<p>Anybody heard any news on hiring for the region/general in light of the BP situation? I would think that with holds on drilling permits and what now looks to be a complete and utter sh** show heading all the way til' August, please post any info you might have especially if you're in the industry...</p>
<p>i guess more jobs for environmental engineers and fewer jobs for petroleum engineers?</p>
<p>I’m going to be the first to coin the term “Chern-oil-bl” for this.</p>
<p>I like how the media as blown this situation to where it is BP’s fault when in reality (and facts/data) it’s Cameron International’s faulty rubber seals/blowout controller that caused the spill…
Gotta love the media 
</p>
<p>it’s really everyone involved’s fault</p>
<p>you can’t place the blame on just one company…</p>
<p>true…</p>
<p>The fact remains that BP postponed testing the blowout prevention system. Had they tested it when they were originally supposed to, they would have known it was faulty and replaced/repaired it. BP also was the driving force in all of the corner-cutting going on, so while Transocean deserves some blame, they really didn’t have nearly as much control as BP did. Sure someone could have (should have) been a whistle-blower and alerted somebody to the stuff BP was ordering, but as many of us know, whistle-blowers are often punished more severely than the people who are getting the whistle blown on.</p>
<p>It is really just a tragic accident, but far and away the lion’s share of the blame falls on BP. They didn’t do things by the book, and this time, it came back to bite them in the butt.</p>
<p>The fact remains that BP postponed testing the blowout prevention system. Had they tested it when they were originally supposed to, they would have known it was faulty and replaced/repaired it. BP also was the driving force in all of the corner-cutting going on, so while Transocean deserves some blame, they really didn’t have nearly as much control as BP did. Sure someone could have (should have) been a whistle-blower and alerted somebody to the stuff BP was ordering, but as many of us know, whistle-blowers are often punished more severely than the people who are getting the whistle blown on.</p>
<p>It is really just a tragic accident, but far and away the lion’s share of the blame falls on BP. They didn’t do things by the book, and this time, it came back to bite them in the butt.</p>
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What does that mean? Postponed it a day? I read that had been tested two weeks prior.</p>
<p>I can’t honestly say how long they postponed it. Last time I read about it they hadn’t determined how long it had been postponed (or if it had ever been tested after the postponement for that matter). Still, that doesn’t negate the fact that BP was pumping seawater instead of drilling mud for a while well before the well was ready and against the advice of the engineers. I am about as far as you can get from anti-drilling, so don’t think I am trying to use this as some ridiculous political platform, I just think BP holds the bulk of the blame. They disregarded several normal procedures in favor of speeding up the process.</p>
<p>Also, apparently my computer has been going nuts because that is like my 3rd double post today, and I am definitely not pressing submit twice.</p>
<p>FWIW, I think it’s possible that all the testing in the world would not have prevented the failure of the BOP’s. I’ve been doing this for 30 years, and have never seen a BOP fail after numerous tests over the course of a well. (The only exception is a couple of failed Hydril’s after they were used for stripping under pressure.)</p>
<p>It’s driving me nuts to find out what actually happened, because my experience with BP has shown that they go overboard with their safety programs and precautions. Serious overkill in most instances.</p>
<p>There is some indication that there may have been flow after cementing on the annulus, which was misconstrued as nitrified cement blowing down. If so, I can somewhat understand how the supervisor in charge made the terrible mistake of assuming that the flow was not actually coming from the formation. By the time the gas bubble got to surface, it was too late to do anything except shut the well in. </p>
<p>It’s still hard to believe that the BOP’s didn’t work. There is too much redundancy on those things to understand how the whole stack failed.</p>
<p>I’ve been wondering how they shut off these wells once they aren’t productive. Do they use the BOPs for that purpose?</p>
<p>And what do you think they should do to prevent this sort of accident in the future (technically, I mean - leaving politics out for now)? Force them to drill relief wells at the same time they drill functional wells??</p>
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</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gIXWYBTpLtSayJtg41LKXpxSxVPAD9G2H5180[/url]”>http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gIXWYBTpLtSayJtg41LKXpxSxVPAD9G2H5180</a></p>
<p>That wouldn’t make much sense to drill a relief valve to fix something that isn’t broken. It would just undermine the original well. I believe to close off spent well they usually cement them shut if I remember right. The poblem is that the pressure of the oil coming out right now is way too high to allow the cement to cure.</p>
<p>an expensive solution one geologist proposed was to dig a shaft under the ocean all the way to the leak site…workers would then dig around the blowout area until there is not enough oil to generate the pressure necessary for any oil to plume out…the valve would then be sealed in concrete</p>
<p>incredibly unsafe, expensive, and time-consuming, but there’s gotta be a brute force solution to everything, right?</p>
<p>Haha, whoever that geologist was clearly didn’t understand much about oil wells. There is so much oil down in that well that it would probably take as long to dig a cavern to hold it as it would just to let the thing expend itself, not to mention the giant cavern would completely destabilize the seabed.</p>
<p>“I tend to disagree. I would say that you should major in what you like, regardless of marketability.”
- Why not just drop a big rock on it?</p>
<p>
I’ve followed this quite closely and think the most important things are these:</p>
<p>Modification of the BOP to make testing easier.
The dead battery on the dead man.
The BOP design (three different lines need to be severed to activate the deadman?).
The leak on the hydraulic line to the BOP.
Not closely monitoring the pits.
Casing design.
Not making the appropriate judgement calls upon seeing pressure readings, etc.</p>
<p>I work onshore production so anything I’ve found is primarily from reading other expert opinions (and I know personnel at Cameron/Transocean who are experts…).</p>
<p>Wow, I got completely the wrong quote in my post above. The quote I meant to put had to do with the cement not setting due to high-pressure oil. lol.</p>
<p>Still, I’m a fan of the giant rock proposal. And if you pay $100, you can have your name engraved in the side of it.</p>
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to be honest, he was clearly kidding in the sense that he was really talking about geoengineering and what would not be cost effective</p>
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<p>I would pay $100 for that provided that it didn’t go to some stinkin’ oil cleanup effort or charity. I want it to go straight into BP’s coffers.</p>