tagged w/ oil rigs
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First Permit Since BP Catastrophe
February 28, 2011
Posted In: Oil Rig
By Injury at Sea on February 28, 2011 4:12 PM
The Department of the Interior has issued the first deep water drilling permit in the Gulf of Mexico to Noble Energy, Inc. since the BP Oil Spill, a senior official said Monday.
After a thorough vetting process, Noble Energy Inc. has been granted permission to resume drilling in 6,500 feet of water off the coast of Louisiana. Work on the well was suspended, along with virtually all other drilling activity in water deeper than 5,000 feet, immediately after the Deepwater Horizon accident last April 20, which killed 11 rig workers and spewed nearly five million barrels of oil into the ocean.
Michael R. Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, said that Noble Energy Inc. had been granted permission to resume drilling in 6,500 feet of water off the coast of Louisiana. Work on the well was suspended, along with virtually all other drilling activity in water deeper than 5,000 feet, immediately after the Deepwater Horizon accident last April 20, which killed 11 rig workers and spewed nearly five million barrels of oil into the ocean.
"Noble Energy's application has met the requirements of our new safety regulations and information requirements." Bromwich said in a conference call with reporters.
"This means among other things that Noble Energy has met new requirements to show that it is prepared to deal with a potential blowout and potential for a worst-case discharge scenario."
Bromwich said there were seven applications pending. "We are moving forward with deepwater drilling," he said, underscoring that all applications would be determined on "a well-by-well basis."First Permit Since BP Catastrophe
February 28, 2011
Posted In: Oil Rig
By Injury... more
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Commission spreads the blame for Gulf oil disaster in report
By the CNN Wire Staff
January 5, 2011 11:32 p.m. EST
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill could have been avoided, a soon-to-be-released commission report says.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* The problems with deepwater drilling are "systemic," the commission's report says
* Report: Blowout, subsequent spill at Deepwater Horizon could have been avoided
* Commission co-chairman says companies should have been committed to safety first
(CNN) -- "Systemic" problems caused the Deepwater Horizon blowout and subsequent oil spill and only "significant reform" will prevent another, President Barack Obama's commission studying the disaster says in its soon-to-be-released report.
The National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling on Wednesday released a chapter of the report that it says contains the key findings. The report is to be released in full on Tuesday.
"The Macondo blowout was the product of several individual missteps and oversights by BP, Halliburton, and Transocean, which government regulators lacked the authority, the necessary resources, and the technical expertise to prevent," the report says.
"The blowout was not the product of a series of aberrational decisions made by rogue industry or government officials that could not have been anticipated or expected to occur again. Rather, the root causes are systemic and, absent significant reform in both industry practices and government policies, might well recur."
An April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 men and injured 17 working on the rig, launching the worst oil spill in U.S. history. The Macondo well spewed crude into the gulf for three months before the wellhead was successfully capped.
But nearly 5 million barrels of crude oil -- more than 200 million gallons -- spilled into the salt waters, washing up onto beaches and penetrating fragile marshes. Birds and other animals were coated in an oily sheen.
The report cites numerous problems:
-- Inadequate risk management.
-- A flawed design for the cement slurry used to seal the bottom of the well.
-- A "negative pressure test" that was incorrectly judged a success.
-- Flawed procedures for securing the well.
-- Inattention to signals of an impending blowout.
-- An ineffective response to the blowout itself.
"Whether purposeful or not, many of the decisions that BP, Halliburton, and Transocean made that increased the risk of the Macondo blowout clearly saved those companies significant time (and money)," the report says.
The Deepwater Horizon rig was owned by Transocean and leased to BP. Halliburton was installing the cement casing for the drill operations.
BP spokesman Robert Sholars said the oil giant "has cooperated fully with the commission's investigation," stressing "that the accident was the result of multiple causes, involving multiple companies."
"BP is working with regulators and the industry to ensure that the lessons learned from Macondo lead to improvements in operations and contractor services in deepwater drilling," Sholars said.
The U.S. Department of the Interior said it, too, was already implementing reforms.
"The agency has taken unprecedented steps and will continue to make the changes necessary to restore the American people's confidence in the safety and environmental soundness of oil and gas drilling and production on the Outer Continental Shelf, while balancing our nation's important energy needs," spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff said.
Barkoff referred reporters to an Interior Department Web page detailing changes in regulations and procedures already made or in process.
The commission's report also concluded that the catastrophe could have been avoided.
"The commission's findings only compound our sense of tragedy because we know now that the blowout of the Macondo well was avoidable," said commission co-chairman Bob Graham. "This disaster likely would not have happened had the companies involved been guided by an unrelenting commitment to safety first. And it likely would not have happened if the responsible governmental regulators had the capacity and will to demand world class safety standards."
Better management would have prevented the incident, but the management problems are not confined to a one company, Graham's co-chairman, William K. Reilly, said.
"A key question posed from the outset by this tragedy is: Do we have a single company, BP, that blundered with fatal consequences, or a more pervasive problem of a complacent industry?" asked Reilly. "Given the documented failings of both Transocean and Halliburton, both of which serve the off-shore industry in virtually every ocean, I reluctantly conclude we have a system-wide problem."Commission spreads the blame for Gulf oil disaster in report
By the CNN Wire Staff... more
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GRAND ISLE, La. – An offshore oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday, west of the site of the April blast that caused the massive oil spill.
A commercial helicopter company reported the blast around 9:30 a.m. CDT Thursday, Coast Guard Petty Officer Casey Ranel said. Seven helicopters, two airplanes and four boats were en route to the site, about 80 miles south of Vermilion Bay along the central Louisiana coast.
The Coast Guard said initial reports indicated all 13 crew members from the rig were in the water. One was injured, but there were no deaths.
The platform owned by Mariner Energy is in about 2,500 feet of water, the Coast Guard said, and was not currently producing.
About 206 million gallons of oil from an undersea well spilled into the Gulf after BP's Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20, killing 11 workers.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_rig_explosionGRAND ISLE, La. – An offshore oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on... more
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An ice island broke away from Petermann glacier in northern Greenland and is threatening everything in its path...An ice island broke away from Petermann glacier in northern Greenland and is... more
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Gulf crews are back, preparing to seal crippled well
By the CNN Wire Staff
July 26, 2010 7:24 p.m. EDT
Ships back in Gulf; no new oil seen
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* NEW: Thad Allen says "static kill" effort could begin next week
* NEW: Sealing well from the bottom would take place after that
* NEW: Crews are back at well site after leaving ahead of Tropical Storm Bonnie
* NEW: All signs show the well is structurally sound
New Orleans, Louisiana (CNN) -- Crews are back at BP's crippled oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, preparing for two efforts to seal the well, after activity was halted over the weekend because of bad weather.
And the U.S. official overseeing the effort, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, now says he expects the first step to begin early next week, provided that there are no more weather delays. The "static kill" involves pouring mud and cement into the well from above.
That would be followed by a second effort to plug the well, sealing it permanently from the bottom through a relief well, which could begin August 7 to 9.
Before either move can take place, BP will have to cement casing into place on the well. That work should begin this week.
Allen outlined the timetable as rigs drilling the relief wells and other ships returned to the scene amid calmer waters; they left last week ahead of Tropical Storm Bonnie. The evacuations delayed efforts to seal the well about a week.
Allen said crews have resumed full monitoring on the well through a range of methods to check its integrity. These include visual inspections by robots, temperature readings, checking vibrations and acoustics, and seismic tests.
All indicate that the well is structurally sound 11 days after valves on a new containment cap were closed, stopping oil from flowing into the Gulf after three months of relentless spills.
The latest readings showed pressure of about 6,900 pounds per square inch, meaning the well is holding, and there don't appear to be any leaks.That's essential before it can be sealed from the top and bottom through the two methods.
Then there's the matter of cleaning up oil in the Gulf.
The oil is harder and harder to find from the air.
The federal on-scene coordinator, Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft, went looking for it in two flights over the weekend, finding only a large patch about 12 miles off Grand Isle, Louisiana. It was emulsified, or broken into many tiny droplets.
No oil could be seen in Louisiana's Lake Borgne, Lake Pontchartrain or Chandeleur Sound, while only a light sheen was visible in other parts of the Gulf.
Zukunft said surface oil is breaking down "very quickly" and naturally now that the flow of crude has been cut off beneath the surface.
More than 790 skimming ships have been pressed into service to collect the surface oil. At the height of the spill, they were collecting 25,000 barrels of oil a day, but one day last week, they managed to get only 56 barrels.
But what about oil that may be lurking below the surface?
Zukunft said Monday that he'll be overseeing a "very aggressive process of monitoring" that involves breaking the Gulf into grids and searching for oil below the surface in several ways. One involves placing "sentinels" in the water: like crab pots but with absorbent material to collect oil. Another involves slowly trawling to check for tar balls.
Zukunft said it's too early to outline a timeline on how the effort will unfold. But he said he'll be meeting with parish presidents Thursday to discuss the process.
In another tactic, dispersants have been used to try to break up the oil, drawing criticism from some who worry about the environmental impact. But Zukunft said that with no oil flowing into the Gulf, it's been more than a week since workers have last used dispersants. He said 200 gallons were used on a patch of oil about 30 miles off Louisiana's coast. The last time dispersants were used previously was about a week before, when 1,000 gallons were used.
BP crews managed to temporarily cap the undersea well at the heart of the 3-month-old disaster July 15.
Oil had gushed from the ruptured well for nearly three months after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20, leaving 11 workers dead. Officials have said a relief well is the only permanent solution to the disaster, which saw as much as 60,000 barrels (2.5 million gallons) of crude spewing into the Gulf every day.
On Sunday, Allen said that officials were examining new oil deposits on the shoreline created by the storm. He said booms that were in sensitive marsh areas caused damage during the storm and may need to be removed before another surge happens.
Meanwhile, rumors swirled Monday about the fate of the man who's headed BP throughout the crisis: Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward, who has become a lightning rod for criticism.
The company released a statement saying, "BP notes the press speculation over the weekend regarding potential changes to management and the charge for the costs of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. BP confirms that no final decision has been made on these matters."
BP spokesman David Nicholas said Monday that any management change would be announced along with the company's release of its quarterly earnings, scheduled for 7 a.m. Tuesday (2 a.m ET).
"I would not expect an announcement tonight," Nicholas said Monday. "I would expect announcements to be made in time for the UK market."
He confirmed that the BP board would be meeting Monday evening at its company headquarters in London, England.
CNN's Allan Chernoff, Vivian Kuo, David Mattingly, Rich Phillips and Matt Smith contributed to this report.Gulf crews are back, preparing to seal crippled well
By the CNN Wire Staff
July 26,... more
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"A BP gas station in Ohio wants you to know you're responsible for small spills made when you leave the pump unattended. What about gigantic spills made when ignoring safety warnings? Oh, they're just happy, ignorable accidents. [Flickr via @BigBoxCar]""A BP gas station in Ohio wants you to know you're responsible for small... more
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PART ONE…
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/us/06rig.html?hp
June 5, 2010
Before Oil Spill, It Was Unclear Who Was in Charge of Rig
By IAN URBINA
NEW ORLEANS — Over six days in May, far from the familiar choreography of Washington hearings, federal investigators grilled workers involved in the Deepwater Horizon disaster in a chilly, sterile conference room at a hotel near the airport here.
The six-member panel of Coast Guard and Minerals Management Service officials pressed for answers about what occurred on the rig on April 20 before it exploded. They wanted to know who was in charge, and heard conflicting answers.
They pushed for more insight into an argument on the rig that day between a manager for BP, the well’s owner, and one for Transocean, the rig’s owner, and asked Curt R. Kuchta, the rig’s captain, how the crew knew who was in charge.
“It’s pretty well understood amongst the crew who’s in charge,” he said.
“How do they know that?” a Coast Guard investigator asked.
“I guess, I don’t know,” Captain Kuchta said. “But it’s pretty well — everyone knows.”
Looking annoyed, Capt. Hung Nguyen of the Coast Guard, one of the chief federal investigators, shook his head. The exchange confirmed an observation he had made earlier in the day at the hearing.
“A lot of activities seem not very tightly coordinated in the way that would make me comfortable,” he said. “Maybe that’s just the way of business out there.”
Investigators have focused on the minute-to-minute decisions and breakdowns to understand what led to the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, killing 11 people and setting off the largest oil spill in United States history and an environmental disaster. But the lack of coordination was not limited to the day of the explosion.
New government and BP documents, interviews with experts and testimony by witnesses provide the clearest indication to date that a hodgepodge of oversight agencies granted exceptions to rules, allowed risks to accumulate and made a disaster more likely on the rig, particularly with a mix of different companies operating on the Deepwater whose interests were not always in sync.
And in the aftermath, arguments about who is in charge of the cleanup — often a signal that no one is in charge — have led to delays, distractions and disagreements over how to cap the well and defend the coastline. As a result, with oil continuing to gush a mile below the surface in the Gulf of Mexico, the laws of physics are largely in control, creating the daunting challenge of trying to plug a hole at depths where equipment is straining under more than a ton of pressure per square inch.
Tad W. Patzek, chairman of the Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Department at the University of Texas, Austin, has analyzed reports of what led to the explosion. “It’s a very complex operation in which the human element has not been aligned with the complexity of the system,” he said in an interview last week.
His conclusion could also apply to what occurred long before the disaster.
CONTINUED…PART ONE…
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/us/06rig.html?hp
June 5, 2010... more
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Photo caption: Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar visited a wildlife treatment center in Louisiana on Saturday.
May 15, 2010
Giant Plumes of Oil Forming Under the Gulf
By JUSTIN GILLIS
Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given.
“There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,” said Samantha Joye, a researcher at the University of Georgia who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather details about what is happening in the gulf. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column.”
The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes.
Dr. Joye said the oxygen had already dropped 30 percent near some of the plumes in the month that the broken oil well had been flowing. “If you keep those kinds of rates up, you could draw the oxygen down to very low levels that are dangerous to animals in a couple of months,” she said Saturday. “That is alarming.”
The plumes were discovered by scientists from several universities working aboard the research vessel Pelican, which sailed from Cocodrie, La., on May 3 and has gathered extensive samples and information about the disaster in the gulf.
Scientists studying video of the gushing oil well have tentatively calculated that it could be flowing at a rate of 25,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil a day. The latter figure would be 3.4 million gallons a day. But the government, working from satellite images of the ocean surface, has calculated a flow rate of only 5,000 barrels a day.
BP has resisted entreaties from scientists that they be allowed to use sophisticated instruments at the ocean floor that would give a far more accurate picture of how much oil is really gushing from the well.
“The answer is no to that,” a BP spokesman, Tom Mueller, said on Saturday. “We’re not going to take any extra efforts now to calculate flow there at this point. It’s not relevant to the response effort, and it might even detract from the response effort.”
The undersea plumes may go a long way toward explaining the discrepancy between the flow estimates, suggesting that much of the oil emerging from the well could be lingering far below the sea surface.
The scientists on the Pelican mission, which is backed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency that monitors the health of the oceans, are not certain why that would be. They say they suspect the heavy use of chemical dispersants, which BP has injected into the stream of oil emerging from the well, may have broken the oil up into droplets too small to rise rapidly.
BP said Saturday at a briefing in Robert, La., that it had resumed undersea application of dispersants, after winning Environmental Protection Agency approval the day before.
“It appears that the application of the subsea dispersant is actually working,” Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer for exploration and production, said Saturday. “The oil in the immediate vicinity of the well and the ships and rigs working in the area is diminished from previous observations.”
Many scientists had hoped the dispersants would cause oil droplets to spread so widely that they would be less of a problem in any one place. If it turns out that is not happening, the strategy could come under greater scrutiny. Dispersants have never been used in an oil leak of this size a mile under the ocean, and their effects at such depth are largely unknown.
Much about the situation below the water is unclear, and the scientists stressed that their results were preliminary. After the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, they altered a previously scheduled research mission to focus on the effects of the leak.
Interviewed on Saturday by satellite phone, one researcher aboard the Pelican, Vernon Asper of the University of Southern Mississippi, said the shallowest oil plume the group had detected was at about 2,300 feet, while the deepest was near the seafloor at about 4,200 feet.
“We’re trying to map them, but it’s a tedious process,” Dr. Asper said. “Right now it looks like the oil is moving southwest, not all that rapidly.”
He said they had taken water samples from areas that oil had not yet reached, and would compare those with later samples to judge the impact on the chemistry and biology of the ocean.
While they have detected the plumes and their effects with several types of instruments, the researchers are still not sure about their density, nor do they have a very good fix on the dimensions.
Given their size, the plumes cannot possibly be made of pure oil, but more likely consist of fine droplets of oil suspended in a far greater quantity of water, Dr. Joye said. She added that in places, at least, the plumes might be the consistency of a thin salad dressing.
Dr. Joye is serving as a coordinator of the mission from her laboratory in Athens, Ga. Researchers from the University of Mississippi and the University of Southern Mississippi are aboard the boat taking samples and running instruments.
Dr. Joye said the findings about declining oxygen levels were especially worrisome, since oxygen is so slow to move from the surface of the ocean to the bottom. She suspects that oil-eating bacteria are consuming the oxygen at a feverish clip as they work to break down the plumes.
While the oxygen depletion so far is not enough to kill off sea life, the possibility looms that oxygen levels could fall so low as to create large dead zones, especially at the seafloor. “That’s the big worry,” said Ray Highsmith, head of the Mississippi center that sponsored the mission, known as the National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology.
The Pelican mission is due to end Sunday, but the scientists are seeking federal support to resume it soon.
“This is a new type of event, and it’s critically important that we really understand it, because of the incredible number of oil platforms not only in the Gulf of Mexico but all over the world now,” Dr. Highsmith said. “We need to know what these events are like, and what their outcomes can be, and what can be done to deal with the next one.”
Shaila Dewan contributed reporting from Robert, La.Photo caption: Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar visited a wildlife treatment... more
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Sponsored by the John Hardy Group and Hospitality Design Magazine, the international design competition focused on innovations in hospitality. The Morris design team wanted to take advantage of the an abandoned oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico and reuse the structure, transforming it into a vibrant and commercially viable destination. The luxury resort offers many amenities including interaction with the surrounding ocean - boating, snorkeling, diving and other water sports. The Rig Hotel will also draw in conferences and business meetings, and will serve as a cruise ship’s main port of call en route to other locations in Mexico and the Caribbean.
Situated in the middle of the ocean, the Rig Hotel will need to be as autonomous as possible, generating all of it’s own power from renewable energy, most notably via a large vertical axis wind turbine affixed to one of its foundation towers. Wind power tends to be far more efficient off-shore than on-shore, and the turbine will meet a significant portion of the Rig’s energy demands. Wave energy generators will be buoyed nearby with undersea cables to transmit the power. Solar panels will be affixed on the sides and top of the rig. Additionally, geothermal heat pumps will take advantage of the consistent water temperatures at lower sea levels to aid with heating and cooling of the interior rooms. All of these power systems can easily be integrated into the existing rig infrastructure.
The Oil Rig Resort and Spa will provide unparalleled views of the Gulf through patron’s rooms as well as a glass lobby floor. The lobby will be naturally lit with ambient light, which will be reflect the ocean. A central core will be filled with water, which acts as a ballast to help stabilize the platform during stormy conditions. This central core will also host theatrical performances much like the Cirque du Soliel show ‘O’ in Las Vegas. Guests will be able to view the show from their own room every night.
Individual guest rooms are prefabricated off site and transported via ship in a standard cargo container to the rig. The rooms are not large and have been optimized to maximize space. Couches turn into beds at night and can be moved over the hot tub for viewing of performances. The room can also extend out over the water for better views of the Gulf. The eco-resort provides a state-of-the-art luxury accomodations, as well as sea-water swimming facilities, a grand ballroom shopping, dining, nightly entertainment, a casino, and boat slips. And considering that there are over 4,000 oil platforms out there in the Gulf, it’s certainly a novel way to reuse the existing structures.
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what a neat transformationSponsored by the John Hardy Group and Hospitality Design Magazine, the international... more
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