AP Investigation:Blowout Preventers Known to Fail

[cal04]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/05/08/us/AP-US-Oil-Spill-Blowout-Preventers.html?_r=1

Cutoff valves like the one that failed to stop the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster have repeatedly broken down at other wells in the years since federal regulators weakened testing requirements, according to an Associated Press investigation.

These steel monsters known as blowout preventers or BOPs -- sometimes as big as a double-decker bus and weighing up to 640,000 pounds -- guard the mouth of wells. They act as the last defense to choke off unintended releases, slamming a gushing pipe with up to 1 million pounds of force.

While the precise causes of the April 20 explosion and spill remain unknown, investigators are focusing on the blowout preventer on the Deepwater Horizon rig operated by BP PLC as one likely contributor.

To hear some industry officials talk, these devices are virtually foolproof.

But a detailed AP review shows that reliability questions have long shadowed blowout preventers:

[GreenStormCloud]

1. Yes. There have been disasters before when BOPs have failed.

In the early 1980's a BOP failure resulted in a massive fire on the Ocean King, off the coast of Texas, resulted in five deaths and an oil spill. The Ocean King was overhauled and put back in commission. I worked as a roustabout (Same thing as a deckhand, general labor) on her on her first well after the fire.

I have also been on another rig when the when the driller (That the guy that works the actual drilling controls) yelled over the speaker system, "Shut her down!". Tensions were a bit high at the moment as Mom Nature was making some objection to being pierced. The toolpusher (He is the on-site boss)hit the button to close the annular rings. They worked. The well was contained, the problem was solved later that day, drilling continued. Ultimately a natural gas well was completed. On that rig I was a ballast-control room operator.

Another rig I was on, the Ocean Rover, was struck a glancing blow by a container ship. We were drilling on the very edge of a two mile wide shipping lane in the Gulf, south of Louisanna, and a ship was on Iron Mike (Slang for auto-pilot)with no one at the wheel. The rig wasn't damaged, just a small ding in one of the support columns.

In 1982 the Ocean Ranger was lost with all hands in a storm. The true cause was lack of training for the ballast control room operator. At the time, there was an extreme macho attitude in off-shore crews with ODECO. Although the BCRO was a well paid job, it was a low-status job among the crew because all the BCRO does on a typical shift is sit a watch guages and flip switches. When an opening occured for that position the toolpushers would typically take the worst roustabout and promote him. Most roustabout aspired to become roughnecks, then derrick man, possibly driller, with being a toolpusher as the ultimate.

I was hired after the Ranger went down. ODECO changed their requirements and wanted people with brains in the control room. I was hired to be a BCRO, but had to spend one week as a roustabout to learn general rig operations. All rig crew had to do that back then.

[ljm2002]

7. Thanks for the post!

Very interesting to hear from someone who has worked on these behemoths.

[Dr Morbius]

2. Oil executives are bigger fools than oil platform engineers expected.

Every decent engineer is familiar with Murphy's Law, and only a foolish engineer would think he could outfox Murphy.

[GreenStormCloud]

3. One sees that repeatedly in many human efforts.

With Katrina, the Corp of Engineers had been warning of the danger. The New Orleans newspapers had printed articles about what was called a "project storm", meaning a hurricane that could hit New Orlean just right to do maximum damage. I attended a lecture about it in the mid 80s. The speaker showed Clay computer projections (At that time Clays were supercomputers.)of the flooding. The actual flooding, as I remember, was worse than his projection. He was assuming only one levee failure.

But politicians of both parties did nothing. We all know the rest.

[RC]

4. Clay or Cray computer?

[Tesha]

6. Clay Computers, designed by "Bill Clay"...

As compared to this lesser-known guy standing next to some
silly futuristic piece of furniture:

[GreenStormCloud]

8. Cray. Thanks for the catch.

[Karmadillo]

5. A fact well-known to our government. But if our Corporate Masters want to put the Gulf at risk,

who are the representatives of the People to tell them no?