What Happened? The Deepwater Horizon Disaster Update

The drill ship Deepwater Horizon was finishing work on an exploration well named Macondo, in an area called Mississippi Canyon Block 252. After weeks of drilling, the rig had drilled down over 18,000 feet, into an oil-bearing zone. The Transocean and BP personnel were installing casing in the well. 

BP was going to cap the well, and then move the Deepwater Horizon to a different location and bring in another rig to produce the oil. Producing oil from the well is work done with entirely different equipment than the exploratory drilling ship is designed to do.

The Macondo Block 252 reservoir may hold as much as 100 million barrels. That’s not as large as other recent oil strikes in the Gulf, but BP management was still pleased. Success is success—certainly in the risky, deep-water oil environment. The front office of BP Exploration was preparing a press release to announce a “commercial” oil discovery.

This kind of exploration success was par for the course for Deepwater Horizon. A year ago, the vessel set a record at another site in the Gulf, drilling a well just over 35,000 feet and discovering the 3 billion barrel Tiber deposit for BP. So Deepwater Horizon was a great rig, with a great crew and a superb record.

Witnesses state that the lights flickered on the Deepwater Horizon. Then a massive thud shook the vessel, followed by another strong vibration. Within a moment, a gigantic blast of gas, oil and drilling mud roared up through three miles of down-hole pipe and subsea risers. The fluids burst through the rig floor and ripped up into the gigantic draw-works.

 The scene was terrifying! It is amazing that only 11 were lost.

Witness:

“Gas and oil rushed up the riser; there was little wind, and a gas cloud got all over the rig. When the main inductions of the engines got a whiff, they ran away and exploded. Blew them right off the rig. This set everything on fire. A similar explosion in the mud pit / mud pump room blew the mud pumps overboard. Another in the mud sack storage room, sited most unfortunately right next to the living quarters, took out all the interior walls where everyone was hanging out having - I am not making this up - a party to celebrate 7 years of accident free work on this rig.

7 BP bigwigs were there visiting from town.”

This is an excellent account of the disaster from a crewman on DWH:


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Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Update

NASA's Terra satellite flew over the Deepwater Horizon rig's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, May 1 and captured a natural-color image of the slick from space. The oil slick resulted from an accident at the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico. 

Current Operations

May 4, 2010 Operations:

Vessel: 170
Boom deployed: 367,881 feet
Boom avail: 1,092,091 feet
Recovered: 23,968
Dispersant: 156,012 gallons
Dispersant availailable: 230,138 gallons
Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV): 9
Overall Personnel Responding: 7,484

In addition to the overall personnel responding, more than 2,000 volunteers have been trained to assist in the response effort.

9 staging areas are in place and ready to protect sensitive shorelines.  These areas include:

Biloxi, Miss.
Pensacola, Fla.
Venice, La.
Pascagoula, Miss.
Port Sulphur, La.
Port Fourchon, La.
Gulfport, Miss.
Dauphin Island, Ala.
Shell Beach, La. 

Weather conditions for May 3 - Winds from the southeast at 17 - 23 knots, 5 -7 foot, rough seas with chance of afternoon showers.

As the containment boom starts to stretch across 4 states the outlook is grim to say the least. This disaster is growing by the minute. The toll on wildlife and the environment in general will be absolutely catastrophic.

BP and Transocean are preparing a "Hail Mary" attempt at capping the well this week. They are attacking the oil leak from two directions. 

1) The Deepwater Development Driller III (above) is preparing to drill a relief well in an attempt at intersecting the damaged well and pumping cement into the well casing. They are hoping to stop the flow of oil from inside the oil reservoir itself. This operation will take weeks or even months to accomplish. 

2) The Transocean drillship, Discoverer Enterprise (below) will utilize a caisson device to cover the failed BOP on the sea floor and hopefully route the leaking crude oil up to the surface to be recovered.

This cofferdam/caisson will be placed over the leaking wellhead & BOP.

Now having some experience working with BIG heavy stuff underwater,

I can tell you that when working in relatively shallow water, installing large heavy objects is tough enough. Now trying to do this in 5000 feet of water is going to be challenging to say the least. This highly technical operation is indeed possible but it will be extremely difficult. 


I'll try to put this in perspective.
Put it this way:
Stand on top of the Empire State Building in New York city.
Take a dixie cup, turn it upside down and insert a drinking straw into the bottom, now start lowering the dixie cup by attaching more straws to the first straw one at a time, keep adding straws until the dixie cup reaches all the way down to the sidewalk, now try to cover a marble with the dixie cup. 


There you have it! 
Oh, it will get done eventually, but it is going to take time and time is not on our side.....


These operations are costing tens of millions of dollars per day!
And that is just trying to stop the flow of oil not cleaning up what has already spilled!


Who is going to pay for all of this? BP? Transocean?
We will see. 


My bet is gas prices will reach $3.50 per gallon by July 4th and $4.00 by the end of August.


Stay Tuned!

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Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico the Deepwater Horizon Disaster

I would like to start by saying that I do have some experience and knowledge about this topic. I had the opportunity of working in the offshore oilfield industry and also had a very unique experience working in oil spill response. I started my career as a commercial diver working in the Gulf of Mexico in 1983. I spent 7 years working in the oil patch as an offshore oilfield diver and then later worked on the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Price William Sound Alaska in 1990.


The Deepwater Horizon, positioned off of the coast of Louisiana, went down in flames after several explosions led to the outbreak of a fire that could not be contained. The events started on Tuesday with a minor explosion, followed by a panic call and then a major explosion which set the rig ablaze. The fire raged on for more than a day before the rig sank into the sea. 126 workers were on-board the rig; 11 were killed with another 17 injured. The remaining crew managed to escape to safety.

The Deepwater Horizon a semi-submersible drilling unit capable of operating in harsh environments and water depths up to 8,000 ft. It was built by Hyundai Heavy Industries back in 2001 and holds the world record for drilling the deepest oil well in history at 35,055 feet.


The oil is a light crude, unlike heavy crude, which would be more dangerous to the environment. BP and Transocean have contracted Oceaneering International to assist in the capping of the oil well. Oceaneering has deployed robotic submarines (ROV's) to “activate the blowout preventer,” a 450-ton valve at the top of the oil well.

The command team will work closely with Fish and Wildlife, National Marine Fisheries Service, and NOAA to stay on top of the effect of the spill. Assets currently being used to respond to the incident include:

• - More than 1,000 personnel,
• - 14,654 gallons of dispersant have been used with another 119,734 gallons on stand by,
• - 21,340 feet of containment boom is place at the spill site,
• - 10 offshore response vessels,
• - 7 skimming boats,
• - 1,152 barrels/48,384 gallons of oily water have been collected

I will be keeping an eye on the progress of the cleanup and salvage of Deepwater Horizon. It will be an extremely hazardous and very technical operation. The Deepwater Horizon is insured for total loss coverage and for wreck removal, to the extent removal can be carried out and is required. The total insured value of the rig is $560 million.

Stay Tuned!

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