| Author | Message | ||
     Hex |
Could some one tell me how long has it been sience we have had a blow out in deep water (1000') or more Isn't once enough? | ||
| Hex |
Why temporary? I'll assume that they intend to keep their mining claim. | ||
| Sifo |
Interesting radio interview with someone who was on the rig... | ||
| Cowboy |
$$$$$$$$$ Move drill ship off and move on a much cheaper day rate rig. | ||
| Hex |
Here's some reference material: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_spills | ||
| Whatever |
This place is pathetic... you turn a modern day industrial disaster into a political debate? Grow up! Blake, I like the drill rig footage. I only have one important question. Why do MY drillers always wear shirts when they work?  We once had a pneumatic hose blow off on a small mobile rig I was working near... it sounded like a friggin rifle times one hundred... the guy next to it went down like a bullet hit him too... I really would not have wanted to be that guy that got knocked over by the mud... that hurt... you can see why so many drillers lose their fingers and hands too by looking at all the moving parts... I once saw a guy in a trench who had his leg pinned by a pipe wrench they attached to the rod... bad idea... he got lucky as the operator hit the kill switch quick. | ||
| Whatever |
My guess about the temporary cement plug is they sink their outer casing down past the permeable layer into the bedrock... the casing being the outer limit of the entire well... then they grout it up... then they redrill the hole through the casing and cement at a smaller diameter... when they reach the end of the casing and grout they are well into the bedrock and nothing will move around on them... but that is just a guess... that is how I have seen it done on smaller wells on land. | ||
| Hex |
This place is pathetic... you turn a modern day industrial disaster into a political debate? Grow up! It's all politics all the time in our post-Rovian utopia. A 1969 blowout on a Union Oil Co. platform off the Santa Barbara coast fouled miles of ocean and beaches and led to a moratorium on offshore drilling. Char, You're an environmental scientist, how do you think environmental laws come about? A: either foresight or hindsight. Maybe you should stick to being a scientist. Why would anyone question a potential blow-out either on land, one hundred feet below water, or 1000+ feet below water. Another addition to Murphy's law: If it can blow-out, it will. | ||
| Road_thing |
"Temporary" because the well was successful and the operator planned to re-enter it for production once the topside equipment and pipelines were in place. rt | ||
| Whatever |
You spend a little time behind a rig and it is always something breaking down or blowing up... or getting stuck... I had a crew use hollow stem auger in a limestone bedrock in Florida, where there was roughly 20 feet of permeable rock... when the bedrock gets that friable... and it is saturated it starts acting like a wet cement... It was the night before Thanksgiving and we all wanted to go home, but we were there until 3 AM trying to recover 50 foot of auger because they knew it would be impossible after a three day weekned... They broke two rigs trying to get it out... cable snapped on one and the "table" on the rig got ripped to shreds on the other one... this is where the rig and the auger are bolted together... They had an emergency welder come and fix the table, just to do the same thing a second time... they never did get their auger back and they had to construct the well right through the middle of it... Of course, they under bid their job and should have bid to do mud rotary on it, but they probably already knew that. They ended up losing around $30,000 dollars worth of equipment on that one hole. | ||
| Hex |
That was interesting, read what my Grandpa wrote: http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=0j1eAAAAEBAJ  | ||
| Hex |
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5 i-Bq4GrZpMDSMrtPh6TBPh6-bHdAD9FFM2A80 Federal law may limit BP liability in oil spill... | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
This place is pathetic... you turn a modern day industrial disaster into a political debate? Grow up! Likewise. | ||
| Hex |
Could some one tell me how long has it been sience we have had a blow out in deep water (1000') or more? Here's one: http://www.incidentnews.gov/incident/6250 IXTOC I Bahia de Campeche, Mexico 1979-Jun-03 On June 3, 1979, the 2 mile deep exploratory well, IXTOC I, blew out in the Bahia de Campeche, 600 miles south of Texas in the Gulf of Mexico. The IXTOC I was being drilled by the SEDCO 135, a semi-submersible platform on lease to Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX). A loss of drilling mud circulation caused the blowout to occur. The oil and gas blowing out of the well ignited, causing the platform to catch fire. The burning platform collapsed into the wellhead area hindering any immediate attempts to control the blowout. PEMEX hired blowout control experts and other spill control experts including Red Adair, Martech International of Houston, and the Mexican diving company, Daivaz. The Martech response included 50 personnel on site, the remotely operated vehicle TREC, and the submersible Pioneer I. The TREC attempted to find a safe approach to the Blowout Preventer (BOP). The approach was complicated by poor visibility and debris on the seafloor including derrick wreckage and 3000 meters of drilling pipe. Divers were eventually able to reach and activate the BOP, but the pressure of the oil and gas caused the valves to begin rupturing. The BOP was reopened to prevent destroying it. Two relief wells were drilled to relieve pressure from the well to allow response personnel to cap it. Norwegian experts were contracted to bring in skimming equipment and containment booms, and to begin cleanup of the spilled oil. The IXTOC I well continued to spill oil at a rate of 10,000 - 30,000 barrels per day until it was finally capped on March 23, 1980... | ||
| Whatever |
9 months is a long time for an oil spill... if you assume 20,000 barrels a day at 55 gallons a barrel at 9 months at 30 days per month... that is 297,000,000 gallons of oil... or 5.4 Million barrels. That is a lot of oil! | ||
| Whatever |
42 gallons a barrel (smaller I guess than your standard haz waste barrel)... multiply by 0.7636... that is still more than 226 Million gallons of oil. | ||
| Just_ziptab |
This whole drill rig operation information is just fascinating to me.Keep it coming...........specially you insiders. | ||
| Hex |
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-147  | ||
| Blake |
>>> Isn't once enough? If we used that logic there'd be no oil wells anywhere on the planet. If we used that logic we'd have no coal mines. If we used that logic there'd be no nuclear power plants. Oh, to answer Eric's question: Yes, one is more than enough, but the fear of another should only drive improved reliability and I proved emergency mitigation preparedness, NOT an abandonment of offshore oil exploration. That would be really unfortunate. If we used that logic there'd be no cars, airplanes, motorcycles, trains, busses, bridges, tall buildings, no industry of any kind. If we used that logic there'd be no more banks, insurance, or corporation. If we used that logic there'd be no organic food. Some people are crying that the sky is falling. It hasn't. Let's hope the impact is minimal. I did two tours on the SEDCO 135D offshore Rio De Janiero. Same model as the one involved in the big Mexican blowout. I can't recall the details of the cause of that blowout, but I think it had something to do with an arrogant and unsafe company man. I'll have to dig up all my old SEDCO photos. | ||
| Hex |
When's the last time you took a ride on a Hindinburg? Nobody uses Hydrogen in a dirigible these days, that ship was the length of the Titanic. If this single and last safety device fails, the projected rate of release and quantity of release is sickening. I agree, please stop the impact. Earlier I brought up a SciFi solution--blast it closed. My Grandpa used to tell me about the underground columns of glass he used to create in the Nevada Desert. What is plan B if the BOP blows-out. Underwater oil volcano? | ||
| Throttlepansy |
"I'm guessing the number of birds killed by this little fiasco will pale in comparison to the number killed by wind turbines annually. The oil companies will be sued for it though, and the wind companies will get a pass." Wow.. that's terrible, I never realised... how many birds ARE killed annually by wind turbines? | ||
| Cowboy |
Where is all the political correctness people. PLEASE stop calling this a blow out it is a TRANSFER of ENERGY. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
When's the last time you took a ride on a Hindinburg? Nobody uses Hydrogen in a dirigible these days, that ship was the length of the Titanic. No one uses blimps today because there are better alternatives not because of the Hindenburg crash. We are still using jet aircraft. Your analog doesn't play. When gasoline is $6/gallon, the American people will not thank Obama for keeping the beaches clean. I wonder if Maxine Waters will be calling for investigations of the oil companies. Maybe she'll vote to nationalize the oil companies: | ||
| Hex |
http://www.airshipventures.com/ | ||
| Road_thing |
Hex, Ixtoc-1 was in 160' of water. Divers were eventually able to reach and activate the BOP, The current situation is a little more difficult. Your "sci-fi" solution doesn't work to shut off the flow of hydrocarbons. It is sometimes used in onshore (i.e., not underwater) situations to put out fires by excluding oxygen from the blowout long enough for the fire to go out. Then the work crews can get physically close enough to the wellhead to do whatever they need to do. The BP well isn't on fire any more. An explosion near the wellhead would likely only damage it further. As I appreciate the situation, the BOP stack on the wellhead is still in place, although not functioning for some reason. There is still a possibility that, using ROV's, that BOP stack might be actuated, and that might shut off the flow. BP has already spudded a relief well, according to this morning's Houston Chronicle but it will take +/- 60 days to reach the necessary depth and target co-ordinates. They are also building containment structures to be lowered over the leaks to try to contain the oil for recovery at the surface. This is a nightmare scenario, it looks to me like BP is doing a pretty good job in a very difficult situation. rt | ||
| Road_thing |
Char: 42 gallons is a "Stock Tank Barrel" (STB) which is the standard oilfield unit volume. Don't ask me why. rt | ||
| Hex |
Last night:  | ||
| Hex |
An explosion near the wellhead would likely only damage it further. I don't mean near the wellhead, I mean 2000 ft below the sea floor and directly adjacent. How big is a drill hole in diameter? One vertical shaft, one strategically placed warhead, 2000+ feet below ground would probably do the trick. Seal it in glass. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
One vertical shaft, one strategically placed warhead, 2000+ feet below ground would probably do the trick. Seal it in glass. Uhhh....what?!?  | ||
| Hex |
What's your Plan B? |
