| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| MMS Completes Gulf deep rig inspection. Finds almost nothing. (.pdf) |
| 2010-05-23 |
| (.pdf) News you won't find out about from the MSM At the direction of Secretary Salazar, on Monday, April 26, 2010, all Minerals Management Service (MMS) inspectors in the Gulf of Mexico were ordered to direct their efforts toward inspecting the twenty-nine deepwater drilling rigs with subsea blowout preventer (BOP) stacks. Inspections on those rigs began on Tuesday, April 27, 2010 and were completed on May 4, 2010. Inspection Results All deepwater rig inspections have been completed, except for one rig that was evacuated due to the oil spill and has not resumed operations. The MMS inspected a total of twenty-nine rigs. The following Incidents of Non-Compliance (INC) were issued: The Transocean Development Driller II (DD II) working for BP, received one INC because it had not alternated between control stations for BOP testing. MMS regulations require that the regular 14-day BOP tests alternate between the BOP station on the rig floor and the remote station located at another site on the rig. On the DD II they conducted the BOP pressure testing only from the drillers control station for the last two tests. They did perform function testing on the remote station, but the pressure testing was only performed using the drillers station. MMS has ordered the rig to alternate control stations in the future. The Transocean Nautilus working for Shell, received three Incidents of Non- Compliance: o A warning INC for having some flammable material in the scrap metal bin of the safe welding area. (Reportedly a paper coffee cup) Corrective Action Taken: the material was removed at the time of the inspection. o A warning INC for having a 6-inch x 12-inch hole by the mud pump suction pipe. Corrective Action Taken: additional grating was place over the hole. o A warning INC for having expired eye wash bottles. Corrective Action Taken: the eye wash bottles were replaced. No other violations were found on the rigs operating in deep water. These had to be the most intense inspections possible. And they could only come up with 4 nicks on two of 29 rigs? And one for expired eyewash at that! This tells me things are done well on these rigs as its hard to clean up for this type of inspection if you've made a practice of slacking. Hats off to the folks on the rigs. |
| Posted by:Nimble Spemble |
| #6 One thing I heard today in talking with someone was what was said on 60 Minutes (which I don't watch so I didn't see it). Something about the BOP had been inadvertently activated while the drill was operating. During this period, pieces of debris (rubber) from the BOP seals were coming to the surface with the drill mud. If that is true and the BOP had been damaged in the days before the accident, that might explain why it failed. |
| Posted by: crosspatch 2010-05-23 20:18 |
| #5 This was a case of getting in a hurry and not doing things by the book while ignoring the engineers. This is the same sort of thing that led to the Challenger failure. Being in a hurry is another factor in the National Forest Service [ie the government] burning of down Los Alamos NM. Just remember that when someone says "if only the government was in charge..." as an alternative. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2010-05-23 16:57 |
| #4 "The response of the government has been exactly wrong. They seem to be more interested in "making someone pay" than in getting to the bottom of what really happened and making sure it doesn't happen again." That pretty much sums up Bambi's |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2010-05-23 15:53 |
| #3 Once again, the report outlines situations with the control stations for the BOP's when the BOP's apparently suffered some sort of mechanical failure. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2010-05-23 15:28 |
| #2 So far the most credible information I have heard to date is that this blowout was due to being in a hurry. The drilling rig was due to leave the next morning. This was a process problem, not a problem inherent in drilling. Halliburton reportedly performed testing and the results were "marginal" and not to standard. BP ignored the Halliburton engineers' report and supposedly got some other engineering report from an internal source. Then in order to speed things up, they changed the process order around and began pumping out the plug mud earlier in the process but in a manner which is often done when the engineering reports are favorable. In other words, the independent engineering reports showed the condition of the well to be "weak" for lack of a better word on my part. They then engaged in a more stressful (on the well components) method of bringing the well to production in order to speed things up and the well failed. It is also my understanding that Halliburton had documented something over 100 defects in the blowout prevention device but BP used it anyway. This was a case of getting in a hurry and not doing things by the book while ignoring the engineers. This is the same sort of thing that led to the Challenger failure. Now I am no oil expert but I believe that I have the "nutshell" gist of it correct. We have a series of faults (bad BOP and bad cement job or cement not fully cured yet) combined with being in a hurry leading to a failure of the well and the BOP not being able to shut it off for whatever reason (maybe the well blew out BELOW the BOP?). The response of the government has been exactly wrong. They seem to be more interested in "making someone pay" than in getting to the bottom of what really happened and making sure it doesn't happen again. There probably is no one single mistake that resulted in this accident. It is probably a bunch of individual mistakes that each in their own context would not result in this kind of failure but the witch hunt attitude of the government is going to make it much more difficult to get accurate information about what happened. Nobody is going to be forthcoming with a media lynch mob out there ready to pounce on them. |
| Posted by: crosspatch 2010-05-23 15:27 |
| #1 Thank you Nimble, you are exactly right. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2010-05-23 15:04 |