To: HiTech RedNeck
There is a valve to shut the oil off beneath the rig I believe but it seems no one was able to get to it. I heard on the radio that the rig took the missing people down with it. Eleven I think I heard.
I've tied off to the big spiked ball buoys they use for the crewboats to tie up to away from the rigs but I have never been aboard one of the rigs. Maybe a roughneck can jump in and offer more detail.
3 posted on
04/23/2010 1:11:27 AM PDT by
KDD
(When the government boot is on your neck, it matters not whether it is the right boot or the left.)
To: KDD; HiTech RedNeck
There is a valve to shut the oil off beneath the rig My information may be obsolete as I am retired from the business. But there is a huge device called a Blowout Preventer which is attached to the casing on the bottom. Weighs several hundred tons, has two stages of shutoff valves, remotely actuated, and finally as last resort can squeeze the drill pipe closed. The driller constantly watches the heavy drilling mud in the drill pipe to contain gas pressure from below. Mud system is 10,000 psi or more system because gas drilled into at deep levels may be high pressure.
The driller on the drill floor never takes his eyes off the pressure gages and is ready to instantly act to contain the gas pressure from below.
I worked for that company, Transocean, and I know all the crews are well trained and the equipment is the best. Don't know what might have gone wrong. They are drilling in deeper water nowadays which makes more complicated.
17 posted on
04/23/2010 2:38:48 AM PDT by
tommix2
To: KDD
I've been on some pretty big rigs, but this one had a displacement approaching that of an aircraft carrier. It was a 2001, Korean-built, top-of-the-line dynamic-positioning semisubmersible barge rig (catamaran pontoon design). You're talking about a half-billion dollars' worth of rig.
Specs page (need recent-edition browser):
http://rigzone.com/data/rig_detail.asp?rig_id=153
Links to current stories on the page.
To: KDD
>> There is a valve to shut the oil off beneath the rig I believe but it seems no one was able to get to it.
Too bad those valves are automated to be normally closed.
74 posted on
04/23/2010 9:02:10 AM PDT by
Gene Eric
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