Gulf of Mexico Oil Rig Explosion

Laurie

Laurie

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Oil rig sinks in Gulf of Mexico; 11 still missing
(AP) – 2 hours ago
NEW ORLEANS — Officials are saying that an explosion on an oil rig off the coast of Louisiana has the potential to be a major spill.
The Coast Guard is still searching for the 11 workers missing since the blast Tuesday. Survivors who escaped the blast have told company officials that they fear those missing were unable to evacuate.
The company has been unable to confirm those reports.
The platform burned for more than a day after a massive explosion Tuesday. It sank into the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday.
Crews have been searching by air and water for the 11 workers from the Deepwater Horizon, though one relative said family members have been told it's unlikely anyone survived.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
Officials are saying that the 11 workers missing since an explosion on an oil rig off the Louisiana coast may have been unable to escape the rig when the blast occurred.
Adrian Rose, vice president of Transocean, said Thursday that when some of the workers who survived were interviewed they said their missing colleagues may not have been able to evacuate in time. Rose says he is unable to confirm the reports.
The platform burned for more than a day after a massive explosion Tuesday. It sank into the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday.
Crews have been searching by air and water for the 11 workers from the Deepwater Horizon, though one relative said family members have been told it's unlikely anyone survived.

Prayers for the 11 still missing and their families.
 
Auto gas to 4.50, and Avgas to 6.50 I wager. Any excuse.
 
EdFred said:
Auto gas to 4.50, and Avgas to 6.50 I wager. Any excuse.
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This was an exploration platform, not a production rig. On the upside, it looks like they found oil.

So much for how exploration in the shelf is so much different today than in the bad old days and how those coastal fisheries whiners need to get over the expanded drilling.....



Drilling is dangerous, hardly the first platform that blew up in that manner. Thoughts are with the families of those who won't come home.
 
weilke said:
This was an exploration platform, not a production rig. On the upside, it looks like they found oil.

So much for how exploration in the shelf is so much different today than in the bad old days and how those coastal fisheries whiners need to get over the expanded drilling.....



Drilling is dangerous, hardly the first platform that blew up in that manner. Thoughts are with the families of those who won't come home.
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I've lived that life and find your words rather insulting. When you want to understand the challenges of deepwater drilling, come back and post an honest assessment.
 
Clark1961 said:
I've lived that life and find your words rather insulting. When you want to understand the challenges of deepwater drilling, come back and post an honest assessment.
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Why is it insulting ?

For the past 10 years we are being told how it is absolutely safe to drill in the shelf and how today with all that modern technology there is no more risk of blowouts and spills. I think that that is bull. While it is safer for the workers today, it is still an unforgiving environment and there are forces at work that are at times beyond control by engineering means. I am glad there are folks out there who are willing to work those jobs*.

I'm not against drilling, I'm against being bull****ted.



*my dads brother worked for various incarnations of KBR most of his sea-going career and tried to get my dad to come on board a couple of times. Luckily my old man valued his boring engineering job and being with his family above the silly money that he could have made in the 60s and 70s oil industry.
 
My friend and his brother USE to be on that rig. My friend was a supervisor over situations like this. His friend took his place when he left and was one of the people that died. :(
 
pookies said:
My friend and his brother USE to be on that rig. My friend was a supervisor over situations like this. His friend took his place when he left and was one of the people that died. :(
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Condolances.
 
weilke said:
This was an exploration platform, not a production rig. On the upside, it looks like they found oil.

So much for how exploration in the shelf is so much different today than in the bad old days and how those coastal fisheries whiners need to get over the expanded drilling.....



Drilling is dangerous, hardly the first platform that blew up in that manner. Thoughts are with the families of those who won't come home.
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I worked on drilling rigs for about 14 years. Fortunately, I have no horror stories (unless you want to count riding out a typhoon). I never trusted semisubmersibles - and fortunately for me was always assigned to drillships (though the company had a number of semis). I am mindful of what happened to the Ocean Ranger: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_Ranger.

I never cared for jackups either - had occasion to visit two for service projects. Both later turned over (they were the "Mat Type" - intended for use in unstable bottom conditions). In one case everyone escaped - but not everyone made it off the other. My ship also worked in close proximity to the Piper Platform in the North Sea. That one later blew up with major loss of life.

Dave
 
The eighties saw their share of major drilling incidents, in every production and exploration area.
 
weilke said:
Why is it insulting ?
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People who were just trying to make a living died in an accident and you get sarcastic about safety. That behavior is very insulting to anyone who has actually done the job and cared about it.

If you want to be honest about the topic, do the research yourself and you'll see that accident rates have dropped dramatically from the 70's and 80's. Yes, accidents still happen but they are much rarer.
 
Clark1961 said:
People who were just trying to make a living died in an accident and you get sarcastic about safety. That behavior is very insulting to anyone who has actually done the job and cared about it.
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I reserve the right to be sarcastic about industry talking heads who tell us that things are so different when they are not.

I think this incident makes my point pretty well.


If you want to be honest about the topic, do the research yourself and you'll see that accident rates have dropped dramatically from the 70's and 80's. Yes, accidents still happen but they are much rarer.
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Isn't that what I said ?
 
sba55 said:
Doesn't make a difference. Oil price is only loosely died to supply/demand and instead it is strongly tied to expectations.
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The fact that they found oil should be good for the price, right ?

In reality, it doesn't matter what happens, fuel prices go up. Sometimes it's because of high demand, then it's because of low demand, or maybe because the dollar is strong, or weak :mad2:
 
weilke said:
This was an exploration platform, not a production rig. On the upside, it looks like they found oil.

So much for how exploration in the shelf is so much different today than in the bad old days and how those coastal fisheries whiners need to get over the expanded drilling.....



Drilling is dangerous, hardly the first platform that blew up in that manner. Thoughts are with the families of those who won't come home.
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Sigh, they're production platforms and drilling rigs. Deep Horizon was a DP/MODU drilling rig. They were not doing exploration, they were doing exploitation. Exploration these days is mostly done with seismic survey. They already had the well casing in place so that means they were exploiting the reserve getting ready to put a well into production. They were in Mississippi Canyon block 252 so they were not "in the shelf", that's probably 9000+' of water there and they had drilled to 18,000'. If you're trying to be insulting, you should at least try to make yourself sound reasonably educated. When you get everything wrong, you sound just like the people who complain about the hazard small planes provide and how they should be eliminated.

The problem with eliminating drilling is that our entire way of life revolves around oil, and the only way we have right now that can provide the energy we need without even greater environmental impact is nuclear, and I don't see any plants being built.

Drilling is a dangerous game, in deep water especially so, miscalculate the pressure down hole and the gas comes up through the mud. You only have a pretty small window to calculate the pressure to as well. Muds to heavy, it sinks through displacing the gas up hole. Mix it to light and the pressure down hole shoots the whole drill string out. Unless you're flying hang gliders off cliffs with cotton or silk foils, I wouldn't be complaining about drilling too much. Yeah, there are a few blow outs a year world wide, but reality is, WWII put more oil into the oceans and GOM in 5 years than has been spilled world wide in the time since.
 
sba55 said:
Doesn't make a difference. Oil price is only loosely died to supply/demand and instead it is strongly tied to expectations.
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The price problem from this incident stems from 2 major field supply lines being shut down as a precaution in case the Deep Horizon lands on them and ruptures them. The government could have opened the strategic reserve until the situation had resolved itself and allowed the oil to be replaced when the pipes came back online. It's not like the oil companies have months of fuel stocked in reserve tanks. It's probably more like a couple of days if that. When the flow gets interrupted for whatever reason, things go bad pretty quickly.
 
Tons of Oil Seeps into Gulf of Mexico Each Year

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?old=200001261633

"The number is twice the Exxon Valdez's spill per year, and that's a conservative estimate,"


http://geology.com/nasa/oil-seeps/

natural-oil-seeps.jpg


According to the Coast Guard as of 8pm 4/23/10 regarding the Deep Horizon well site:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/04/23/oil.rig.explosion/index.html?hpt=T1&hpt=Sbin

crude oil did not appear to be leaking out of the wellhead, located 5,000 feet below the water's surface. But remote vehicles will continue surveying the scene
 
Steve said:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/04/23/oil.rig.explosion/index.html?hpt=T1&hpt=Sbin

crude oil did not appear to be leaking out of the wellhead, located 5,000 feet below the water's surface. But remote vehicles will continue surveying the scene
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Mississippi Canyon is mostly natural gas production that shallow. I thought they were out further. From the color of the flames in the pictures, there must be considerable H2S unless it was still just burning off the paint and such from the rig.
 
Henning said:
Mississippi Canyon is mostly natural gas production that shallow. I thought they were out further. From the color of the flames in the pictures, there must be considerable H2S unless it was still just burning off the paint and such from the rig.
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How can you tell? It just looks like the normal color of hydrocarbons burning without quite enough oxygen to me. H2S should have a blue flame, but I doubt it would be seen "ROP" or mixed in with everything else burning.

http://mattson.creighton.edu/H2S/index.html
 
This is bizarre. People quote my post, agree with me and then proceed to beat me up for what I said :confused:




I am perfectly fine with drilling for oil and gas, think it should be expanded, wish anyone who works in that industry the best of luck and for good measure we should build a long-term storage site for nuclear waste while we are at it.

Shesh.
 
The drill depth was supposedly 15,000' below the seabed in 5000' feet deep water and the rig was rated for 32,000' in 8000' deep water so they were pretty far down.

Horizon.jpg



Henning said:
Mississippi Canyon is mostly natural gas production that shallow. I thought they were out further. From the color of the flames in the pictures, there must be considerable H2S unless it was still just burning off the paint and such from the rig.
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weilke said:
I reserve the right to be sarcastic about industry talking heads who tell us that things are so different when they are not.

I think this incident makes my point pretty well.
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I think you have no point. In fact, I'm sure that you have no point.


weilke said:
Isn't that what I said ?
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No. You said that folks were not honest about offshore safety. The fact remains that offshore safety has improved over the years.

Of course I suppose that you reserve the right to think whatever you like regardless of facts.
 
Clark1961 said:
No. You said that folks were not honest about offshore safety. The fact remains that offshore safety has improved over the years.
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Then why is there a platform on fire and 10 good people dead in the gulf as we speak :incazzato:?
 
Cap'n Jack said:
How can you tell? It just looks like the normal color of hydrocarbons burning without quite enough oxygen to me. H2S should have a blue flame, but I doubt it would be seen "ROP" or mixed in with everything else burning.

http://mattson.creighton.edu/H2S/index.html
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When ever I've worked to an H2S platform, the flame from the vent stack is orange. From non H2S fields its a yellow/white/blue flame.

EDIT: I guess it was just the diesel fuel from the tanks on the rig! Yeesh, I didn't know they literally blew up the rig, I thought it was just typical reporting.
 
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weilke said:
Then why is there a platform on fire and 10 good people dead in the gulf as we speak :incazzato:?
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Because no matter how hard one tries, drilling is hazardous. That there are only 10 dead and not 127 is a testament to safety. Used to be everybody died. There is no exact way to calculate the down hole pressure, and you have a somewhat narrow window that you have to calculate the mud weight to to achieve a balanced column when you break through into the bearing strata. The siesmology is very good as well, quantum leaps above what was available in the 80s, but again, not perfect. Sometimes equipment fails as well. I suspect the BOP valve failed here. You could ask all the same questions of aviation and get the same answers, because both are inherently hazardous.
 
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Steve said:
The drill depth was supposedly 15,000' below the seabed in 5000' feet deep water and the rig was rated for 32,000' in 8000' deep water so they were pretty far down.

Horizon.jpg


Whether it was gas or crude it appeared the well head safeties worked properly.
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When she first came out she was rated to drill in 10,000'. I ran pipe to her in around 2002 I'm pretty sure. You mean that wasn't the well that blew out, it was the rig?!? Holy F- Batman how the hell did they manage that?!?
 
weilke said:
Then why is there a platform on fire and 10 good people dead in the gulf as we speak :incazzato:?
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I said safety has improved. I did not say that we live in a perfect world. If you have trouble with the difference between the concepts of "improved safety" and "perfect safety" then I suggest that you consult a priest or other clergy who might be qualified to discuss and counsel you on the human condition and our imperfections.
 
Henning said:
When ever I've worked to an H2S platform, the flame from the vent stack is orange. From non H2S fields its a yellow/white/blue flame.

EDIT: I guess it was just the diesel fuel from the tanks on the rig! Yeesh, I didn't know they literally blew up the rig, I thought it was just typical reporting.
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I'd have thought it'd be the opposite. As you have worked there and have seen it, I'll go with your observations.
 
Henning said:
Because no matter how hard one tries, drilling is hazardous.
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And that is all I said. As long as you combine hydrocarbons, oxygen, machinery and humans, things will catch fire every once in a while.
 
How bad is it leaking? Steve indicated (and posted references) that there a lot of natural seeps. It this one near any of those? This one could be a mess, or it may be indistinguishable from what is naturally going on.
 
I was citing the website for the rig

http://www.deepwater.com/fw/main/Deepwater-Horizon-56C77.html?LayoutID=17

It does say it is upgradeable to 10,000'.

I don't think the initator and sequence are fully known yet, but

Adrian Rose, vice president of Transocean, said the explosion appeared to be a blowout, in which natural gas or oil forces its way up a well pipe and smashes the equipment. But precisely what went wrong was under investigation
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the Deepwater Horizon crew had drilled the well to its final depth, more than 18,000 feet, and was cementing the steel casing at the time of the explosion

http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2010/04/about_100_oil_rig_explosion_su.html
(4/22/10)

Initial reports were there was no leakage at the well head. The USCG has since revised their statements after ROVs surveyed the local damage.

Henning said:
When she first came out she was rated to drill in 10,000'. I ran pipe to her in around 2002 I'm pretty sure. You mean that wasn't the well that blew out, it was the rig?!? Holy F- Batman how the hell did they manage that?!?
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"The estimate - and there is a strong emphasis on the fact that it is an estimate - is the rate of (the leaks) is 1,000 barrels a day," Ron Rybarczyk, a spokesman for BP Production & Exporation, said.

A 20-mile-by-20-mile (32-kilometer) sheen of the emulsified crude spread over the gulf, approximately 40 miles off the Louisiana coast, according to a joint statement released Saturday by BP, Transocean, the Coast Guard and the federal Mineral Management Service.

The status of a second pollution source - 700,000 barrels of diesel fuel stored on the Horizon when it sank - remained a mystery Saturday.

"The disposition of the diesel fuel is unknown," BP spokesman Rybarczyk told AFP.

http://www.zimbio.com/Deepwater+Horizon/articles/kZaaxxtJvFE/Coast+Guard+oil+leaking+sunken+rig

Cap'n Jack said:
How bad is it leaking? Steve indicated (and posted references) that there a lot of natural seeps. It this one near any of those? This one could be a mess, or it may be indistinguishable from what is naturally going on.
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Cap'n Jack said:
How bad is it leaking? Steve indicated (and posted references) that there a lot of natural seeps. It this one near any of those? This one could be a mess, or it may be indistinguishable from what is naturally going on.
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The article said...
For days, the Coast Guard has said no oil appeared to be escaping from the well head on the ocean floor. Rear Adm. Mary Landry said the leak was a new discovery but could have begun when the rig sank on Thursday, two days after the initial explosion.

"We thought what we were dealing with as of yesterday was a surface residual (oil) from the mobile offshore drilling unit," Landry said. "In addition to that is oil emanating from the well. It is a big change from yesterday ... This is a very serious spill, absolutely."

Coast Guard and company officials estimate that as much as 1,000 barrels -- or 42,000 gallons -- of oil is leaking each day after studying information from remotely operated vehicles and the size of the oil slick surrounding the blast site. The rainbow-colored sheen of oil stretched 20 miles by 20 miles on Saturday -- about 25 times larger than it appeared to be a day earlier, Landry said.
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weilke said:
The fact that they found oil should be good for the price, right ?

In reality, it doesn't matter what happens, fuel prices go up. Sometimes it's because of high demand, then it's because of low demand, or maybe because the dollar is strong, or weak :mad2:
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Well, no, it's not good for the price, for the reason I mentioned. Like I said, supply/demand makes little difference in determining the price of oil.

Trader expectations, as well as the strength of the USD, accounts for most of the price fluctuations.

-Felix
 
Steve said:
Not good. :frown3:

Will be interesting to see how they address it with it being 5000' below the surface.
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They'll most likely drill an intervening well diagonally into it which will become the path of least resistance and then pop another hole in above that and inject concrete to block the blown/damaged well. That's how I'd set up the intervention anyway.
 
Steve said:
I don't think the initator and sequence are fully known yet, but

Adrian Rose, vice president of Transocean, said the explosion appeared to be a blowout, in which natural gas or oil forces its way up a well pipe and smashes the equipment. But precisely what went wrong was under investigation
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Makes a lot more sense than the rig exploding. What happened was the pressure down hole wasn't what was calculated and the mud wasn't the right weight, same as most every blow out.
 
For whatever it's worth, friend of mine who is a safety engineer for a major, tells me that the safety culture is world's away from what it used to be; that they have essentially blank checks to implement best practices for safety.

Also tells me that biggest challenge is breaking the macho-man practices of old-timers. One person at a time.
 
SCCutler said:
For whatever it's worth, friend of mine who is a safety engineer for a major, tells me that the safety culture is world's away from what it used to be; that they have essentially blank checks to implement best practices for safety.

Also tells me that biggest challenge is breaking the macho-man practices of old-timers. One person at a time.
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Again, I think this is very much like the safety culture in aviation. Some people think it's too much like motherhood but there is no doubt it has made things safer.
 
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