Brazil setting itself up for it's own and even worse Deepwater Horizon catastrophe

Only this time, it would be worse.

Brazil presses on with offshore fields

Why worse?

1. It's deeper.

But the pre-salt reserves are located under 7,210 feet of water, compared with BP's Deepwater Horizon rig at 4,920 feet of water.

2. It has more oil in it, meaning more possible oil spill and more pressure.

Discovered in 2006 and still in the early stages of exploration, the reservoir beneath a 7,217-foot crust of salt contains anywhere from 50 billion barrels to 100 billion barrels of proven reserves.

50-100 billion barrels, compared to 3-6 billion in the Deepwater Horizon.

3. Even the company who will drill it is scared :

"At that depth, with such high pressure, we cannot claim to be ready for any eventuality," Segen Estefen, the head of a university laboratory that works with Petrobras told the newspaper.

4. More pressure and more corrosion.

The pipes need to be reinforced because of the underwater pressure; the sediment over the salt is unstable, making it difficult to anchor the oil rigs; and the high carbon dioxide content of the fields causes corrosion, so nickel-enriched alloys become necessary.

"We are talking about a complex and aggressive environment: There's salt, there's corrosion, extreme pressures, weather can change, waves of 33 feet can appear from nowhere. ... There's no engineering solution that could be 100 percent safe," said Claudio Sampaio, architect for the naval engineering department at the University of Sao Paulo.

5. There's hurricanes hitting the area... In 2004, a category 2 hurricane hit the area.
Cyclone Catarina
But it's very very very rare... so it's not really a factor...


So to summarize... more pressure, deeper, more oil and more corrosion.

Brazil is SURE to go ahead with this, hell it's 100 billion barrels! At 80$/barrel and possibly 100-150$/barrel, that's a boatload of money. No way in hell they won't drill.

So... let's hope no ``terrorist`` blows it up or no accident happen or we are gonna be doomed... since Deepwater Horizon is already a big freaking mess... but this would be WAY WORSE if anything happens.

[edit on 21-6-2010 by Vitchilo]

Yeah,I don't think that's too good of an idea. I can't believe people aren't learning from this mess.

This is getting ridiculous,there is such a big dependence/demand on oil that drilling company will drill anywhere at any risk not thinking about any consequences what so ever...

I think the only way to stop this from happening in the future would be to completely rely on electricity and completely stop buying any product related with oil...wich is almost(very,very positive unrealist almost) impossible...


nice post by the way.

To make things even worse, they're doing it on America's dime. I just read an article that had been posted in another thread here from the Wall Street Journal that talked about the two billion dollars that America committed to this. So if there are problems with this drill like the spill from the Deepwater Horizon, will we be held responsible for it, too?

Take care,
Cindi

anyone know if their drilling has started ?
or are they still just mapping the area?