Posted on 04/29/2010 11:52:51 AM PDT by Donald Rumsfeld Fan
On all offshore oil rigs, there is one main switch for cutting off the flow of oil by closing a valve located on the ocean floor. Many rigs also have automatic systems, such as a "dead man" switch as a backup that is supposed to close the valve if it senses a catastrophic failure aboard the rig.
Much still isn't known about what caused the problems in Deepwater Horizon's well, nearly a mile beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. It went out of control, sending oil surging through pipes to the surface and causing a fire that ultimately sank the rig.
Unmanned submarines that arrived hours after the explosion have been unable to activate the shut-off valve on the seabed, called a blowout preventer.
BP says the Deepwater Horizon did have a "dead man" switch, which should have automatically closed the valve on the seabed in the event of a loss of power or communication from the rig. BP said it can't explain why it didn't shut off the well.
Transocean drillers aboard the rig at the time of the explosion, who should have been in a position to hit the main cutoff switch, are among the dead. It isn't known if they were able to reach the button, which would have been located in the area where the fire is likely to have started.
Tony Hayward, BP's CEO, said finding out why the blowout preventer didn't shut down the well is the key question in the investigation. "This is the failsafe mechanism that clearly has failed," Mr. Hayward said in an interview.
Lars Herbst, regional director of the Minerals Management Service in the Gulf of Mexico, said investigators are focusing on why the blowout preventer failed.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsgroups.derkeiler.com ...
I don't see this image.
I can watch the video. I do not see an image of only the control house burning.
You got to be quick right at the start of the video you need to pause.
I have paused each of the first images. That is not what I see.
explain ?
It seems the fire is coming out of the top of the house, high on the rig.
Are you saying the subsequent shots shows the fire lower down the rig, blocked by the house? Could be ...
Thanks...shows what little I know
Given the currents we would see there, that would not surprise me.
IF the reports about the lack of a remote shutoff are true, BP did tremendous damage to us.
There really needs to be some clarity on what has and is happening here. So, speaking as somebody formerly in the oil & gas business:
1) This was not an “oil well.”
2) The Deepwater Horizon that blew out, caught on fire, and sank was a semi-submersible drilling rig.
3) It’s primary purpose is to drill for oil, not PRODUCE oil. Semi’s can be used to produce oil. One question is: was this rig actually producing oil or just drilling for it?
4) As to the “one main switch for cutting off the flow of oil by closing a valve located on the ocean floor,” do we know if there even was a flow of oil happening when this rig blew up? Drilling rigs drill for months without encountering any oil. What you seem to be describing here is bottom-located production equipment, the kind that would be installed when oil is being produced by a permanent production platform, not a semi-submersible drilling rig.
Does anybody here actually know what the facts of this case are? Lord knows the main stream press corp (the useful idiots) are so busy comparing it to Valdez, they don’t bother to actually do their jobs and answer the what, why, when, how and provide some meaningful context and comparisons. Is this Valdez or Ixtoc 1 which while 10+ times a bigger spill than Valdez did little environmental damage.
5) What does generally stop a disaster of this type in a drilling situation are the blow-out preventers or “BOPs.” A BOP operates by slamming down on both sides of the drilling tubing (called drill string) and thereby cutting off any flow of hydrocarbons. Certainly on a state of the art piece of equipment like the Horizon, they were installed and working. They automatically operate in the event of certain pressure changes. My guess is that this rig was drilling and punched through into a massive hyrdrocarbon (gas and oil) rich zone. The “kick” as we call it was so massive, it shattered the drill string below the BOP. That kick was so violent it also did substantial damage at the surface of the rig and that is what caused the fire. The BOP never even had a chance to work.
What bothers me is that while this is a good working theory, it is nothing but a theory until we know some facts. And we can’t know any facts until the idiotic press starts asking some real questions. Anybody that has read in the press any answers to these questions, please chime in.
Here are some other things to think about. Is the “oil” slick oil from the borehole that was being drilled or is it diesel stored on the rig, or both. How much diesel was stored on the rig for usage in drilling operations?
Valdez spilled some 262,000 barrels of oil. The initial rate on this incident was reported as 1,000 barrels a day, so it would take almost a year to spew what Valdez did. Now, we hear its 5,000 bpd. What the truth really is, who knows. Ixtoc 1 spewed some 3.5 million barrels at 10k to 30k bpd. It fouled beaches in Mexico and Texas, but the effects were nothing compared to Valdez. It remains to be seen if this event is closer to Ixtoc 1 or Valdez, but some intelligent comparisons and analyses would be nice versus the sensationalism and hysteria dominating the headlines these days.
I have seen news stories talking about the potential for this spill to foul “rocks” and “beaches.” What rocks? Not many of those along the GOM coast. What beaches? Mostly where this oil seems to be going there are marshes. There are beaches in Mississippi, but as anyone whose been to them can attest, they suck. Brown Mississippi River effluent, brown sand, worthless for swimming. I don’t mean to minimize the potential ecological disaster, but let’s analyze it rationally and talk about what may really happen and not engage in projection from what happened in Alaska.
Look at this link, then go to the first fire picture, the one early in the fire when the drilling derrick is still standing. It is one of the clearest early fire pictures I have found. See if this doesn’t help show the fire did not start in the control house.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/04/deepwater-horizon/
Sabotage? Not a conspiracy nut but all of this stuff coming this close together(two mines, refinery and the oil rig)seem very suspicious.
There have been other explosions and fires on oil rigs but none have dumped the oil into the ocean that this one has.
Bozo comes out for drilling off shore and then, wham, a disaster sure to set the left wing greenies crying and screaming to shut down all oil rigs. Cap and trade here we come.
Yes, but was the cut off valve that’s failed.. where was it manufactured originally? Not which country put all the parts together.
And not just that, but how secure is the facility in SK where it was built. Drawings may show a valve, but it may have been intentionally not installed. Lots of questions to be answered by an investigation.
I know from experience they lie right off the bat like a kid caught on COPS.
The other thing is, if they've got so many ubercool underwater robots, why can't some of them hold suck up tubes down there close to the hole they poked in the floor.
Yeah, I know it sounds exotic and expensive.
Relatively speaking it's a whole lot cheaper & simpler than what's gettin' ready to happen.
bookmark for later read
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