Regular WUWT commenter Jimmy Haigh, a geologist by trade, sends along a PDF that is a compilation of on the scene photos taken right after the explosion and in the following two days. I’ve converted it to web format. These were taken by people on the scene during the rescue and firefighting operation. There’s also a narrative, done by a person “in the know”. You won’t find this at AP or Reuters.
You may have heard the news in the last week 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.
The photos that follow show the progression of events over the 36 hours from catching fire to sinking.
First, what the rig looked like.
The drilling mast has toppled over here – they usually melt pretty fast when fire breaks out.
Support vessels using their fire fighting gear to cool the rig.
From about 10 miles away – dawn of Day 1
Support vessels using their fire fighting gear to cool the rig – note the list developing
About noon Day 1 – List is pronounced now
Early morning Day 2 – Note the hole burned through the aluminum helideck
Day 2, morning – settling quite low in the water now – fuel and oil slick forming
See also satellite images of the oil slick here
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I listened to the Levin recording. Assuming it is accurate:
They had finished cementing. They closed the annular preventer (basically a big bag that seals around a drill pipe if there is one, allowing rotation and insertion/removal of pipe while closed, or plugs off the hole if there is no pipe). They pressure tested the BOPs. The BOPs passed.
They were preparing to detach the riser from the SSA and move on after running a temporary cement plug. They displaced the drilling fluid in the riser with sea water (the drilling fluid must be recovered). They opened the annular preventer. The well kicked and pushed upward. Fluid began coming out of the riser. They tried closing the BOPs but couldn’t. Fluid flow increased until the stream was hitting the top of the mast. Finally, no drilling fluid remained in the hole and the well was freely flowing. Gas flowed over the rig and then detonated.
So, why? Likely:
The down hole pressure is opposed by the pressure of the drilling fluid column, accumulating all the way from surface. Heavier drilling fluid (greater density) in the hole increases the pressure gradient from surface to bottom. They displaced the fluid from the riser, which would have changed the pressure gradient over 5000 ft, reducing the final pressure at the bottom of the hole and allowing formation pressure to exceed the drilling fluid pressure, allowing formation fluid influx (which also can dilute the drilling fluid and further reduce weight) and causing the kick. The normal procedure to kill a kick is to pump high-weight kill mud into the hole at the location of the kick influx, usually at the bottom. If they didn’t have any pipe in the hole, that wouldn’t have been possible. They could have slipped pipe in past the closed annular preventer, as is intended by its design, and eventually killed the kick while using the BOP choke system to control pressure. If the annular wouldn’t close nor the rams, there was no hope.
If the calculated required mud weight was wrong, the displacement of the riser fluid could have lowered the pressure enough to allow the kick. The in-hole mud weight used while cementing should have been higher than drilling mud which needs to be close to formation pressure to optimize drilling rates. The formation could have opened to a higher pressure area due to changes in pressure differential. The cementing job could have used the wrong mud weight or otherwise diluted the drillng fluid.
The only likely solution now is a relief well that will drill in to the old well at the pressure zone and pump in high-weight mud to kill the flow. The riser cannot be “crimped” to stop the flow since it is thin-walled, light tubing only designed to conduct fluid from sea floor to surface and not to carry any great pressure.
Kicks occur all over the world every day and are usually controlled with little fuss, using standard, well-understood procedures. I would have thought that there would have been a pressure rise below the BOPs which should have been noted.
Acoustic triggers would not have helped. They operate the same BOPs as the regular control system. If the normal BOP controls didn’t work at the start and the ROVs can’t control the BOPs, nothing else would help. To suggest otherwise is to insist that lack of warning stickers CAUSES people to injure themselves on ladders.
To-
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
May 1, 2010 at 6:52 pm
Thank you for your response–
The fact is that because the device I mentioned was not installed–
you now seem intent in confusing and conflating it with another device
that was installed-
(you know–trying to make something similar
but less effective, appear to be what I am talking about,
when I am discussing the more effective more
widely used device)–that was the purpose of publication of the wsj article–
to confuse the public–
I notice that being a technical expert ,
did not help you
produce the technical (or even industry manufacturers
literature) literature
of these DIFFERENT DEVICES–
just a wsj article .
(I guess we must rely on your expertise as opposed to the facts–
since it is all too complicated for us -where have I heard that before?)
Please explain why, if you claim the device I mention was installed,
as you claim,
why did BP and the oil industry
successfully lobby for it not to be installed?–
(and then installed it?–I do not think so)
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/may2010/orig-m01.shtml
three facts are clear–
1–You are denying that BP successfully lobbied to not require the
more effective device (which you now claim,
inaccurately, was installed) You do not seem to be interested
in that lobbying effort–
as though confusing technical jargon removes lobbying culpability.
The device opposed by BP would have blocked the spill even if all personnel
on the platform rig were disabled because it could have been activated by someone on one of the fireboat tugs.
2–by delaying the activation or having it disabled by the rig fire, the
existing BOP mechanism was destroyed by a collapsing drilling string
(was there a delay with the hope that the fir could be extinguished
and the rig saved?)
–neither of which would have happened
if the lobbied against device had been required.
Until the drilling string collapsed the banned device
could have been activated.
3–You are deliberately confusing 2 devices
and thereby
minimizing the culpability of the oil companies
which obscures the reality
that those poor men were hostage of a situation
created by others and over which
they had no control-they did not design the system and
probably were not even aware that there was a better system.
–they were not victims of the
oil company critics–
they would have lived if the critics
(and not the oil lobbyists) had been
successful in their efforts.
Since you are a well paid industry expert,
I recognize your employment could well be on the line–
so I really do not expect
any more of an unbiased response than I would from prof Mann on agw.
From a long time lurker (and fellow petroleum geologist) -Thanks all for a great discussion of the Deepwater Horizon incident. I don’t believe anyone has posted the Join Command Web Site:
http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/site/2931/
This is the official communication site for the Coast Guard, Transocean, BP, MMS and all the others. It’s a great source for what the press hears, but may not always pass on to us.
Mike Odin says:
May 1, 2010 at 8:14 pm
To-
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
May 1, 2010 at 6:52 pm
Thank you for your response–
——–
REPLY: You are very welcome.
The facts are not yet known – why did the platform burst into flames and then eventually sink? This is most likely independent of the ultimate failure of the BOP in my estimation.
My expertise is not in deep-water drilling, others commenting have explained the situation adequately. Much like Three Mile Island, this accident appears to have been a series of events, including failure of the BOP for some reason. The forensic engineering should figure it out.
1DandyTroll says:
May 1, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Isn’t there any chemical that binds to oil and make it sink?
One of the major processes that pulled oil out of the water column following the Kuwait fires was wind blown sand. Quite a bit of the oil will also get tied up and eaten by the plankton and when they die -they sink. (There is a continual “rain” of sinking plankton in the ocean and in deep water things get eaten and re-eaten all the way down) There has been talk in this post about the effectiveness of microbial additives. A couple of thoughts– the Gulf is an area with natural oil seeps plus high relative temperatures and as such has a well developed biota capable of resisting and/or degrading oil. The rate limiting step is generally oxygen and nutrients -probably Nitrogen. Add too much nutrients however and the biological activity can outpace the O2 supply- slowing everything down. My understanding is this is a low sulfur oil so we should not have too much biological H2S production under anaerobic conditions which can be problematic on a few levels. Often the best course is skim/absorb what you can and let nature do the rest. The most potentially toxic components to a near shore ecosystem are the volatile BTEX fraction and since the well is a considerable distance offshore most of these will evaporate well before landfall (The evaporated compounds get degraded by photochemical processes)…. The most important step– don’t let a bunch of clean up yahoos trample the marshlands.
I know just enough about surfactant use to be dangerous– the surfactants used in the oil water separation process are pretty straight forward but I don’t know the pluses and minuses of general ocean surfactant/emulsion spraying. I have heard it can at times cause more problems than its worth. Anyone out there with more knowledge on surfactant use?
This site demonstrates how the government’s “unified command” emergency response structure under the National Incident Management System (NIMS) is being applied to this Spill of National Significance, very interesting and evolving situation:
http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/site/2931/
First and foremost this is a tragedy for the families of the 11 guys who lost their lives.
This is a huge environmental disaster and a huge disaster for both the operating oil company, BP, and the drilling contractor, Transocean. There are thousands of wells drilled all over the world every year and thankfully events like this are extremely rare. This is thanks to the experience and professionalism of all involved. The top priority of every oil company and every drilling contractor is to drill wells safely. Obviously in this case something went disastrously wrong. What went wrong will become clear over the coming weeks as the inquiries into this disaster are completed. Lessons will be learned and those lessons will be implemented by every oil company and drilling contractor.
Most people will never have the chance to go onto an offshore rig. They are incredible places. I have worked offshore for about 10 years now: I have worked a total of 22 years in the oil industry. I love my job as a wellsite geologist. Offshore work is not for everybody. Drilling a well is a huge operation. We all know the risks involved and we accept them. One of my best mates lost a brother on Piper Alpha in 1987. We’re all professionals, we all work together as a team and we get the job done.
Next time you fill your car up with gas think of those 11 guys and the families they left behind.
Oil rigs may become a thing of the past soon. Its possible to man a bathypresure rig on the sea bed with telepresence robots. A simple rig in a dome with 400 atm of hydrogen keeping the water out would do the job in many places. We can’t breath hydrogen any more than we can breath water but its irrelevant to robots. I’m designing a battery swap system for humanoid robots. Pipes etc would be shipped down from the surface in a cylindrical ‘bathysphere’. This would also allow the dome structure itself to contain a blow out and there’s no chance of fire since there’s no oxygen. Bathypressure mining was all worked out decades ago but now we have the robots ready to go. This disaster will move it to the front burner .
Why they don’t have a giant tent with pipes attached that they can drop over the blow out near the sea bed and pump straight to a skimmer boat is beyond me? That was first talked about in the 1960’s.
Great story, Jimmy. A tragedy, not only for those who lost their lives in the explosion and for the affected environment, but for the rest of since the extremists will now call for some kind of long-term or permanent ban on drilling in the ocean. Which is not justified, given the safety history of these rigs. I suspect some kind of human error may be found here, but let the investigation take its course. There can be no complacency in operating these enterprises, even with the state-of-the art technology.
foobius: If they had set a plug in the last casing string then in effect there were two plugs in the casing bore: the one they set and the cement below the float collar (they hadn’t, by the sound of it drilled out the casing shoe). external to the casing was the cement (presumably sealing off the casing x formation annulus) and above that, sealing off the wellhead/casing hanger annulus, would be the casing hanger “pack-off” seal (probably “metal-to-metal”).
while cement jobs on subsea wells are generally fraught – no ability to rotate or reciprocate the casing while cementing, and mud stringers common, even if there had been a gas influx from the formation that by-passed the cement the casing hanger pack-off should have contained the pressure (the pack-off would have been made up immediately the cementing was completed and then pressure tested to, probably 10kpsi)
The wellhead, casing hanger and casing hanger pack-off are below the BOP.
Even though circulating the riser out to seawater would indeed have lowered the hydrostatic pressure on the well bore given the presence of the cement plugs this should have been without consequence.
To close the annular preventer the BOP control system must have been functional at that time.
By the way, I thought there were some kind 0f microbes that have been used on past spills that can feed off the petrochemicals, thus reducing the slick. Are any of those technologies being employed in cleaning up this spill?
P.S. In my last post, the second sentence is supposed to read “the rest of us.”
curiousgeorge said:
“This gulf spill will be cleaned up and forgotten about in 2 or 3 years…”
————-
Nope…not by a long long shot. This event will change the face of both the Gulf Coast and the gulf oil industry forever. This is a man-made environmental disaster on a scale never before seen in America, and can be easily be likened to America’s Chernobyl.
Many thanks to everyone for the information and knowledge that the Media, mostly intentionally, gets wrong.
Funny you mention that. My dad slipped off a table attempting to change a light bulb and broke his neck. Fortunately he’s okay, but it was touchy for a while. So I’d have to agree.
I don’t consider myself a conspiracy theorist but I find this event too odd to chalk up to happenstance. And given the past activities of the ecoterrorist groups I can’t help but entertain some suspicion.
Thanks for sharing. This disaster has affected so many from the loss of life to the enviromental consequences. It will be interesting to note how this will not only affect the local population but globally as well.
Not that it will matter, because you are hopelessly ill-informed regarding oil and gas operations… I’ve been an exploration geophysicist for 30 years, 22 working the Gulf of Mexico…
Acoustic BOP switches are not in common use. They are only required in two places: The Norwegian sector of the North Sea and offshore Brazil. The main reason that industry officials lobbied against acoustic switches was the likelihood that the BOP’s could be triggered accidentally. Accidentally firing shear rams while drilling a well is a bad thing. There were also doubts about the reliability, particularly in deep water.
In this particular case, an acoustic switch would have made no difference.
-The manual switch failed.
-The “deadman” switch failed.
-ROV’s have been able to access the controls on the BOP stack; but have been unable to activate the BOPs.
Upstream Online
Halliburton doesn’t have a monopoly on anything. Off the top of my head, I can think of two other companies who provide cementing services in the Gulf: Schlumberger and Weatherford. Even if they did have a monopoly, the operator (BP in this case) is responsible for ensuring that the cement job is performed properly. Every time a casing string is cemented into place a “shoe test” is performed to ensure that it can hold. Cement bond logs are also run to check the seal of the cement against the outside of the casing.
Armageddon is science fiction… It’s not a documentary.
Well said.
That’s one of the things that’s really bugging me. The eleven people who perished are all but forgotten in the media.
I’ve worked the Gulf of Mexico since 1988. Although, as a geophysicist, I’ve only been offshore once. I spent about a week on the Zapata Lexington on the other side of Mississippi Canyon back in 1990. Semi’s are truly incredible places. It was like being on a warship. Safety is job #1 out there. From the toolpusher on down safety and procedure rule. Accidents happen; but these people are not careless.
This is not only going to affect BP and Transocean. It will affect every oil company and service company operating offshore, particularly in the Gulf. Obama has already sent a legion of political hacks to Louisiana, including the Energy and Climate Change Czar (a self avowed socialist lawyer with no experience in energy or climate science).
Only two federal agencies know jack about controlling the blowout and halting the spill: The MMS and the Coast Guard. They’ve been out there since day one. Right now the focus should be on two things and two things only: Controlling the well and mitigating the spill effects. There will be plenty of time later for lawsuits, political posturing, witch hunts and maybe even trying to figure out the cause of the blowout and BOP failure.
I think Tom In CO isnt far out with his comment. I also thought it very odd that theres been a huge block on drilling there, its okayed and this rather odd chain of screwups in all thje systems managed to occur.
I do suspect foul play.
someone on a UK paper suggested that its also odd that Mexican fuel prices went up so the americans no longer were getting cheap fuel over border, which allowed the pressure to drill in areas that were off bounds till then?
hm?
The systems used in GOM also have fail safes on the BOP. The BOP should have activated with the loss of power and hydraulics at surface – no need for an acoustic signal – it is all automatic. The ROV also should have been able to operate the BOP. There is NO indication that the Brazilian or Norwegian systems would have made any difference – if the BOP fails then it fails – no matter what button or trigger is pushed.
Right now everything suggests that the primary loss of well control was a failed cement job. Possibly drill pipe, debris and even casing and the liner hanger may have flown out of the well at several 100 feet per second and wrecked the internal rams of the BOP as well as everything at surface on the rig in one enormous explosion. Think how a rifle works. A long barrel with gas propelling a heavy piece of metal. This is what you have when a well blows out – an enormous large bore rifle that ejects anything and everything that ain’t solidly cemented in place.
Before we jump to conclusions (blame) please be aware that mother nature itself is incredibly powerful and it is likely that the BOP did not close because it was very likely damaged in the blast. I have personally experienced a blowout, fire, evacuation and loss of a huge offshore rig. I don’t think bystanders can begin to appreciate the incredible forces and complexity involved in these operations.
“R. Gates says:
[…]
This event will change the face of both the Gulf Coast and the gulf oil industry forever. This is a man-made environmental disaster on a scale never before seen in America, and can be easily be likened to America’s Chernobyl.”
Now you’re sounding a little alarmist. I always thought the Dust Bowl was the American gold standard for man made environmental destruction. So this oil spill tops that in your opinion?
Outstanding input from our friends in oil & gas, thanks! Also, thanks for putting the focus on the 11 men missing and their families.
I’ve been watching the BP dome construction project and would think there might be available equipment in the yard that could be dropped onto the structure to at least slow the leak down. Even a frac tank with manifold might help!
It’s nice to have a place where some folks with true expertise in the field can communicate. Thanks, Anthony and moderators, you folks have been busy!
Looks like the fire is still out.
http://www.inlandnewstoday.com/story.php?s=13932
I wonder why they don’t burn the oil?
Thanks the folks who know what they are talking about. I’ve only been a driller’s helper for a water well driller-when I was young, that was not at all like what these guys do to keep the lights on and my F-150 fueled. Thanks to Jimmy Haigh especially…
Jeremy said:
May 2, 2010 at 6:40 am
The systems used in GOM also have fail safes on the BOP. The BOP should have activated with the loss of power and hydraulics at surface – no need for an acoustic signal – it is all automatic. The ROV also should have been able to operate the BOP. There is NO indication that the Brazilian or Norwegian systems would have made any difference – if the BOP fails then it fails – no matter what button or trigger is pushed.
In the case of the current GOM blowout, the “acoustic” shutoff (I would prefer to call it underwater telemetry with security encoding to prevent accidental or malicious activation) would not have prevented the blowout because the problem apparently is within the blowout preventer itself. And fortunately, in this case the wreckage from the sunken drill ship does not cover the wellhead so the ROVs were able to access the BOP and try to close it. But will the next disaster guarantee such physical access? A battery operated secure telemetry shutoff will provide a final backup even if the BOP is covered with debris from a drilling accident.
“The drilling mast has toppled over here – they usually melt pretty fast when fire breaks out.”
You mean…fire melts steel? You expect me to believe that? This was obviously a controlled demolition. I suspect a plot by Jewish bankers.