs, such as the derrick rigs on the Discoverer Enterprise drillship and the PDQ had to be designed for these extremes.
The project also had to deal with reservoir temperatures up to 270º F (132° C), pressures up to 18,000 psi (124 MPa), and reservoir flow rates of up to 50,000 b/d of oil per well.”
Amazing stuff, and it demonstrates that this technology really is the “tip of the spear” for the Nation’s energy needs.
It also reinforces the extreme conditions that this oil is produced from, and how close to the edge of disaster this whole industry operates on a regular basis. We civilians take all of this for granted, and I admit I had no idea how complicated all of this is until this disaster occurred. I’ve learned more about offshore drilling in the last 2 months than I ever imagined I would want to know, and the people out there running this have my deep respect.
The industry is going to change again because of this, in ways we could not have envisioned without this disaster. Thunder Horse worked out, and that encouraged exploring at the Macondo site, but the Macondo reserve may well be too difficult to develop with existing technology; but that only means that there is already a bunch of engineers who are trying to figure out how to do this better.
It’s how all industry progresses.