[QUOTE=Sweat-n-Grease;92277]Long before there was silicone, long before red hand, there was a product called “White Lead” but I may be a lonesome cowboy here on that one.[/QUOTE]
I have a can of white lead sitting right next to 3 cans of freon12.
At 5:15 pm Alaska Time, AIS put ALERT & NANIQ at 56-27 N / 153-17 W . (That’s 20 some miles east of Sitkanak Island). I assume that must be where KULLUK is drifting. AIVIQ was at 56-14 N / 153-22 W and making 10.3 knots to the north back toward ALERT & NANIQ.
Not too many options for re-making tow I’d imagine considering no crew aboard and the prevailing conditions. Every article about shell’s adventures just gave me a bad impression that it was all a rush, be it to get up there and drill in the first place after all the “setbacks” ($&#*-ups) earlier in the season. An earlier article said they “left in a rush” so it pretty much sums it up. Can’t imagine anyone sailing with that kind of vessel in tow with a forecast like that on their own initiative. Poor buckles…
[QUOTE=tugsailor;92298]TOW LINES PARTED AGAIN ----- KULLUK ADRIFT — just in from from Alaska Daily News
Shell drill rig adrift again in Gulf of Alaska
Tug towing Shell drill ship has engine trouble off Kodiak
Drill ship, tows still battle Gulf of Alaska storm
An unmanned mobile oil drilling rig owned by Royal Dutch Shell is adrift – again – south of Kodiak Island after it lost towlines Sunday afternoon from two vessels trying to hold it in place against what have been pummeling winds and high seas, according to incident management leaders.
A team of 250 people from the Coast Guard, the state of Alaska, Royal Dutch Shell, and one of its contractors was hunkered down Sunday, mainly in Midtown Anchorage’s Frontier Building, trying to resolve an ongoing crisis with the Shell-owned drilling rig, the Kulluk.
Before the latest turn for the worse, representatives of the Coast Guard, Shell and the state Department of Environmental Conversation told reporters in a briefing Sunday that the situation was critical, but under control.
Then tow lines from the Aiviq and a second support vessel, the Nanuq “separated,” the joint command team said in a statement sent out at about 4:30 p.m.
A third vessel, the tug Alert, has arrived to the scene from Prince William Sound.
“The crew is evaluating all options for reconnecting with the Kulluk,” the command team said.
The incident team also must find a safe harbor for the Aiviq, as well as the Kulluk, to undergo inspections and possible repairs before heading south to Everett, Wash., where the Kulluk had been headed for off-season maintenance.
[/QUOTE]
They need to get a line on it first.
Wait for a break in the weather and put a salvage crew aboard Kulluk to take a line. Or let it drift. What other options are there? How fast is that thing drifting? Forecast is for five days of S’ly winds 30 kts or more.
K.C.
Bad news, surprised they didn’t leave a few folks on the rig in case.
I hope that Shell called in a salvage crew on Friday and that they are already in Kodiak with the necessary gear waiting to be flown out to KULLUK at first light.
The best weather window for reconnecting the tow appears to be between daylight and noon. They might be able to have two tugs “pair-trawl” to catch KULLUK in the bight and slow its drift, but even if that could be done (a very big if), it probably would not last too long before it chaffed off. I don’t see how they are going to get towing gear that would last for any length of time made up again without some crew on the rig to help them.
[QUOTE=tugsailor;92306]I hope that Shell called in a salvage crew on Friday and that they are already in Kodiak with the necessary gear waiting to be flown out to KULLUK at first light.
The best weather window for reconnecting the tow appears to be between daylight and noon. They might be able to have two tugs “pair-trawl” to catch KULLUK in the bight and slow its drift, but even if that could be done (a very big if), it probably would not last too long before it chaffed off. I don’t see how they are going to get towing gear that would last for any length of time made up again without some crew on the rig to help them.[/QUOTE]
Well, taking a tow across the Gulf isn’t rocket science. I’ve made a trip or two myself. If Shell can’t manage to get a tow across the Gulf how the fuck are they going to do anything more complex then that?
K.C.
[QUOTE=rshrew;92305]Bad news, surprised they didn’t leave a few folks on the rig in case.[/QUOTE]
I thought it was a very bad idea to take everyone off the moment that I heard they were considering it. Given that they had already parted the tow once, it was just a question time until it happened again. Of course, I wasn’t there and I don’t know how much danger the KULLUK’s crew was actually in. Maybe they were concerned that the KULLUK may sink, or they viewed a grounding as highly likely. I just don’t know?
I think the C.G. required them to pull off the crew. At one point they were saying it was 12 hrs off the Trinity Islands…
K.C.
“Safety of our responders remains our top priority, and we are evaluating options for safely re-establishing a tow with the Kulluk,” said Capt. Paul Mehler III, Federal On-Scene Commander
[QUOTE=tugsailor;92306]I hope that Shell called in a salvage crew on Friday and that they are already in Kodiak with the necessary gear waiting to be flown out to KULLUK at first light.
The best weather window for reconnecting the tow appears to be between daylight and noon. They might be able to have two tugs “pair-trawl” to catch KULLUK in the bight and slow its drift, but even if that could be done (a very big if), it probably would not last too long before it chaffed off. I don’t see how they are going to get towing gear that would last for any length of time made up again without some crew on the rig to help them.[/QUOTE]
THE most experienced salvage company there is Magone Marine in Dutch, they are gnarly and I would want them on the KULLUK.
at 6:35 Local time, AIS put
NANIQ at 56-32 N / 153-13 W (about 20 miles east of Sitkinak Island). NANIQ appears to have covered about 4 miles to the NW in and hour and 15 mins, but that may not mean much of anynthing in relation to KULLUK’s drift.
ALERT at 56-30 N / 15309 W
AIVIQ at 56-28 / 153-14
GUARDSMAN at 56-28 N / 152-56 W
[QUOTE=tugsailor;92318]at 6:35 Local time, AIS put
NANIQ at 56-32 N / 153-13 W (about 20 miles east of Sitkinak Island). NANIQ appears to have covered about 4 miles to the NW in and hour and 15 mins, but that may not mean much of anynthing in relation to KULLUK’s drift.
ALERT at 56-30 N / 15309 W
AIVIQ at 56-28 / 153-14
GUARDSMAN at 56-28 N / 152-56 W[/QUOTE]
They have 30 miles north, with 30 kts of wind they would drift at what? About 2 kts or a little more? 15 hours or less.
If they put a salvage crew on it who will run the equipment? Are the generators still running?
K.C.
HERE IS THE LATEST ADN UPDATE:
Shell drilling vessel adrift again in Gulf of Alaska
Published: December 30, 2012 Updated 9 minutes ago
7 Comments E-mail Print
A Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules aircraft from Air Station Kodiak overflies the tugs Aiviq and Nanuq tandem towing the mobile drilling unit Kulluk 116 miles southwest of Kodiak City, Alaska, Sunday, Dec. 30, 2012. The tug Alert from Prince William Sound and the Coast Guard Cutter Alex Haley from Kodiak are en route to assist.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Chris Usher — U.S. Coast Guard
Related Links:
LinkVideo of Coast Guard evacuation of Kulluk crew
Related Stories:
Drill ship and tow vessels still battling Gulf of Alaska storm
Drill ship, tows still battle Gulf of Alaska storm
Coast Guard evacuates crew from Shell drill vessel
Tug towing Shell drill ship has engine trouble off Kodiak
Related Galleries:
Gallery: Kulluk evacuation
Story Photos:
The tugs Aiviq and Nanuq tow the mobile drilling unit Kulluk.
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By LISA DEMER — ldemer@adn.com
An unmanned mobile oil drilling rig owned by Royal Dutch Shell is adrift – again – south of Kodiak Island after it lost towlines Sunday afternoon from two vessels trying to hold it in place against what have been pummeling winds and high seas, according to incident management leaders.
A team of 250 people from the Coast Guard, the state of Alaska, Royal Dutch Shell, and one of its contractors was hunkered down Sunday, mainly in Midtown Anchorage’s Frontier Building, trying to resolve an ongoing crisis with the Shell-owned drilling rig, the Kulluk.
Before the latest turn for the worse, representatives of the Coast Guard, Shell and the state Department of Environmental Conservation told reporters in a briefing early Sunday afternoon that the situation was critical, but under control.
Then tow lines from the Aiviq and a second support vessel, the Nanuq “separated,” the joint command team said in a statement sent out at about 4:30 p.m. The setback happened sometime after 1 p.m., just as commanders were briefing news media on what appeared until then to be a successful response. They didn’t yet know the towlines had broken free, said Shell spokesman Curtis Smith, who is part of the unified incident command team.
A third vessel, the tug Alert, which is usually stationed in Prince William Sound as part of an emergency response system, has arrived on the scene. And a fourth Shell-contracted support ship, the Guardsman, is on location.
“The crew is evaluating all options for reconnecting with the Kulluk,” the command team said.
With no towlines securing it in place, the crew-less Kulluk is drifting about 20 miles south of Sitkinak Island, near Kodiak. Smith said he had not yet been briefed on how many hours it would take the Kulluk to reach shore because of the many variables, including currents and wind speed, but that crews are working to prevent that. He said he would provide the information when he gets it.
The incident team also must find a safe harbor for the Aiviq, as well as the Kulluk, to undergo inspections and possible repairs before heading south to Everett, Wash., where the Kulluk had been headed for off-season maintenance before the troubles began.
The Kulluk is a conical-shaped mobile rig that began drilling a single exploratory well in the Beaufort Sea this year. But it cannot propel itself and a series of failures involving the rig began on Thursday during a stormy Gulf of Alaska crossing.
The Kulluk lost its towline from the Aiviq initially on Thursday. A second tow line was attached for a time, but then early Friday all four engines on the Aiviq failed.
The towline mishaps and the engine failures are under investigation, Sean Churchfield, Shell’s incident commander and the company’s operations manager for Alaska, told reporters.
The Aiviq is a new ship commissioned by Shell for its Arctic work and built and owned by Louisiana-based maritime company Edison Chouest Offshore.
On Saturday, the Kulluk’s 18-person crew was safely evacuated to Kodiak, the Aiviq’s engines were repaired with new fuel injectors, and the Nanuq, also under contract to Shell, put a towline on the Kulluk. The Aiviq then was running off two engines at a time, as a precaution, officials said Sunday before the latest failure was known.
Initial reports suggested that contaminated fuel might have caused the engines to malfunction, but that hasn’t been confirmed through fuel analysis, Churchfield said.
However, the fuel now being used is from a different tank than that in use when the engines failed, said Shell’s Smith.
Two crew members on the Aiviq suffered minor injuries at some point, but both are back at work, Churchfield said.
No oil has been spilled during the incident, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Reach Lisa Demer at ldemer@adn.com or 257-4390.
Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2012/12/30/2738222/shell-drill-rig-adrift-again-in.html#storylink=cpy
Sure am glad office said no when shell called crying.
[QUOTE=Kennebec Captain;92320]They have 30 miles north, with 30 kts of wind they would drift at what? About 2 kts or a little more? 15 hours or less.
If they put a salvage crew on it who will run the equipment? Are the generators still running?
K.C.[/QUOTE]
One would hope they filled the day tanks and left the generators running before they evacuated. I think it would be pretty damn difficult to rig up pennants and reconnect tow lines without an operating crane and winches. A professional salvage crew would know how to get things running and operate the crane and winches, and rig towing pennants that would hold.
Remember about 20 years ago when that Hyundai containership ship caught fire south of the Aleutians and the crew abandoned ship? Smit flew a salvage team from Europe out to Dutch Harbor with a container of gear and chartered the MALOLO. Smit dispatched a salvage tug from Singapore (as I recall, I think it was either the SMIT LONDON or the SMIT ROTTERDAM). The MALOLO searched for several days before finding the ship (it had gone dark and cold) quite some distance (maybe 200 miles) east of where they had expected to find it. I have no idea how, but the MALOLO managed to put the Smit salvage team alongside in a big swell and they climbed aboard the ship aboard with their gear. They had the ship all rigged up to be promptly taken under tow when the Smit tug arrived a few days later. As I recall, they towed her to straight to Puget Sound without incident.
I hope that Shell has a good salvage team in Kodiak ready to go aboard at daylight to get the tow reconnected.
I have been on tugs that have lost a wire while towing a Un-Manned Barge. The weather was no where near what these guys are dealing with and let me tell you it was not fun. We got lucky when a AB made a leap of fate and jumped from the tug to the barge. We were in around 10 foot seas this could have gone bad in so many ways. The AB did get to spent 4 days all by himself on the barge as was could not get him back off after getting the wire back up.
With all of the Tow Gear that this boats have gone through I would think that they are running low on spare towing gear. I guess the CG can Air Drop some more down to them.
Let’s hope that everyone stays safe and does not try anything stupid!
The ALEX HEALY just arrived back on the scene. NANIQ is at 56-36 N / 153-11 W about 4 miles north of where she was an hour and a half ago.
Here is the latest update from ADN:
Shell drilling vessel adrift again in Gulf of Alaska Published: December 30, 2012 Updated 16 minutes ago
[13 Comments](http://www.adn.com/2012/12/30/2738222/shell-drill-rig-adrift-again-in.html#disqus_thread) E-mail Print
[IMG]http://media.adn.com/smedia/2012/12/30/15/23/13DFMn.AuSt.7.jpg[/IMG] A Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules aircraft from Air Station Kodiak overflies the tugs Aiviq and Nanuq tandem towing the mobile drilling unit Kulluk 116 miles southwest of Kodiak City, Alaska, Sunday, Dec. 30, 2012. The tug Alert from Prince William Sound and the Coast Guard Cutter Alex Haley from Kodiak are en route to assist.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Chris Usher — U.S. Coast Guard
[ul]
[li]Related Links: [/li][li]LinkVideo of Coast Guard evacuation of Kulluk crew [/li][li]Related Stories: [/li][li]Drill ship and tow vessels still battling Gulf of Alaska storm [/li][li]Drill ship, tows still battle Gulf of Alaska storm [/li][li]Coast Guard evacuates crew from Shell drill vessel [/li][li]Tug towing Shell drill ship has engine trouble off Kodiak [/li][li]Related Galleries: [/li][li]Gallery: Kulluk evacuation [/li][/ul]
[ul]
[li]Story Photos: [/li][li] 
[/li] 
[li]Previous PageNext Page [/li][/ul]
By LISA DEMER — [EMAIL="ldemer@adn.com"]ldemer@adn.com[/EMAIL]
An unmanned mobile oil drilling rig owned by Royal Dutch Shell is adrift -- again -- south of Kodiak Island after it lost towlines Sunday afternoon from two vessels trying to hold it in place against what have been pummeling winds and high seas, according to incident management leaders.
A team of 250 people from the Coast Guard, the state of Alaska, Royal Dutch Shell, and one of its contractors was hunkered down Sunday, mainly in Midtown Anchorage’s Frontier Building, trying to resolve the ongoing crisis with the Shell-owned drilling rig, the Kulluk.
Before the latest turn for the worse, representatives of the Coast Guard, Shell and the state Department of Environmental Conservation told reporters in a briefing early Sunday afternoon that the situation was critical, but under control.
Then tow lines from the Aiviq and a second support vessel, the Nanuq “separated,” the joint command team said in a statement sent out at about 4:30 p.m. The setback happened sometime after 1 p.m., just as commanders were briefing news media on what appeared at that point to be a successful response after a series of failures. They didn’t yet know the towlines had broken free, said Shell spokesman Curtis Smith, who is part of the unified incident command team.
A third vessel, the tug Alert, which is usually stationed in Prince William Sound as part of an emergency response system, has arrived on the scene. And a fourth Shell-contracted support ship, the Guardsman, is on location.
“The crew is evaluating all options for reconnecting with the Kulluk,” the command team said. Tow lines are still attached to the Kulluk and conceivably could be reattached to the nearby ships, Smith said.
But with its crew evacuated for safety reasons, there’s no one on board to tend the winches or maneuver equipment, Sean Churchfield, Shell’s incident commander and the company’s operations manager for Alaska, told reporters earlier on Sunday.
All decisions, including the evacuation, are being made by the group as a whole, said Capt. Paul Mehler, the Coast Guard’s Anchorage-based commander.
The Gulf of Alaska storm has been fierce, with near-hurricane winds on Saturday night, Mehler said. Only a small lull is predicted for Monday morning, according to the National Weather Service. The forecast for Sunday night was 28-foot seas and winds in the range of 50 mph or more, about what it was on Saturday, said meteorologist Bob Clay. Seas and winds are expected to diminish Monday morning, then pick back up later in the day as another storm moves in, he said.
With no towlines securing it in place, the crew-less Kulluk is drifting about 20 miles south of Sitkinak Island, part of the Trinity Islands, south of Kodiak. Smith said early Sunday evening that he had not yet been briefed on how many hours it would take the Kulluk to reach shore if it continues adrift. A number of variables, including currents and wind speed, would affect when and where it hit, if it came to that, he noted. He said he would provide the information when he gets it.
The incident team also must find a safe harbor for the Aiviq, as well as the Kulluk, to undergo inspections and possible repairs before heading south to Everett, Wash., where the Kulluk had been headed for off-season maintenance before the troubles began.
The $290 million, 266-foot diameter Kulluk is a conical-shaped mobile rig that began drilling a single exploratory well in the Beaufort Sea this year. But it cannot propel itself, and a series of failures involving the rig began on Thursday during a stormy Gulf of Alaska crossing.
The 360-foot, $200 million Aiviq is a new ship commissioned by Shell for its Arctic work and built and owned by Louisiana-based maritime company Edison Chouest Offshore.
The Kulluk lost its towline from the Aiviq on Thursday. A second tow line was attached for a time, but then early Friday all four engines on the Aiviq failed. The Coast Guard sent the Alex Haley, a 282-foot cutter. It delivered a towline to the Aiviq, which was still attached to the Kulluk, but the sheer mass of the ship and the drilling rig, combined with 40 mph winds and building 35-foot seas, broke the connection and the line became tangled in the cutter’s propeller and damaged it. The Alex Haley turned back to Kodiak for repair, but now is back at the Kulluk scene.
The towline mishaps and the engine failures are under investigation, Churchfield said.
On Saturday, the Kulluk’s 18-person crew was safely evacuated to Kodiak in two Coast Guard helicopters. The Aiviq’s engines were repaired with new fuel injectors, and the Nanuq, also under contract to Shell, put a towline on the Kulluk, for a time. The Aiviq then was running off two engines at a time, as a precaution, officials said Sunday.
Initial reports suggested that contaminated fuel might have caused the engines to malfunction, but that hasn’t been confirmed through fuel analysis, Churchfield said.
“I don’t really want to speculate as to the causes of the propulsion failure on the Aiviq,” he said. "We are looking for the solutions and we will have a full investigation. At this stage I don’t have any firm information to pass onto you."
However, the fuel now being used is from a different tank than that in use when the engines failed, said Shell’s Smith.
The plan to use just a single ship to tow the Kulluk was reasonable, given the Aiviq’s features, said the Coast Guard’s Mehler.
“This type of operation is very normal. With the vessel the size of the Aiviq, with the capabilities of the Aiviq, with four engines, it was above and beyond what would be required to be able to tow, even in very extreme conditions,” the commander said.
Shell did not have to get Coast Guard approval of its towing plan, because the maritime operation was so routine. But the oil company did consult with the agency as the vessels began their journey, Mehler said.
At the start of Shell’s 2012 drilling season, the Aiviq towed the Kulluk from a shipyard in Washington state to Dutch Harbor and then to the Beaufort Sea, where two tugs took over to handle it, Churchfield said.
Two crew members on the Aiviq suffered minor injuries at some point, but both are back at work, Churchfield said.
No oil has been spilled during the incident, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
Shell has had a difficult experience as it tries to drill offshore in the Alaska Arctic. It couldn’t drill to oil-rich zones because its novel oil spill containment dome was damaged during testing. Its other drilling rig, a converted log carrier called the Noble Discoverer, recently was cited by the Coast Guard for problems with safety and pollution discharge equipment. Mehler ordered it held in Seward while the most serious issues were addressed. While the ship now is free to leave for Seattle, it remains docked in Seward because it is waiting for escort vessels now working on the Kulluk situation, Smith said.
In 1980, in a situation eerily similar to what is happening now, 18 crew members were evacuated off a jack-up drilling rig named the Dan Prince as rough seas in the North Pacific 650 miles south of Kodiak threatened to destroy the unit, according to news reports at the time. Heavy seas prevented crews from attaching a tow line. The rig then sank, according to an online listing of rig disasters.
Reach Lisa Demer at ldemer@adn.com or 257-4390.
LATEST UPDATE FROM ALASKA DAILY NEWS:
Shell drilling vessel adrift again in Gulf of Alaska
Published: December 30, 2012 Updated 8 minutes ago
21 Comments E-mail Print
By LISA DEMER — ldemer@adn.com
An unmanned mobile oil drilling rig owned by Royal Dutch Shell is adrift – again – south of Kodiak Island after it lost towlines Sunday afternoon from two vessels trying to hold it in place against what have been pummeling winds and high seas, according to incident management leaders.
A team of 250 people from the Coast Guard, the state of Alaska, Shell, and one of its contractors was hunkered down Sunday, mainly in Midtown Anchorage’s Frontier Building, trying to resolve the ongoing crisis with Shell’s drilling rig, the Kulluk.
Before the latest turn for the worse, representatives of Shell, the Coast Guard and the state Department of Environmental Conservation told reporters in a briefing early Sunday afternoon that the situation was critical, but under control.
Then [B]towlines[/B] from two Shell-contracted support vessels, the Aiviq and the Nanuq, [B]“separated,” [/B]the joint command team said in a statement sent out at about 4:30 p.m. The setback happened [B]sometime after 1 p.m[/B]., just as commanders were briefing news media on what appeared at that point to be a successful response after a series of failures. They didn’t yet know the towlines had broken free, said Shell spokesman Curtis Smith, who is part of the unified incident command team.
A third vessel, the tug Alert, which is usually stationed in Prince William Sound as part of an emergency response system, has arrived on the scene. And another Shell-contracted support ship, the Guardsman, is on location.
“The crew is evaluating all options for reconnecting with the Kulluk,” the command team said. [B]Towlines are still attached to the Kulluk and conceivably could be reattached to nearby ships,[/B] Smith said. Shell crews use 10-inch steel cables or synthetic lines that attach to vessels with hardware, he said.
[B]With the Kulluk crew evacuated for safety reasons, there’s no one on board to tend the winches or maneuver equipment,[/B] Sean Churchfield, Shell’s incident commander and the company’s operations manager for Alaska, told reporters earlier on Sunday.
All decisions, including the evacuation, are being made by the group as a whole, said Capt. Paul Mehler, the Coast Guard’s Anchorage-based commander.
HEAVY SEAS FOIL TOWS
Crews are waiting for a break in the weather to secure the towline, Smith said.
The Gulf of Alaska storm has been fierce, with near-hurricane winds on Saturday night, Mehler said. Only a small lull is predicted for Monday morning, according to the National Weather Service. The forecast for Sunday night was 28-foot seas and winds in the range of 50 mph or more, about what it was on Saturday, said meteorologist Bob Clay. Seas and winds are expected to diminish early Monday morning, then pick back up later in the day as another storm moves in, he said.
With no towlines securing it in place, the crewless Kulluk was drifting about 25 miles south of Kodiak, Smith said Sunday evening. He didn’t have an estimate on how many hours it would take the Kulluk to reach shore if it continued adrift. A number of variables, including currents and wind speed, would affect when and where it hit, if it came to that, he noted.
The incident team also must find a safe harbor for the Aiviq, as well as the Kulluk, to undergo inspections and possible repairs before heading south to Everett, Wash., where the Kulluk had been headed for off-season maintenance before the troubles began.
The $290 million, 266-foot diameter Kulluk is a conical-shaped mobile rig that began drilling a single exploratory well in the Beaufort Sea this year. But it cannot propel itself, and a series of failures involving it began on Thursday during a stormy Gulf of Alaska crossing.
The 360-foot, $200 million Aiviq is a new ship commissioned by Shell for its Arctic work, built and owned by Louisiana-based maritime company Edison Chouest Offshore. It has 24 crew members on board, Smith said.
The Kulluk lost its towline from the Aiviq on Thursday. A second towline was attached for a time, but then early Friday all four engines on the Aiviq failed. The Coast Guard sent the Alex Haley, a 282-foot cutter. It delivered a towline to the Aiviq, which was still attached to the Kulluk, but the sheer mass of the ship and the drilling rig, combined with 40 mph winds and building 35-foot seas, broke the connection and the line became tangled in the cutter’s propeller and damaged it. The Alex Haley turned back to Kodiak for repair, but now is back at the Kulluk scene.
‘FULL INVESTIGATION’
On Saturday, the Kulluk’s 18-person crew was safely evacuated to Kodiak in two Coast Guard helicopters. A Coast Guard video shows the Kulluk bobbing in rolling seas as a helicopter approaches to lower a basket and lift the crew members out, one by one.
The [B]Aiviq’s engines were repaired with new fuel injectors,[/B] and the Nanuq put a towline on the Kulluk for a time. The Aiviq then was running with two engines at a time, as a precaution, officials said Sunday.
The towline mishaps and the engine failures are under investigation, Churchfield said. Initial reports suggested that contaminated fuel might have caused the engines to malfunction, but that hasn’t been confirmed through fuel analysis, he said.
“I don’t really want to speculate as to the causes of the propulsion failure on the Aiviq,” Churchfield said. “We are looking for the solutions and we will have a full investigation. At this stage, I don’t have any firm information to pass onto you.”
However, the fuel now being used is from a different tank than that in use when the engines failed, said Shell’s Smith.
The plan to use just a single ship to tow the Kulluk was reasonable, given the Aiviq’s features, said the Coast Guard’s Mehler.
“This type of operation is very normal. With the vessel the size of the Aiviq, with the capabilities of the Aiviq, with four engines, it was above and beyond what would be required to be able to tow, even in very extreme conditions,” the commander said.
Shell did not have to get Coast Guard approval of its towing plan, because the maritime operation was so routine. But the oil company did consult with the agency about the journey, Mehler said.
At the start of Shell’s 2012 drilling season, the Aiviq towed the Kulluk from a shipyard in Washington state to Dutch Harbor though eventually two tugs took over its handling in the Beaufort Sea, Churchfield said.
A DIFFICULT START
Two crew members on the Aiviq suffered minor injuries at some point, but both are back at work, Churchfield said.
No oil has been spilled during the incident, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
Shell has had a difficult experience as it tries to drill offshore in the Alaska Arctic, its first attempt in two decades. It couldn’t drill to oil-rich zones because its novel oil spill containment dome was damaged during testing. Its other drilling rig, a converted log carrier called the Noble Discoverer, recently was cited by the Coast Guard for problems with safety and pollution discharge equipment. Mehler ordered it held in Seward while the most serious issues were addressed. While the ship now is free to leave for Seattle, it remains docked in Seward because it is waiting for escort vessels working on the Kulluk situation, Smith said.
In October 1980, in a situation eerily similar to what is happening now, 18 crew members were evacuated off a jack-up drilling rig named the Dan Prince as rough seas in the North Pacific 650 miles south of Kodiak threatened to destroy the unit, according to news reports at the time. Crews couldn’t attach a towline. The rig then sank, according to an online listing of rig disasters.
Reach Lisa Demer at ldemer@adn.com or 257-4390.
Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2012/12/30/2738222/shell-drill-rig-adrift-again-in.html#storylink=cpy
There are reasons we don’t build ships in America anymore, we have forgotten how to do it. It seems Avondale was the last shipyard to produce a decent US flagged ship. It’s funny to see the Youtube post of the tug with its deck awash. How many vessels have purchased fuel in Alaska and not had complete catastrophic engine failure? Especially such a high profile vessel that has multiple fuel tanks, settling tanks, centrifuges, and day tanks… all of the things that exist to prevent such failures. But with that much water on deck and low vents water contamination could certainly be a problem. Now… the failures occurred right after a failure of the tow gear? I know of few people who speak poorly of Cat 3600 engines failing injectors during large load changes. A failure of the tow gear would certainly result in changes in load. The Aiviq has C280 engines which may be mechanical injectors? Cat redesignated their engine line-up and I do not know if the C280 is still available in a mechanical injection engine or of it is only common rail.