Posted on 05/02/2010 5:59:15 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Edited on 05/02/2010 6:02:52 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
I am an electrical engineer by training, certainly not an oil field engineer. But there are certain things required for an explosion: a fuel source, oxygen, and ignition.
How does that "accidentally" happen under thousands of feet of water....?
ROBERT, La. - A robotic arm of a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV)
attempts to activate the Deepwater Horizon Blowout Preventor (BOP),
Thursday, April 22, 2010. In addition to the use of ROVs, the unified
command is mobilizing the Development Driller III, a drilling rig
that is expected to arrive Monday to prepare for relief well-drilling
operations, to stop the flow of oil that has been estimated at leaking up to
1,000 barrels/42,000 gallons a day.
“we are seeing sheens”
These are light reflecting off the shiny, tasseled loafers worn by the trial lawyers who have shown up in great numbers to file class action lawsuits against BP and the US government over the oil spill.
I am a mathematician by training, the pressure exerted by 1 mile of ocean and 3 miles of rock are very high. I’ve read 40,000 lbs per inch. Not sure that is correct but pressures are high. Natural gas is also present with crude oil. Drillers use drilling mud to keep the natural gas and crude oil in the earth while drilling. The amount of mud to use is pretty much an educated guess. Guess to low and the gas and oil will blow out the hole taking the drill, piles, etc with it. Not sure of the down side of guessing to high, maybe it make drilling more difficult? So perhaps, not enough mud was used, natural gas escaped made it way up the drilling pipe onto the rig and ignited?
I also read the rig was finished drilling the well and just finished securing the well with cement. Drillers will pump cement into the hole to cement the pipes to the surrounding rock. Then they will “plug” the well with cement so they can return later, unplug the well and put it into production. Since drilling was finished it probably was not the mud that failed but the cement plug. Cement plug failure would look a lot like a mud failure, except that the pumping would stay in the hole, so I think we have a cement plug failure here, resulting in gas reaching the rig and igniting.
The thing I’d like to know is why the blow off preventer did not work! These drillers are highly skilled, highly trained professionals. You just know that someone on that rig hit the big red button to close that valve. So first things to look at. Who cemented the well? Who built the Blow Off Preventer value? Short of sabotage it 90% certain that those two failures combined to caused this spill.
Who cemented the well? Who built the Blow Off Preventer value? Short of sabotage it 90% certain that those two failures combined to caused this spill.
Haliburton was the contractor doing the cementing. They hadn’t finished the plug but had done the other cementing.
Cameron of Ville Platte, LA one of the best manufactured the BOP. See the above photo of the ROV trying to activate it but couldn’t.
Click the link The Hayride under the BOP photo for a lot of day to day info as this event progesses along.
Thanks, question, do BOPs have some kind of automated system built in to “sense” a blow out and close automatically? Or do they require a manual command? thanks again.
One thing I’ve learned by following investigations of airline crashes is that it usually takes a combination of rare events to cause a catastrophic failure. Bet the same holds true here.
I’m not sure about all the details of how a BOP works. But I believe I’ve read where there are multiple devices designed to accuate the BOP during emergencies. I’ve read specualtion that a setting tool may have been in the BOP thus keeping it from closing. Who knows at this point as there will be all kinds of speculation out there.
Here’s a few comments from the BP COO about it;
BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles said interviews with Transocean workers on the rig revealed crewmembers tried to activate the BOP from the rig’s bridge before the fire forced them to evacuate, but the BOP did not close off the well.
Suttles also revealed that BP remotely-operated vehicles (ROVs) had hit “subsea access points” that should close the BOP, but that they also failed to trigger the mechanism to shut.
“We don’t know why the BOP failed to stop the flow,” he said. “Ultimately we will recover the BOP, get it to the surface and find out.”
That’s SWOT teams.
FedGov inspectors.
The smell of disel fuel is in the air.
“You can help all of those who want to know what happen by giving your personal understanding as to what happened.”
I’ve worked offshore and know that no one working on such a platform would commit such a terrorist act. Moreover, access to that platform is not easily accessible and persons on the platform or on the crew and supply boats around the platform would have noticed unauthorized activity.
And accidents do happen and while it is not fully clear what happened here, it is apparent that they lost control of the well via human error or a major failure of equipment or the instruments that monitor well conditions.
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