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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Hello Rig Pig and Barbara,
Thanks for your insightful response to my question about the hole in the helideck. Rig Pig, although you admit that your explanation is speculative, it seems possible. Do you have an explanation for the white ring around the hole? I would expect more of a blackened charring, and the white ring was part of my speculation of something electrical as the source.
To clarify a bit: I was not meaning to indicate that the helideck was the only place on the rig that had fire suppression equipment – that would be ridiculous, of course.
I do not have any idea in mind regarding the source of any possible electrical burn to the helideck at all. I was merely commenting on how it appeared to me. I am certainly open to other explanations.
I have been hearing today about the shut down of various geothermal projects worldwide over that last few years, including the cessation of drilling because of the earthquake potential that seems to be involved. We are pumping massive amounts of water, steam, petroleum/ gas from the interior of the earth and there has to be implications on the surrounding strata. The number and intensity of earthquakes around the world has been setting records now for many months. Iceland’s big use of domestic geothermal and the volcano may not be unconnected.
The BP/ Horizon well was so deep, both in terms of water depth (pressure) and well depth that I wonder what we have really encountered/ released. Whatever the case, we are in uncharted territory and capping this well may prove to be beyond the limits of our technology. If the pressures emanating from the formation are of the “off the chart” intensity/ never before encountered (do we know or are being told the truth?), that may well mean that even the longer term solution of relief well(s) may actually not only fail, but worsen the situation.
Of additional concern is the likelihood that the entire GOM will be polluted in a massive way, but further that the oil (pictures show it looking like blood red water ala “Revelations”, but that’s another subject!) will reach the Gulf Stream and spread around the world. The longer the well remains out of control, the more certain, it seems to me, that this will be realized.
I hope and pray that the domes will be successful!
I have not yet seen any video of the the sea floor as certainly been taken by the ROVs. I think that would be critical info regarding the the position of the riser and drill string (if any) to indicate what obstructions may exist to dealing with this “blowout”. My thought is that if that situation was positive the video would be released for public viewing. The videos obviously do exist so if they are not being released, then I believe it is because we are not meant to know. Considering the liability issues involved and lawyers, insurers & money men now calling the shots, I have no doubt that the news from them is spun and selective. We will not get the full picture from those folks – of that I have no doubt. This all has to be “managed”, doncha know?
Thanks to everyone for the many excellent contributions to this forum.
Eat shrimp now! Richard W
A bit off-topic this post, but as Ocean Ranger has been discussed and in view of some terrorist theories going about regarding the loss of TO Deepwater Horizon, it’s maybe worth reflecting on a wee thought experiment some of us had while sitting around on a semi-sub many years ago.
Following a special forces exercise in boarding and securing a neighbouring platform (not ‘our’ rig, but word of such things always spreads – someone knew someone else who was there), a number of us began contemplating just how one would go about destroying a floating rig while sitting down to lunch (as you do).
After considering all possible ways of inducing blowouts, blowing holes in the rig below water, somehow crashing a helicopter into the rig, starting fires large enough to consume the rig and so on, the most expedient strategy we finally agreed on was to board a rig with a small party carrying nothing heavier than small arms, seize the ballast control room and then upset the trim of the rig badly enough to cause it to sink.
The things that come up over dinner.
It appears that hydrates have indeed proved troublesome for the first coffer dam/pollution control dome/Macondome:
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/environment/BP-Announces-Setback-With-Oil-Spill-Containment-Dome-93205554.html
There seems to be some knee-jerking in comments to media releases to the affect that nationalising oil exploration and production in the US would magically solve what ever perceived problem there is with entrusting private enterprise with the job. Having worked as a third party for a number of operators in varied locations (and under varied political backdrops), I would say this nationalisation talk is obviously coming from uninformed commentators.
With few exceptions nationalised oil companies are lethargic, inefficient and unimaginative institutions who attract mostly lethargic, inefficient and unimaginative personnel.
While it may seem attractive to some to bemoan the dominance of a few large oil companies, it’s worth considering the scope of the challenge and risk associated with deepwater developments such as this and contemplate if it would even be possible in an environment dominated by many more but much smaller operators?
“Richard W says:
[…]
Of additional concern is the likelihood that the entire GOM will be polluted in a massive way, but further that the oil (pictures show it looking like blood red water ala “Revelations”, but that’s another subject!) will reach the Gulf Stream and spread around the world. The longer the well remains out of control, the more certain, it seems to me, that this will be realized.”
The media frenzy notwithstanding it’s a comparatively minor spill:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8664684.stm
And the containment efforts are far bigger, faster and more successful than ever in the past. So i see no need to worry about that.
DirkH,
I do not believe that the flow can be accurately measured? How would that be done? Due to the extreme water depth, seeing what is on the surface is certainly not reliable, and I am not aware of any equipment on the seafloor or on an ROV that could make a good assessment.
Again, the absence of ROV videos on the net, which no doubt exist, speaks volumes ’cause it ain’t good news.
The BBC gets their info from the parties involved.
Man, the Administration is really chasing its tail on this SWAT business!
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/05/sabotage-conspiracy-and-other-ways-to-spin-the-oil-spill/56347/
“The ‘SWAT team’ is just a turn of phrase,” Interior Dept. spokesman Matt Lee Ashley said. “[The teams] are composed of highly qualified inspectors from the Minerals Management Service.”
Why didn’t Pres. Obama just say “teams of experts”? I’m sure he was handed something with “SWOT” on it (you can find SWOT all through the DOI websites), but then Rush & Co. got ahold of it.
Whatever. I’m sure someone got a tongue-lashing for this. My contacts at DHS agreed with me that it should have been “SWOT”.
An insightful article by Mike Adams
http://www.naturalnews.com/028749_Gulf_of_Mexico_oil_spill.html
The Cover-up: BP’s Crude Politics and the Looming Environmental Mega-Disaster
Written by Wayne Madsen
WMR has been informed by sources in the US Army Corps of Engineers, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and Florida Department of Environmental Protection that the Obama White House and British Petroleum (BP), which pumped $71,000 into Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign — more than John McCain or Hillary Clinton, are covering up the magnitude of the volcanic-level oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and working together to limit BP’s liability for damage caused by what can be called a “mega-disaster.”
Obama and his senior White House staff, as well as Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, are working with BP’s chief executive officer Tony Hayward on legislation that would raise the cap on liability for damage claims from those affected by the oil disaster from $75 million to $10 billion. However, WMR’s federal and Gulf state sources are reporting the disaster has the real potential cost of at least $1 trillion. Critics of the deal being worked out between Obama and Hayward point out that $10 billion is a mere drop in the bucket for a trillion dollar disaster but also note that BP, if its assets were nationalized, could fetch almost a trillion dollars for compensation purposes. There is talk in some government circles, including FEMA, of the need to nationalize BP in order to compensate those who will ultimately be affected by the worst oil disaster in the history of the world.
Plans by BP to sink a 4-story containment dome over the oil gushing from a gaping chasm one kilometer below the surface of the Gulf, where the oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded and killed 11 workers on April 20, and reports that one of the leaks has been contained is pure public relations disinformation designed to avoid panic and demands for greater action by the Obama administration, according to FEMA and Corps of Engineers sources. Sources within these agencies say the White House has been resisting releasing any “damaging information” about the oil disaster. They add that if the ocean oil geyser is not stopped within 90 days, there will be irreversible damage to the marine eco-systems of the Gulf of Mexico, north Atlantic Ocean, and beyond. At best, some Corps of Engineers experts say it could take two years to cement the chasm on the floor of the Gulf.
Only after the magnitude of the disaster became evident did Obama order Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to declare the oil disaster a “national security issue.” Although the Coast Guard and FEMA are part of her department, Napolitano’s actual reasoning for invoking national security was to block media coverage of the immensity of the disaster that is unfolding for the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean and their coastlines.
From the Corps of Engineers, FEMA, the Environmental Protection Agency, Coast Guard, and Gulf state environmental protection agencies, the message is the same: “we’ve never dealt with anything like this before.”
The Obama administration also conspired with BP to fudge the extent of the oil leak, according to our federal and state sources. After the oil rig exploded and sank, the government stated that 42,000 gallons per day was gushing from the seabed chasm. Five days later, the federal government upped the leakage to 210,000 gallons a day.
However, WMR has been informed that submersibles that are monitoring the escaping oil from the Gulf seabed are viewing television pictures of what is a “volcanic-like” eruption of oil. Moreover, when the Army Corps of Engineers first attempted to obtain NASA imagery of the Gulf oil slick — which is larger than that being reported by the media — it was turned down. However, National Geographic managed to obtain the satellite imagery shots of the extent of the disaster and posted them on their web site.
There is other satellite imagery being withheld by the Obama administration that shows what lies under the gaping chasm spewing oil at an ever-alarming rate is a cavern estimated to be around the size of Mount Everest. This information has been given an almost national security-level classification to keep it from the public, according to our sources.
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The Corps and Engineers and FEMA are quietly critical of the lack of support for quick action after the oil disaster by the Obama White House and the US Coast Guard. Only recently, has the Coast Guard understood the magnitude of the disaster, dispatching nearly 70 vessels to the affected area. WMR has also learned that inspections of off-shore rigs’ shut-off valves by the Minerals Management Service during the Bush administration were merely rubber-stamp operations, resulting from criminal collusion between Halliburton and the Interior Department’s service, and that the potential for similar disasters exists with the other 30,000 off-shore rigs that use the same shut-off valves.
The impact of the disaster became known to the Corps of Engineers and FEMA even before the White House began to take the magnitude of the impending catastrophe seriously. The first casualty of the disaster is the seafood industy, with not just fishermen, oystermen, crabbers, and shrimpers losing their jobs, but all those involved in the restaurant industry, from truckers to waitresses, facing lay-offs.
The invasion of crude oil into estuaries like the oyster-rich Apalachicola Bay in Florida spell disaster for the seafood industry. However, the biggest threat is to Florida’s Everglades, which federal and state experts fear will be turned into a “dead zone” if the oil continues to gush forth from the Gulf chasm. There are also expectations that the oil slick will be caught up in the Gulf stream off the eastern seaboard of the United States, fouling beaches and estuaries like the Chesapeake Bay, and ultimately target the rich fishing grounds of the Grand Banks off Newfoundland.
WMR has also learned that 36 urban areas on the Gulf of Mexico are expecting to be confronted with a major disaster from the oil volcano in the next few days. Although protective water surface boons are being laid to protect such sensitive areas as Alabama’s Dauphin Island, the mouth of the Mississippi River, and Florida’s Apalachicola Bay, Florida, there is only 16 miles of boons available for the protection of 2,276 miles of tidal shoreline in the state of Florida.
Emergency preparations in dealing with the expanding oil menace are now being made for cities and towns from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Houston, New Orleans, Gulfport, Mobile, Pensacola, Tampa-St.Petersburg-Clearwater, Sarasota-Bradenton, Naples, and Key West. Some 36 FEMA-funded contracts between cities, towns, and counties and emergency workers are due to be invoked within days, if not hours, according to WMR’s FEMA sources.
There are plans to evacuate people with respiratory problems, especially those among the retired senior population along the west coast of Florida, before officials begin burning surface oil as it begins to near the coastline.
There is another major threat looming for inland towns and cities. With hurricane season in effect, there is a potential for ocean oil to be picked up by hurricane-driven rains and dropped into fresh water lakes and rivers, far from the ocean, thus adding to the pollution of water supplies and eco-systems.
This story contributed by the Wayne Madsen Report for Oilprice.com
“Richard W says:
May 9, 2010 at 8:40 am
The Cover-up: BP’s Crude Politics and the Looming Environmental Mega-Disaster
[…]
This story contributed by the Wayne Madsen Report for Oilprice.com”
Looks like the BBC has found its master when it comes to alarmism.
Is it possible that there was methane hydrates deposits in the sediments and the heat released during cementing process – released the methane gas from the hydrates? This would explain the unforeseenable sudden explosive, thus, leading to possibly damaging the BOP.
Hi Kate,
While being unfamiliar with the specific properties of the Macondo reservoir, it is quite certain that the reservoir temperatures far exceed those at which methane hydrates form (although given the high pressures, it is normal that gases such as LPG and butane, which we’re familiar with as gases exist as liquids).
It’s worth bearing in mind that it is standard procedure to add a chemical inhibitor to cement to prevent it setting too quickly in the high temperature environment it is pumped into downhole.
Hydrates typically form when the methane decompresses while rising in production tubulars. The problem in the Macondome coffer dam is exacerbated by mixing with very cold sea water, which is why there was such a pessimistic tone prior to it’s deployment – but all options have to be tried in a situation such as this.
this is cool but people died wich is not so cool
this is a horrible tragedy. i beg do differ about the facts of the conclusions over it all.
This is a horrible tradegy. I have to say though, I beg to differ about the facts of the conclusions over all of the circumstances according to the oil rig.
according to the situations about the oil ship the oil leak cannot be stopped. offcials say they are trying to stop the leak but have failed every time.11 people have died in this horrible mess. you can go online somewhere and watch video of the oil leak happening. about 200,000 gallons of oil are being leaked into the ocean. lots of animalsare dying. bye bye
I am so glad that I discovered this site…..such a vast amount of credible information……as the wife of an offshore construction superintendent (40 years working in the GOM and overseas) and the mother of a driller, I have heard a lot of theories about the cause of this spill, some plausible…some far out……I will be recommending this site to others.
Interesting. Where did you get the images from? What do you know about the Podline Tensioners?
http://www.deepwater.com/fw/main/Deepwater-Horizon-56C17.html?LayoutID=17