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Projects that they would never have thought to undertake – putting deepwater spars in the Gulf of Mexico, drilling in Siberia – they were rising in terms of the risk potential of all of their prospects, and they had not yet become as systematic about the application of risk reduction methodology and techniques.’
Deep, high pressure gas wells are typically the most at risk for a ‘significant blowout event’, he says. ‘In the US, for high pressure gas, there will be events despite all the planning.’ That side of the business could increase as unconventional onshore plays go into production. ‘I cannot personally imagine how natural gas is not going to be a really big player in the future, because of the cleanliness with which it can be used for a variety of end purposes,’ Campbell says. ‘And that’s good for us. Anytime they’re messing with gas, we’re going to get our share of blowouts.
‘We continue to have problem wells in relatively deep water,’ he adds. ‘Not just the Gulf of Mexico – we just finished one in the Bay of Bengal. We have them every once in a while.’ In deep offshore, the hydrostatic force on long open hole sections of a well is ordinarily enough to prevent a major event. But Superior works with many operators during the construction phase of a planned wellbore to minimize the risk.
Ixtoc I
Ixtoc I was an exploratory oil well in the Bay of Campeche of the Gulf of Mexico, about 100 km (62 mi) northwest of Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche in waters 50 m (160 ft) deep. On 3 June 1979, the well suffered a blowout and is recognized as the second largest oil spill and the largest accidental spill in history.
Mexico’s government-owned oil company Pemex (Petróleos Mexicanos) was drilling a 3 km (1.9 mi) deep oil well, when the drilling rig lost drilling mud circulation…
The oil and gas fumes exploded on contact with the operating pump motors, starting a fire which led to the collapse of the drilling tower. The collapse caused damage to underlying well structures. The damage to the well structures led to the release of significant quantities of oil in to the ocean.
In the next nine months, experts and divers (including Red Adair) were brought in to contain and cap the oil well. Approximately an average of ten thousand to thirty thousand barrels per day were discharged into the Gulf until it was finally capped on 23 March 1980.
Prevailing currents carried the oil towards the Texas coastline. The US government had two months to prepare booms to protect major inlets.
Eventually, in the US, 162 miles of beaches and 1421 birds were affected by 3,000,000 barrels of oil. Mexico rejected US requests to be compensated for cleanup costs…
- Sales of shares and stocks in days and weeks beforehand
- Halliburton link, acquisition of cleanup company days before explosion
- BP report cites undocumented tampering with well sealing equipment
- Government uses disaster to push for Carbon Tax, Nationalization talk
As the New York Times [3] noted on May 26th, “BP officials chose, partly for financial reasons, to use a type of casing for the well that the company knew was the riskier of two options,”
Workers from the rig and company officials have said that hours before the explosion, gases were leaking through the cement, which had been set in place by the oil services contractor, Halliburton. Investigators have said these leaks were the likely cause of the explosion.”
Needless to say that BP is not the caring and generous corporation that they claim to be on television. That being said let us now move on to the "preemptive" decisions that some of these key power players made prior to the explosion in the Gulf. First off is Halliburton's decision to buy the company Boot's and Coots just 8 days before the disaster, Boots and Coots is well known for putting out some of the largest oil and gas fires in the world. In another psychic and beneficial move, Goldman Sachs dumped half of their BP holdings, 4,680,822 shares, in the first quarter, right before the disaster. This is despite BP posting record gains in the fourth quarter of last year.
Some other intuitive dumping was done by Wells Fargo, who sold off 98 percent of their shares of BP days before the disaster. The Swiss bank UBS also sold off 97 percent of their shares prior to the explosion. In an overtly suspicious move Goldman Sachs placed shorts on Transocean stock, which is betting that a stock will fail, the day before the explosion of the rig. As if all these moves aren't dubious enough BP chief, Tony Hayward, sold off one third of his holdings of BP stock weeks before the disaster.
BP is prepared to begin the kill operation on the first well sooner if the company intersects the Macondo prematurely. Wells said more than 44,000 barrels of mud were in position should they be needed.
Wells, however, expressed a high degree of confidence in the progress made and in the success of the next phase of drilling, which will require a high level of precision. He pointed to the success rate of one of the lead consultants assisting BP, John Wright.
Wright, who founded the Houston-based John Wright Co. in 1989, which last year was bought by Boots & Coots, has drilled 40 such relief wells over the course of his career, making him one of the world's experts, Wells said. The Macondo well will be Wright's 41st.
Originally posted by Alxandro
Regardless of who is to blame, the fact still remains that this is Obama's Katrina.
I mean geez, it's gonna take 7 days to repair the leak yet it took him 9 days to respond.
This thing could have been completed 2 days ago.