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| Science & Technology |
| BP oil rig blast: safety alarm was off, says engineer |
| 2010-07-24 |
| Michael Williams told a US government investigation that the alarm – which could have detected a build-up in natural gas and closed parts of the rig – was disarmed so it would not wake people up at night. The BP rig exploded in April, killing 11 people and triggering a leak that released tens of thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #7 Mike Williams, the chief electronics technician on the Deepwater Horizon, and one of the last workers to leave the doomed rig claimed that the blowout preventer was then damaged when a crewman accidentally moved a joystick, applying hundreds of thousands of pounds of force. Pieces of rubber were found in the drilling fluid, which he said implied damage to a crucial seal. But a supervisor declared the find to be "not a big deal", Mr Williams alleged. Mike Williams was a new hire in the oil industry and several hoaxes were played on him. One of the hoaxes is older than wooden derricks and has been played on new hires like electricians for decades. When a string of casing is cemented two rubber plugs are inserted inside the casing to separate the cement from the drilling fluid. One in front and one behind. After the cement is set up these two plugs will be near the bottom of the casing and need to be drilled up. Drill bits are designed to drill solid rock, not rubber, so even though these plugs are only a few feet long it may take several hours to drill them. During this time chunks of rubber will be circulated back to the surface. The hoax goes like this: The blowout preventers are always tested before the casing is ran in the hole, so a member of the drill crew catches an inexperienced person and tells him that the drill pipe accidentally slid down hole while the annular rams were closed and now they have chunks of rubber from the rams coming up the hole. The crew member will give him samples of the rubber and tell him take them to the drill floor and show the driller. Of course all of the drilling personnel will know its just a joke. Annular seals are extremely hard rubber and usually black or blue. Cement plugs are soft and usually red. What is really ridiculous about the whole story is that one of the main purposes of the annular preventer is to slide the pipe through it while it is closed. To say the annular was damaged by sliding pipe through it, is like saying the cars brakes were damaged because they were applied while the car was in motion. Usually someone explains this to the person who shows up with a bunch of rubber in hand, and everyone has a good laugh. However, sometimes. The BOP control panel is always located near the drillers station. It will have an array of handles, buttons, controls, gauges, and indicator lights. The drill crew always checks this panel at the beginning of their shift to make sure everything is in the correct position and functioning correctly. They become very familiar with it. Each one of the functions normally has three lights. Green, orange, and red. If someone were to unscrew a couple of these lights and put them back in the wrong place an experienced crew member would know it immediately. But an inexperienced electrician would think that either the BOP system or the electronic controls were malfunctioning. He may spend hours checking the system and then just when he thinks he is getting close to finding the problem the system miraculously starts working correctly. So if no one ever tells him that he has been played for a fool, he thinks the problem never gets fixed. How unfortunate in this case. The AAIDC reports and the oil company's daily reports are legal documents filed each day with the various government agencies as required by law. They are a legal record of all drilling activity and will stand up in any court of law. Both reports indicate that the blowout preventers were tested only a few hours before the explosion and the entire system passed all tests as required by federal law. There are both written descriptions of the tests as well as circular charts and digital graphs filed with the MMS that back up the validity of the tests. |
| Posted by: junkiron 2010-07-24 20:13 |
| #6 Ok first it was the pipe slid through blowout preventer thing, then it was the hydraulic leak thing, then it was the yellow pod blue pod thing. That was all debunked so now its the alarm thing. Poor Mike can't seem to make a lawsuit stick. This one won't either . According to testimony during the congressional oil spill hearings the alarms were not turned off. They were acknowledged from the main control on the drill floor. Big difference. |
| Posted by: junkiron 2010-07-24 19:43 |
| #5 Who cares what company owned it. What is important is the name of the human beings that were running it. It is unsafe to operate a complex system with the alarms shut down. Turn of the alarms on a fuel refinery, or a power plant, or a 747, and expect something bad to happen shortly. The reason that the design engineers spend money building alarm systems is to avoid foreseeable unsafe conditions. I say again, foreseeable unsafe conditions. That offshore platform was being operated in manner that was deliberately unsafe by someone in authority on that platform. Eleven people died and then other bad things happened. Someone should be going to jail. |
| Posted by: rammer 2010-07-24 11:52 |
| #4 The rig _belonged_ to Transocean. But it was being built by Reading and Bates/Falcon and in the process of being outfitted when Transocean bought the company. They didn't build it themselves. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2010-07-24 11:14 |
| #3 The rig belongs to Transocean. Makes you wonder about the design and/or maintenance of the alarm system. False alerts are worse than no alerts as no one trusts the system and it gets ignored. |
| Posted by: tipover 2010-07-24 10:35 |
| #2 It wasn't a BP rig. It was leased and 90% of the staff were from the rig's owner. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2010-07-24 10:12 |
| #1 Compare wid PRAVDA > BP, DEEP WATER, OIL + THE ARMAGEDDON SCENARIO [Scenarios]. IIUC, BP's PERTS didn't do their job as per proper empirical study of the undersea geology. ARTIC > DEATH-BY-PERMANENT-NATURAL-OIL-LEAK/PLUME versies DEATH-BY-RELEASED-METHANE. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2010-07-24 01:58 |