Deepwater Horizon - Transocean Oil Rig Fire

[QUOTE=Snowman03782;37021]You say “numerous overspeed trips didnt work”???

Overspeed trips in general really dont need maintenance, they get tested. How in the hell would numerous trips all fail at once? I would buy into the idea that the mains overspeeds pushed their racks to zero but their intakes were pulling in the natural gas from the well.

Edit- I mean the governors tried to hit zero… overspeeds stop all the fuel, but the gas is feeding through the intake.[/QUOTE]

Testing of overspeed trips is in all preventive maintenance programs I’ve seen and there are also available CO2 injection systems and air shut offs to take care of an overspeed situation due to outside fuel sources. I would imagine the DH had at least one of those in place and if so they evidently didn’t work very well.

Back where I used to work, (I’m retired), we said that the best predictor of future behavior was past behavior. Using that axiom on BP, means thatthey have a lot to answer for. They are not trustworthy.

Sorry to distract you folks from your highly technical stuff but:

Regarding the relief wells:
Since there has been concern about the integrity of the well casing, what is the minimum number of feet of “mud tight” casing that will have to be pumped full of mud to over come the force of the oil and gas heading for the surface?

It sounds like this well has been a challenge from the start. I pray this task goes better.

Can you allow me one of those “world famous assumptions?” the “ass / u / me” kind. Can I assume that if the bottom part of the well casing is intact then there must be solid oil and gas tight bond between the casing and outside formation? So the only challenge would be getting enough mud into the casing to plug the casing.

[QUOTE=tengineer;37051]Testing of overspeed trips is in all preventive maintenance programs I’ve seen and there are also available CO2 injection systems and air shut offs to take care of an overspeed situation due to outside fuel sources. I would imagine the DH had at least one of those in place and if so they evidently didn’t work very well.[/QUOTE]

I agree they are ALWAYS tested on a set schedule. I just havent seen in the past where there are actual components that need to be replaced on a schedule. This is based on my relatively little experience compared to many of you other fellas here.

Have you seen a PM schedule to actually replace components? On the few Cats I worked around, I remember the 399D had air damper shutoffs, the 3516B overspeed was based on the mag speed pickups and it did not have air damper shutoffs. On that specific installation without air damper shutoffs, it could definitely run away in a bad way if it inhaled some natural gas. The medium speeds I have seen only had their fuel pumps lifted off stroke for overspeed protection.

With that being said, are either a CO2 or air damper shutdown systems a requirement on rigs but not ships?

[B]Question: Is it possible that BP drilled into the[/B] [B]Mohorovicic discontinuity?[/B]

"The [B]Mohorovičić discontinuity[/B] (Croatian pronunciation: [mɔhɔˈrɔvitʃitɕ]), usually referred to as the [B]Moho[/B], is the boundary between the Earth’s crust and the mantle. The Moho separates both oceanic crust and continental crust from underlying mantle. The Moho mostly lies entirely within the lithosphere; only beneath mid-ocean ridges does it define the lithosphereasthenosphere boundary. The Mohorovičić discontinuity was first identified in 1909 by Andrija Mohorovičić, a Croatian seismologist, when he observed that seismograms from shallow-focus earthquakes had two sets of [I]P[/I]-waves and [I]S[/I]-waves, one that followed a direct path near the Earth’s surface and the other refracted by a high velocity medium.[1] The Mohorovičić discontinuity is 5 – 10 km (3 - 6 mi) below the ocean floor and 20 to 90 km (10 - 60 mi) beneath typical continents, with an average of 35 km (22 mi).[2]"

[B]Mohorovicic discontinuity and the Gulf of Mexico[/B]
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V72-488G8WX-7G&_user=10&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F1970&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1374822061&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=e8940ecedc2be842a9eae26b35c3f7cd

[QUOTE=Snowman03782;37057]I agree they are ALWAYS tested on a set schedule. I just havent seen in the past where there are actual components that need to be replaced on a schedule. This is based on my relatively little experience compared to many of you other fellas here.

Have you seen a PM schedule to actually replace components? On the few Cats I worked around, I remember the 399D had air damper shutoffs, the 3516B overspeed was based on the mag speed pickups and it did not have air damper shutoffs. On that specific installation without air damper shutoffs, it could definitely run away in a bad way if it inhaled some natural gas. The medium speeds I have seen only had their fuel pumps lifted off stroke for overspeed protection.

With that being said, are either a CO2 or air damper shutdown systems a requirement on rigs but not ships?[/QUOTE]

I don’t know the Rig Mechanic, but it seems he lives a coupla hours down the road. I wonder if looked him up he might talk to me? Nahhhh, he’s all lawyered up, I’m sure. But I do remember him saying when he heard the Cats begin to race, he kept wondering why the overspeeds weren’t kicking in.

I still think this is a real critical issue in that I believe them exploding was the initial cause of ignition for the gas that kicked. Of course, by then there was so much gas it had migrated into the non-classified parts of the Rig and ignition was all but guaranteed from numerous sources, not to mention simple friction and/or static electricty from the flow. But I sure would like to know that we can build rigs and systems where the crew could buy enough time to get off the floor and over the sides before she blows. A big kick ought not become a death sentence.

“Have you seen a PM schedule to actually replace components?”

Not unless they are broken which is why you test them. They work so well usually that often they only get truly tested when someone is watching.

On that specific installation without air damper shutoffs, it could definitely run away in a bad way if it inhaled some natural gas. T

With that being said, are either a CO2 or air damper shutdown systems a requirement on rigs but not ships?[/QUOTE]

The requirement depends upon the flag state, classification society, company etc. Air shut offs on large engines are very hard to get to work well in actual practice but the CO2 works well as long as it’s sized properly. However, many times the CO2 is a manually operated last resort sort of thing. In my opinion they should operate automatically but I don’t make the rules. At any rate, I cannot imagine being in an engine room with the diesels suddenly getting fed gas in huge quantities. Maybe if activated in time CO2 would have saved the engine room explosion and prevented some injuries but nothing would have prevented the fire short of an instantaneous rig blackout at the time it blew out. It’s hard to imagine what those guys went thru for those few brief moments.

[QUOTE=stratege;37036]@CM_1
In a 2 dimensional world you will only find 2 colors namely black and white. Accordingly it’s easy to find the guilty if somebody made a catastrophic mistake, they either are guilty or innocent. Unfortunately in the real world it doesn’t work that way and that’s my point in case.

My original posting opened with quote 'Lets summarize [B]beyond[/B] the technical details’
It’s the whole framework of operational and regulatory decisions that’s needs to be analyzed before coming to final conclusions. Once again BP is responsible, no question about that, but who else is partly to blame too? And what happened that this accident could evolve the way it did?
Reducing this matter to BP only and asking it’s CEO questions like ‘could you provide us with the names of the responsible individuals’ sounds to me like a lynch mob out looking for the highest tree available. We reduce this to a 2 dimensional black and white scenario and afterwards everything will be fine. Right? > Wrong!
If anything good should come out of this accident and it’s subsequent dealings then we should broaden our horizon and start formulating questions like who else was in charge and why didn’t the top down ‘safety before cost’ approach that BP apparently started didn’t kick in the way it was supposed to do.
Yes BP’s got a bad rep, and yes they messed this thing up major big time. But that’s nothing new in a world that is driven by vested interests and shareholder value. Do you honestly think that you can just change the system by finding the perpetrators?
Reason dictates that we should look beyond technical details. Frankly I don’t care what false decisions were made with respect to operating this drilling procedure. That’s after all for the engineers to decide and I am sure that every qualified expert will come to his own conclusion. What makes me shiver is the way in which other competitors in the oil field blatantly state ‘we wouldn’t have done it that way, that’s highly risky’ The immediate question that first pops up in my mind is 'O do you. How’s that?'
What makes the chain of command in the rest of the oil industry apparently that different from BP’s? They all work with the same subcontractors, operate in the same surroundings, and are overlooked by the same governing bodies. Yet until this accident occurred nobody has stepped in and said ‘Look BP that’s not how it’s done on our turf, the ball stops right here’ Why?
Take Transocean for instance. Greenhorn formulated it expertly in post 3085, quote:
'The DWH and its crewmembers were the sole responsibilty of the USCG licensed OIM on board at the time. He could and should have saved the DWH and [B]his[/B] crew by just saying NO WAY IN HELL I’M DOING THAT! '
That’s not letting BP getting of the hook, it’s just sensible thinking.

The same sensible thinking also dictates that is it time to rethink the standard practice of subcontractors flagging out their drill rigs in other countries. If a rig and it’s crew are mission critical with respect to safety then they should all adhere to the same high standards, which is at present certainly not the case. It is all to easy to circumvent US regulation by registering your ships elsewhere and thus reduce overall cost be it tax wise or staff wise.
So yes, I am trying to get a better understanding off the way this business works by re- framing the whole concept. If you still think that that is a way of letting BP of the hook then that is something for you to decide.[/QUOTE]
Naturally I stopped at the first line. This post is bullshit. This case, this disaster is a clear cut case of black & white. Right & wrong. Don’t try to make it anything elss or you loose. BP is responsible by virtue of evident gross negligence in the root causes of this occurance. Its representatives know this, we who have been harmed know this. The only ones who don’t know this are people like you. That’s ok though. The longer BP refuses to acknowledge their previous disregard for safety & the safe guide lines of the GOM, the more they will make everyone hate them. You actually think BP will survive this accident & the pathetic response & lack of responsibility. You don’t know much about life.

[QUOTE=stratege;37036]@CM_1
In a 2 dimensional world you will only find 2 colors namely black and white. Accordingly it’s easy to find the guilty if somebody made a catastrophic mistake, they either are guilty or innocent. Unfortunately in the real world it doesn’t work that way and that’s my point in case.

My original posting opened with quote 'Lets summarize [B]beyond[/B] the technical details’
It’s the whole framework of operational and regulatory decisions that’s needs to be analyzed before coming to final conclusions. Once again BP is responsible, no question about that, but who else is partly to blame too? And what happened that this accident could evolve the way it did?
Reducing this matter to BP only and asking it’s CEO questions like ‘could you provide us with the names of the responsible individuals’ sounds to me like a lynch mob out looking for the highest tree available. We reduce this to a 2 dimensional black and white scenario and afterwards everything will be fine. Right? > Wrong!
If anything good should come out of this accident and it’s subsequent dealings then we should broaden our horizon and start formulating questions like who else was in charge and why didn’t the top down ‘safety before cost’ approach that BP apparently started didn’t kick in the way it was supposed to do.
Yes BP’s got a bad rep, and yes they messed this thing up major big time. But that’s nothing new in a world that is driven by vested interests and shareholder value. Do you honestly think that you can just change the system by finding the perpetrators?
Reason dictates that we should look beyond technical details. Frankly I don’t care what false decisions were made with respect to operating this drilling procedure. That’s after all for the engineers to decide and I am sure that every qualified expert will come to his own conclusion. What makes me shiver is the way in which other competitors in the oil field blatantly state ‘we wouldn’t have done it that way, that’s highly risky’ The immediate question that first pops up in my mind is 'O do you. How’s that?'
What makes the chain of command in the rest of the oil industry apparently that different from BP’s? They all work with the same subcontractors, operate in the same surroundings, and are overlooked by the same governing bodies. Yet until this accident occurred nobody has stepped in and said ‘Look BP that’s not how it’s done on our turf, the ball stops right here’ Why?
Take Transocean for instance. Greenhorn formulated it expertly in post 3085, quote:
'The DWH and its crewmembers were the sole responsibilty of the USCG licensed OIM on board at the time. He could and should have saved the DWH and [B]his[/B] crew by just saying NO WAY IN HELL I’M DOING THAT! '
That’s not letting BP getting of the hook, it’s just sensible thinking.

The same sensible thinking also dictates that is it time to rethink the standard practice of subcontractors flagging out their drill rigs in other countries. If a rig and it’s crew are mission critical with respect to safety then they should all adhere to the same high standards, which is at present certainly not the case. It is all to easy to circumvent US regulation by registering your ships elsewhere and thus reduce overall cost be it tax wise or staff wise.
So yes, I am trying to get a better understanding off the way this business works by re- framing the whole concept. If you still think that that is a way of letting BP of the hook then that is something for you to decide.[/QUOTE]

You contradict yourself because you can’t omit operational decisions from technical detail, even for the purpose of logical argument, nor can you consider the whole without consideration of technical details. In essence this is BP’s fundamental mentality that has begat error after error, lie after lie, pre and post blowout. Also does BP drug test their staff in town ?

Oh yeah ! there’s no two ways about it BP is to blame. Lets look at it 3 dimensionally - there is no way out for BP when it comes to “root cause” as opposed to “subsequent cause”. Source of the root cause was BP’s but please also be mindful BP had its chosen representative on the rig to carry out its instructions despite several warnings from other parties on and off the rig, inclusive of BP’s own engineers who warned that what they planned was dangerously risky.

You ask “Why didn’t the top down ‘safety before cost’ approach that BP apparently started didn’t kick in the way it was supposed to do “?This is highly laughable why not ask Tony or best pull out your finger first. Put simply, because data they have so far released proves beyond any doubt they were and are still being run by a bunch of idiots, not just contravening basic laws of physics with well planning and execution of the well plan but also with the way they proved they had F’all contingency to deal with a spill of such magnitude. BP has time and time again proven they are a bunch liars through out this whole episode which is still on going and I suspect, albeit I hope I am wrong, is not going to abate soon and its effects will linger for scores of years to come.

Every spirit for or against BP, for or against deepwater drilling anywhere, animal, vegetable, air, land, rain, coastal or inland, and human, would like to see the relief wells succeed.

To my knowledge the majority of relief wells succeed….eventually, if not on the first attempt to intersect the well. If have full confidence in the non BP personnel drilling the relief wells and technology being employed. But I have no confidence in what really happened down there and has since happened. The situation as is, is scary but what makes it even scarier is BP’s proven incompetence pre and post blowout. A problem cannot be fixed for good if BP is being coy about what happened and what is happening right now. I trust BP which has boasted that it has hundreds of experts and specialists from all over the world working with it, now has contingency just in case the relief well option is not successful. I do not believe in God or the devil or anything for that matter. I either know or I don’t know. But I find myself praying that a hurricane does not wellup and chuck the spanner into the works. Time is of essence and it seems both relief wells are ahead of schedule. Good.

But this ain’t no accident, or some disaster movie, it is a catastrophe of biblical proportions. You need to develop the ability to discern betwixt imagination and reality and quit downplaying this massive F’up that will go down into history books if you want to broaden our horizons.

Do we honestly think that we can just change the system by finding the perpetrators? YES WE CAN ! …and Buddy ! this planet is not driven by vested interest and shareholder value, perhaps your insipid pathetic world is.

It is an understatement to say you don’t care what false decisions were made with respect to operating this drilling procedure considering BP engineers themselves said “Who cares” and were dumb enough to think they were powerful enough to put it in writing.

Rest assured qualified experts will come to a common conclusion as to the root cause of this catastrophe ie: BP. Competitors in the oil field blatantly stated ‘we wouldn’t have done it that way, that’s highly risky’ rightly so, because to date none of them have screwed up the way BP did and is still doing post blowout.

Your shivers are misdirected. You need really to shiver of what’s to come, this aint over yet and has a long long way to go even if the relief wells succeeds, and also the fact that BP is not dealing with some weak diseased malnourished third world nation governed by weak leaders readily susceptible to bribes.

I agree with you though that the OIM could have used his power to override BP’s stupidity. But rest assured again, that OIMs all a round the world will , to borrow Tony’s famous phrase, be focused like lasers at BP engineers on board when it comes to making this decision on their rigs.

Before you blame TO for failure to close BOPs, I suggest you get the bigger picture by getting BP to release the Halliburton data logs at least 72 hr prior to the blowout and also question why they have only released the last 2 hours plus the last BOP test logs with choke/csg pressure traces. Just producing a scrappy hand filled table of the last BOP test is not good enough. Lets see them. This are instantaneously fed back online to Halliburton and BP in town.

Considering root cause and subsequent to the cause the bulk of your argument is narrow an indicative of a delusional mind like Tony’s.

Had BP dotted every ‘i’ and crossed every ‘T’ to make this drill as safe as possible and this still happened it would be, then why are we drilling in water that deep if the equipment cannot handle the pressure.

But BP’s total disregard for every thing in order to make their filthy lucre is why their neck is on the guillotine.

BP’s Greed killed the Gulf.

[QUOTE=CPTdrillersails;37048]I have to congratulate you. You are nothing if not dogged in deflecting any blame from bp. It was all Halliburton’s fault for letting bp get by with a shitty cement job and allowing bp to skimp on millions of dollars worth of centralizers. Then, it was TO’s fault for not refusing to install multi-billion dollar bp’s shitty well construction completion. Then it was TO’s fault for now closing the BOP in time.* That said, how was closing the BOP going to keep the casing below it from failing? Got any bright answers for that? Oh, yeah, that’s the governments fault for ‘forcing’ bp to top kill which (supposedly) destroyed the well casing. But oh! isn’t the pressure they were pumping to overcome reservoir pressure just about the same as reservoir pressure? Bright answers for that? All MMS’s fault! They were the ones who allowed bp to be criminally negligent in their well design.

If this were a ship, in Alcor’s world, everybody EXCEPT the captain would be responsible, from the deckhands to the Coast Guard.

Why oh why can’t they be kinder to poor Tony Hayward? The big, fat, American cowboy meanies.

  • None of which to say that TO has NO fault. Those are words you are putting in everybody else’s fault because you need a strawman in your argument that nothing was bp’s fault.[/QUOTE]

Regarding the cement job, BP failed. But no well is lost at this point.
Regarding well design, TO know where weaknesses may exist. They complained about the pressure tests.

This is the question you should have asked: At what point was the casing hanger thrown from the well? And, has it been confirmed that the Casing Head has been thrown from the WH? We don’t know. It may be that the Seal Assy leaked during the displacement and then fired out of the well when sufficient force built up.

During displacement to SW, the guage on the SPM read 400 psi more than it should have. This was the ideal time to shut in the well. BP would have had serious problems with the well, because the Seal Assy was leaking. We are able to reflect closely on all the decisions taken, but we must also accept that no-one knew what the well’s failings were. Real time, the only thing available to you to protect your assets and personnel is to maintain volumes and pressures in the well. Ignore them at your peril.

And to address your final point: If the BOP had been closed, pressure build-up would have occurred below the WH if gas managed to rise up the well, and quite probably, though not confirmed, the 16" casing would have failed with the consequent environmental issues. But, if TO had understood what was going on with ‘GAINS’, then they’d have reacted sooner, and the well could have been rescued.
The enormous ‘GAINS’ without any reaction from the TO personell meant that the whole of the Annulus must have filled with a combination of gas and oil without anyone realising. Why? Whose job is it to monitor volumes?

I take this view because I know that when our company is unable to control a well because flow wasn’t noticed I’m going to jail for gross negligence. The onus is on me.

[QUOTE=Alf;37031]You need to move away from the idea of a “hole” (which would have been the initial case) and now visualise it more as a split or tear. The 16" was set in tension ie under tensile load. The continued flowrates thru’ that split, no doubt combined with stress concentrations as you say, will by now have caused that 16" to fail ie a break/failure all around it’s circumference in the area of either 1 or 3 rupture disks.

This is only one likely scenario… no one knows for sure, but it’s also possible the 16" may have been damaged elsewhere from the huge flow thru’ it and even from the bending of the Wellhead… the BOP is leaning/tilting.

The rupture disks could even have been damaged when they were installed when the 16" was first run? (as someone else has recently posted)

CM1 has already pointed out that if there is a flowpath thru’ the 16" steel casing, then outside of that is a direct flowpath to formation and then to seabed.

During Hafle’s testimony, the lawyer for TO (Kohnke) had a document +/-200pages which I believe was the well programme for this Macondo well. I don’t know if the USCG accepted the document later as evidence??
If so, then that would provide a lot of answers re the design of the well, and in particular it should also contain the full casing design.[/QUOTE]
If this is the case, we could literally see the whole thing topple over right in front of our eyes. I was up very early this morning & saw one of the ROVs looking at the mus line. It definitely looked to me like there was a massive plume coming from about 25-50’ away from the way the well head was leaning. I would have thought it would be on the other side.

[QUOTE=MikeDB;37063]Had BP dotted every ‘i’ and crossed every ‘T’ to make this drill as safe as possible and this still happened it would be, then why are we drilling in water that deep if the equipment cannot handle the pressure.

But BP’s total disregard for every thing in order to make their filthy lucre is why their neck is on the guillotine.

BP’s Greed killed the Gulf.[/QUOTE]

The same would happen in a shallow well if we ignore volumes and pressure.

[QUOTE=MikeDB;37063]Had BP dotted every ‘i’ and crossed every ‘T’ to make this drill as safe as possible and this still happened it would be, then why are we drilling in water that deep if the equipment cannot handle the pressure.

But BP’s total disregard for every thing in order to make their filthy lucre is why their neck is on the guillotine.

BP’s Greed killed the Gulf.[/QUOTE]

This it it, in a nutshell. BP set the stage and played the tune that everybody danced to. Remember what was at risk, there on the Rig: Money. Lots of it. Money was used as a carrot and a stick so EVERYBODY would dance the way BP called it.

Vast sums of money create powerful dependancies. Think of all the money as being a source of electrical current. In this case, the power in this operation was immense, so much so that everybody who grabbed onto the bare wires of this operation lost their ability to let go. TOI became dependant on their contracts with BP. The OIM became siezed with his dependency on BP. Even the Drilling Crew became addicted to the money that BP was handing out, like a crack dealer to his addicts. Wasn’t it the Driller who had a will drawn up and taught his wife how to run their RV while on his last days home? Didn’t the Rig Mechanic say he heard the Toolpusher acquiese to the BP’s man to displace the riser prematurely by saying, “Well, I guess that’s what the pinscers are for?”

It seems like everybody got blinded by the money. Same dynamic which wrecked our economy, by the way, with the creation of sub-prime mortgage bonds and derivatives. Money Blindness is a real, powerful, potentially deadly thing. Terminal Greed.

Because it is so, and because BP held the purse strings on this entire operation, and because they were in a position to know both how money affects those they dole it out to, and what affect it would have on them, and what the risks were in cutting corners on this well, then I hold them 100% responsible for this disaster.

BP’s Greed killed the Gulf, and eleven hands, and wrecked countless lives.

Next time you are in the position of power, think about it, before you use that power to influence somebody to do something that otherwise, they would not do.

[QUOTE=dell;37049]Alcor,

re your #3119: Your view of courts may be as unwarrantedly high as my view of, say, drilling engineering had been. Justice and the American court system in its current state of evolution aren’t close companions. Example: is all of the Exxon Valdez litigation disposed of yet?[/QUOTE]

We’ll at least get the reasons for the failings, and the money issues will no doubt continue forever. We need hard facts.

[QUOTE=Alf;37031]You need to move away from the idea of a “hole” (which would have been the initial case) and now visualise it more as a split or tear. The 16" was set in tension ie under tensile load. The continued flowrates thru’ that split, no doubt combined with stress concentrations as you say, will by now have caused that 16" to fail ie a break/failure all around it’s circumference in the area of either 1 or 3 rupture disks.

This is only one likely scenario… no one knows for sure, but it’s also possible the 16" may have been damaged elsewhere from the huge flow thru’ it and even from the bending of the Wellhead… the BOP is leaning/tilting.

The rupture disks could even have been damaged when they were installed when the 16" was first run? (as someone else has recently posted)

CM1 has already pointed out that if there is a flowpath thru’ the 16" steel casing, then outside of that is a direct flowpath to formation and then to seabed.

During Hafle’s testimony, the lawyer for TO (Kohnke) had a document +/-200pages which I believe was the well programme for this Macondo well. I don’t know if the USCG accepted the document later as evidence??
If so, then that would provide a lot of answers re the design of the well, and in particular it should also contain the full casing design.[/QUOTE]

Brief excerpts from (SPE 2009) Adv Drllg & Well Tech, chapter APB (annulus pressure buildup) Mitigation:
Vacuum-Insulated Tubing (VIT) is used to isolate hot production fluids from the rest of the well.
Syntactic Foams belong to a class of materials known as cellular solids, and they are characterized by an internal porous structure.
Nitrogen Gas Cushion – Sometimes a column of nitrogen is placed at the top of the annulus.…. Nitrogen is typically placed as a foamed spacer ahead of the primary cement job…. Finally, there is risk that nitrogen may coalesce and rise in the annulus. If the annulus is trapped, then the nitrogen bubble has little room to expand, resulting in the migration of high BHPs back to the mud line. With deep strings and high mud weights the possibility of gas migration raising mudline pressures may outweigh any benefit of APB mitigation.
Open Shoes- While open casing may not be considered an APB mitigation measure, common well construction practice is to leave the shoe of the previous casing string uncemented when possible.
Rupture Disks are another available option for APB.
Summary…the high cost of failure in deepwater wells lends credibility to pursuing mitigation even where the likelihood of failure is low….
Googling deepwater APB:
http://www.spegcs.org/attachments/contentmanagers/1054/Drilling_Symposium_1.pdf
http://www.onepetro.org/mslib/servlet/onepetropreview?id=00092594&soc=SPE
http://www.drillingcontractor.org/dcpi/dc-janfeb05/Jan05_p32-33-Deepwater1.pdf

[QUOTE=OldHondoHand;37067]This it it, in a nutshell. BP set the stage and played the tune that everybody danced to. Remember what was at risk, there on the Rig: Money. Lots of it. Money was used as a carrot and a stick so EVERYBODY would dance the way BP called it.

Vast sums of money create powerful dependancies. Think of all the money as being a source of electrical current. In this case, the power in this operation was immense, so much so that everybody who grabbed onto the bare wires of this operation lost their ability to let go. TOI became dependant on their contracts with BP. The OIM became siezed with his dependency on BP. Even the Drilling Crew became addicted to the money that BP was handing out, like a crack dealer to his addicts. Wasn’t it the Driller who had a will drawn up and taught his wife how to run their RV while on his last days home? Didn’t the Rig Mechanic say he heard the Toolpusher acquiese to the BP’s man to displace the riser prematurely by saying, “Well, I guess that’s what the pinscers are for?”

It seems like everybody got blinded by the money. Same dynamic which wrecked our economy, by the way, with the creation of sub-prime mortgage bonds and derivatives. Money Blindness is a real, powerful, potentially deadly thing. Terminal Greed.

Because it is so, and because BP held the purse strings on this entire operation, and because they were in a position to know both how money affects those they dole it out to, and what affect it would have on them, and what the risks were in cutting corners on this well, then I hold them 100% responsible for this disaster.

BP’s Greed killed the Gulf, and eleven hands, and wrecked countless lives.

Next time you are in the position of power, think about it, before you use that power to influence somebody to do something that otherwise, they would not do.[/QUOTE]

Are you suggesting that the Government have no control on how offshore wells are conducted? Are Operators allowed to operate like the Mafia? Ant there’s no-one to stop them because the Gov’t haven’t put laws in place to control our behaviour? Is this what you’re suggesting?
Are the Gov’t in bed with BP?
Can TO make decisions for themselves? Yes or No?

[QUOTE=OldHondoHand;37067]This it it, in a nutshell. BP set the stage and played the tune that everybody danced to. Remember what was at risk, there on the Rig: Money. Lots of it. Money was used as a carrot and a stick so EVERYBODY would dance the way BP called it.

Vast sums of money create powerful dependancies. Think of all the money as being a source of electrical current. In this case, the power in this operation was immense, so much so that everybody who grabbed onto the bare wires of this operation lost their ability to let go. TOI became dependant on their contracts with BP. The OIM became siezed with his dependency on BP. Even the Drilling Crew became addicted to the money that BP was handing out, like a crack dealer to his addicts. Wasn’t it the Driller who had a will drawn up and taught his wife how to run their RV while on his last days home? Didn’t the Rig Mechanic say he heard the Toolpusher acquiese to the BP’s man to displace the riser prematurely by saying, “Well, I guess that’s what the pinscers are for?”

It seems like everybody got blinded by the money. Same dynamic which wrecked our economy, by the way, with the creation of sub-prime mortgage bonds and derivatives. Money Blindness is a real, powerful, potentially deadly thing. Terminal Greed.

Because it is so, and because BP held the purse strings on this entire operation, and because they were in a position to know both how money affects those they dole it out to, and what affect it would have on them, and what the risks were in cutting corners on this well, then I hold them 100% responsible for this disaster.

BP’s Greed killed the Gulf, and eleven hands, and wrecked countless lives.

Next time you are in the position of power, think about it, before you use that power to influence somebody to do something that otherwise, they would not do.[/QUOTE]

Are you suggesting that the Government have no control on how offshore wells are conducted? Are Operators allowed to operate like the Mafia? Ant there’s no-one to stop them because the Gov’t haven’t put laws in place to control our behaviour? Is this what you’re suggesting?
Are the Gov’t in bed with BP?
Can TO make decisions for themselves? Yes or No?

If you’ve identified one of the failures tell us how you propose to fix it.

The government gets no pass from me. I’ve said here before that they are equally responsible for this catastrophe because MMS signed off on every insane move BP desired and from what I’ve read their payoff was hookers and drugs. So we’ve lost a whole area of Earth due to greed, hookers, and drugs.

But BP’s greed is what brought the hookers and drugs into the scenario.

Heads should roll.

[QUOTE=MikeDB;37072]The government gets no pass from me. I’ve said here before that they are equally responsible for this catastrophe because MMS signed off on every insane move BP desired and from what I’ve read their payoff was hookers and drugs. So we’ve lost a whole area of Earth due to greed, hookers, and drugs.

But BP’s greed is what brought the hookers and drugs into the scenario.

Heads should roll.[/QUOTE]

Agreed! One’s freedom to operate depends on the others controls. Controls were absent.
Both, are cogs in the chainwork of deficiency.