Drill baby drill

This thread was so boring until you just said boobs.

Jokes, thanks for all the info man. +vibes to you guys, you've got a shitshow to deal with and I don't envy you.
 
Just as a short rebuttal, I don't want to start a huge war, and correct me if I am wrong. Originally H8HC has said that he finds it exciting and is trying to learn and help through his knowledge turn an ordinarily dangerous and dirty procedure into a cleaner one. I think that shows deep care about the environment to try to help and improve a very risky and sometimes extremely harmful process to the environment. Like he has said oil is used in a lot more things than you may think about so it is something we will always need and I appreciate him using his knowledge to clean and better this process.

Anyway, just trying to say that just because he is in the oil industry he can't love the environment is false.

Thanks again H8HC for your reports, and I feel for you are your friends that were lost in this tragedy.
 
Cheers dude -

Yeah it's very difficult.

Working in the offshore, deepwater exploration and production business is incredible, exciting and challenging. It is like landing on the moon every day! The investment in technology is incredible, and the advances made yearly in this game are truly mind blowing.

Due to the power of oil as a commoditity, you simply cannot just take it off the agenda over night. Fuel is where to start, and as i mentioned - natural gas is the most viable alternative. Solar and wind can help for power, but they're incredibly expensive and the economies of scale just do not work - we all live in such a power / energy hungry world, it truly is mind blowing.

I was discussing this the other day with a very senior colleauge. Oil prices are going to go through the roof, where as Gas will remain very cheap comparetively.

I heard an interesting stat today from the US environmental agency that stated that although this spill sounds catastrophic, it is not just yet, and that it is yet to reach natural seepage rates in the GoM . That said, that is spread over the whole region, but it should be highlighted that there is an abundance of bilogical organisms that exist by consuming oil within our oceans breaking this down naturally. (im in no way defending anything here, to me this spill is shocking and simply should not happen in 2010).

The reason i began working in oil was that - it's gives you the opportunity to travel the world, I always thought why pay to travel the world, if you can get someone to pay you to do it. I also wanted an exciting, adventurous job, and yes even dangerous.... and of course it pays well, being an engineer in the oil industry is very well paid.

I love the oceans, i grew up in them - and i always wanted to work in them... and of course protect them - and i can tell you that the sequence of events that led up to this will be investigated and there is a reason it happened (1000's of wells a year similar to this are safely completed and produced), for which there will be blame and severe repurcussions. I am interested to hear everyones thoughts on offshore oil production though? Think about how your life would change if there was no oil? No PS3, Xbox.... ski's.... (back to wood anyway!) - plastics, they're gone.... forget fuel, think of oil as the building blocks for everything man made - our reliance on oil is almost total.

 
I'm pretty sure I addressed this as my main frustration. I realize that his care for the environment could precede his involvement with the oil industry, and i don't think that I said that he doesn't care about the environment either.

What I did say was that his investment and value, in terms of knowledge and ideas, are being undermined when applied within the oil industry. Ultimately anything he comes up with will be to further the lifespan of our dependence on oil -- while it may have a benefit of making the drilling process safer, and cleaner, it does nothing to address the environmental impacts that oil's derivatives have further down the production line.

On the other side of things, as was just posted, there hasn't been enough investment in alternative energy sources to make them feasible on a large scale. I'd think that for all the R&D the oil companies have spent trying to make their front side (exploration and extraction) more environmentally friendly, we could have substantial progress on the solar front.

I realize the pervasiveness of oil as an integral part of our consumed goods. And I'm sure BP and other oil companies have spent some time working on recycling programs, but we're no where near having a Mr.Fusion, and I don't know of any oil companies who are trying to tackle the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. As far as baby steps go, a move away from oil as an energy resource pushes us in the right direction.

SO a recap: While I appreciate his care for the environment, ultimately anything he does to make drilling for oil safer and cleaner only harms the rest of the environmental movement by providing justification for and continuation of oil consumption down the line. It's not that i doubt his care & compassion, it's just there's an inherent conflict that frustrates me as an outsider.
 
I think it can be summed up like this-

Oil co.s do invest in future markets, they have too, future energy sources etc, they need to diversify.

Oil companies are also heavily depended on by governements globally to maintain economies. This is why I always find it frustrating when people gaulp at the huge profits oil co's make because for the very point P-face makes, they must be profitable, so they can both invest in today's energy needs and supply there of, and the future needs- diversifying oil, gas, reknewables... The lot.... But the cost of all that is astronomical- that's why when you hear shell, exxon, bp etc announce billions of dollars of profit, that's a good thing..... Because believe me, it gets reinvested. That's a billion dollar rig that sank! There future energy strategies budgets are also billions of dollars. Oil is finite, which means these companies assets are finite, again they absolutely must and do invest more then anyone in reknewables and future options, but they are of course comprised of some of the smartest people on the planet and therefore realists. They're really not trying to pull wool over peoples eyes with oil and reknewables.... There just trying to find the most economical solution....
 
Yeah, I totally hear what you are saying. We both realize there is always going to be a need for oil, but you are just hoping that his expertise would help for other fuel sources while I was seeing the benefits of cleaning up oil. So we pretty much had the same point, but saw different benefits from either side.

Anyway, as it has been said by pretty much everyone, oil is going to be needed for many things, namely plastic for years to come and I think that the more people we have that can further technology for acquiring it in safer cleaner ways the better. But I totally see your point that you think it would be better to investigate other fuel options. I have no doubt that other companies and people such as H8HC are investing their time to such endeavors as well. I guess I just think that we need to equally balance both because they are equally important to how we continue to use our available resources.

So, P-face, I hope you realize I was not attacking you in any way, sometimes it is nice to have a good well though out discussion which is pretty rare on here. I think you make some excellent points, we just see it in a different way. Super interesting to hear all the different sides to this debate though because there certainly are many.
 
Oh and by the way, P-Face is totally on point with what he's saying, and i understand totally his frustration. I'm just trying to put his mind at rest that these companies are investing billions (because they can, nobody else has the resources, not even governments, to invest these amounts in alternative fuels etc.... because ultimately as i said, they are the future of these companies businesses).

What im trying to say is, i'm a subsea engineer, my job is to design subsea structures, manifolds, pipelines, etc etc... it just so happens I work in Oil subsea and making sure we can produce this oil and transport it back land safely. The integrity of that system is totally my priority.

But - I would like to point out, that I have also worked on Tidal Power systems, huge subsea structures that harness tidal power and generate power from it..... but it's VERY difficult and the numbers just dont add up for the actual power it provides... they are reliant on such dynmanic conditions... but the technologies are advancing all the time due to Oil Company investment.

Nat Gas right now is the future, and it's clean... but you still need offshore facilities to produce it (as well as onshore, many gas develops currently in CO and PA etc...) and onshore infrastructure to communicate it around the country (pipelines etc)... almost like a natural grid... then you could run cars largely off gas in the near future... it burns much more efficiently and hot (power porduction). Wet gas too is a huge emerging future technology and market (LPG, LNG etc)... this is so much cleaner then oil, and a helllluva lot cheaper. A barrel of oil will hit 200 dollars in the next 5 years or so, where as gas will probably remain around 20-30 equiv.

 
As for all the natty gas in north america, I think we should exhaust the worlds resources beyond our borders before we start using and selling our own.
 
update: Current plan is to light the slick on fire?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/us/29spill.html

“The attempt is scheduled between 11 and 12 — that’s not to say it’s actually going to happen,” the spokesman, Petty Officer Steve Lehmann, said. “Right now, it’s a test burn. We’re trying to see how it works.”

Petty Officer Lehmann said the test burn would be confined to an area of emulsified crude oil about 500 feet around, and that he was not sure precisely where the area would be.

This is obviously a down-stream solution and doesn't stop any of the leakage -- it's simply to prevent the oil from reaching the shore.

 
Yeah so i hear.

A friend of mine is heading up the work to shut off the well, and believe me, it's the biggest challenge he's ever had. So much damage was done during the blowout, and also because the top tensioners on the riser never let go until the rig sank, it effectively became an anchor. The rig was some 800ft off location, tugging on the riser / well head because obviously it's dynamic positioning had failed.

I saw some ROV footage from the seabed on Sat - probably shouldn't discuss it, but's it's not the best, and they're being completley honest with the media etc... so nothing i tell you is new.... it's pissing oil out from the riser, where it broke, and i think from the well head.

The riser actually goes up, across, then down... the force driving it back into the seabed and back up some distance from the well head.

They're working round the clock, my friend is destroyed... they have around 1000 people, 4 planes and a shit load of vessels and another rig... costs of around $6 mil a day, but in reality, once all this settles, it'll work out probably more then double that.

They're still working on the BOP... the Stab Plate for ROV overide is probably face down in the mud, and the stack is bent through 90 deg. so they're desperately trying to override the valves.

If a burn off keeps oil off the coast, then they will do it. This oil needs to stay out in Deepwater, that way it will naturally disperse and break down.

It's still a shit show, but all i can say is they have the best of the best working on it, and i know they will find a solution.
 
100428-oil-slick-hmed-730a.rp350x350.jpg


This is a fucking shit show.

This is going to set back American off shore oil exploration for the next 20 years. What a colossal mess. I hope, for the sake of the oil industry, that someone is to blame for this disaster. If this was unavoidable I have to agree with the environmentalists, we should not be drilling off shore. And now the plan to clean it up is to set it on fire.

Do you have any updates, guy who works for Worley Parsons? From what I have heard on the news, the sub sea BOP is so damaged that it can not be closed, and they are drilling a relief well. Are they planning on just plugging the well once they intersect it? Have they spuded yet?

 
yeah i read that this morning. isnt that just going to have other environmental repercussions?
 
Everything has environmental repercussions unless you send it into space. It's not a big deal, it's just media.
 
im not even necessarily just talking about air cleanliness. what about the fact that you are setting fire to the surface of tens of miles of ocean. what will that do to the wildlife there?
 
if you find someone to blame, then you're stuck with the fact that human error is unavoidable. As this is always the case, i'm not sure why you haven't reached your conclusion sooner.

 
the counter argument is that the wildlife is better adapted to deal with a fire than the oil; the lesser of two evils sort of deal.
 
question for H8HC

Is there anything that can be done to at least slow the rate of the oil leak if they end up having to drill the relief?

If i recall correctly, the relief drilling takes 45 - 90 days?

At the current rate that's 1.5 - 3 million gallons (and going back to the original post, still 8 - 9.5 million gallons short of Valdez).

Going the opposite direction, is there the possibility of an increased rate of leakage?
 
in a mile of water (depth!), the surface burning isn't ideal, but it's a much much better solution then letting this get anywhere near the shore, plus it'll be in a controlled manner as possible. Cleaning oil up offshore and in deep water is easy compared to cleaning it up in swamps, marshlands and the coasts of La. Even a sandy beach is better then that...

It's aslo super light crude, so will burn like a mutha... it's not that heavy clumpy crap like in Valdez... alot of the super light fractions will of even evaporate off now also...

and yeah - they're still working on over-riding the BOP valves - and i'm sure there is a complex series of events / failures that led to this occurring, for which people will do Jail time. How many bankers do you see in jail for fucking up the rest of the world - just an interesting thought.

There is no right / wrong answer to the offshore drilling, oil dependancy argument.... right now, oil is in such demand it has to carry on in production... fuel is a small proportion of Oil's final market destination.... alternative fuels are very easily a real possibility, but what about everything else... ? and i mean everything, take a look around you... 90% of what you look at has some kind of crude oil heritage, i gaurantee you.. it's crazy... I do not have the answers and i'm sure none of NS do either, otherwise they'd be very wealthy and living on a private island somewhere... hate it or love it, oil is a fact of life - but nobody invests in new technologys and alternatives then the oil companies... they invest billions on it... who else can afford to do that, certainly not governments, they're too busy looking after the banks fuck ups, yet the bankers who caused everything enjoy their millions made in the last 5-10 years? So hate them or love them, Oil companies are both the bad guys and the good guys... but they're a lot more balanced then people assume. Bp announced huge profits today, which believe me is a great thing... they have a huge pot of cash to reinvest in the future energy technologies and needs of the planet, including oil and gas, and reknewables.

It's a head bending situation, that's for sure - and believe me, im not defending anyone in reference to the Horizon... but repurcussions will be severe and this really is the worst possible timing for this to have happened!!

 
P-Face : yeah dude, they'll be trying everything. The bop valves may be locked in hydraulically (I'm totally speculating here, but this would be one of my thought chains) locked open, so they may try to drill the actuator, but the water depth is so great, the hydrostatic pressures are probably what is causing problems. The hydrostatic pressure down there is around 2500 psig, so it's not like you can just drill into the actuator and bleed off the hydraulic fluid, allowing spring closure... You need to apply positive pressure. But it may somewhat close thus choking the flow.

There is little chance flow will increase. It could possibly collapse itself, it is 18,000 ft deep after all.... But it will be a fairly bomb proof well if it is a subsalt reservoir....

It's technically very challenging, but as I mentioned they have some of the smartest guys on the planet crunching numbers to figure a solution. Plus as I mentioned, this is very light crude, unlike valdez... For what little comfort that adds. Valdez really was the worst of the worst in every sense- it would take something spectacular to top that fuck up.
 
God dammit this is fucking bullshit.

I have worked in the oil and gas industry as a seismographer and believe me, they do rape and pillage the land. I have not worked on the ocean but that shit just seems like a disaster waiting to happen.

Well this is just great, instead of actually getting oil into our hands, now we are just wasting the fuck out of it. Thanks BP.

Yes Safety is the number 1 thing in that industry, but it often surpasses common sense. Maybe they should focus on drilling on land (where shit is alot more controllable) rather than trying to drill a mile down in the ocean where they have no control over and shit can go drastically wrong in seconds.
 
Mike Miller, head of Canadian oil well firefighting company Safety Boss, told the BBC World Service: "Probably the only thing comparable to this is the Kuwait fires [following the Gulf War in 1991].

"The Exxon Valdez is going to pale in comparison to this as it goes on."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8651624.stm?ls

 
so what? some random dude being an armchair critic in canada makes a guess about what could happen. you do realize this is the bbc right and they will do anything to have a source put a negative light on this event in order to further their agenda.
 
i doubt that. every prediction ive read has said even if they cant get it plugged before the relief well is drilled, it will still be less than the valdez
 
It's fucking stupid journalism like that which really doesn't help the situation. A situation which is horrifically bad by the way, but to simply speculate like that is pointless. Yes- this will be worse then valdez if they don't cap it.... IF..... I know They have a plan, and I know what it is, it's groundbreaking but only because of the water depths we're talking about, but could be effective very soon.

Valdez, the damage was done instantly, no stopping that. This is already as bad as you want it to be, it's a disaster.... Scare mongering and getting on the disaster hype train is doing no favours to help all the guys out there trying to fix this.

I can tell you that bp are being super transparent about this. I heard about the new leak yesterday, and within an hour or so it was on the news.

Will let you know as I know more.... Back to work though now...
 
it just got 5 times worse... i really dont know why some of your are acting like the victim in this situation its a fucking oil spill you act like its your sister dying or something.
 
seriously. there is a reason the media gets involved with shit like this and a reason we knew about the five fold increase in oil leakage almost as it happened... because it's a BIG FUCKING DEAL. stop trying to downplay this scenario, it's a bad situation, and the fact that it may or may not be as bad as the exxon valdez doesn't make it any better.
 
we're not saying its not bad. just saying that the bbc's article source embellished the truth. if you knew what the bbc was all about i wouldn't have to lay it out for you.
 
considering the article i cited was from the WSJ... well, whatever. i don't really give a shit and i think it's great that you guys have insider info or whatever, just don't denigrate the situation, it makes you sound stupid.
 
To set a few things straight based on my understanding.

The well didn't just randomly experience a 500% increase in flow. I just can't see a situation where this would happen. That figure came from observed flow from a ROV feed and was interpreted by a cost guard officer. I believe a guy from BP said there is no reason to expect a flow increase. This being said it is fully possible that the well has always been flowing at 5k bbls a day.

From talking to a few industry sources, including the guy in this thread, the BOP or blowout preventer is all fucked up. I have zero experience with offshore drilling but a BOP is basically a series of hydraulic rams that close to either seal off annulus or close the entire area completely. For on shore operations there is usually multiple fail safes designed into this piece of equipment. This is situated on the sea floor. Just above the BOP is where the riser broke and the well is flowing a tremendous amount of oil. Just to give you an idea, the best well I have ever worked on in my career had an initial production of 6000 bbls per MONTH. Of course I don't work for BP. Anyway the odds of them closing the BOP at this point are pretty slim I would assume or else they would have done it by now or when it should have been closed before the accident.

There is absolutely no reason to defend the companies involved and bash the media. In my opinion the media has been pretty understanding. It does kind of confuse my why there was a memorial and Obama spoke for some miners and everyone has already forgotten about the men who lost there lives on the rig, but that is understandable with the magnitude of the potential environmental disaster. Understandable not acceptable.

I literally have no idea what they are going to do, I was thinking that they could run some pipe down with a culvert or some shit on the bottom and just stab over the well. This is probably fucking stupid but its an idea. As HB8C? sorry I cant remember your user name, said there are some smart dudes working on this. BP is a giant company and is the leader of innovation, too little too late after they fucked up and had a blowout, but they have some smart people.

The only plan I have heard of will take at least a month of tough directional drilling to intersect the well. To give you an idea how hard this is imagine running a mile of pipe down into the ocean just to get on the sea floor, then drilling into the earth from there, steering the bit into another well bore that is probably a foot or so in diameter. Its pretty incredible.

Basically this is terrible.
 
i also read something in the paper i think, about them possibly using some sort of reverse funnel and extracting the oil/seawater? you know anything about that?
 
I know nothing. I have never worked off shore and I don't really like working in the field. I work for a small company and do 80% reservoir work, which means I sit at a computer and model reservoirs (By the way oil is in rocks, it is not a pool or a cavern.) So I don't have a whole lot of insight except what people have told me and my general oil field knowledge.

I was thinking they could do the reverse funnel but I have no idea how they would rig this up, on top of that there are a ton of other issues in making a plan like that work, of course the guys working on it are much smarter than me when it comes to this shit.

H8CH knows a lot more than me so people should take his posts as fact. I do slightly disagree with him that the media is "fear mongering" but I haven't watched that much news. It is a very bad situation. By my logic, if you can see your fuck up from space, you fucked up really bad. When this hits shore we are going to see a lot of cute animals (are their cute animals in Louisiana?) covered in crude oil. This will not be forgotten any time soon.

Also what is it about the second half of April?

Columbine, Oklahoma City, Bay of Pigs, Hitlers birthday. There is a lot of other shit but it always seams like some bad shit goes down every year around this time.
 
I just don't see the value in saying this could be worse then valdez, nystagmus now...because it's still no where near that...BUT has that potential if left long enough. Other then that, they are reporting everything bp is releasing- which is everything they know I assure you.

Just want to correct one thing- the riser is still attached to the bop- then it's bent through 90 and heads off all fucked up. The leaking oil is from the end of the riser, and the remaining string poking out the end. The well bore is open, but the folds in the fucked up riser are choking the flow..... Which is a good thing. But this is starting to fail now. Work is underway to fabricate a cap so they can remove the riser package, which will cause the well to flow like a mutha, then immediately install the new cap.

But I really am gutted for what's happened, it shouldn't of, and people will see jail time. It was no doubt some kind of fuck up with the bop- which would of been inspected and tested about 2 weeks prior to the explosion. My thoughts are, did it reset correctly after test and inspection? It should also of tripped when the rig lost location and drifted.... I was out with bp friends last night and everyone is just as angry as you guys. I have volunteered to go help the clean up too. I have nothing to do with this rig, but still wanna help out. I could be going out in circa. 3 weeks. Look for some potential good news around sun/mon.... My fingers are crossed!
 
I've heard enough about the 'disaster' at this point -- i think it's time to move on to the solutions phase.

How does the spill get cleaned up?

So far we've heard about the idea of a controlled burn, which would help reduce the amount of coagulated oil on the surface.

They are also discussing the usage of dispersants -- chemicals that will break up the oil clumps into small droplets, allowing it to be diluted by the ocean and broken down by micro-organisms.

The use of dispersants at the ocean floor however is something new -- never done before. Unlike the controlled burn, which we can all pretty much imagine the consequences, I don't know enough about what the dispersants are and what the environmental trade off is. Are the dispersants dangerous in any way? They were not used to clean up the Valdez spill because 'there was not enough wave action' -- what's this mean for the idea to use them on the ocean floor?

Finally I've heard about the use of micro-organisms to clean up the spill. There was some controversy with BP lobbying the government to not mandate particular method of clean-up (particularly this method). This makes me think that it is a relatively expensive method -- but would it be worth it?

Props to H8HC for getting involved with the clean-up efforts, but to be realistic we haven't even finished cleaning up after Valdez.

 
Yeah man- I agree.... I just naturally am trending towards fixing this shit on the seabed.... As for clean up, bp has a full system in place for emergencys like this and they allready have the methods in place and approved, so when a spill happens it's all go.... Remember, nature is the best dispersent of all, naturally existing microorganisms consume oil, it goes back to what I was saying about natural seepage. Ever seen oily sheens on water in swamps? This is naturally seeping oil from plants and subsurface. This is an essential part of an Eco system. However, the worst possible place for an oil spill to hit like this is wetlands.... And reed beds etc... The first thing is too keep it out of there.... Booms etc. Dispersants are just glorified washing up liquid... Squirt some of that in an oily frying pan and watch what happens... Much of it is biodegradable. But I'll admit my knowledge in clean up etc is very limited. Def gonna help where I can... Shit has happened, can't change that now.
 
This is a slick the size of Delaware. There will be very little people can do to clean this up. The best we can do is try to keep it from getting to sensitivities areas. I just can't see any technology that will be able to clean this up besides nature and time. It is going to have a far reaching environmental impact no matter what we do.
 
Yep that's correct. We need to focus on what we have in our favour- relatively light crude, spread over a wide area, but very thin. Given the water column this is coming up from, it will have a big area, but will be more of a thin sheen rather then that thick shit you saw in valdez- you know, where waves look like pure gloopy oil, I don't envisage this being like that.... The slick is only mm's in places. Sure there is a heavier fraction, and we're seeing a lot of emulsionisation (is that the word?) of this, which is causing it to sink again, which is better then having that at the shore.

I've not heard any latest from today, I'm not at work so need to check up, but I'm presuming it's hitting shore? What's also really bad is that fishing industry down there. Lots of the guys I have worked with on vessels were ex shrimpers, but the USA imports shit loads of crap shrimp from china due to it being cheaper driving them out of business, but gulf shrimp are amazing... I'm really worried about that super fragile industry too, which bp should compensate for also....
 
Emulsification?

Not sure, ya the cleanup is going to be a bitch.

On a more selfish and inappropriate note: What a discovery. Flowing at 5k a day with a full column of sea water, is that typical for this area?
 
Ha - that's nothing man - this in production would be 42k barrels a day. Im working on a project with 12 wells in phase 1, each well is producing 20k/day...... 5k is hee haw.
But maconda is a great producer, high pressure and flow rates, plug and play..... unfortunately, that makes this situation a shitter....
and emulsification is correct i believe - thanks! ha.
 
I feel like a little kid, I was all proud of a 200 bopd well in North Dakota. Off shore is a whole different animal.
 
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