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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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May 12, 2010 - 04:02pm PT
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Now the blame game starts...
BP blaming Halliburton for a faulty cement job and Transocean for a failed Blowout Preventer
Halliburton claiming they cemented the well according to all specs provided by BP, including no cement plug required?
When I was working as a drill site geologist offshore back in the 1980s, the procedure was as follows:
1) after casing is cemented & tested including a cement plug, the drilling mud is replaced by ocean water.
2) Then a cement bond log is run in the well to evaluate the integrity of the cement job along the casing.
3) If any voids in the annular space are discovered on the cement bond log, then the well casing is perforated at that location and cement is "squeezed" into the perforations to seal it.
Not until all this was done would the well casing be perforated in the "pay zone" and tested.
Here's a photo of the the blowout preventer leaking...
The only possible "silver lining" on this dark cloud is that hopefully this unprecedented disaster will convince Americans to ween themselves off their oil addiction
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max factor
Trad climber
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May 12, 2010 - 05:10pm PT
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"The only possible "silver lining" on this dark cloud is that hopefully this unprecedented disaster will convince Americans to ween themselves off their oil addiction"
And what are you doing to "ween" yourself off YOUR oil addiction? You pose the question like you are not culpable. Do you buy anything? Do you eat? Do you drive a car? Do you have kids? Do you live in a house? What exactly makes you so special? Oh, I know, lets just put up some wind turbines. That should keep food in the stores and clothes on our backs.
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Douglas Rhiner
Mountain climber
Good question?!?!?!?!?
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May 12, 2010 - 05:40pm PT
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Max,
Since you have posed the question - what are YOU doing about the situation?
Chanting Drill-Baby-Drill?
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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May 12, 2010 - 05:47pm PT
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tuolumne_tradster: Hey man thanks for the insiders look at this stuff. Good to have someone in the mix who has real life experience with these things. Please keep posting.
max factor: Holy sh#t dude lay off the amphetamines.
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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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May 12, 2010 - 08:33pm PT
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max factor: not sure how you concluded that I consider myself special OR that I'm not culpable. In fact, I used to work for Big Oil. I'm an American and I include myself in that criticism. OK I should have said..."our oil addiction." We all have oil on our hands now.
In the meantime I'm doing whatever I can to lower my carbon footprint by carpooling to work, buying a fuel efficient vehicle, being more energy efficient in my home, educating my children about these issues, etc.
Wind turbines will help but I think many other sources of energy, including fission energy, will have to be part of our future energy policy. Hydrocarbon dependency will only put more CO2 in the atmosphere and ensure that Americans will continue to die on foreign soil.
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
Sprocketville
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May 12, 2010 - 08:40pm PT
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oil used to leak into the ocean all the time,
i don't see what the big deal is,
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MisterE
Social climber
Across Town From Easy Street
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Topic Author's Reply - May 13, 2010 - 01:32am PT
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Thanks, tt.
Priorities understood.
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apogee
climber
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May 13, 2010 - 02:32am PT
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"Now the blame game starts..."
Which one? You mean BP, Halliburton, Transocean...
...or TT, D Rhiner, and M Factor?
What a waste of time to point fingers at each other at this time. Kinda like a bunch of heroin addicts getting pissed because someone left the door open and their stash was nabbed.
Solutions, people. This is a fecked-up mess, and we are all responsible. While everybody looks to blame someone else, the oil company's profits are doing just fine, and our addiction remains- in good times, and in bad.
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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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May 13, 2010 - 11:28am PT
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apogee: the "blame game" I was referring to involved BP, Halliburton, & Transocean. The latest is that the BOP failed a test right before the accident. If this is true and someone made a decision to ignore this failed test and proceed before correcting it, then my guess is that they (probably BP) will have to assume the bulk of the liability for that decision, which now appears to be at least in the 10s of Billions of $$...not to mention the ecological devastation that is impossible to assess in $$
I'm glad you mentioned "heroin addicts" because we Americans are like strung out, heroin junkies when it comes to hydrocarbon-based energy consumption...the local gas station is like a "friendly" neighborhood drug dealer. What can we do as individuals? The very minimum is to recognize the magnitude of your "carbon footprint" and try to minimize it.
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Douglas Rhiner
Mountain climber
Good question?!?!?!?!?
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May 13, 2010 - 11:47am PT
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The very minimum is to recognize the magnitude of your "carbon footprint" and try to minimize it.
Sane and logical.
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Mimi
climber
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May 19, 2010 - 04:00pm PT
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The oil has finally reached the south LA marshes. The picture from the Baton Rouge newspaper link shows how awful this is getting. There won't be any cleaning up of this area. The invertebrates and fish fry will get hammered.
http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/94272044.html
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lostinshanghai
Social climber
someplace
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May 19, 2010 - 05:17pm PT
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Will be interesting if it hits “Kuba”
If the Cubans ask for clean up/ restoration Funds from BP and company what will they say as well as Congress say and do? Would that be considered giving foreign aid to a communist government? Guess it is in the wording of it.
Look for new cars in Havana.
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Mtnmun
Trad climber
Top of the Mountain Mun
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May 19, 2010 - 05:21pm PT
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The 60 minutes piece was a real eye opener. Too many ego's competing to produce disasterous results. The drilling engineers and foreman on duty should be shot. So many signs of impending doom and the result was drill baby drill. Kaboom!
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rockermike
Trad climber
Berkeley
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May 19, 2010 - 05:27pm PT
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What I'm even more afraid of - and what I predict - is that the Nuk energy guys are going to use this whole disaster as an in to push for "clean nuclear" energy. Then we can follow up the oil spill (oil volcano some have called it) with another Chernobyl.
The whole thing (and human "progress" generally) reminds me of a "Cat-in-the-Hat Comes Back" book I had as a child. Starts out with a small "sticky pink stuff" bathtub ring, and every "brilliant idea" the Cat comes up with only spreads it around more and more. By the last page the whole house was covered in the sh#t. Dr. Seuss was a prophetically wise man.
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Mimi
climber
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May 24, 2010 - 08:46pm PT
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Check this out. My friend from Baton Rouge sent this today. Holy moly.
I've been here in Houston all week. Seems more than many in the oil "Bidness" around here are of the opinion that the well could have been sealed with explosives within five days of the blowout, and more importantly, anytime since. The Soviets, who don't fool around, had to use small nukes four times to put out wells they couldn't extinguish much less cap. It worked. Today with 50,000 ft per second high explosives, the engineers who should know say it's a matter of drilling a parallel or intersecting hole to within ten or so feet of the main hole and a mere 500 feet down, fill fifty or so feet at the end with the best explosives, and blow the main hole into a five inch slice of steel..good plug. HOWEVER, if BP did that, the well would be considered "plugged and abandoned." They lose their lease that way [what do you think their chances of getting another permit to drill that lease are?], but if they can cap it using the original well head [the BOP], or by what is "holding with production," which is what they are doing now, until the relief well, which is under permit reaches the original depth, they keep their [well proven reserves] and continue to let it leak!!! I should go get a Texas permit to carry... For no particular reason.
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MisterE
Social climber
Across Town From Easy Street
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Topic Author's Reply - May 25, 2010 - 01:00am PT
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Thanks for the update and inside info, Mimi.
This is one of those decisions that really test the nature of decisions about the larger world.
BP FAIL
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