Posted on 06/19/2010 10:08:15 AM PDT by worst-case scenario
This is a guest post by William Semple. Mr. Semple is a drilling engineer and independent drilling consultant with 37 years of experience in the oil and gas industry. He worked for 16 years with a major oil company and has 24 years of experience as a drilling supervisor.
Mississippi Canyon 252 Macondo Well 24th April 2010 at approximately 21:49 hrs
I have summarized the information to try and keep it to the salient facts. The following information is from reliable sources. Most is public record and the remainder is from confidential reviews carried out by other major oil companies. I have interpreted the reports and made some conclusions with caveats where necessary. As such, these are only opinions and no inference of blame can be inferred as a result of these statements.
More detail will emerge when further investigations take place, especially with regard to the last few hours leading up to the explosion. However, I am confident the fundamentals are identified in this article and, most importantly, the crucial lessons learned so none of us repeat the same mistakes.
Much is being made of the water depth as a factor in this disaster. However, many of the mistakes made would have been equally serious in shallow-water drilling or even on land, and lessons learned apply to almost all drilling operations.
(Excerpt) Read more at theoildrum.com ...
Good discussion bump
If we can weigh it down why hasn’t it been done, would be the next logical question. :) I still don’t see a self restricting blowout.
I will wait to see the actual analysis from the people with access to all of the facts...not speculation about what might have happened, even informed speculation.
Equipment that was supposed to work didn’t. Did they use foreign casing? Who built the blow-out preventer? Was somebody drunk or stoned? (like on the Exxon Valdez). Did they use approved practices? What did MMS approve? Did Trans-Oceanic employees cause the problem?
As far as I can see BP is the only group actually doing something and the people most critical of them may have had a hand in causing the problem in the first place.
So far, “the greatest environmental disaster ever” hasn’t even happened yet. It is all anticipation and finger pointing. There have been few beach closings. Only 30% of Gulf fishing waters are closed. It is the hype and fear mongering that has caused the current problem. BO’s moratorium based on a lie is hurting people the most.
The lawyers and the Democrats have $20 Billion reasons to promote the disaster as long as they can blame BP for it.
Self crimped? They had a mile of riser pipe on top of the Blow-Out-Preventer.
When the Deepwater Horizon sank, all of that pipe, still attached to the top of the BOP, simply fell over.
When it fell over the pipe bent and crimped at the bend point.
I read on another website (so take this with a grain of salt) that an engineer who claims to have worked with this project said they may have hit a high pressure pocket that was exponentially greater than anything they experienced before and no amount of government planning or safety equipment could have prevented it with the exception of a time machine. (something like 80k psi versus the 2k psi max equipment is rated at).
Under these strange sets of circumstances, isn't it possible that this was done purposely...that someone in the chain of command on that rig was an activist seeking a disaster...a Crieghton-esque eco-terrorist?
Under Department of the Interior regulations, they weren't required to.
Once the federal government chooses to regulate an activity, they assume a significant portion of the liability.
If weight is the only issue then the problem is relatively easy to solve. Pipes do not blow inwards if they are pressurized. This is not a new concept.
First, you have to understand what they mean by blowing out.
I will tell you, even BP is not sure where all the leaks are coming from.
The term ‘blowing out’ does not mean that the pressure ruptured the outer casing that is below the ocean floor. It might be leaking from between the inner and outer casing.
The author of the article explains that the high pressure gas went up the riser tube and into the pump room on the drilling rig. That is where the explosion likely occurred, and the fires.
So, after two days, the rig sinks, dragging the riser pipe with it. Since the riser pipe is solid, the rig could not sink straight down, but went off at an angle. Which is a good thing because if the DRILLING RIG had landed on top of the BOP assembly, the situation would be horrifically worse.
Take a straw and hold it by the bottom end, about one inch up. Now, take your other hand and put it on top of the straw and start to push down. What happens?
Notice how the straw bends just above your bottom hand and crimps over? Keep bending the straw until it is completely bent over (similar to the way the riser tube is bent over and laying on the ocean floor at this moment).
You may see the straw crack just where the crimp is. That is where the leak above the BOP (just below where they cut the riser tube off and put the cap on) came from. It wasn’t from the pressure blowing a hole in the pipe.
Does that help?
‘Who built the BOP?’...the other day I read that a company named Cameron International (ticker: CAM) built the BOP in question and they appear to be a respected name in the industry. Hope to learn more about this company and their devices.
The pipe didn't blow out. The seals between the bore casing (the inner pipe) and the outer casing pipe failed. Gas went up the pipe, into the pump room on the rig, and BOOM.
The crimp of the pipe as it was bent over past a 90 degree angle caused metal failure and the leaks.
Go to your basement, unhook the hangers that hold your copper or plastic water lines to the joists, and bend it over 90 degrees. It won't be the pressure that causes the leak, as the pressure was always there. It is the bending that does it.
When you bend a pipe to such an extreme, it usually cracks and leaks occur , right at the location of the extreme bend.
BP *wanted* to drill at this depth because the Macondo Plateau had tremendous reserves under it (as we now have the proof).\
Here are the documents they filed with the MMS explaining that safer technology and the prospect of extremely high-production wells are the main reason they are doing so much deep-water drilling.
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/offshore/deepwtr.html
If we explore a bit beyond the “wacky environmentalists made them do this” slogan, we find out that this sort of exploration was *entirely the choice of the industry.* They WANT to drill there because it is so profitable.
lol...I was thinking the same thing.
Well, if you don't install the seals properly, and don't install enough of them, It doesn't matter what the pressure is, unless it is zero.
They tried the top kill which was to pump mud down into the hole via the BOP. They couldn’t get enough down hole to stop the flow. They even tried junk shots which is putting items into the system hoping to help clog up the spots where the leaks were.
The next and ongoing attempt is the relief wells which will intersect the bore down near the bottom. They will inject mud from that location and keep increasing the weight of the mud until they reach an equalibrum point. Then they will plug the how with cement. Or that is the current attempted plans at this stage. They have ceased all attempts top side to plug the well.
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