Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster...

Why should he know? I was an accountant for Wal-mart for years, but that doesn't mean I knew all of the details about everything the company did. I don't know what you do for a living, but unless you own the company I bet there is info about your company that you don't know. You are the one who is saying htis happened before, you are the one saying you heard it on the news. You can't ask someone to pro ve a negative. If you say this has happened before, then provide us all with the info, then we can read it and see if there is enough info to even draw any conclusions or paralleles.


I don't think you understand my point, but I do think I understand yours. You are saying that you heard somewhere once that haliburton has in the past had at least one other issue related to oil drilling (but you have not once linked to an article or any info). Being at the wrong place at the wrong time (even twice) does not make you guilty. Even if Haliburton had worked on similar well heads and even if similar accidents have happened before when halburton was doing work, that doesn't mean that Haliburton did anything to this one or anyone of the others, even if they all had problems. It could be that a totally different company who makes the well heads or the tools you use on them put out a faulty lot of products, and a big company like haliburton could easily own several from the same faulty line. Perhaps the manufacturing defect hasn't been discovered yet. Perhaps the type of specialized work that the Haliburton people are doing is only for one type of drill or one type of rig, and that specific rig/drill has extra risks. Even if Haliburton employees had worked 50 of the last 50 oil disasters, that still doesn't mean that the problem was related to anything that haliburton did.

Coincidence is not the same as proof.

[quote=wilomn;1111323]There's someone who should know, he works on a rig that is in sight of the rig that went down. He's a smart guy, seriously no doubt smarter than I am. Not a jab.

Has haliburton worked on other well heads that have had this problem? I've heard one news report that said they had. This did not surprise me. Now, since I don't know for sure, which has nothing to do with my lack of surprise should it prove to be true, I'm asking someone who I believe not only should know, but would tell the truth.[quote]


Rich Z the boss man said no personal jabs so I'll try to politely as possible answer thsi question. Wilomn: What do you mean by working on the well head? Do you even know what a well head is without doing a google search- or the purpose it serves? The wellhead is on the bottom of the seafloor- ROV's operated/owned by probably NOV would do daily inspections of it. I'm not trying to be a smart-a$$ with those questions but they seem to have nothing to do with the issue at hand... But to answer your question- to the best of my knowledge, I have never heard of any issues resulting in incidents like this from well head work.

I said I wouldn't post anymore on this thread- SORRY EVERYONE... I only returned to pass on info that was emailed through the oilfield explaining what happened to the best of our knowledge. This particular email is probably a week old BUT just made it to my inbox today. It seems that the explosion was qucik and suprised everyone. Hopefully this will at least put the chain of events together alittle more for everyone. Like it says- the pending investigation will fill in many of the blanks- lessons learned will be implemented into future laws/guidelines/policies...

BTW- whoever wrote the below information did a good job of explaining in terms most non-oilfield people can understand.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You may have heard the news in the last two days about the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig which caught fire, burned for two days, then
sank in 5,000 ft of water in the Gulf of Mexico. There are still 11 men missing, and they are not expected to be found.
The rig belongs to Transocean, the world’s biggest offshore drilling contractor. The rig was originally contracted through the year 2013 to
BP and was working on BP’s Macondo exploration well when the fire broke out. The rig costs about $500,000 per day to contract. The full
drilling spread, with helicopters and support vessels and other services, will cost closer to $1,000,000 per day to operate in the course of
drilling for oil and gas. The rig cost about $350,000,000 to build in 2001 and would cost at least double that to replace today.
The rig represents the cutting edge of drilling technology. It is a floating rig, capable of working in up to 10,000 ft water depth. The rig is
not moored; It does not use anchors because it would be too costly and too heavy to suspend this mooring load from the floating
structure. Rather, a triply-redundant computer system uses satellite positioning to control powerful thrusters that keep the rig on station
within a few feet of its intended location, at all times. This is called Dynamic Positioning.
The rig had apparently just finished cementing steel casing in place at depths exceeding 18,000 ft. The next operation was to suspend the
well so that the rig could move to its next drilling location, the idea being that a rig would return to this well later in order to complete the
work necessary to bring the well into production.
It is thought that somehow formation fluids – oil /gas – got into the wellbore and were undetected until it was too late to take action. With a
floating drilling rig setup, because it moves with the waves, currents, and winds, all of the main pressure control equipment sits on the
seabed – the uppermost unmoving point in the well. This pressure control equipment – the Blowout Preventers, or ‘BOP’s” as they’re
called, are controlled with redundant systems from the rig. In the event of a serious emergency, there are multiple Panic Buttons to hit,
and even fail-safe Deadman systems that should be automatically engaged when something of this proportion breaks out. None of them
were aparently activated, suggesting that the blowout was especially swift to escalate at the surface. The flames were visible up to about
35 miles away. Not the glow – the flames. They were 200 – 300 ft high.
All of this will be investigated and it will be some months before all of the particulars are known. For now, it is enough to say that this
marvel of modern technology, which had been operating with an excellent safety record, has burned up and sunk taking souls with it.
The well still is apparently flowing oil, which is appearing at the surface as a slick. They have been working with remotely operated
vehicles, or ROV’s which are essentially tethered miniature submarines with manipulator arms and other equipment that can perform work
underwater while the operator sits on a vessel. These are what were used to explore the Titanic, among other things. Every floating rig
has one on board and they are in constant use. In this case, they are deploying ROV’s from dedicated service vessels. They have been
trying to close the well in using a specialized port on the BOP’s and a pumping arrangement on their ROV’s. They have been unsuccessful
so far. Specialized pollution control vessels have been scrambled to start working the spill, skimming the oil up.
In the coming weeks they will move in at least one other rig to drill a fresh well that will intersect the blowing one at its pay zone. They will
use technology that is capable of drilling from a floating rig, over 3 miles deep to an exact specific point in the earth – with a target radius
of just a few feet plus or minus. Once they intersect their target, a heavy fluid will be pumped that exceeds the formation’s pressure, thus
causing the flow to cease and rendering the well safe at last. It will take at least a couple of months to get this done, bringing all available
technology to bear. It will be an ecological disaster if the well flows all of the while; Optimistically, it could bridge off downhole.
It’s a sad day when something like this happens to any rig, but even more so when it happens to something on the cutting edge of our
capabilities.

Originally Posted by Dinah

Why should he know? I was an accountant for Wal-mart for years, but that doesn't mean I knew all of the details about everything the company did. I don't know what you do for a living, but unless you own the company I bet there is info about your company that you don't know.

Thank you Dinah- I'm not sure how many employees the company has- probably on our website- but there are thousands of employees worldwide- I have no way of knowing who does what along with outcomes of each job.

From personal experience, I have NEVER been on a rig where there's been an enviromental incident.

Again- all I can say is they we worky as safely as humanely possible out here- we all care about the enviroment. This recent freak incident is a tradegy that is sad on all levels.

Originally Posted by StrangeCargo

Thank you Dinah- I'm not sure how many employees the company has- probably on our website- but there are thousands of employees worldwide- I have no way of knowing who does what along with outcomes of each job.

From personal experience, I have NEVER been on a rig where there's been an enviromental incident.

Again- all I can say is they we worky as safely as humanely possible out here- we all care about the enviroment. This recent freak incident is a tradegy that is sad on all levels.

In your opinion, what are the chances they can stop that uncontrolled flow of crude oil in the VERY near future?

Thanks, Graham, very interesting. Somewhat OT, but there was recently a show on the Discovery/Science/NatGeo channel, don't remember which, that chronicled the evolution of offshore oil drilling from the beginning through the most sophisticated present means. It included accidents and calamities that allowed learning and steps to be made to improve, for example, how rigs were secured, floated, or otherwise. I watched the entire thing...it was very interesting. In Louisiana, everybody knows somebody who works offshore.

Thanks for reposting the e-mail, Graham. It makes everything very understandable to me.

Originally Posted by Rich Z

In your opinion, what are the chances they can stop that uncontrolled flow of crude oil in the VERY near future?

This enviromental tradegy is a huge black eye for the oil industry. Believe me, they will do everything possible to stop it.I have an uncle on one of the boats at the rig site. They have been using ROV's for days trying to close it off with no luck. I saw on the news today that they are gonna drop those large things down ontop of the flows to try and divert the oil to a nearby vessel. It worked after Hurricane Katarina in shallower waters- HOPEFULLY it'll work this time. That is our BIG hope for a VERY near future stop of the flow.

I'll keep y'all updated with any/all the info that comes my way....

Wish I had a good answer for you Rich but I don't... I can only pray that it's stopped asap!

Graham

Thanks Graham for coping that email. It cleared up any questions I had.

Thanks for the information Graham. A lot of legitimate anger about oil (and spills) is being miguided here it seems unless we remember to turn it back on ourselves as consumers. I'm all for oil production as long as we are still using it, happening here in the US.
I heard them talking about this spill on NPR and they were saying to put it into perspective that there's a nation in Africa (sorry can't remember which) that has a spill of this magnitude every month. And we buy that oil as well right here in America. Anybody who uses petroleum products and wants it all only drilled elsewhere should understand that all they are suggesting is that we 'export our spills'. Not that it really is helping the earth in any way. If anything our oil people have a pretty good record compared to that.
I hope that we can move away from the need to use fossil fuels one day, I hope we'll start to do more toward that end right away, I hope we can try harder to use the power we do a little more thoughtfully in the meantime- BUT in the meantime I hope we spend lots of our own oil dollars right here in America (or at least part of every dollar..)

Originally Posted by tom e

Thanks for the information Graham. A lot of legitimate anger about oil (and spills) is being miguided here it seems unless we remember to turn it back on ourselves as consumers. I'm all for oil production as long as we are still using it, happening here in the US.
I heard them talking about this spill on NPR and they were saying to put it into perspective that there's a nation in Africa (sorry can't remember which) that has a spill of this magnitude every month. And we buy that oil as well right here in America. Anybody who uses petroleum products and wants it all only drilled elsewhere should understand that all they are suggesting is that we 'export our spills'. Not that it really is helping the earth in any way. If anything our oil people have a pretty good record compared to that.
I hope that we can move away from the need to use fossil fuels one day, I hope we'll start to do more toward that end right away, I hope we can try harder to use the power we do a little more thoughtfully in the meantime- BUT in the meantime I hope we spend lots of our own oil dollars right here in America (or at least part of every dollar..)

Isn't BP a foreign company? Heck, all this time I've been thinking that "BP" stood for British Petroleum..... I guess I just don't understand how this process works.....