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jimbob
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2006
Total Posts : 250

Posted 5/19/2010 10:06 AM (GMT -6)

Is Mike Miller and his team capable of stopping the BP Blowout ??

Southern Plains
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 130

Posted 5/19/2010 8:44 PM (GMT -6)

The BP Blowout is a whole different ball game considering the open break is about 3000 ft. down in the ocean. So if any wild well fighters could do anything with it the U.S. government and BP would have already had them out there. To &$@% this particular blowout it will take a special form of well control operations to be able to do anything with it. And besides there isn't any company out there that wants to take the liability for all the environmental damage being caused. The worst thing is that BP wants to drill in the Mackenzie Delta in Northern Canada. I for one would not trust them to drill on land let alone in the Mackenzie Delta. They just can't be trusted. All that's going on now is a whole bunch of finger pointing so the next company can be blamed were it is all the operator that is to be responsible for all of the well operations, not the contractor or the service company. That's why they have Engineers and Wellsite Supervisors both day and night.

johnny
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2007
Total Posts : 27

Posted 5/20/2010 9:14 AM (GMT -6)

Why they haven't drilled another well by now?

Southern Plains
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 130

Posted 5/20/2010 6:34 PM (GMT -6)

They have already started but it takes about two months to get down to the target zone for them to effectively &$@% the well from the re-leaf well. That part of it is no different then it is on land they still have to drill the well with all the same intervals (surface, intermediate, clean out trips, run casing and cement jobs with waiting for it to set up so they can nipple up pressure test properly this time and drill out.) So it isn't as easy as a two week well in Canada. Remember the ocean floor is about 3000 ft down and the pay zone was about 8000 ft. so it will take a while to &$@% it with a re-leaf well.

The main problem was that BP used Americans on the rig and not Canadians, the whole thing probably would never have happened with Canadian Supervisors and senior drilling personal on the platform. A proper Canadian team would have done the whole job correctly with no short cuts.

Southern Plains
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 130

Posted 5/24/2010 9:13 AM (GMT -6)

If you look at this oil spill and the oil disaster up at Alaska there was and is well more oil spilled into the ocean and &$@%ing more plants, birds, animals and fish then ever recorded. And the whole mess is a result of the United States and of course BP. Now the Americans are taking about suing BP and kicking them out of the whole operation, you can only see what mess that will make. BP has no idea of what they are doing and sure as hell the Yankees have even less of an idea. The Americans screwed the whole world economically and now they are trying to destroy the coast lines. The U.S. along with BP should be run out of the oil industry and let someone that knows what is going on handle it. This entire operation down off the Louisiana coast line is going to do nothing but make it extremely difficult to drill for oil any were in the world. All of the tree huggers will use issues like this against any form of oil field work on land or off land.

Ed
Registered Member

Date Joined May 2007
Total Posts : 32

Posted 6/4/2010 1:42 AM (GMT -6)

Can't blame this on any nationalities. There are plenty of good people from all over this planet working side by side out there. Seriously, they should take downtime out of contracts, some people just go mental over it and it leads to poor decisions even though we've all been told to " stop the job". It doesnt make any sense to have it anyways as you still have to complete the well on uptime when repairs are finished and the contractor makes the money back. Without knowing all the circumstances I think it will be revealed that a series of poor decisions led to the terrible outcome of 11 people losing their lives to making a hole in the ground. Its time for all supervisors in our business to ''walk the talk'...

MBP
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2006
Total Posts : 25

Posted 6/7/2010 1:10 PM (GMT -6)

"The U.S. should be run out of the oil industry...?" How would you propose to do that? They pretty much invented Big Oil.

The BP (Broken Pipe) disaster was a series of miscommunications, poor decisions, and oversight. I just hope all involved pay very, very dearly for the awful mess they've caused.

Can you beleive the BP Chief stating "I want my life back." What a donkey...

Southern Plains
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 130

Posted 6/8/2010 8:54 AM (GMT -6)

Well if the Yankees invented BIG OIL it is now wonder why that country is so environmentally destroyed, look at Texas, Wyoming, Oklahoma and even Louisiana not to mention New Mexico. They have drilled the wells, produced them and then left them in Texas. In Wyoming there CBM fields have totally destroyed all of there main water courses and fields. In Oklahoma and Louisiana they have drilled into large water holes and polluted them to an unusable state, which if that isn't bad enough what about Pennsylvania they have a coal mine that has been on fire for over 100 years and they have no idea of how to put it out as coal burns it generates more CO2 then all other fossil fuels. So think that Canada and the rest of the world shouldn't ban them form any part of the oil field.

Green Peace and all them other tree hugggers should maybe start to look and act against the US and leave Canada alone. We pollute far less in the Oil Sands then the cleanest State in the US. And as far as clean ups go we clean all of our areas up and put them back to original condition or as close as possible. It is all part of the reclamation process.

And BP does have there heads stuck up there ASS. They screw up and look the other way, pretend that it never happened. I despise both the Americans and BP Oil to the point that both should be run out of the Oil Industry for incompetence and arrogance.

Education is needed in the Oil Industry but good old practical experience is far more important if you want a job done properly, good old Canadian know how no American can compare.

Copperfield York
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2009
Total Posts : 13

Posted 6/8/2010 1:46 PM (GMT -6)

It all starts at the well-site "right-to-refuse" and there have been times that costs may dictate the forward-actions. I wouldn’t have displaced to sea-water without bridge-plugs above the liner-top. Hey lets back-up when the first pod failed and the rubber coming out of the Annular was pumped across the shaker it was time to act. My operations I would and "have" set the RTTS packers and pulled the stack and made the repairs. Operations would have resumed after repairs are tested and functioned. Now that I think of it maybe it’s because I don’t take short-cuts that I am not at work on the super-semi rigs!!!!! The teams I have and do work with will continue to make the right decisions to go forward efficiently and safely.
I have heard the lead guy made it off the rig!!! Why is that he should have been on the rig-floor with the men who he instructed to be there. I won’t wish him dead but he certainly isn’t a leader. I feel saddened because now someone’s child won’t have Dad home after his hitch. They are some American kids or Canadian kids or maybe that caterer’s kid from Bangladesh. We all have duties and responsibilities so when I go to work I care about the crews under my signature. I care about your families even though I don’t or may not know your names. The crews under my signature most are the age of my kids. I feel I must program my well-designs and take my rig calls directing crews forward efficiently so the operations are conducted without incidents and accidents.
Engineer in Calgary

Copperfield York
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2009
Total Posts : 13

Posted 6/8/2010 1:57 PM (GMT -6)

AS for Mike Miller knowing what to do????? Of course he does and I have confidence in Safety Boss because they have a record of successes. Mike would do well to teach at SAIT when and if he retires just so others can learn what he would know. The theory would be the same in SAI AS IT Is in USL (University of South Louisiana) but the experience of the speaker help students apply the lesson. Mike had great teachers and I was in some of the same lectures.
I feel our Canadian team is superior and well-control is all pressure management. I know Mike knows pressure and I am confident he will contribute to the well-&$@%.

Engineer in Calgary

Southern Plains
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 130

Posted 6/8/2010 4:03 PM (GMT -6)

I commend your posts Copperfield, they were spoken like a true Canadian. The way you said that things were done is the Canadian way. I have worked over seas in North Africa and in the Middle East and found the knowledge and the performance from the workers was no were close to the way most Canadians work at a job. Have followed Safety Boss's work and see they are a very good well run company.

shawn21
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2008
Total Posts : 9

Posted 6/8/2010 9:36 PM (GMT -6)

Wow! Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Hound
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2008
Total Posts : 20

Posted 6/17/2010 9:08 AM (GMT -6)

I have seen and read a few comments about the bad annular rubber. On that rig I believe they had a double annular so they would have had another annular they could have gone to. But the other thing I have read is the entire BOP did not function. The annular didn't fail, it did not function. Dare I sound like an idiot, ideally we don't want any rubber coming off the annular, yet anyone that has been around a rig has seen annular rubber come over the shaker at some time. It usually isn't the end of the world, the pressure can be turned up, there are other components that provide redundancy. That wasn't the cause of this blowout.

Copperfield you said that you would not have displaced.... But some engineer in an office somewhere gave that order. This might be the way they have done it in the past with no problems.(How many times have you sped diving to work in the last month an did not get caught) BP is not stupid they have drilled numerous complex wells in the past. The reason we are drilling wells where before it would have been uneconomical is because everyone is pushing the limits.

Look at all the wells being drilled around Alberta now where they set surface and drill down to 3300m. Somebody from another part of the drilling world might say that is crazy. What if... didn't PD/CNRL burn down a rig this winter on that well design?

Hindsight is 20/20. Here is a link. The drilling recorder graph shows some serious gains an hour prior to the end.

www.theoildrum.com/node/6462

Southern Plains
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 130

Posted 6/17/2010 12:22 PM (GMT -6)

Hound said...
I have seen and read a few comments about the bad annular rubber. On that rig I believe they had a double annular so they would have had another annular they could have gone to. But the other thing I have read is the entire BOP did not function. The annular didn't fail, it did not function. Dare I sound like an idiot, ideally we don't want any rubber coming off the annular, yet anyone that has been around a rig has seen annular rubber come over the shaker at some time. It usually isn't the end of the world, the pressure can be turned up, there are other components that provide redundancy. That wasn't the cause of this blowout.

Copperfield you said that you would not have displaced.... But some engineer in an office somewhere gave that order. This might be the way they have done it in the past with no problems.(How many times have you sped diving to work in the last month an did not get caught) BP is not stupid they have drilled numerous complex wells in the past. The reason we are drilling wells where before it would have been uneconomical is because everyone is pushing the limits.

Look at all the wells being drilled around Alberta now where they set surface and drill down to 3300m. Somebody from another part of the drilling world might say that is crazy. What if... didn't PD/CNRL burn down a rig this winter on that well design?

Hindsight is 20/20. Here is a link. The drilling recorder graph shows some serious gains an hour prior to the end.

www.theoildrum.com/node/6462

What you should do is find as much of the documentation as possible and then start to make comments about a situation that you clearly only have an opinion on. And remember that when talking about someone or something the negativity can and will only come back to kick you in the ass. And yes Copperfields statement is correct in the fact that they should not have displaced the well to seawater. The only time any company does that is in certain situations and clearly this wa not one of them. And for your information BP screwed up right from the beginning of that well. So find and read the reports and you will learn the facts of what happened.

Hound
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2008
Total Posts : 20

Posted 6/17/2010 4:34 PM (GMT -6)

I thought the reason they were displacing the well to seawater was because they were preparing to abandon and would have had to displace the riser to sea water.

At what point in the well should they displace the riser? Before or after they remove the riser?

I really don't think we have all the right information. There is to many lawsuits going on right now. What I can tell you is there appears to have been a kick. That is the Drillers responsibility to recognize and to then secure the well. It doesn't matter what the operation is at the time drilling, tripping running casing, logging, cementing, preparing to abandon or any other operation the driller is supposed identify the kick and shut the well in. The Driller who at the time was working for Transocean. Not the BP company man and not the CEO of BP. It is the responsibility of the Driller.

I won't jump on the BP bashing bandwagon because it doesn't do any good. What would have happened if they would have successfully abandoned that well would you be bashing them? And as far as I am concerned the driller should have caught the kick.

Copperfield York I apologize, I did not mean to sound disrespectful or speak negative to your comments. I was just trying to offer a different opinion

Also what I have read is that the BOP's didn't function. They didn't function when the ROVs tried to do it either. So maybe the driller did try to shut the well in but the BOP would not function. Is that the drillers fault then? The BP company man? Tony Hayward?

Southern Plains
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 130

Posted 6/18/2010 9:19 AM (GMT -6)

Hound I will stay on the BP bashing band wagon. It is 100% BP's fault for the environmental disaster to the American shore line. They seen it coming months before they even got close to the blowout and did nothing about it. Except to take short cuts and cut costs. They had one last chance one day prior to the blowout and they still overlooked it and displaced the well to salt water and released Schlumberger as well as told Halliburton that there Cmt integrity test wasn't needed. So how do you blame? And no anyone with half a mind can't blame the men on the platform, they just did what they were trained and told to do. The ones to place blame on is the executives in the head offices. A vast majority of them have never worked in the field and have no idea what it is like in a the field during any situation that is going bad , first hand experience is far more useful then all the years of classroom experience. Due to BP's ignorance the entire oil industry is on the hot seat to be blamed for all sorts of environmental damage. No one will blame the farmers for venting air conditioning into the atmosphere or dumping there garbage into the coulee or changing there oils and pouring the old oil on the ground. What about the rail way with all the animals they &$@% hitting them with trains, or train wrecks dumping oils and chemicals, polluting ditches, creeks streams and lakes. Or worst yet how about the common everyday person breaking Styrofoam spraying hair products, using degreasers. The list goes on so yes BP is to blame for for being so arrogant and only thinking of there companies bank account. No they aren't the only one look at them all. The oil field is one of the best industries to work in and does need to clean its act up, starting in the head offices of all oil companies.

Southern Plains
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 130

Posted 6/21/2010 8:49 AM (GMT -6)

No Sump Plug it doesn't matter how you look at the whole thing BP was the prime contractor and are 100% responsible for all operations and conditions of the program. So that means if Transocean's equipment was not up to par for any one particular operation it was up to the BP representative to stop and make sure the equipment was repaired or replaced. It is the exact same scenario on a land rig in Canada or any other part of the world. What BP did was take a short cut and say they will get to the problem latter and the latter never got looked at all because BP new they were behind schedule and over cost. So again the workers and Transocean were only doing what they were told to do by the BP Office. Maybe if any blame can be put onto Transocean is that they never corrected the faulty equipment earlier. But everything below the floor is BP's responsibility and everything to do with the rig is Tranoceans.

Hound
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2008
Total Posts : 20

Posted 6/21/2010 11:20 AM (GMT -6)

Southern Plains in their standard contract (I haven't seen this exact one but I will assume it is the same as all the other ones). The contractor (Transocean) is responsible for the operation and maintenance of the BOP.

The latest story as of this morning is someone who worked on the rig is saying they knew the BOP's were leaking for months, once again blaming BP. It was not BP equipment that failed. It was Transoceans. If a Transocean employee knew for months that the BOP was leaking, that would lead me to believe that Transocean knew that the BOP had a hydraulic leak for months.

Transocean employed a guy called the OIM if he didn't do anything to stop any unsafe operation he should not have been in his position. All he had to do was say "This is my rig and we aren't going to carry on!"

I am not saying BP isn't responsible for what happened but they aren't the only ones. There is enough blame to go around for everyone to share. BP is getting a lot of grief for saving money now everything is being second guessed.

They had a poor casing design, they didn't do a cement bond log (I have been on far more wells where a cement bond log was not done, then how many times it was done), they were behind the curve. Everything is based on money if this well would have come in with an AFE of $500 million dollars they wouldn't have drilled it. I guarantee there isn't one guy that was involved with the planning or design that planned on &$@%ing 11 guys, burning down the rig and being part of the largest environmental disaster in the countries history.

If that Transocean OIM or one of the Rig managers didn't like what was going on they could have done something about it. But they didn't. They could have shut the operation down, their men and their equipment doesn't work unless they tell them to.

Southern Plains
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 130

Posted 6/21/2010 4:06 PM (GMT -6)

Yes Hound you're right that Transocean is responsible for the operation and maintenance of the BOP. But everything below the rig floor is BP's representative's responsibility to make sure that all of Transocean's equipment is properly maintained and repaired if needed. Which the BOP's if repair is needed and not preformed falls on BP for not ensuring that Transocean repairs there equipment. And yes Transocean employees are to blame due to the fact that they kept working with faulty equipment. But again it is the prime contractors responsibility to make sure that all the equipment on the work site is maintained and working properly. If it was then 11 men would not have died and a well probably would not have blown out of control.

TMan
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2006
Total Posts : 61

Posted 6/25/2010 8:46 PM (GMT -6)

BOPs were tested approx 1 week before the incident. If the BP company man signed off on the pressure test saying it was OK. Transoceans ass should be covered. One report said annular rubber was coming over the shakers?? Whoopdee do! Theres another annular and a series of rams all capable of shutting in a well. I read somewhere they never ran a lock ring (sleeve) when they set the seal assembly of the last casing string. I'm wondering whether wellbore pressure may have lifted the casing into the BOPs making it even impossible for shear rams to cut? Just a theory? I still think at the end of the day BP will take the hit for this mess.

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