Squeeze / pinch the oil-pipe closed (why didn't they listen to me?)

Remember how I said, about a week after the oil rig was sunk by a
torpedo fired by a North Korean mini-sub, that they should pinch the
oil-pipe closed between a pair of hydraulically-operated roller pins?

Why didn't they listen to me?

So now they're going to cut it wide open (presumably near the well
head).

Why not pinch it shut at that location instead, and then cut it off
above the pinch, and then place their dome above the whole thing to
collect what-ever drips out?

 

Easier said then done.

 

(Squeeze the pipe closed)

Harder than cutting it? Like they've tried to do but the saw blade got
jammed?

 

Apparently.

 

Does that particular alloy tolerate sharp bends (the crimps) at the
temperatures without cracking? If the metal doesn't crack from the
sharp bending at those temperatures, do the sharp bends significantly
weaken the metal to lower than is needed at the pressures (internal and
external) that that pipe will be seeing once it is dead-ended? Perhaps
your method would work, but the question of cracking would have to be
answered first.

My visualization of a solution was taken from the movie "Hellfighters"
in which John Wayne played the real life oil well fire-putter-outer Red
Adair. There'd be this well pipe (on land, not off-shore) sticking up
spewing oil like crazy, and the oil was on fire (not a problem in the
present situation). First they'd snuff the fire out with dynamite, but
then they lowered an *OPEN* valve onto the pipe (minimum back-pressure -
not easy, but do-able). They'd secure that to the pipe (a bolted flange
that was already in place - not applicable to the present situation),
then they'd slowly close the valve. Done.

The problems that would have to be looked at are, without a ready made
attachment feature, how do you secure the open valve to the pipe once
you have it in place? Can you weld it (depends on the alloy, and I
don't know if the usual underwater welding techniques work at that
depth, etc.), or can you reliably clamp it under that amount of pressure
- perhaps a combination of weld and clamp.

But that would be my armchair solution: Secure an open valve in place
(would require some out-of-the-bax techniques to first get it in place,
and then to attach it adequately to withstand the dead-end pressure),
then shut the valve Red Adair-style. Attach pipe to the downstream end
of the valve, and collect the oil for processing.

 

I suspect they don't want to seal the pipe at that point.
Remember this well had enough pressure to blow out the protection
equipment.

 

Did the pressure blow it out or was it damaged or blown away by the
explosion, or was it defective? I don't know the answer. I'm just
asking do you know for sure that the protection equipment was not
defective and that it was not damaged or removed by the initial explosion?

One question: Why would they have used protection equipment when
pressures exceeded what it could handle?

 

The well was equipped with a BOP that failed to work. Deepwater wells the
BOP is located on the seafloor where shallow water wells the BOP is located
topside on the rig.

In this case, the BOP was a on the seafloor. The BOP failed to work. It
was not blown away by the well blowout. A BOP is designed to first clamp
around the drill pipe and stop the flow of oil up the casing. Picture a
pipe with a drill bit inside of it and a big rubber balloon surrounds the
drill pipe. Not exactly how a BOP works but explain how the its suppose to
work initially. The second part of a BOP that is used in emergency causes
rams to severe the drill pipe and close of the casing thus stop the flow of
oil, gas or gas/oil up the pipe.

BOP can be activated by two methods. (At the BOP and remotely) BOP are
suppose to be tested at regular intervals to ensure it is in working
condition. Fact is BP only had one shutoff for the BOP and that was on the
rig. It failed to close the BOP. The remote location was not installed.
Why? Most likely to save a million dollars the cost of remote activation.

Testimony has come out in the hears held in Kenner that the BOP had a
hydraulic leak and one of the rams was replaced with a dummy ram (in place
but does not activate). Why would you do this. Most likely to save money.
The down time to get another functioning ram in here would mean the well
would be on hold until a new ram came in. This could be hours, days or even
weeks depending on where and if one is available. The rig cost about 325
thousand dollars a day whether it is drilling or waiting. So down time is
very costly.

Having watch this nightmare on local TV and have taken a boat ride to some
affect areas I have seen the damage this has done. This is a nightmare for
Louisiana and the rest of the nation. Obama has stopped all drilling in
deeper water for at least 6 months. This will cost Louisiana at least 10
thousand jobs. There are many rigs in deeper water that are on lease that
have stopped drilling. Theses rigs are sitting idle and many of them will
leave Louisiana and go to Africa, Russia, Brazil and other parts of the
world when their lease is up. Estimates in the local paper stated that
about 60 rigs will be released from their lease by the end of the 6 months.
Many of theses rigs would have completed drilling by then and then moved on
to a new lease within the GOM. By this ban on drilling the rig owners are
not going to let the rig sit idle and hope the ban is lifted. They are
going to move the rig where they can put it to work immediately.


So this disaster is two fold for hit for Louisiana. 1. Environmental 2.
Economy.

As I watch on TV the other day I noticed a flange on top of the BOP. So I
wonder if the robots can pick up an egg without breaking it yet lift valves
and pipe, and turn wrenches, why the pipe could be unbolted and an open
valve placed on top of the BOP. Once bolted in place then close the valve
with the robot. It makes no sense to me.

I sure this has been thought of and rule out for some reason or another. I
do know for sure BP would have done it had it meant stopping the leak as
this is going to be a financial nightmare for them for some time forward.

 

Thanks for the thorough explanation.

Of course hind sight is 20/20, but you'd think it would be obvious to
have spare rams on hand as opposed to dummy rams - I mean, the cost of
doing so (compared to the risks you're taking of possibly disabling the
BOP by having a dummy ram in place) is miniscule.

On the other hand - maybe the BOP design has some redundancy such that
it has necessary shutoff force with one or two dead rams? That's the
type of thing that the press, in the spirit of sensational reporting and
feeding the fenzy, likes to ignore (if it is the case - I don't know
that it is - as an engineer I'm just speculating and commenting).

 

This accident is another fine example of cost cutting. The plant I work at
does not stock many critical parts so they don't have to pay ad valorem tax
(inventory) on the spare parts. They would rather limp or shutdown then pay
the tax. I had a compressor in my unit go down that the [art was a six week
deliver. We had to crash the unit when the compressor went down and stayed
down for 8 weeks because we did not stock the spare part. This is the third
time that the compressor went down for the same repair in the last 5 years.
They claim it was cheaper to shutdown then it was to stock a part that may
go bad once every 10 years. I ask them but what about 3 times in 5 years
and the reply was it is the risk take.

Globalization has made the companies in the US cut corners were ever they
can to stay competive with countries with low wages and no envirmonmental
laws. If we as a country don't try and purchase only from American made
companies preferably American owned companies, there will be no more good
paying jobs in this country and we will become a third world country. The
rest of the world has been trying to cripple the US by demanding
globalization.

 

Idiots are running the company if all they look at is cost of stocking
spare parts to make such decisions. In an intelligent FMEA (Failure
Modes and Effects Analysis), for any given failure, you consider not
only *LIKELIHOOD*, but for it to have any validity at all, you also
*have* to factor in *SEVERITY* of such a failure.

IOW - if they only considered the cost (of taxes or whatever) of keeping
spare rams, and that's totally what they based their decision on to not
stock it, and did not consider the *SEVERITY* (i.e., huge additional
costs) of needing the BOP to successfully operate but it fails to do so,
then they are stupid by any measure.

BTW - do you know the answer to the question I asked about if the BOP
should have been able to operate correctly with one or two rams
inoperative? If it in fact should have been able to, then they would be
OK to have made the decision to not have spare rams on hand.

 

Although I never worked offshore, I work side by side with many workers that
transfered in from offshore. For what I understand that the rams are
designed to sell the drill cassing around the drill pipe.in the event of an
emergency. The rams work opposite of each other. There is usually more
then one set. So if one set fails the other set could hold. See
http://www.rigzone.com/training/insight.asp?insight_id=304&c_id=1

 

If that is true, then it is dishonest for it to be reported that a dummy
ram was installed without also pointing out that there is redundancy
in the design such that that in itself would not prevent it from
operating. That is taking advantage of the ignorance of the public, and
either the ignorance or dishonesty of whoever was gathering the
testimony. If that point was also not allowed to be brought out in the
testimony (and at this point I don't know that to be or not be the
case), then that is also systematic dishonesty in the process of
gathering the testimony.

 

Of course. That's how "news" works today: find a culprit, make them
look evil.

 

thanks for the link......

 

I was busy Friday cooking Jambalaya and White beans for a Children's
Miracle Network and entered a Jambalaya contest on Saturday Took 7th place
out of 20 pots. What hurts got beat by a first time 13 year old girl. Dad
was supervising.

On Sunday, I took a ride to Venice (3hr drive). There were tons of clean up
people and boats but no one was working. I spoke with a few fish boat
captains and they stated BP hired them but they have not left the dock in 10
days. Manage to get a boat ride through some of the oil soaked marsh. I
can tell you what the media is reporting is for from the truth.

I was not allowed by the boat Captain to bring my camera on board as he
feared he would lose his job. He is an oyster fisherman that was unemployed
until BP hired him to sit idle at the dock. He tells me that what he showed
me was only a small portion of marsh that was damaged. There are many more
acres that was soaked in oil.

I had a friend go to Grand Isle and try and gets some pictures of oil birds
on the nesting grounds but was threatened with arrest by what he believe
were US Wildlife and Fishery Agents. They identified themselves as agents
but when he asked for proof they threatened to throw him in jail. He does
not believe they were agents but BP employees. He was able to get two
pictures before they ran him off.

Today I went to work back in the refinery/chemical plant and I spoke with
one of the old offshore hands that transferred in. He stated that in his
belief the well is probably good for 50k to 100k barrels per day. He
believes that the BOP is partially closed and the rubber on the rams were
damaged when they try to pull the drill stem up out of the pipe casing.
There were reports that chunks of rubber came up from the well a few hours
before it blew out. His reason behind this is the cost of drilling a well
that depth of water and that deep is not profitable for 25k Barrels per day.
He does not think that 50K of oils is coming out the well before the latest
attempt to capture the oil due to partially closed rams.

I can tell you that in the plant I work for Non BP but another major player,
we have seen our share of cost cutting and risk taking. Since all this has
occurred our injury rate has going up (65 people injured this year alone).
My unit had 10 operators per shift and now we are down to 8. Out of 32
shift jobs and 5 day jobs, the average experience in the unit is less then 5
years, (only 6 have at least 20 years). Engineer experience is less then 5
years in the petrochemical business if not straight out of college. Boy I
hate those engineers, with their book knowledge trying tell a seasoned 19
year vet how to run the unit.

We layoff all the experience management and replaced them with younger and
cheaper labor managers that all they want to do is fire people. Things go
so bad in my unit that we hire 15 new operators and 10 went to my unit. 7
either new or experienced (15 or more years) quit to work else where and 6
got fired before they made probation.

I spoke with a fellow refinery work at a BP plant in Texas City about 9
months ago. The one that blow up and killed 15 people and had 3 more
fatalities after the explosion. We attended a training session together and
as we all talked about our employees taking chances and making cuts, she
laughed and said BP tried that and killed 15 at one time. She called me
last week and told me that BP has just cut the hourly staff by consolidating
jobs in the units and laid off 35. She is starting to see what we seen at
my plant.

The bottom line is all theses major players are taking enormous risk to save
a dollar. They will take their chances and if something happens they will
just pay someone off and fire the hourly person (if they live) for screwing
up. They are all focusing on Blaming the work and not the true cause. I
have fought this at my location and we have had 12 non probabtion folks
fired. We took to 7 out of 12 to arbitration. All 7 got their job back and
the arbitrator ruled that the company did not do a complete investigation to
find out the true cause of what happened. In the rulings they write the
company shares at least equal if not more blame for the issues that lead to
theses termination. We did not take the other 5 as we felt that the company
had did a complete investigation and theses folks had a history of mistakes
or they were arrested abd convicted of a crime.

 

What you said was very much like what I saw on Fox News this morning.
They talked about boats hired and sitting idle, and people being
threatened with firing if they talked to the media or other outsiders.
They interviewed locals, including mayors.

Maybe you should switch to Fox News.

 

Why watch teh news when I can see it with my own eyes. I live 1 hour from
the closest affected area nd three hours from the farthest area affect in
Louisiana. I fish a lot of the affected and know a lot of the commercial
fisherman. I purchase oyster and shrimp from many. I charter a few of
their boats in the past when several friends decide to go fishing and we all
can't fit in my boat.

BP has killed teh environment and Obama will kill the economy with his ban
on drilling for six months. Fortunately Louisiana very rarely sees the bad
economy times the rest of the nation sees due to the oil industry. this
will change with his ban on drilling.

BP and Transocen took chances and gambled. The rules are in place but they
are not enforced. The same thing is going on with OSHA for the refinery and
chemical plants. These companies have the inspectors in their back pocket
and there is multiple things that get over looked.

If Obama wants to do the right thing he would insure that the rule sin place
get enforced and step up the inspections.

 

I don't disagree, but you had said "I can tell you what the media is
reporting is f[a]r from the truth.". That's what I was responding to.
IOW - not *all* media is telling far from the truth - there's one that
is reporting pretty much what you said.

 

The probably want to hire that attack sub to fix it.