The Gulf

[tjf67]

This is turning into a disaster. Every working boat down there should be on BP's payroll scooping that shit out of the water. Any Navy ships around should be there as well. Let BP work on the problem but for Gods sake get that shit out of the water. Dont let resources sit idle WE NEED OUR COAST!!!!

 

[snoseek]

A clusterf%ck of epic proportions it is.......

 

[SKIQUATTRO]

its like they are almost doing it on purpose....you tell me that this "what if" scenario wasnt played out by any of the engineers/govt agenices as to have a plan of attack just in case if and when something like this happens...what if a cat3 hurricane knocked over several of these rigs and even more oil was spilling out.....what a clusterF

 

[roark]

So long as they don't put any damn windmills. Those things are downright hazardous.

 

[mondeo]

its like they are almost doing it on purpose....you tell me that this "what if" scenario wasnt played out by any of the engineers/govt agenices as to have a plan of attack just in case if and when something like this happens...what if a cat3 hurricane knocked over several of these rigs and even more oil was spilling out.....what a clusterF

Well, 6 million gallons of oil were spilled during Katrina...

Also, something like this hits the news, and all of a sudden everyone's an expert in reliabilty.

It's a multiple failure event, dealing with the deepest well ever drilled. You only make sure you can get through a single failure event, after that it's probabilities. The problem here isn't that they didn't consider the possibilty, it's that they got the risk assessment (dead) wrong or were extremely unlucky to have a one in 100,000 year (or rarer) event happen. It's not like a 5 cent part caused this to happen. The blowout preventer is:
"a 450-ton, 40-foot-tall ... stack of metal valves and pistons that each failed to close off the well." Also, "In order to properly cap a well, drillers rely on three lines of defense to protect themselves from an explosive blowout: a column of heavy mud in the well itself and in the drilling riser that runs up to the rig; at least two cement plugs that fit in the well with a column of mud between them; and a blowout preventer that is supposed to seal the well if the mud and plugs all fail." From what I've heard, there were several human mistakes as well as the mechanical failuire of the blowout preventer. So far this has cost 11 lives, Transocean a $700 milllion rig, BP $300 million in cleanup (expected to go into billions if not tens of billions,) and them and Halliburton all kinds of negative publicity that will have significant financial implications, including legislation that will drive up the cost of drilling beyond what's probably reasonable and reduced opportunities to drill in the Gulf or in Alaska. Yes, the possibility of a failed blowout preventer was considered. But in the end the probability of such tremendous consequences were deemed small enough that it wasn't worth whatever it would've cost to make it that much less likely. They were wrong, just like the designers of the de Havilland Comet, Apollo 1, Apollo 13, the Challenger, the Space Shuttle External Tank, the Concorde ... for a partial list from only one field.

Any time something like this happens, the automatic response is that something more should've been done up front. The public is unwilling to accept the knowledge that anything people do has risk, especially when it's catastrophic risk. How much is it worth to prevent the risk of something like this happening? $1 million? $10 million? $10 billion? At some point you just halt progress or waste money that could be better spent somewhere else.

Hmm. I don't remember standing on this soap box...

 

[snoseek]

So long as they don't put any damn windmills. Those things are downright hazardous.

Good one!

How many birds must die this awful death to satisfy our energy needs! One is too many I say....

 

[wa-loaf]

Nice little google earth thingy to give you perspective on the size of this thing:
http://paulrademacher.com/oilspill/

 

[TheBEast]

Mondeo - well said. Working in investments my firm has first hand research and knowledge on the subject and learning about how this happened and the shear complexity of the situation is something a lot of the general public will just never understand. It is a true tragedy and one that will takes years to remedy. May those who lost their lives rest in eternal peace.

 

[ctenidae]

Mondeo - well said. Working in investments my firm has first hand research and knowledge on the subject and learning about how this happened and the shear complexity of the situation is something a lot of the general public will just never understand. It is a true tragedy and one that will takes years to remedy. May those who lost their lives rest in eternal peace.

All true. Sadly, the people best situated to talk about what went wrong are teh 1 operators who died.

It's amazing to all of us that they got the multiple failures like that. Looks like the rams on the BOPs are going to have to be beefed up a bit to shear off any tools dropped in the string, as well.

/we have a rig in the Gulf doing the same work, so I'm getting a kick out of these replies.

 

[WakeboardMom]

you tell me that this "what if" scenario wasnt played out by any of the engineers/govt agenices as to have a plan of attack just in case if and when something like this happens...

This is the part that I don't understand...the "what if's?" I'm naive enough to think that there would've been a back-up plan. BUT why SO MANY failures? Why did so many alarms NOT go off?

Sad to say that when this is all over, BP is going to have a ton of explaining to do.

 

[mondeo]

This is the part that I don't understand...the "what if's?" I'm naive enough to think that there would've been a back-up plan. BUT why SO MANY failures? Why did so many alarms NOT go off?

Sad to say that when this is all over, BP is going to have a ton of explaining to do.

The problem is it's not going to be explaining that they have to do. It's going to be a witch hunt that will end up obscuring any beneficial public education. Senators will get to look good making BP look bad (even though the only real responisbility they have in this is the "the buck stops here" responsibility,) journalists will make Pulitzer proud by selling, well, whatever it is they sell these days, environmentalists will get a taller soap box to preach from, etc.

And away from the headlines, engineers will figure out what went wrong and how to prevent it from happening again. People who assess risk will revise their procedures to try to better capture stuff like that. BP's contract writers will be more stringent in ensuring proper failsafes are in place for stuff they don't own or operate but are ultimately responsible for. Response plans reviewed. All the stuff that would happen with or without the public outcry, all the stuff that actually needs to get done, will get done.

 

[WakeboardMom]

All the stuff that would happen with or without the public outcry, all the stuff that actually needs to get done, will get done.

I hope so. I hate hearing that this alarm or that alarm didn't go off. Oh, man...those initial lives that were lost were horrendous; and all those friends who have to live with that. And now all the fishermen and their families and all those others...it's such a huge pebble tossed into the water with all the ensuing repercussions. I'm hoping those engineers can contain this terrible thing as best they can and then prevent it from happening again.

 

[ctenidae]

I hope so. I hate hearing that this alarm or that alarm didn't go off. Oh, man...those initial lives that were lost were horrendous; and all those friends who have to live with that. And now all the fishermen and their families and all those others...it's such a huge pebble tossed into the water with all the ensuing repercussions. I'm hoping those engineers can contain this terrible thing as best they can and then prevent it from happening again.

Note to readers: I apologize in advance for the length of this post. I also want to lead off by saying it's completely not aimed at any individual, in particular WakeboardMom. She just happened to have a reasonable post that reminds me just how unreasonable many people can be. The following is not intended to be political. I fully realize that to the engineers among us, the sequence of events is a gross oversimplification. The nitty gritty isn't that important for our purposes. I also realize that I cannot type "the" or "and" accurately regularly.

As I understand it, it's absolutely not a case of this or that alarm not going off. It was an exploration well that they drilled, to see if there were hydrocarbons present. There are, hooray, so you plug the hole up, seal it up tight, and call in a development drilling rig (the one that sank drills 1 hole fast, then moves on. A development rig sits there, drills 5-10 holes, gets the wells hooked up to the pipeline, then moves on. Rinse, repeat). The hole had been cemented, as I understand it, with a plug (think a wine cork) topped by cement, topped by another plug, with a Blow Out Preventer (BOP) on top of that. On top of all that was the riser, which is the pipe that runs from the seabed up through 5,000 feet of water to the platform, typically filled with mud. Imagine how much 5,000 feet of mud in a 12-14 inch pipe weighs- yet another safety check holding the gas and down. Somehow the pressure down in the hole jumped beyond what the plugs and cement could hold (faulty design, a bad pour, a bad read on the pressure, or the engineers weren't familiar with an average Tuesday morning for Marc, it's hard to say), and hydrocarbons worked their way into the riser and up to the platform. Now, the first plug should have held, but it didn't. The cement should have held, but it didn't. The second plug should have held, but it didn't. The BOP should have slammed shut (huge pointy rams jam closed, pinching off the pipe and closing it), but it didn't. The mud in the riser should have held everything down, but it didn't. So, hydrocarbons made it to the platform, and found an ignition source, which, as anyone who's been at Marc's on a Tuesday morning will tell you, it always does. So, boom.

So, what went wrong? Was there mud in the riser, and was it the right mud? Maybe, but they may have been clearing the riser preparing to disconnect. Were the plugs put in wrong? Maybe, but the cement job around the casing (you drill the hole, then put a piece of casing pipe in, then pour cement around that) might have failed, letting everything seep up past the plugs. Did the BOP fail? Maybe- it might not have activated at all, or maybe a plug got jammed back up into it preventing it from closing.

In the end, until it's contained and re-drilled, it's all a guessing game. Maybe it was the crew, maybe it was the cement, maybe it was the BOP, maybe it was the casing, maybe it was some dumbshit bad luck.

The efforts to contain and control the damage have been quite amazing. BP's reaction has actually been great- they stood right up and said "We'll pay for it." I'm sure they'll be going after folks, too, but no cattle egrets are dying waiting for that check to clear.

It's a disaster, sure. It's a shame those 11 crew members lost their lives, absolutely. Could it have been prevented? Maybe, tighter regs, better control, who knows, maybe it could have. The thing is, it's the risk we run. We need the oil and the gas. We want the power and the plastics. We crave all things petroleum. Pure and simple. If you drive a car to your favorite environmental protest wearing your animal friendly plastic Crocs eating your heart healthy tofu imported from China where they know the value of a hard day's work, then step on up and roll the dice at the Deepwater Casino.

There aren't that many choices. Drive, and either destroy the Gulf or fund terrorists, or don't. Or, drive less, spend more to do it, and pay for an alternative. Whatever, don't go lambasting the evil oil executives who are intentionally trying to destroy the environment.Throw a little of that blame around, splash a little on the NIMBYs and BANANAs. Give a cup to SoccerMom, and a jigger to...okay, I don't have a male equivalent to SoccerMom. Because the engineers will figure out a way to keep this from happening again, just like they'll figure out a way to keep the next bad thing from happening again, and the next bad thing after that. And some day, we'll decide the price is too high. Whether it's at the gas pump, or at the grocery store, or at the tarmac wasteland that used to be a beach. And then, maybe, just maybe, we'll do something useful about it.

 

[snoseek]

^^^^^^^^


Such a well written post!

 

[wa-loaf]

[So, what went wrong? Was there mud in the riser, and was it the right mud? Maybe, but they may have been clearing the riser preparing to disconnect. Were the plugs put in wrong? Maybe, but the cement job around the casing (you drill the hole, then put a piece of casing pipe in, then pour cement around that) might have failed, letting everything seep up past the plugs. Did the BOP fail? Maybe- it might not have activated at all, or maybe a plug got jammed back up into it preventing it from closing.

From what I heard they were putting in the plugs and for some reason had removed some or all of the mud and were replacing it with sea water. The sea water was not heavy enough to cap the pressure. No one is sure why they did that, maybe it was easier to put the pugs in or something.

 

[riverc0il]

The problem is it's not going to be explaining that they have to do. It's going to be a witch hunt that will end up obscuring any beneficial public education. Senators will get to look good making BP look bad (even though the only real responisbility they have in this is the "the buck stops here" responsibility,) journalists will make Pulitzer proud by selling, well, whatever it is they sell these days, environmentalists will get a taller soap box to preach from, etc.

And away from the headlines, engineers will figure out what went wrong and how to prevent it from happening again. People who assess risk will revise their procedures to try to better capture stuff like that. BP's contract writers will be more stringent in ensuring proper failsafes are in place for stuff they don't own or operate but are ultimately responsible for. Response plans reviewed. All the stuff that would happen with or without the public outcry, all the stuff that actually needs to get done, will get done.

Well said.

And, in the mean time, we are all still putting gas in our cars and enjoying that gas being priced cheaply. If the cheaper price of gas is not worth the environmental risks, we need to start taking the bike/bus to work or walking and living in buildings close enough to walkable markets for consumer goods. Or accept higher prices of gas if we cut out any gas source that has the slightest chance of environmental destruction pending a disaster like this. Just like the Valdez... there will be out cry and then people will forget, especially at the pump with gas still under $3/gallon. I am not saying any of this is right, just saying it is the way it is and the only alternative is massive lifestyle change by significant numbers of population centers.

 

[WakeboardMom]

Well said.

And, in the mean time, we are all still putting gas in our cars and enjoying that gas being priced cheaply. If the cheaper price of gas is not worth the environmental risks, we need to start taking the bike/bus to work or walking and living in buildings close enough to walkable markets for consumer goods. Or accept higher prices of gas if we cut out any gas source that has the slightest chance of environmental destruction pending a disaster like this. Just like the Valdez... there will be out cry and then people will forget, especially at the pump with gas still under $3/gallon. I am not saying any of this is right, just saying it is the way it is and the only alternative is massive lifestyle change by significant numbers of population centers.

We're spoiled. I'd be willing to bet that most of us could do better a job.

 

[Marc]

Note to readers:

I had a burrito last night too, so one can only imagine.

From what I've read, everyone's best guess is the rams on the BOP did activate, but not completely.

Other than that, I echo what modeo and cten said. I think everyone should read the book "To Engineer is Human."

Here's a helpful link for anyone interested.

 

[TheBEast]

ctenidae - thanks for the technical knowledge. The vast majority of the media just plains sucks when it comes to technical issues like this. More of a shock and ah approach to get everyone all fired up. So many issues on so many levels for a disaster of this type.

 

[drjeff]

ctenidae - thanks for the technical knowledge. The vast majority of the media just plains sucks when it comes to technical issues like this. More of a shock and ah approach to get everyone all fired up. So many issues on so many levels for a disaster of this type.

Agree 100%

A secondary issue I think is that a vast percentage of society has come to expect 100% of the benefits with 0% risk involved, when that equation is impossible.

If you step back and consider that there's 1000's of drilling rigs operating safely 24/7/365 and extracting mind boggling amounts of oil from far below the earth's surface with a phenomenal safety record, the oil industry as a whole is a very safe one. But just like every now and then a plane crashes or someone gets struck by lightening, freak events/accidents happen - sometimes as a result of human error and sometimes as a result of nothing other than just bad/random luck