What Did MMS Know?
[Guest post by DRJ]
The finger-pointing begins in the BP oil spill and some fingers may be pointing at the Minerals Management Service:
“Tim Probert, Halliburton’s president of global business lines, plans to testify Tuesday that his company had finished an earlier step, cementing the casing, filling in the area between the pipe and the walls of the well; pressure tests showed the casing had been properly constructed, he will testify.
At this point it is common practice to pour wet cement down into the pipe. The wet cement, which is heavier than the drilling mud, sinks down through the drilling mud and then hardens into a plug thousands of feet down in the well.
The mud then is removed and displaced by seawater; the hardened cement plug holds back any underground gas.
In this case, a decision was made, shortly before the explosion, to perform the remaining tasks in reverse order, according to the expected Senate testimony of Mr. Probert, the Halliburton executive.
“We understand that the drilling contractor then proceeded to displace the riser with seawater prior to the planned placement of the final cement plug…,” Mr. Probert says in the prepared testimony, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The “riser” is part of the pipe running from the sea floor up to the drilling rig at the surface.
Lloyd Heinze, chairman of the petroleum engineering department at Texas Tech University, agrees that this is an unusual approach. “Normally, you would not evacuate the riser until you were done with the last plug at the sea floor,” he said in an interview.
A worker who was on the drilling rig said in an interview that Halliburton was getting ready to set a final cement plug at 8,000 feet below the rig when workers received other instructions. “Usually we set the cement plug at that point and let it set for six hours, then displace the well,” said the worker, meaning take out the mud.
According to this worker, BP asked permission from the federal Minerals Management Service to displace the mud before the final plugging operation had begun. The mud in the well weighed 14.3 pounds per gallon; it was displaced by seawater that weighed nearly 50% less. Like BP, the MMS declined to comment on this account.
As the heavy mud was taken out and replaced with much lighter seawater, “that’s when the well came at us, basically,” said the worker, who was involved in the cementing process.
The worker’s account is corroborated by an email account sent by another person on the rig. He said that engineers wanted to flood the well with sea water before setting the final plug. As they were taking out the mud, the blowout began with a flood of drilling fluid being pushed out of the well, followed by a series of explosions.”
What did MMS know, and did it give BP permission to proceed without placing the final cement plug?
— DRJ
I’d be interested in knowing why BP wanted to change the procedure and why MMS approved it.
Richard Aubrey (532298) — 5/11/2010 @ 5:14 amPresumably, the situation was such that reversing the operation looked like a good idea at the time.
Why, and why were they wrong?
I wanna know why they were capping this ‘unproductive’ well.
MunDane (54a83b) — 5/11/2010 @ 5:51 amLike most serious engineering accidents (or “disasters”; I personally hate that term), a basic safety rule/procedure was violated. Sometimes it’s simply somebody making a poor decision without having the background/judgement on what was safe. This is different because there was supposedly government oversight.
It seems BP screwed up big time for asking permission. Some MMS bureaucrat who probably had little to no experience agreed. How/why that happened we will probably never know – it will be covered up because a government agency was involved.
Even though I am a Chem E, I do not have direct knowledge of drilling operations. But it has been my experience that in catastrophic events, something was overlooked. The procedures were in place because stuff like that happened in the past and they learned from mistakes.
Something about history and repeating it comes to mind.
Dr. K (a8e603) — 5/11/2010 @ 5:53 amI think the cap is placed as a temporary hold while the pipe is cleaned and the rigging completed prior to operation. Then the cap is removed for production. But I could be wrong.
Corwin (ea9428) — 5/11/2010 @ 5:55 amLook at the pressure. 8,000 ft of fresh water column is almost 4,000 psi (salt water would be a higher pressure because of salinity/temperature). For a blowout to happen, the pressure in the reservoir had to be higher that that.
It may have been difficult to manage the pressures, especially if they were surging. But that’s just speculation.
Dr. K (a8e603) — 5/11/2010 @ 6:00 amPeople wearing their management and government hats instead of their engineer and driller hats. The new way was faster or cheaper or both, and the old way was more expensive and slower. They’ve lost the memory of “gusher” and “blowout” — if they ever had them.
htom (412a17) — 5/11/2010 @ 6:18 amI thought the blowout was caused by methane gas, not crude oil. Wouldn’t you check for methane gas?
arch (24f4f2) — 5/11/2010 @ 6:46 amJust prior to cementing the casing, they usually “log” the hole, looking for the presence and mobility of oil and water at various depths. Then they cement the well casing. Once the logging information has yielded the depth where the can achieve the best oil to water ratio and mobility, then they will break the casing at that depth when they are ready for production.
Neo (7830e6) — 5/11/2010 @ 6:59 amBP wanted to save money by releasing Transocean’s drilling rig for transportation to another project, lease costs are very high. So, BP engineers decided that once Halliburton’s tests showed the well had be properly cased, they were willing to rely on the BOP (blow-out preventer) to keep the gas and crude oil from gushing out if sea water proved insufficient to stop a possible blow-out.
By saving a step, BP wouldn’t have to pay Transocean for the extra time waiting for Halliburton’s cement plug to harden before pumping out the high gravity drilling mud and replacing it with sea water. MMS signed off on the risky procedure.
After gaining MMS approval, BP then began pumping the mud out and replacing it with sea water, which unfortunately for all concerned was insufficient to the task of holding back the well’s highly pressurized gas and oil.
So when a column of sea water first erupted from the riser, BP’s designed Blow-out Specialist, a individual responsible for monitoring the BOP on-site 24/7, activated the safety device, but the BOP failed to function. BOP’s have several modes and back-ups, but they too failed, so did the last resort device, the shear ram, fail to stop the gusher, which now was spewing not sea water but methane gas, which subsequently ignited and eventually sank Transocean’s drilling platform.
The riser sank to the Gulf’s floor and ruptured in several places along it’s crumpled length. IMO The quickest way to stem the flow of crude oil is to find some way to activate the BOP or get the shear ram to crimp the pipe.
ropelight (72c034) — 5/11/2010 @ 7:40 amI’m more interested in why Ms. Nappy and her cohorts only had a few operable oil booms on hand in case of disasters like this, instead of the hundreds that were previously recommended. Surprisingly, the MSM doesn’t seem all that interested in exploring this issue (sarc tag).
Dmac (21311c) — 5/11/2010 @ 7:50 amIsn’t the MMS the agency that was caught partying and doing coke with the subjects of their authority?
Patricia (160852) — 5/11/2010 @ 7:54 amJust prior to cementing the casing, they usually “log” the hole, looking for the presence and mobility of oil and water at various depths. Then they cement the well casing. Once the logging information has yielded the depth where the can achieve the best oil to water ratio and mobility, then they will break the casing at that depth when they are ready for production.
The rig wasn’t in production yet?
Gerald A (a66d02) — 5/11/2010 @ 8:11 am“… only had a few operable oil booms on hand…”
What’s worse, is that they had NO fire booms at all, and had to go to the manufacturer in the Mid-West to get one off-the-shelf, and then plead with him to contact his customers world-wide to see if they could “borrow” more – and the fire boom requirement has been in the operable plan since 1994!
Woe unto anyone at MMS who has been porn-site surfing like those sterling overseers at SEC.
AD - RtR/OS! (09aa03) — 5/11/2010 @ 8:42 amI remember the engineering accident (thank you Dr. K) with the suspended walkways in (I believe) St Louis. The original design had the two walk ways hanging one above the other on threaded rods. A single rods ran from the ceiling down through both walkways. Each walk way was hung from the rod with washers and nuts. This design meant that the rod supported the entire weight of both walk ways, BUT the washers and nuts and the interface with the walkway structure only has to support the wieght of one walkway.
However this design meant that the guys assembling the unit would have to spin each of these nuts up the threaded rod all the way from the bottom up to the level of the upper walkway.
So someone said, “If we cut the rod at the level of the upper walkway we only have to spin the nuts up a couple of inches and then we use another set of washers and nuts to hang a rod from the upper to the lower walkway and for the price of an extra set of nuts we save all this time and effort.”
Some one signed off on the design change and what no one fully realized was that this meant that the upper walkway structure now had the weight of both walkways hanging on it. With a full crowd the inevitable happened.
What looks like a minor change in design or procedure is frequently not so minor in reality. And having people who are making the decisions, either preliminary or final, not having long practical experience in the field. As htom pointed out – How many gushers or blowouts have these guys seen.
(Sorry for the length of the comment, this is easier to explicate with pictures. Parts of explanation significantly simplified on my part.)
Have Blue (854a6e) — 5/11/2010 @ 9:45 am“…How many gushers or blowouts have these guys seen.”
They saw “Cimarron” when they were a kid, and “There will be blood” just recently.
AD - RtR/OS! (09aa03) — 5/11/2010 @ 10:05 amWell, Ken Salazar did appoint an environmental lawyer to head up MMS instead of an engineer with degrees in minerals.
Why would we think that perhaps someone who is busy suing oil companies would be able to do the job as head of the MMS? Don’t y’all know that policital correctness is much more important than safety?
retire05 (2abfb2) — 5/11/2010 @ 10:18 amAD – I guess my point is, Did these guys get their education in drilling procedures out in the oil patch drilling wells and working with guys who were drilling wells with Rockefeller, or did they learn it in a classroom at Princeton?
And the guys in the Federal bureaucracy were almost certainly never out getting dirty drilling wells with the old timers.
Have Blue (854a6e) — 5/11/2010 @ 10:19 amThank you to DRJ, ropelight, Have Blue, and others for educating us.
Do we have any idea why the multiple BOP back-ups failed? Was everything designed and tested for shallower depths and less intense pressure? (Perhaps by people who are no longer working who would have told current day operators not to trust what was designed for 2,000 ft deep to work at 5,000 ft?)
So, it’s looking like a decision by people without sufficient experience proposed a cost-saving shortcut that relied primarily on what was intended as back-up procedures, didn’t work out so well. (?) A big-time illustration of “penny wise and pound foolish”. (And we’re getting ready to base our health care system on this concept.)
MD in Philly (ea3785) — 5/11/2010 @ 10:21 amAnd, you’re on-point.
AD - RtR/OS! (09aa03) — 5/11/2010 @ 10:24 amYou don’t learn how to drill a well pursuing an MBA, or a JD.
I would be surprised if some of these guys can drill a hole through 18-gauge alloy.
(And we’re getting ready to base our health care system on this concept.)
Nothing can go wrong…go wrong…go wrong…
AD - RtR/OS! (09aa03) — 5/11/2010 @ 10:26 amI thought this was an exploratory hole. Before production, BP has to look at the logs of the exploratory well, evaluate the thickness of the pay-zone, calculate the size and net pay of the potential producing field using their seismic data, and come to some conclusion about how many Barrels of Oil and Oil Equivalent (including natural gas) can be economically extracted. After that is done, BP and its partners acquire additional adjacent offshore tracts, if necessary, to accommodate their production and distribution plans. Once they’ve got their production plans in place, then they go out there to drill production wells which are different than the exploratory well. The whole process takes years and billions.
MikeHu (255b30) — 5/11/2010 @ 10:38 amI would be surprised if some of these guys can drill a hole through 18-gauge alloy.
Comment by AD – RtR/OS!
I read a quote by an old-time orthopedic surgeon who was aghast at the idea that people would learn how to use drills, hammers, and saws on bone rather than first on wood.
MD in Philly (ea3785) — 5/11/2010 @ 10:43 amComment by MikeHu
I believe that is true, and that the intent was to “cap it until they decided to use it for production.”
MD in Philly (ea3785) — 5/11/2010 @ 10:46 amBP leased Transocean’s Deep Horizon (DH) rig to drill a production well. A drilling platform is not a production platform, DH’s function is to drill production wells, once that task is complete, different platforms are brought in to facilitate the production process.
Transocean completed the well drilling operation, and was in the process of capping the well so that Deep Horizon could be moved to another job. Once the well was safely capped, BP would then bring in another type of platform designed for oil production.
The blow-out occurred as Transocean was taking a short-cut in the standard procedures for capping the well so DH could be disconnected from the well and moved to another drilling site.
To grasp the particulars, you must distinguish between exploration, well drilling itself, and subsequent oil production. DH was a driller, not a producer.
ropelight (72c034) — 5/11/2010 @ 11:27 am“BP leased Transocean’s Deep Horizon (DH) rig to drill a production well.”
ropelight, I think you meant “exploration well”.
MikeHu (6451eb) — 5/11/2010 @ 11:33 am#18, Philly MD, I don’t know why or how the BOP failed, I do know that a Blow-out Specialist is required on both drilling and production platforms 24/7 and that BOP’s are supposed to be regularly tested and records maintained.
Modern BOP’s have multiple back-up modes, some manual and some automatic. Additionally, the shear ram device is a last resort back-up (fail-safe) pipe crimper available should the BOP fail.
Apparently, all the required safety devices designed to prevent or stop blow-outs failed. So far, I haven’t seen much of anything to explain how such an outcome could possibly have been allowed to occur. I do know that if you type “Blow-out preventers” into your search engine, you’ll get a number of sites which sell BOP’s both new and used.
ropelight (72c034) — 5/11/2010 @ 11:47 amThe comments regarding the MMS expertise reminds me of an old court case dealing with the proper type of rivets. Numerous “experts” testified as to the quality, strength, etc of the type rivet used. Finally, the high school educated mechanic that used those type rivets testified that those rivets couldn’t hold s___. Real life practical knowledge is generally much better than “highly educated book” knowledge.
Joe (367573) — 5/11/2010 @ 12:02 pm“The” agency. I thought that was the case for most of the agencies. Hurray regulatory capture!
Aaron (b4ec19) — 5/11/2010 @ 12:04 pmyou’ll get a number of sites which sell BOP’s both new and used.
Comment by ropelight
Thank you for your thoughts.
Maybe it’s from being a bit compulsive (a doctor needs a little bit), but I always appreciated being able to test if something worked, the actual article. If I am going on a cross-country trip in my car after having some repair and maintenance done, I can test the actual car to see if it seems to be running properly.
Testing a safety device such as a BOP cannot be done in such a fashion. The design can be tested, other items from the same production run can be tested, components may be able to be tested for characteristics that correlate to functional readiness, but the only way to see if the emergency cut-off system works is when you need it. Sometimes there are reasons to be nervous, and reasons to rely on your back-up system only in the case of an emergency, and hope you never come to that point. I guess that is what separates those who climb mountains “because they’re there”, and those willing to climb mountains only when somebody needs to be rescued (or to prepare for when such is needed).
Sam Watterston has already been testifying in Congress why this accident shows we should never drill offshore. It’s a pity he sounds impressive on such an occasion.
MD in Philly (ea3785) — 5/11/2010 @ 12:07 pmYes, Aaron, and none other than Barack Obama has received more in campaign contributions from BP than any other individual American politian.
ropelight (72c034) — 5/11/2010 @ 12:09 pmMD, it’s kabuki theatre. Off-shore drilling is risky, but if MMS would have enforced their own rules and regulations there would be no oil spill in the Gulf today.
Halliburton was in place and prepared to plug the well with cement. 6 hours later, after the cement plug was sufficiently hardened, the drilling mud could have been safely pumped out and sea water introduced into the well. Deep Horizon could then have been disconnected and moved to a new job site.
BP’s decision to forgo the cement plug and the associated 6 hour wait is what caused the blow-out. And, BP got permission from MMS to do it.
ropelight (72c034) — 5/11/2010 @ 12:25 pmOne small issue is that those drill rigs are all leased for the next ten years, mostly by Brazil, which has no concerns about the issues with which Obama is obsessed.
Mike K (82f374) — 5/11/2010 @ 12:29 pmHave Blue – the walkway incident was in Kansas City, MO. It happened before the modern era of 24-hour-news cycles, and I was working graveyard and listening to the Larry King Show on live radio. 114 dead, another 200 or so injured. In pre-terrorism America, it was an unnatural disaster seldom seen, and the news and eyewitness reports coming over the radio were heartbreaking.
L.N. Smithee (bdade0) — 5/11/2010 @ 12:30 pmLN and Have Blue, I remember that incident well. It came during the last baseball strike. A pitcher from the Royals, Rich Gale, was working the bar and literally leapt into action to help save people.
PCD (1d8b6d) — 5/11/2010 @ 12:40 pmHalliburton was in place and
Comment by ropelight
“Round up the usual suspects….” 😉
MD in Philly (ea3785) — 5/11/2010 @ 12:49 pmInteresting circular firing squad of responsibility displacement from BP, Transocean, and Halliburton before Congress as documented by the AP in the Times Picayune today.
And there’s this: “Erickson had some of the most detailed descriptions of the geyser-like blowout that preceded the explosion. He said it wasn’t dark mud, but what looked like seawater that billowed out just to the aft side of the derrick, then ignited in a flash over the liquid, he said.”
MikeHu (6451eb) — 5/11/2010 @ 1:04 pmMD in Philly, BOP’s can be tested and are tested quite regularly. The following is from MMS’s official site and dated January 3, 1997, the headline reads, “MMS Revises Testing Requirements For Blowout Preventers”
The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) today notified lessees and operators of federal oil and gas leases in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) that the agency is revising a part of the testing requirements for blowout preventer (BOP) systems and equipment.
“MMS has been evaluating BOP testing requirements…The study concluded that no statistical difference in failure rates exists between BOP’s tested every seven days and those tested between the 8-to-14-day interval. Based upon this study, MMS will allow up to 14 days between BOP tests; this is effective January 31, 1997…
ropelight (72c034) — 5/11/2010 @ 1:11 pmHalliburton was in place and prepared to plug the well with cement
You have to understand that oil hole logging is done just before they pump in the cement to make the casing. “Oil hole logging” is one of the main enterprises of Halliburton (and it’s main competitor Schlumberger).
Neo (7830e6) — 5/11/2010 @ 1:11 pmNeo- I’m betting Schlumberger did the logging and Halliburton was there for the cementing.
MikeHu (6451eb) — 5/11/2010 @ 1:18 pmBP’s decision to forgo the cement plug and the associated 6 hour wait is what caused the blow-out. And, BP got permission from MMS to do it.
Comment by ropelight
On a more serious note: I’m curious if BP’s decision on this was looking to the future more than just this event. Hlliburton was already there and presumably being paid, and 6 hours doesn’t seem to be a time frame worth changing procedures for. I wonder if they decided to see if they could do it this way to avoid having to contract for certain jobs next time.
And it’s hard to understand how an apparently obvious violation like not having fire booms seems to have been the norm of the industry for years. Was somebody supposed to have gottwen rid of it and forgot to cross it out, or what??
MD in Philly (ea3785) — 5/11/2010 @ 1:18 pmOh God, Code Pink idiots are out in force at the Energy Committee Hearing (adjourned right now):
MikeHu (255b30) — 5/11/2010 @ 1:42 pmI think ropelight’s and neo’s comments are worth reading (or re-reading), and that BP could be in a lot of trouble. If BP was leasing the rig for $1M a day, maybe that extra 6 hours was going to cost an extra $1M that BP didn’t want to pay. If so, did MMS pre-approve the decision? If it did, it may not be the first time.
I suspect that kind of cozy relationship is why the MMS announced today it is separating into safety and leasing/billing divisions. It’s reminiscent of the FAA which got so cozy with the airlines that it failed to exercise its oversight as required by law.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 5/11/2010 @ 1:47 pmNeo’s comments are not entirely accurate, especially Comment #8 which makes it seem that BP would produce from an exploratory well.
MikeHu (6451eb) — 5/11/2010 @ 1:58 pmUnderstand, there are two separate tasks Halliburton was contracted to perform, both tasks involve cement, as Neo keeps trying to indicate.
The first task is to use cement to fill the gap between the outside of the well pipe and the surrounding earth. Drills wallow and churn during drilling and the casing task, or what Neo refers to as “logging” seals potential leaks that might seep up the exterior of the well pipe and spew oil. That task was completed and tested.
The next task Halliburtion was to have performed, and which BP elected to omit, with MMS’s approval, was depositing cement down into the well pipe itself to form a plug, a barrier between the gas and oil and it’s direct path to the surface.
At that time, the well pipe was full of drilling fluid, or mud, a high gravity fluid the weight of which is twice that of sea water. Mud prevents the gas and oil from gushing out because it’s weight measured by the well’s diameter times approximately 8,000 feet (5K of water and 3K beneath the Gulf floor) represents sufficient weight and pressure to keep gas and oil from gushing up the well pipe and onto the drilling platform.
Halliburton’s next task, should BP have followed standard procedures, would have been to drop cement down the well shaft itself. The cement, being heavier that the drilling mud, would have settled to the bottom of the well pipe and when hardened, 6 hours later, formed a plug.
That plug would have been expected to hold the gas and oil in place while BP extracted the expensive drilling fluid and replaced it with sea water. BP initiated the sea water replacement process without allowing Halliburton to plug the well. Consequently, as MikeHu noted in #36 above, “…it wasn’t dark mud, but what looked like seawater that billowed out…” just before the gas reached Deep Horizon and exploded killing 11 workers.
ropelight (72c034) — 5/11/2010 @ 2:03 pmBOP’s can be tested and are tested quite regularly.
Comment by ropelight
I’m talking out of general concept rather than specific knowledge, so I’m happy to be corrected by you. I’m not sure what it means to test the BOP other than to see if it actually does what it has to do to prevent a blow-out. Even if they did adequately test the BOP, how could they have tested the other mechanisms? One can see if the shear ram device is in position, do some sort of simulations, etc., but you don’t know if it will crimp the pipe unless you see it operate under conditions where it needs to crimp the pipe and does.
I don’t want to get off on a tangent, I was just expressing a general point that is more tongue-in-cheek than anything else. I can always test to see if the kitchen faucet works by turning it on and off. To test it is to use it. Nothing is changed in the process of testing it, so if it worked 5 minutes ago, there is little reason to think it will not work now. One cannot check the shear ram device in the same way. You may know the design works, you may know that the one out of 10 tested the day they were made worked, but you are still counting on your assumptions about consistency in assembly and stability of materials, etc. to be valid, because you do not know if it will work until it’s time to work. Back to my car analogy, I know the track record of my mechanic, I know the manufacturer of new parts has some quality control procedure, but what gives me confidence it will function ok on a thousand mile trip is because I can use it today for 50 miles and see for myself that it actually is working.
MD in Philly (ea3785) — 5/11/2010 @ 2:05 pm“6 hrs” is nothing. I can’t believe that BP would make a “cheap” decision like that given all that was at stake.
MikeHu (255b30) — 5/11/2010 @ 2:06 pm#44 Ropelight – Lamar Mckay of BP just punted a question from Sen. Udall about this (taking the mud out before the cement plug is set); now the Halliburton guy is punting. They don’t know if it’s OK to take out the mud before setting the plug.
MikeHu (255b30) — 5/11/2010 @ 2:29 pmI should have added MikeHu’s comments to my list of must-read comments.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 5/11/2010 @ 2:30 pmThe Coast Guard hearing (concurrent with the Congressional hearing) has a lot more technical info. From the TP: “Under scrutiny from officials in his own agency, the local Minerals Management Service engineer who approved BP’s application to drill under the Deepwater Horizon admitted that he approved the blowout preventer that failed to stop the Gulf of Mexico oil spill without assurances that its last-ditch mechanism would work on the drill pipe the company was using.”
MikeHu (255b30) — 5/11/2010 @ 2:32 pmComment by MikeHu — 5/11/2010 @ 1:18 pm
I’m betting Schlumberger did the logging and Halliburton was there for the cementing.
You could be right, but nobody (except me) mentioned Schlumberger, so I’m still open.
Neo (7830e6) — 5/11/2010 @ 2:38 pmFire Booms…
AD - RtR/OS! (09aa03) — 5/11/2010 @ 2:40 pmI think the need for fire booms was spelled out in the Federal Disaster Plan, and was a requirement for the Feds (Coast Guard), not the industry. The industry is supposed to have drift booms to deal with floating contaminates, which they seemed to deploy in large numbers. But, it was the Feds who did not have one, and the nearest was on the shelf at the manufacturer in the Mid-West, who only had one.
God, Barbara Boxer is such friggin idiot!
MikeHu (255b30) — 5/11/2010 @ 2:44 pmComment by ropelight — 5/11/2010 @ 2:03 pm
Neo (7830e6) — 5/11/2010 @ 2:45 pmThe first task is to use cement to fill the gap between the outside of the well pipe and the surrounding earth. — this is the process of forming the casing.
God, Barbara Boxer is such friggin idiot!
Yah think?
AD - RtR/OS! (09aa03) — 5/11/2010 @ 2:48 pmAnd that’s “Senator” Boxer to you.
#46, MikeHu, BP is known for pushing the envelope and cutting corners. They managed to get MMS to let them skate on an Environmental Impact Report, and now we find MMS let BP skip the cement plugging safety precaution. Hindsight, it appears is a damn sight more accurate than wishful thinking.
#45, MD, don’t confuse the very specific BOP, in this case, a 450 ton device, with blow-out prevention mechanisms in general, of which the shear ram is but one. You are correct, the shear ram is a one-time use device for crimping the pipe as a final mechanism for preventing a blow-out, hence my calling it a “last resort” in #9 above.
Incidently, anyone who wants to get up to speed on this issue should read DRJ’s linked article, and take her recommendations on subsequent reading. It won’t take 10 minutes and you’ll be glad you did your homework, and do will I.
ropelight (72c034) — 5/11/2010 @ 2:57 pmI don’t see how anyone could give “assurances that [the blowout preventer’s] last-ditch mechanism would work on the drill pipe the company was using.” They could say they thought it would work but no one can say it will work every time and in every situation.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 5/11/2010 @ 2:58 pmIf BP did reverse the order of plugging the well and displacing the mud, this will be the last time anyone does that.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 5/11/2010 @ 3:18 pm#50 Neo – You may be right on the logging part for Halliburton. It’s been awhile since I was in the business, and I had forgotten about Gearhart and Welex.
#54 That’s SENATOR Boxer – Yes Ma’am, I mean, Senator! (I was listening to the Congressional hearing and she was just as obnoxious as before.
#55 – ropelight – I don’t doubt what you say. I just found it hard to believe that BP would trying to cheap out on 6 hrs work (purely as a cost saver). It does appear from the various testimonies that the mud/cementing/seawater sequence was what it was; and the BP and Halliburton guys were doing a lot of skating around to not commit as to whether the practice was irregular or not.
MikeHu (255b30) — 5/11/2010 @ 3:21 pmWhich suggests this may not be the first time anyone has done this. Maybe it’s just the first time it turned out so badly.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 5/11/2010 @ 3:25 pm#58, MikeHu, installing a cement plug prior to pumping the mud out is the industry standard. Deviation from SOP required a waver from MMS. That’s the elephant in the committee hearing room.
The unasked question is did cash or equivalents change hands in order to speed the processing of that waver, or did MMS give away something which better businessmen would sold dear.
ropelight (72c034) — 5/11/2010 @ 3:29 pmDRJ – I think you’re right and probably we’ll see some knowledgeable petroleum engineers say one way or the other (and as per ropelight, the WSJ article has more than the TP articles I was referring to). To me, taking the mud out before the plug is set sounds crazy. I can hear in my mind my former company’s Scout saying in a thick Big Easy accent that “would be insane.”
MikeHu (6451eb) — 5/11/2010 @ 3:32 pm#60 – ropelight – I’m with you the whole way; I just can’t understand the “why.”
MikeHu (6451eb) — 5/11/2010 @ 3:35 pm#62, MikeHu, the real “why” is something that’s unlikely BP, Transocean, and MMS will ever acknowledge. However, till a better explanation comes along I’m going with short-sighted and risky cost cutting.
We may eventually find out, Halliburton likely knows the “why” and may have no choice but to come clean in order to avoid getting hit for something they aren’t responsible for. But, they do depend on oil exploration and production companies for their contracts. It just wouldn’t do to expose the golden goose.
So, skip the 6 hour wait, on top of the time it would have taken to deposit enough cement down the pipe to form a plug, and the very real possibly existed to trim an extra million bucks or quite a bit more than one day’s cost off the lease payment for Deep Horizon. Moreover, there could well have been serious additional rewards, or penalties, involved to get Deep Horizon off the BP well and on it’s way to the new job site.
ropelight (72c034) — 5/11/2010 @ 4:12 pm“there could well have been serious additional rewards, or penalties, involved to get Deep Horizon off the BP well and on it’s way to the new job site.”
Do we know if the DH was on to another BP job, or another company tract?
MikeHu (6451eb) — 5/11/2010 @ 4:20 pmI can’t say with any confidence, although I do recall reading something about two and a half weeks ago that DH was headed to western Gulf waters. Who’s lease site it was escapes me now.
ropelight (72c034) — 5/11/2010 @ 4:28 pmBelay that! On second thought it may not have been a Gulf site at all.
ropelight (72c034) — 5/11/2010 @ 4:31 pmThey were T&Aing the well. Tempoorary abandoning the well, come back later with acheaper rig and coplete and start production. The difficulty in getting the well drilled, should have told them not to change procedure. The drilling engineer and the company mand on location were the ones to decide what procedures to do and of course clear it with MMS.
Big D (64d16f) — 5/11/2010 @ 6:25 pmFYI, for those with an engineering perspective (you don’t have to be one, just know how to spell it. :-)) Henry Petroski wrote To Engineer is Human, a dissection of several engineering cockups, including the KC walkway, the Flxible busses that couldn’t survive NYC potholes, as well as the Tacoma Narrows bridge, aka “Galloping Gertie”. Film of that was part of my Engineering 100 class to help us neophytes realize we were going to have some real responsibilities…
Red County Pete (c6482e) — 5/11/2010 @ 6:53 pmSo, my understanding is that they had determined that there were hydrocarbons in economically producible quantities.
So they were setting production casing. Now, was this casing set across the producing zone(s) or was this going to be an open hole completion?
Assuming casing was set across the producing zone(s), the article implies that Halliburton had pressure tested the casing and had determined that they had a good cement job. The casing pressure-tested fine.
Now they had the set the plug to temporarily P&A the well so the rig could move off location and go to another job. They would then move a cheaper completion rig on to location and complete and produce the well.
From the article, the common procedure is to pump cement down the drill pipe through the mud system. Presumably you would then test the integrity of the plug and if that was ok, you’d then displace the mud with sea water.
BP sought and received permisson from the MMS to reverse the procedure and were in the process of flushing the riser with sea water when they took a kick and lost control of the well.
The implication I’m seeing expressed here is that they reversed the procedure in order to be able to release the expensive rig earlier and thus save money.
BUT, wouldn’t they still have had to set the cement plug and displace the mud system in either scenario? You’d need the rig for these operations wouldn’t you (?), so I don’t see how they’d save time here. Whether you displace the mud first and set the plug second, or set the plug first then displace mud shouldn’t matter as far as how much time it takes before you can release the rig.
However, I can see how keeping the much heavier mud in the hole would be safer as far as keeping the well from flowing uncontrollably.
BUT, if, as I said above, production casing was set across the producing zone(s) and if per Halliburton, that casing was tested and passed the testing, wouldn’t that be enough to keep the well under control whether or not the drilling mud was in the hole prior to setting the temporary plug? Or was the producing zone not cased off at this point?
My background is not drilling engineering, and I have no experience with the offshore Gulf of Mexico, and haven’t worked in the oil industry in many years, so I really would like to know.
wadikitty (a14371) — 5/11/2010 @ 7:12 pmWhy didn’t the paragraphs in my previous post show up when I posted it. Most annoying and makes my post difficult to read. Oh well.
wadikitty (a14371) — 5/11/2010 @ 7:13 pmAh, it did put in my paragraphs (after I refreshed the screen). All is well.
wadikitty (a14371) — 5/11/2010 @ 7:18 pmGood questions and I’m not an engineer and certainly don’t know the answers, including how far down they set the casing or whether the reports we’ve seen are correct.
However, my layman’s understanding is that the normal procedure is to put cement down the hole that is weighted so it will sink beneath the drilling mud and stay above the oil/gas. The cement would set for at least 6 hours until the hole was plugged, and then the drilling mud would be pumped out above the plug and seawater would replace it. Then they would move the rig.
Instead, it appears they flushed out the drilling mud first and planned to plug the hole with cement second, presumably so they could start to move the rig off while the cement set. But once approximately 3/4 of the drilling mud was removed, the seawater may have been too lightweight to hold down the oil/gas, the well blew out, and the blowout preventer(s) did not seal off the well.
It sounds like there are engineers here. Please help me out.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 5/11/2010 @ 7:46 pmFilm of that [Tacoma Narrows bridge] was part of my Engineering 100 class to help us neophytes realize we were going to have some real responsibilities…
Comment by Red County Pete
My physics 201 prof showed it to us in order to make fun of engineers… she also ridiculed her doctor for not knowing how to calculate forces generated by muscles at various joints. Maybe she had a secret sense of inferiority for being a physics prof. instead of actually accomplishing something as part of her job. 😉
MD in Philly (ea3785) — 5/11/2010 @ 8:25 pmDRJ – (speaking as a geo here (not as a Petr. Eng.), who used to work on the upstream end long ago, but am now way, way downstream). It’s hard to get a good picture here of what really happened. What you outline seems to be what “people” are saying what happened; e.g.,(for example from the TP website):
The Times-Picayune has reported that eyewitnesses with knowledge of the drill floor operations said that as the rig’s crew prepared to finish exploratory drilling, officials decided to displace the protective column of heavy mud with light seawater earlier than necessary and before a key plug was placed in the well bore.
But, the cement job that Halliburton did of the casing (between casing and formation) could still have been a proble, and then there are the questions about the BOP. None of the Execs from BP, Transocean, or Halliburton were willing to commit to Congress about the sequence of the mud displacement/plug emplacement.
It’s going to take some time to figure what really happened. Expect a “blue-ribbon panel” like in Space Shuttle disasters.
MIkeHu (89ca1c) — 5/11/2010 @ 8:32 pmProbably, as usual, a cascading series of failures, including a failure to think outside the box.
Absolutely, MikeHu. We don’t know what happened and it will be some time before we know for sure, if ever. However, there is some evidence of the sequence of events from the captain of the boat taking on the drilling mud. It’s at the Houston Chronicle link in my comment #72.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 5/11/2010 @ 8:39 pmHowever, from the reported Landry testimony you still don’t know about when the cement plug was being set, or had been set. If the plug had been set before the mud was removed, you’d think everything would have been OK. But, first mate Erickson said today that it was primarily sea-water that was coming out (where Landry said “mud”) which seems to confirm that the mud/seawater replacement was occurring before the plug was set (see TP summary of the Metairie Coast Guard hearing: http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/minerals_management_service_ov.html
MIkeHu (89ca1c) — 5/11/2010 @ 8:51 pmMore information is coming out, details on the sequence of evernts.
The Calgary Hearld, Chris Baltimore, 5/16/10
“Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Caused by String of Human, Mechnical Errors”
Hours before the explosion, set off by flammable methane gas that surged up the drill pipe, forces were already in motion on the drill deck and beneath the ocean surface that opened the door to catastrophe.
“There was a series of failures — human and mechanical,” said Satish Nagarajaiah, professor in civil and mechanical engineering at Rice University in Houston. “This was the perfect storm.”
—- According to information from BP, Transocean, and rig contractor Halliburton Co gathered by investigators from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, rig workers pressed ahead to put the finishing touches on the well despite potentially alarming test results that signaled a buildup of gas pressure deep in the well’s reservoir.
—- And on the ocean floor, a 450-ton series of valves and pipes called a blowout preventer — meant to be the last line of defense in the event of a blowout — was disabled after being significantly modified.
—- “This catastrophe appears to have been caused by a calamitous series of equipment and operational failures,” Representative Henry Waxman, chairman of the committee, said at a hearing on the spill Wednesday.
—- “NOT SATISFACTORY”
—- Drilling an oil well deep into the earth involves waging a delicate battle against a torrent of highly pressurized oil and methane gas unleashed when a hydrocarbon reservoir is penetrated.
—- To prevent an uncontrolled release of oil and gas, known as a blowout, the industry has developed multiple systems to hold at bay the extreme pressures within the well.
—- On the Deepwater Horizon, three of those systems — the blowout preventer, the metal casing within the well and the cement that held it in place — all likely failed, according to testimony from company officials and data gathered by investigators from the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
—- BP and Transocean made a decision late on April 20 to begin removing mud from within the drill pipe despite pressure tests from within the well that a BP official described as “not satisfactory” and “inconclusive,” Waxman said Wednesday.
—- Drilling mud is a mixture of synthetic ingredients that is pumped into the well to exert downward hydrostatic pressure and prevent a column of oil and gas from rushing up the pipe.
—- Earlier in the day, well pressure tests showed an imbalance between the drill pipe and kill and choke lines running from the drill deck to the blowout preventer. The pressure in the drill pipe was 1,400 pounds per square inch (PSI), while the choke and kill lines read zero PSI, Waxman said.
—- “They knew there was something wrong because the pressure in the kill and choke lines was not correct,” Nagarajaiah said. “That should have alerted them.”
—- But according to Waxman, workers performed additional tests and at 8 p.m. CDT “company officials determined that the additional results justified ending the test and proceeding with well operations.”
—- “I’m a little shocked that they proceeded at that point,” said Philip Johnson, a petroleum engineering professor at the University of Alabama.
—- “It sounds like they never got an adequate low pressure test and someone decided to go ahead and displace the mud,” Johnson said. “That sounds like a pretty serious mistake.”
—- Once the well exploded in a green flash, rig workers tried to activate the blowout preventer on the ocean floor, designed as a fail-safe to choke off the well.
—- But officials from Cameron International Corp, which manufactured the device, told committee staff that a key hydraulic system meant to supply emergency power was disabled.
—- And another key device component designed to clamp down around the drill pipe and seal any leak — known as a variable bore ram — had been replaced by a useless test ram, according to Representative Bart Stupak, chairman of the the Energy and Commerce Committee’s investigations subcommittee.
—- With oil gushing into the sea, BP sent remote robots to the ocean floor to attempt to activate the ram. “An entire day’s worth of precious time had been spent engaging rams that closed the wrong way,” Stupak said.
ropelight (cf13a8) — 5/16/2010 @ 6:12 amYou can’t just let the cement fall through the mud. Thats about the dumbest thing that I ever heard.
John A. Stephens (7832ad) — 6/4/2010 @ 7:31 am