The Mess

Please start by reading "my oil history" 4 articles below, as an introduction to this series.

Picture was taken from BP website '© BP p.l.c.

Remember I said in the “Love and Loss” post that in no way was I defending anyone associated with this disaster? I’m not, I’m as much for protecting our planet as anyone but to help you understand what happened, I am going to reprint a very brief summary of what an engineer wrote on a technical site to a novice to the industry. The author is an oilfield worker with a great deal of experience behind him. It is simply his assessment and in no way tells the whole story. I am posting it because it may help you understand how much the average “joe” does not know about all this and how very complicated the process of drilling for oil is.

=================

He writes this by telling me that above all else this goes along with a very BIG IF:

IF we have a accurate picture of how the incident began then this would be a partial explanation: they had run production casing from total depth back up to the well head/BOP. Cement was pumped down the drill pipe to the bottom of this casing and forced back up between the casing and the rock. The reason for this cement job is to isolate the oil reservoir. This cement seal would be the only barrier preventing the well from “coming in “ (flowing oil/NG up the casing). Prior to pumping the cement the weight of the drilling mud kept the reservoir from flowing up. The backpressure stopping the flow was a result of an 18,000’ column of heavy drilling mud.

Following regulations BP was required for safety reason to set a series of cement plugs in the production casing to ensure the reservoir would not leak to the surface until they were ready to produce the well. To make the eventual re-entry of the well easier BP “displaced” the riser (that 20” tube that connected the well head/BOP to the drilling rig on the surface of the GOM) with seawater and thus removing the heavy drill mud from the well. But the did this before setting the top cement plug which would have kept any oil/NG from flowing up should the casing or cement fail. This is why testing the validity of the cement job was extremely critical: the column of seawater could not produce a sufficient backpressure to prevent the oil/NG from rushing to the surface. If the cement didn’t hold there was a 100% possibility of the well coming in.

There is a standard procedure for determining if a well is flowing. The same protocol is followed for a cased hole as well when drilling. I don’t know for a fact but I wouldn’t be surprised if this procedure had been done more than 100 times as this well was being drilled. The mud pumps on the rig push drilling mud down the drill pipe, which then returns to the surface between the drill pipe and the casing or open hole. Though this will sound simplistic this is the primary method to tell if a well is kicking (flowing): you shut the mud pumps off. For oil/NG to flow to the surface it has to push the mud out of the hole ahead of it. If you turn the pumps off and the mud stops flowing out you have a static well. If the mud continues flowing out the return line the well is coming in and a blow out is on the way unless you stop this flow. In addition to visually seeing the mud flowing out, there are various mud tanks that have the mud flow volume measured automatically.

Again, IF we have the correct story, the mud returns were not being monitored. We do not know why. Why the cement failed is a separate issue from not monitoring the mud returns. Had they seen the mud flowing they could have shut the well in (closed all the return valves on the rig). The oil/NG might have still flowed all the way up but it would have not escaped to the drill floor and exploded. Killing a shut in well is a standard procedure and practiced often. Once the well was shut in they could have replaced the light seawater with heavy drilling mud via the drill pipe and stopped the flow of oil/NG from the reservoir. But they did not become aware of the well coming in until it as too late.

=================

All of this to inform you that there were a lot of problems that the American public was not aware of.

I believe the fault lies in the fact that even though the oil industry has made great strides with the technology to drill safer, deeper, faster and cleaner, they have made very few improvements in designing equipment that will work in the worst of situations to handle problems such as we’re seeing now. Add in human error and you have this.

Desperation brings new innovations. In the post below I stated a few good things that could come from this tragedy. One of those would be how to prevent something like this from happening again.

However; regardless of how many new regulations are put in place, regardless of how much new technology and equipment is developed, you still have “man” in charge……

And as long as the population depends on oil & gas to operate our world we’re going to have situations like this. Everyone must accept part of the blame because we use the product and cry for more, then complain if it’s dirty when we spill it.

Update as of 6/01/10, notation from "the oil drum"........

"All of these operations, including the cutting of the riser, are complex, involve risks and uncertainties, and have to be carried out by ROVs at 5,000 feet under water. Systems such as the LMRP containment cap have never before been deployed at these depths and conditions, and their efficiency and ability to contain the oil and gas cannot be assured. It is currently anticipated that attachment of the LMRP cap will be attempted later this week; however, operational delays could impact anticipated timeframes.
Preparations to use the Discoverer Enterprise to deploy the LMRP cap and the intended severing of the damaged riser mean that the riser insertion tube tool, previously deployed, will not be reinserted into the main leak at the end of the riser."