[QUOTE=cmjeff;34846]
(Orniphobe: can you upload that court ruling as an attachment, I’d like to take a look)[/QUOTE]
See http://rulings.cbp.gov/detail.asp?ru=h036936&ac=pr
It’s a customs ruling that says you can’t consider yourself on location just because you have transponders out.
[QUOTE=CaptVal;34681]http://www.dvidshub.net/?script=video/video_show.php&id=86721
It looks like that Colreg is quite clear about who is in charge of a vessel underway. My question now is, how is it possible that a flag state issue a Minimum Safe Manning certificate which requires only an OIM while “in location” and no Master on a self-propelled dynamic positioned Vessel?
I now learn that for Marshall Islands is it perfectly safe to leave a self-propelled, dynamically positioned vessel without a Master. Why the Coast Guard did not question this MSM? Is it “on location” a legal maritime term? And by the way, Mr. Bnhpr, a SELF-PROPELLED MODU is not exempted by the COLREG when in location: a question, do you display your Red-White-Red? I hope so, these are in fact the lights signal for vessel restricted in her ability to manoeuvre, as per COLREG Rule 27.
Why don’t we have on airplanes an “Airline Installation Manager” without the wildest idea about air navigation, without pilot license so that we can leave the pilots at home because a piece of paper says that we do not need them, does it sound like a great idea? Of course only when the plane is “in location”, which is ONLY when cruising at an altitude of 5,000 ft. what a wonderful idea.[/QUOTE]
Hey, I always said, if Transocean were an airline, the stewardess would be flying the plane.
Having a captain onboard meets class, but not the intent. The intent is that the officers actually make the decisions, that’s not the case. Their license is just for the audit.
On the Jack Ryan, they recently got rid of both chiefs and replaced them with maint supvisors, and to get by the minimum manning, they brought in two first with chiefs licenses.
Why not get the crane operator to get an oim license, and have the toolpusher make all the decisions. Sounds absurd, but…you can pick up what I’m laying down…
[QUOTE=bnhpr;35027]On the Jack Ryan, they recently got rid of both chiefs and replaced them with maint supvisors, and to get by the minimum manning, they brought in two first with chiefs licenses.[/QUOTE]
Sitting on the Expedition right now & they have an RMS who is in charge over the “Senior Assistant Engineer” who has a chief engineer’s license for obvious reasons. Then to top it off, the RMS gets a retention bonus, but the Chief doesn’t because his official title is as an assistant engineer. Strange stuff.
[QUOTE=Corky;35056]Sitting on the Expedition right now & they have an RMS who is in charge over the “Senior Assistant Engineer” who has a chief engineer’s license for obvious reasons. Then to top it off, the RMS gets a retention bonus, but the Chief doesn’t because his official title is as an assistant engineer. Strange stuff.[/QUOTE]
An unlicensed person, making decisions on someone elses license, again…wrong, wrong, wrong.
Another odd thing about them, is they have one US flag drillship, and one of the chiefs is UK!
Does that meet flag requirements?
I wonder what the Nguyen/uscg would say if he knew about this, and the way they decieve class on other vessels?
I worked with an old chief that used to work for TOI and he said that his job was to go around and do rig moves and sit around for class audits. He would basically, pretend he was the chief until class was done, then he would leave…
[QUOTE=bnhpr;35058]An unlicensed person, making decisions on someone elses license, again…wrong, wrong, wrong.
Another odd thing about them, is they have one US flag drillship, and one of the chiefs is UK!
Does that meet flag requirements?
I wonder what the Nguyen/uscg would say if he knew about this, and the way they decieve class on other vessels?
I worked with an old chief that used to work for TOI and he said that his job was to go around and do rig moves and sit around for class audits. He would basically, pretend he was the chief until class was done, then he would leave…[/QUOTE]
I hope that some officials from the USCG read this Forum.
[QUOTE=bnhpr;35027]
On the Jack Ryan, they recently got rid of both chiefs and replaced them with maint supvisors, and to get by the minimum manning, they brought in two first with chiefs licenses.
[/QUOTE]
Remember the Chief or RMS on a MODU spends probably more time dealing with maintenance issues on the drilling package, mud pumps, and cranes, plus a $4 million warehouse. The engine room is only part of his responsibilities, so you really need a good 1a/e. The 1a/e job is actually closer to that of Chief on a conventional ship. Replacing the 1a/e on my last rig with a Mechanical Supervisor hurt us more than replacing the Chief with an RMS or the 2a/e with a Chief Mechanic.
Also Marshall Islands has a “Maintenance Supervisor” license that’s the equivalent of a U.S. MODU Chief and that meets their SMD. ( Although I believe the Ryan is Vanuatu flag.)
[QUOTE=bnhpr;34917]Although sadly, too late…at least someone had the sense to try to get off the well.
When he said “I had no hydraulics”, I realized they waited too long, deliberating. Surface controls were gone, engines offline.
Checkmate[/QUOTE]
The issue is far more serious that what you guys are thinking. The fact that he had not Hydraulics has nothing to do to the surface HPU.
The issue is that the BOP stack has a set of accumulators in it (8 X 80 gal at around 5000psi) that were empty!!! (see report below @ page 57)
There is an alarm on the BOP panel for this condition. It was ignored during the operation… Anytime this happens you need to stop operations and fill up these accumulators. They normally are kept full by the surface HPU. You should not be drilling without these accumulators topped up.
So when they tried to operate the stack it failed.
If we look at page 58/147 of this report we see that there is no means to fill-up the BOP hydraulic accumulators (8x80Gal accumulators) with an ROV. This explains why right after the sinking they could not make the shear rams or the Casing shear rams close with the ROV.
There are ROV functions to dump the accumulators (8x80Gal) but not to fill them.
[QUOTE=Orniphobe;35141]Remember the Chief or RMS on a MODU spends probably more time dealing with maintenance issues on the drilling package, mud pumps, and cranes, plus a $4 million warehouse. The engine room is only part of his responsibilities, so you really need a good 1a/e. The 1a/e job is actually closer to that of Chief on a conventional ship. Replacing the 1a/e on my last rig with a Mechanical Supervisor hurt us more than replacing the Chief with an RMS or the 2a/e with a Chief Mechanic.
Also Marshall Islands has a “Maintenance Supervisor” license that’s the equivalent of a U.S. MODU Chief and that meets their SMD. ( Although I believe the Ryan is Vanuatu flag.)[/QUOTE]
Good point.
the details though:
The chiefs that were kicked off the JR were seed raised in the oilfield, and work on BOTH drilling and propulsion, structure etc…they were just victims of ethnic cleansing of licensed personnel off the GSF rigs by the TOI culture. Toi management doesn’t want marine licensed people making the decisions is the point I’m making. Its much easier to micromanage a brow beaten OIM or RMS, since where else are they going to work? Wal Mart?
Sadly, a RMS spends NONE of his time woking on drilling equipment, nor coaching, training or mentoring on the jobsite (what our jr crews really need) most time is in email world or working with micromanaging computer applications, ICS, GMS, Empac, APT, RMS, Microsoft Project, Wxcel…on and on and on.
Most of the new RMS for the newbuilds were electrical supervisors/et supers prior. What do they know about hydraulics? Mechanics, structure? Why do you think they are doing this?? It’s because they are good on the computer! Their skills outside of email world are irrelavent.
So, in the reality, the RMS depends heavily on his mechanical super, 1st engineer (if he is blessed with one) and electrical supervisor(s)
Where it gets real ugly, is when the RMS authorizes and rig mechanic pumps a drill floor drain tank , unknowingly full of hydraulic fluid overboard in port, and they go after the 1st engineers license, since he has it posted as chief, but he really isn’t supervising maintenance of the entire vessel.
It’s license prostitution.
More people from the USCG read this forum than you think. Remember 2 things:
Nothing on this forum is admissable in court or an official inquiry.
More people from the USCG read this forum than you think. I have been a lurker since the sight started. I am not the only one.
Has anyone here ever heard of the Glomar Java Sea disaster.?
The USCG has a short memory, and line of sight with regard to oilfield disasters. The Java Sea had a separate Captain/OIM. The Captain insisted they pull anchors. The company man and OIM decided the ship would continue to drill. the Typhoon went over the top of them. 81 men died.
Global marine had a policy thereafter they would consolidate the OIM/Master position, and distance the authority from the well. This was policy up to the point where Transocean bought GSF, and the OIM was put back into command and the captain was pushed aside.
[B]The U.S. drillship GLOMAR JAVA SEA, with 81 persons onboard, capsized and sank in the South China Sea at a position approximately 63 nautical miles southwest of Hainan Island, People’s Republic of China and 80 nautical miles east of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Prior to the sinking, the GLOMAR JAVA SEA had secured drilling operations due to the severe effects of tropical storm ‘LEX’ approaching from the east of the drilling site. At 2348 local time, the Assistant Rig Manager, onboard the drillship, called Global Marine’s office in Houston, Texas and reported that the drillship had a 15 deg starboard list of unknown origin and was experiencing 75 knot winds over the bow. Communications were cut off during the conversation, and all attempts to re-establish contact failed. At about 2351 the GLOMAR JAVA SEA capsized and within minutes sank in 317 feet of water. An extensive search was conducted but no survivors were found. A diving expedition found the wreck in an inverted position approximately 1600 feet southwest of the well site. The wreck [/B][B]was searched and 31 of the 36 bodies found were recovered. The remaining 45 persons are missing and presumed dead[/B]
[QUOTE=pribas;35146]The issue is far more serious that what you guys are thinking. The fact that he had not Hydraulics has nothing to do to the surface HPU.
The issue is that the BOP stack has a set of accumulators in it (8 X 80 gal at around 5000psi) that were empty!!! (see report below @ page 57)
There is an alarm on the BOP panel for this condition. It was ignored during the operation… Anytime this happens you need to stop operations and fill up these accumulators. They normally are kept full by the surface HPU. You should not be drilling without these accumulators topped up.
So when they tried to operate the stack it failed.
If we look at page 58/147 of this report we see that there is no means to fill-up the BOP hydraulic accumulators (8x80Gal accumulators) with an ROV. This explains why right after the sinking they could not make the shear rams or the Casing shear rams close with the ROV.
There are ROV functions to dump the accumulators (8x80Gal) but not to fill them.[/QUOTE]
Nothing to do with the surface HPU? Where do you think the hydraulics come from? There’s no pump on the BOP.
To lose hydraulic supply, you have to have a blackout (lose the pumps) and the accumulators have to bleed/leak down.
If there was a severe system leak before the incident, the HPU would be running it’s ass off to keep up, and everyone would know it. Again, there was full functionality before the incident, so A major system leak at the same instance of the blowout is quite unlikely. The only other possiblity is that the surface supply was isolated (valves closed) and there was a leak on the subsea accum. (Nobody could fcuk up that bad)
Now, the devil is in the detail… If we were to look at system deficiencies across the industry, I would look at how much accumulator volume they had subsea, vs, what functions they had. Realistically, how much mustard did the dead man have by design? We see this on many stacks as a deficiency. In those water depths, with nitrogen in the accumulators, high mud weights etc. What can you really shear? We running the same size operators that we used to run 10 years ago. At the pressure it would take to shear casing, nitrogen in the accumulators would be a liquid.
a friend of mine is on a New DP3 Rig getting ready to come to the GOM , he told me they had a abandon ship drill and the Captain and Chief Mate left the bridge to the Rig Manager and toolpushers ran the drill from the bridge -it was according to to the station bill, Oh yeah he also said the the Barge Engineers were in command of the lifeboats and FRC ,chief mate ,2nd mate and 3rd mates assisted as directed in the boats seems a little strange to me
[QUOTE=CaptTomH;35254]a friend of mine is on a New DP3 Rig getting ready to come to the GOM , he told me they had a abandon ship drill and the Captain and Chief Mate left the bridge to the Rig Manager and toolpushers ran the drill from the bridge -it was according to to the station bill, Oh yeah he also said the the Barge Engineers were in command of the lifeboats and FRC ,chief mate ,2nd mate and 3rd mates assisted as directed in the boats seems a little strange to me[/QUOTE]
Rather strange, as the Rig Manager is a shore based position, and the toolpusher is usually on the Rig Floor, especially on the DP-3 vessel.
[QUOTE=CaptTomH;35254]a friend of mine is on a New DP3 Rig getting ready to come to the GOM , he told me they had a abandon ship drill and the Captain and Chief Mate left the bridge to the Rig Manager and toolpushers ran the drill from the bridge -it was according to to the station bill, Oh yeah he also said the the Barge Engineers were in command of the lifeboats and FRC ,chief mate ,2nd mate and 3rd mates assisted as directed in the boats seems a little strange to me[/QUOTE]
Check with him again, to clarify the positions. The station bill has to be class/flag approved keep in mind. Have him email you a copy of it.
[QUOTE=CaptVal;35258]Rather strange, as the Rig Manager is a shore based position, and the toolpusher is usually on the Rig Floor, especially on the DP-3 vessel.[/QUOTE]
That must be Noble. They call their Rig Superintendants the Rig Manager and vice versa.
If the Java Sea was a TOI ship today, the Capt could have moved the ship. He has over riding authority for the ship’s safety, not the OIM.
[QUOTE=bnhpr;35165]Nothing to do with the surface HPU? Where do you think the hydraulics come from? There’s no pump on the BOP.
“To lose hydraulic supply, you have to have a blackout (lose the pumps) and the accumulators have to bleed/leak down.”
Agree with that, but if you see the BP preliminary report you will see that the BOP stack had several leaks in its hydraulic, that we seen by the ROVs that were trying to get it to work.
The surface accumulators should have enough fluid to supplement the bottom accumulators unless the subsea leak was too large. The hoses from the surface accumulators to the riser hydraulic lines would not resist too much time in a fire situation, but that would not empty the subsea accumulators. Only a subsea leak would empty it.
"If there was a severe system leak before the incident, the HPU would be running it’s ass off to keep up, and everyone would know it."
Not entirely true as there is a surface accum to buffer the time the HPU is running.
"Again, there was full functionality before the incident, so A major system leak at the same instance of the blowout is quite unlikely."
The ROVs found several leaks on the BOP hydraulics when trying to get it to work.
See this presentation pg 37
http://energycommerce.house.gov/documents/20100527/BP.Presentation.pdf
“The only other possiblity is that the surface supply was isolated (valves closed) and there was a leak on the subsea accum. (Nobody could fcuk up that bad)”
After the drill floor was flooded with mud the driller most probably tried to close the shear rams…
Why did that not happen?
The most probable reason is the one the witness - subsea engineer - informed - he had no hydraulics!!!. The hydraulics that mater in this case is the subsea accumulator. As it is enough to perform the EDS, so it can easily perform the shearing of the drill string, as log as the drill pipe does not have a tool joint in front of the shear (10%) of the length of the drillin stirng are the tool joints.
Now, the devil is in the detail… If we were to look at system deficiencies across the industry, I would look at how much accumulator volume they had subsea, vs, what functions they had.
Agree - this is clearly defined in API 16 Spec.
Realistically, how much mustard did the dead man have by design?
None I agree.
We see this on many stacks as a deficiency. In those water depths, with nitrogen in the accumulators, high mud weights etc. What can you really shear?
Just see how it was tested. Any time you change the drill pipe spec you need to test again to verify if can be cut by the shear.
See West Engineering report of Sep 2004 to MMS (463 report) on this subject… http://www.mms.gov/tarprojects/463/(463)%20West%20Engineering%20Final%20Report.pdf
We running the same size operators that we used to run 10 years ago.
Ok if you did not change the drill pipe spec.
At the pressure it would take to shear casing, nitrogen in the accumulators would be a liquid.[/QUOTE]
Not true - the N2 pressure in the subsea accumulators is adjusted before the stack is deployed to the expected water depth it will be deployed.
[QUOTE=pribas;35319]Not true - the N2 pressure in the subsea accumulators is adjusted before the stack is deployed to the expected water depth it will be deployed.[/QUOTE]
So whats your theory, as you lamely shoot holes in mine?
BTW, API means nothing to most people I’ve ever spoken with in TOI…
How many stacks even meet this?
[QUOTE=Orniphobe;35001]See http://rulings.cbp.gov/detail.asp?ru=h036936&ac=pr
It’s a customs ruling that says you can’t consider yourself on location just because you have transponders out.[/QUOTE]
I don’t understand a word that document says behind all the legaleses but I asked a lawyer to decode it and he emailed me back:
All this says is that a “drill ship” remains a vessel at all times; if it is foreign made and foreign flagged is it required to get an “exemption” from the Jones act if it transfers fluids to a barge and then that barge carries the fluids to another “coastwise point”.
So, to sum up it is clear to me that a DP Vessel is considered in “location” for custom purposes, however it remain “underway” at all times therefore a Master is required to be on board and he must be in CHARGE of the vessel. I propose the analogy of a cruise ship, there is a Cruise Director on board, however the Master is in charge at all times. Any comments on this? I would like some answers from USCG or any other officials.