Deepwater Horizon – Learning from Past Experience and Defending Against Future Oil Spills
blowouts already mentioned, the Ixtoc incident in 1979 and the Deepwater Horizon in 2010 constitute the largest human oil releases to the sea, each with around half a million tons.
There are many technical similarities between them, both with regard to how they came about and to the measures used in attempts to cap them. Sometimes it seems that only the terminology changes in the decades between events: ‘sombrero’ became ‘top hat’ and insertion of steel balls was called ‘junk shot’ instead of borrowing the name of a French ball game, ‘boule’. There are also similarities with respect to the culture – or lack thereof – of risk handling. PEMEX then and, as it appears, BP now, both used shortcuts to save time and money.
That only terminology has changed is obviously not true with regard to drilling techniques, which today have the flair of space technology and allow exploration in deep waters and through the complicated geological structures thereunder. Also, safety measures are far more advanced and complicated than they were, but – and this is a very important but – it seems that the challenges are growing faster than the ability to safely handle them. In that respect the new rules that the US administration has decided on, when lifting the ban on offshore drilling in the Mexican Gulf, will go some way towards tightening the standards and reducing the risk of accidents happening. Some more features often employed in the North Sea, like acoustic devices for automatic safety valve closure, could and should be employed elsewhere.
The real shortcoming, however, is in the dealing with an oil spill once it has happened. The new American rules for the Gulf will do little to
address this aspect and here, disturbingly, little has happened for decades. It took over nine months to cap Ixtoc. Deepwater Horizon took a third of the time at a much larger depth, but that is very, very far from good enough. One needs to remember that the sea outside Louisiana is probably one of the best areas in the world to have an oil spill, in the meaning that nowhere else do you have so many technical and human resources nearby to draw on for capping the well and dealing with the spill. Even the weather is benign in comparison with e.g. Arctic waters. One hundred days in the Gulf of Mexico could easily be a year or more off Greenland and the effects there would last for decades instead of years.
So what can be done, besides stopping oil exploration in difficult and sensitive areas? Two things that could be made mandatory come to mind.
• To drill two holes in tandem, simultaneously, so that one, in case of a blowout, could become a relief well, to be finished in days instead of months after an accident. The drilling of relief wells is the only reliable way to cap a sea floor blowout.
•
To have ‘black boxes’, of similar type to those in the cockpits of commercial aircraft, on board oil rigs. They would register all technical activities and identify those who ordered and executed the measures. Cutting corners would then be less tempting.
“Expensive and impractical”, people in the business might say, but what are the alternatives? A lasting drilling moratorium or really serious and long-lasting ecological damage and oil companies going broke – for how many can afford a Deepwater Horizon-size liability? n
Event Calendar 3–5 October 2011
Unconventional Gas World Middle East 2011 Abu Dhabi, UAE
www.terrapinn.com/2011/unconventional- gas-world/
4–5 October 2011
6th KAZENERGY Eurasian Forum 2011 Astana, Kazakhstan
www.kioge.com/2011/KAZENERGY-Eurasian- Forum.html
5–8 October 2011
KIOGE 2011 – 19th Kazakhstan International Oil & Gas Exhibition & Conference Almaty, Kazakhstan
www.kioge.com/2011
10–12 October 2011
Well Integrity and Intervention World Middle East 2011 Abu Dhabi, UAE
www.terrapinn.com/2011/well-integrity- middle-east/
10–13 October 2011
Deepwater World Asia 2011 Singapore
www.terrapinn.com/2011/deepwater-world- asia-conference/
1–2 November 2011 OilTech Mangystau 2011 – 3rd Mangystau Regional Petroleum Technology Conference Aktau, Kazakhstan
www.oiltech-mangystau.com/
1–3 November 2011 6th Mangystau Regional
Oil, Gas and Infrastructure Exhibition Aktau, Kazakhstan
www.mangystauoilgas.com/2011/ 8–10 November 2011
Offshore Communications 2011 Houston, Texas, US
www.offshorecomms.com
15–17 November 2011
16th Turkmenistan International Oil & Gas Conference 2011 Ashgabat, Turkmenistan
www.oilgas-events.com
21–24 November 2011
Oil and Gas Production Manager Show Asia
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
www.terrapinn.com/2011/oil-and-gas- production-manager-show-asia/
22–23 November 2011
The Oil and Gas Production Managers Show Australia
Mantra, Mooloolaba, Australia
www.terrapinn.com/2011/oil-and-gas- production
24–25 November 2011
Offshore Heavy Oil Conference London, UK
www.informaglobalevents.com/event/offshore -heavy-oil-conference
Continues on page 49
EXPLORATION & PRODUCTION – VOLUME 9 ISSUE 2
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