According to the reports, Halliburton made recommendations that BP ignored.
BP was in charge and the contractors issued a complaint and followed orders.
Sounds to me like Halliburton told them how to prep it right and the consequences and BP ignored them.
When you ask Leonardo to paint you the Mona Lisa... you don't give him a box of 8 Crayola Crayons. Same thing with Transocean's Protests. The contractors were concerned with Safety and BP didn't care.
#1) BP prevented proper cementing ignoring Halliburton's concerns and advise
#2) Given the risky well design, BP failed to purge the well gas and mud
#3) Ignoring Transocean Employee protest, BP told them to move forward with replacement of mud with seawater.
#4) BP ignored warning signs and test anomalies that significant amounts of gas was in the well.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704026204575266560930780190.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us...
One of the final tasks was to cement in place the steel pipe that ran into the oil reservoir. The cement would fill the space between the outside of the pipe and the rock, preventing any gas from flowing up the sides.
Halliburton, the cementing contractor, advised BP to install numerous devices to make sure the pipe was centered in the well before pumping cement, according to Halliburton documents, provided to congressional investigators and seen by the Journal. Otherwise, the cement might develop small channels that gas could squeeze through. In an April 18 report to BP, Halliburton warned that if BP didn't use more centering devices, the well would likely have "a SEVERE gas flow problem." Still, BP decided to install fewer of the devices than Halliburton recommended—six instead of 21.
...
The cement job was especially important on this well because of a BP design choice that some petroleum engineers call unusual. BP ran a single long pipe, made up of sections screwed together, all the way from the sea floor to the oil reservoir. Companies often use two pipes, one inside another, sealed together, with the smaller one sticking into the oil reservoir. With this system, if gas tries to get up the outside of the pipe, it has to break through not just cement but also the seal connecting the pipes. So the more typical design provides an extra level of protection, but also requires another long, expensive piece of pipe.
"I couldn't understand why they would run a long string," meaning a single pipe, said David Pursell, a petroleum engineer and managing director of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co., an energy-focused investment bank. Oil major Royal Dutch Shell PLC, in a letter to the MMS, said it "generally does not" use a single pipe.
...
Despite the well design and the importance of the cement, daily drilling reports show that BP didn't run a critical, but time-consuming, procedure that might have allowed the company to detect and remove gas building up in the well. Before doing a cement job on a well, common industry practice is to circulate the drilling mud through the well, bringing the mud at the bottom all the way up to the drilling rig. This procedure, known as "bottoms up," lets workers check the mud to see if it is absorbing gas leaking in. If so, they can clean the gas out of the mud before putting it back down into the well to maintain the pressure. The American Petroleum Institute says it is "common cementing best practice" to circulate the mud at least once.
Circulating all the mud in a well of 18,360 feet, as this one was, takes six to 12 hours, say people who've run the procedure. But mud circulation on this well was done for just 30 minutes on April 19, drilling logs say, not nearly long enough to bring mud to the surface.
...
A disagreement broke out on the rig on April 20 over the procedures to be followed. At 11 a.m., workers for the half-dozen contractors working on the rig gathered for a meeting. Douglas Brown, Transocean's chief mechanic on the rig, testified Wednesday at a hearing in Louisiana that a top BP official had a "skirmish" with top Transocean officials.
The Transocean workers, including offshore installation manager Jimmy Wayne Harrell, disagreed with a decision by BP's top manager about how to remove drilling mud and replace it with lighter seawater. Mr. Brown said he heard Mr. Harrell say, "I guess that is what we have those pinchers for," referring to a part of the blowout preventer that would shut off the well in case of an emergency. BP won the argument, said Mr. Brown, who is a plaintiff in a suit against BP and Transocean. Mr. Harrell declined Journal requests for comment.
...
The test initially strayed from the procedure spelled out in BP's permit, approved by the MMS, according to the Coast Guard interview with Mr. Kaluza. When the first test results indicated something might be leaking, workers repeated the test, this time following the permitted procedure. The second time, pressure rose sharply, with witnesses saying that the well "continued to flow and spurted," according to notes gathered by BP's investigators that were reviewed by the Journal. BP denies violating its MMS permit. Well-control experts say it's clear gas was leaking into the well, most likely through the seal at the top but possibly through the bottom or even through a collapsed pipe.
Earlier this month, BP lawyers told Congress the test results were "inconclusive" or "not satisfactory." On Tuesday, according to the Congressmen's memo, BP said it saw signs of "a very large abnormality." Just two things then stood between the rig and an explosive mixture of gas and oil. One was the heavy drilling mud. The other was the blowout preventer near the sea floor. But the BOP had various problems, among them some leaking hydraulics. By 8 p.m., BP was satisfied with the test and had enough confidence to proceed. It was this that may have been "a fundamental mistake," a BP official told congressional staffers Tuesday, according to the memo from two members of Congress.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
