BP: Failed blowout preventer removed from well
By Harry Weber, The Associated Press.
BP PLC said the blowout preventer that failed to stop oil from spewing into the Gulf of Mexico was removed from the company’s well on Friday afternoon.
A BP spokesman said that the 50-foot, 300-ton device was detached from the wellhead at 1:20 p.m CDT.
The device was slowly being lifted to the surface and wouldn’t likely reach the top until sometime Saturday.
Earlier in the day, a vessel had latched onto the equipment to raise it from a mile beneath the sea.
Undersea video showed the device suspended in the water. A crane on the Helix Q4000 was being used for the task.
The blowout preventer is considered a key piece of evidence in the spill investigation. Investigators will examine it and hope to gain insight into why the device failed to prevent the spill.
Investigators know the explosion was triggered by a bubble of methane gas that escaped from the well and shot up the drill column, expanding quickly as it burst through several seals and barriers before igniting.
But they don’t know exactly how or why the gas escaped. And they don’t know why the blowout preventer didn’t seal the well pipe at the sea bottom after the eruption, as it was supposed to. While the device didn’t close, or may have closed partially, hearings have produced no clear picture of why it didn’t plug the well.
Lawyers will be watching closely, as hundreds of lawsuits have been filed over the oil spill. Future liabilities faced by a number of corporations could be riding on what the analysis of the blowout preventer shows.
The raising of the blowout preventer followed Thursday’s removal of a temporary cap that stopped oil from gushing into the Gulf in mid-July. No more oil was expected to leak into the sea, but crews were standing by with collection vessels just in case.
The government wants to replace the failed blowout preventer first to deal with any pressure that is caused when a relief well BP has been drilling intersects the blown-out well.
Once that intersection occurs sometime after Labor Day, BP is expected to use mud and cement to plug the blown-out well for good from the bottom.
Blow out Preventer and Mud: Story of the Consequences of Ignoring peril
Sources: 60 Minutes (CBS) – Rick Sanchez (CNN) – the Houston Chronicle, in Forced Green.
Last Sunday night 60 Minutes interviewed a walking, talking miracle, Mike Williams, at work as the chief electronics technician on the Deepwater Horizon the night it exploded. Employed by Transocean, the largest off-shore drilling company and owners of the rig, leased by BP the nation’s biggest oil and gas producer. One of the most sophisticated drilling rigs in the world at a cost of 350 million (USD), with a crew of 126.
Plunging through 5,000 feet of water, they drilled down another 13,000 feet, a total of 3.5 miles. Oil and gas at this depth is under enormous pressure. The key to controlling that pressure is a fluid called “mud”, a man-made fluid pumped down the well and back up the sides in a continuous circulation. The shear weight of the mud keeps the oil and gas down and the well under control.
Williams said there was trouble from the start.
First, getting to the oil was taking too long. Costing BP a million dollars a day, what was suppose to take 21 days was already in the 6th week, when a BP manager ordered a faster pace, (after all – time is money). But speeding up the pace caused the bottom of the well to split open, swallowing up tools and the mud, stuck the bit, and caused that well to be abandoned, costing the company 25 million dollars.
Four weeks before the explosion, the rig’s most vital piece of safety equipment the Blow-Out Preventer (BOP), was damaged. Located down near the sea-bed, it is used to seal the well shut in order to test the pressure and integrity of the well and in the case of a blow-out, it’s the crews only hope. A key component of the BOP, is a thick rubber gasket called an Annular, which can close tightly around the drill pipe. During a test they closed the gasket but, while it was shut tight a joystick was accidentally nudged applying hundreds of thousands of pounds of force and moving 15 feet of pipe through the closed BOP.
Later a crew member monitoring drilling fluid rising to the top found chunks of rubber in the fluid. Concerned, he gathered the rubber and took it directly to the supervisor, who said it was no big deal. Add to this another problem encountered weeks before with one of the BOP’s two control pods losing functionality, (that was never reported). Plus the BOP had a hydraulic leak and a weak battery. Transocean said the BOP was tested by remote control after these incidents and passed.
The morning of the explosion the Deepwater Horizon’s work was nearly done, the well would be sealed so another rig could pump the oil out at a later date. As a safety meeting was taking place, an argument between the BP manager and the Transocean manager ensued about how this process would take place. Haliburton, a subcontractor, was to place 3 concrete plugs at various depths, like corks, in the well column. The Transocean manager wanted to do this with the column full of the mud to keep the pressure down below contained. But the BP company man wanted to remove the mud before the last plug was set because it would be quicker. And BP won. They did a test to see if the first 2 plugs would hold the pressure down. The test was done with the known faulty BOP and was pronounced good. But as the fluid was removed releasing the downward pressure, the plugs failed, the BOP didn’t work and eleven men were incinerated.
Mike was one of the last to escape the explosion. He had been in his work shop the night of the explosion when he heard the rigs engines suddenly run wild. That was the moment when explosive gas went shooting across the decks, being sucked into the engines and generators that power the rig. The engines kept increasing speed, so loud it drowned out the constant audible alarms. The lights got so bright, they literally exploded. As he pushed himself back from his desk, his computer monitor exploded. Getting to the first thick, steel, fire proof door, an explosion tore the door from the hinges, hit Mike and propelled him across the shop. He recovers from that and as he reaches the second fire door, another explosion hits and hurls that door into him. With a deep gash on his forehead, he eventually makes it to the side rail and is forced to jump 10 stories, “falling forever” into the oily, burning sea below. Heat so intense he thought himself on fire. Swimming for his life a stranger in an open boat plucked him out of the oily dangerous water, he made it, 11 others did not.
To make matters worse, there’s a good possibility of another horrendous event on the horizon. Hired by BP to manage thousands of engineering drawings for the Atlantis platform, Ken Abbott, a former BP insider, told 60 Minutes that the Atlantis platform is a greater threat than the Deepwater Horizon. Built and now at work pumping 200,000 barrels a day. In a year or 2 the volume will be 4 times that amount when all 16 wells are established. Without most all the critical surface and subsea document finalizations by engineers necessary for such as safe operations, underwater welding, and emergency shut down procedures. Concerns were voiced, emails flew, met only with criticism, dismissive responses and lay-offs. Abbott has filed suit to force the Federal Government to shut down Atlantis.
Rick Sanchez on CNN, had a phone interview with Mike Mason an ex-BP employee in Alaska. Mason said that BP routinely falsified reports and test results. He recounted during weekly scheduled integrity pressure testing on the BOPs required by the government, if no state inspectors were on hand (which is about half the time because of the small numbers of inspectors), BP would more often than not, cheat on the test. As the pressure came to the proper 5,000 psi testing point on a paper graph, after 10-30 seconds, a BP company man would literally put his finger on the graph page and pull it to the required 5 minute mark. Thus, creating the printed illusion of a properly timed test. When asked why they would do this Mason quoted what is apparently BP’s logo “Money – Time Is Money”. He went on to describe how BP cuts corners in areas like maintenance and hiding spills, albeit small ones, hidden and non-reported spill none the less.
So in the end, where’s the fault lie? Haliburton’s failed cement plugs, Transocean damaged the BOP, and BP’s damn the rules, the lives, the environment, and the livelihood of others, as long as it’s full speed ahead on getting the money, at all cost.
And do you think they care? BP was found “willfully negligent” in the 2005 Texas City refinery explosion that killed 15 workers. Fined 108 million dollars, the highest work place safety fines in US history. Chump change to BP, yet they continue to fight the fines.
When will the Gulf Coast recover?
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