Blowout videos

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

Just some videos of blowouts for those interested. The commentary is not factually correct. The video showing the bit coming back to the surface is NOT a blowout - interesting screwup though.

Notice the drillpipe blowing out of these wells like spaghetti!
 

 

https://www.fircroft.com/blogs/video-of-the-week-5-oil-well-blowouts-04312165528?utm_campaign=EngineeringPro - Issue 71 - 19th February 2020 - SH&utm_source=emailCampaign&utm_content=&utm_medium=email

[RichieRich216 + 454]

Shit happens, deal with it......

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

Oh...I have!😂

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

22 minutes ago, RichieRich216 said:

Shit happens, deal with it......

I really don’t think your bosses would be impressed with that reasoning. Your knowledge of well control and accepted oilfield drilling practices would be called into question. In the design, kick tolerance and casing seat selection would be questioned and if this was due to an unforeseen issue in the geology, the geologists and geophysicist would be on the hot seat.

The bit showing back up on surface while directional drilling would take some creative explaining.

The floater by the gas, not ‘air’ plume either hit shallow gas (did they drill a pilot hole?🤔) or that is an ‘around the shoe’, uncontrollable blowout. The rig has slacked off on the anchor chains on one side to get off of the plume.

[Old-Ruffneck + 1,177]

2 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

I really don’t think your bosses would be impressed with that reasoning. Your knowledge of well control and accepted oilfield drilling practices would be called into question. In the design, kick tolerance and casing seat selection would be questioned and if this was due to an unforeseen issue in the geology, the geologists and geophysicist would be on the hot seat.

The bit showing back up on surface while directional drilling would take some creative explaining.

The floater by the gas, not ‘air’ plume either hit shallow gas (did they drill a pilot hole?🤔) or that is an ‘around the shoe’, uncontrollable blowout. The rig has slacked off on the anchor chains on one side to get off of the plume.

The chopper taking video of the gas by the floater woulda been toast if it would have ignited.

The directional that surfaced was just drilling mud, not a blowout. But a wtf moment?? duhhhhh

The one vid where the guy was trying to line up the stick for the auto-tongs, if was oil and flamed, that suit wouldn't have helped him survive.

I've seen some good sketti kicks of 35 sticks on one rig and one was little less up by Orla, Tx in 78. Back then gas pressures in that area around Red Lake around 15k+ feet 16,300 psi was highest well pressure I seen. Next time I go down that area I will check on them wells drilled in around 75, curious to see what pressures are 42 yrs later. 

Deepwater Horizon was 16k when initial blow, 2 weeks later was down to 13k+. That's was a few barrels (sarc) but none did ever make the beaches and all he enzymes and dispersants injected and warm water bacteria ate most. Never was there any real video of massive fish die offs. BP got screwed but they had themselves to blame. The men and their families is the real sad part that money can't replace. 

Edited February 20, 2020 by Old-Ruffneck
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[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

Ruffneck,

In my opinion, the whole Deepwater Horizon issue started when they refused to believe the results of the initial inflow test...and talked themselves out of believing that the liner lap wasn’t leaking. Up until this point things were routine and the problem could have been resolved at this point.

What are your thoughts on this?

 

[Old-Ruffneck + 1,177]

6 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Ruffneck,

In my opinion, the whole Deepwater Horizon issue started when they refused to believe the results of the initial inflow test...and talked themselves out of believing that the liner lap wasn’t leaking. Up until this point things were routine and the problem could have been resolved at this point.

What are your thoughts on this?

 

Shoulda waited few more hours for the crap to harden and do flow tests and hold, With the equipment even then would have told them the seal was letting go but once the command to go early all bets are off. Same as setting spud in casing in land rigs, let Haliburton do their job, and tell you when to resume normal mud pressures. And that is true all the way down. On Deepwater they made a serious miscalc and skipping tests on high pressure free flow holes cost men their lives needlessly. Senseless not following the basic rules. 82 was a brutal year in the 80 mile radius of Odessa, Tx, at least 50 men made fatal no-no's and died. A few I knew, one closely. All but maybe 2 were preventable. That year is what made OSHA start doubling  down on accident prevention, and made subsequent years better. Fines were horrific to force a safer work-place.

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

The sad fact is that ‘good oilfield practices have been developed over the past 80 years or so, and in many contracts these practices are mandated although generally not defined as reasonable drilling people (contractors, third parties and operators) lump them in with common sense.

Early in my career, off the coast of Angola,  a night toolpusher on the Omega gave me a bit of advice which I have never forgotten. ‘If you have ANY doubt about the behavior of the well - shut it in! You can always open it back up later’. This night pusher ended up very high on the Cairn Energy totem pole...and rightly so.

Once the guys on the Deepwater Horizon saw pressure on the inflow test, ANY pressure (I think they saw over 1000 psi eventually) they should have reverse circulated to a kill weight mud, killed the well, then run an emergency seal assembly. Then run another inflow test. This is standard, good oilfield practice.

I understand that there was an inordinate amount of pressure to continue drilling, but this is where the OIM (never had this position onboard while I worked offshore 😂) and the Companyman should have stepped in and shut things down.

 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

“The directional that surfaced was just drilling mud, not a blowout. But a wtf moment?? duhhhhh”

That’s an understatement!😂

I assume that they were taking surveys, so how the heck did this happen! 
 

Looking at the bit and the voices in the background I think this was in the old Soviet Union. Can you imagine being on the drillfloor when one of the roughnecks says, “Comrade Vladofaky, do you see that new geyser yonder?” While Vlad has an ‘aw shit’ moment as he sees a drastic drop in pump pressure...😂

[Old-Ruffneck + 1,177]

33 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

I understand that there was an inordinate amount of pressure to continue drilling

Correct Douglas, my guess BP was shelling out 100k+ per day for the rig. If your 40 days past projection that no small taters. BUT, money should never trump safety! I worked land only rigs in the Permian, and some of rigs were well below sub-standard, and in youth your invincible. Oldest rig I worked on was a an old double, substructure 8' off the ground. Worked a lot of 1st gen triples. I did have a chance to go in the gulf with Penrod drilling in about the time right after the North-Sea rig capsized and killed like 370+ workers. I respectfully declined after that as I swim like a rock. In 80 or around that time period and yes paid much better. Plus 30 on and 30 off wasn't my cup o'tea. 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

14 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Ruffneck,

In my opinion, the whole Deepwater Horizon issue started when they refused to believe the results of the initial inflow test...and talked themselves out of believing that the liner lap wasn’t leaking. Up until this point things were routine and the problem could have been resolved at this point.

What are your thoughts on this?

Something else they did was criminally stupid. They offloaded the mud to a tender vessel over 100' below them. This to save about 6 hours off the schedule. If they'd have just left it in the mud tank where it belonged, we wouldn't be having this conversation and BP would be producing 100k bbls per day from that well. They could have killed that kick in 2 minutes. 

When the sht hit the fan, the poor crew was screaming to get that mud pumped back up to the Deepwater. Wasn't going to happen in time, the tender only had something like a 2 inch pump setup. 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

4 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

Something else they did was criminally stupid. They offloaded the mud to a tender vessel over 100' below them. This to save about 6 hours off the schedule. If they'd have just left it in the mud tank where it belonged, we wouldn't be having this conversation and BP would be producing 100k bbls per day from that well. They could have killed that kick in 2 minutes. 

When the sht hit the fan, the poor crew was screaming to get that mud pumped back up to the Deepwater. Wasn't going to happen in time, the tender only had something like a 2 inch pump setup. 

All true, but if they simply would have recognized, and believed the results of the inflow test and NEVER unseated the packer until they had reverse circulated to kill weight mud...they would never have taken a kick.

With the situation onboard at the time, once they unseated the packer, a blowout was guaranteed. 

[Old-Ruffneck + 1,177]

4 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

With the situation onboard at the time, once they unseated the packer, a blowout was guaranteed. 

Yup, Bingo.....

[James Regan + 1,776]

On 2/20/2020 at 4:19 AM, Douglas Buckland said:

Ruffneck,

In my opinion, the whole Deepwater Horizon issue started when they refused to believe the results of the initial inflow test...and talked themselves out of believing that the liner lap wasn’t leaking. Up until this point things were routine and the problem could have been resolved at this point.

What are your thoughts on this?

 

Those liner laps have got a lot of people and have been the reason of many kicks and blowouts. Human nature tends to make you drop the guard after drilling out the risky section without incident and you run the liner lap instantly the guard drops.

Been there exactly at that point, well supposedly dead although gave us back 350+ Bbls when it was finally shut in we had 7500 on the casing, this was a HP/HT with very heave casing strings, we bullheaded it after two weeks and went on to test the well, we were very lucky.

Regarding Macondo did I see 13000psi quoted, i find that hard to believe and would like to know how and where that pressure was measured, 13K at surface being measured is hard to swallow but I may be wrong.

[James Regan + 1,776]

17 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

Something else they did was criminally stupid. They offloaded the mud to a tender vessel over 100' below them. This to save about 6 hours off the schedule. If they'd have just left it in the mud tank where it belonged, we wouldn't be having this conversation and BP would be producing 100k bbls per day from that well. They could have killed that kick in 2 minutes. 

When the sht hit the fan, the poor crew was screaming to get that mud pumped back up to the Deepwater. Wasn't going to happen in time, the tender only had something like a 2 inch pump setup. 

The initial explosion came from taking gas cut mud direct from the well to the poorboy degasser and not overboard, 20/20 hindsight is easy but they were more worried about polluting the GOM and this blinded them as to what they were doing, the PBD could never hold the volume and as a result gas cut mud made its way through the circulating system shakers etc until the engines started aspiration on well gas, the perfect bomb.

But the sad thing is that the same things are seen to be happening now and most people didn’t learn to much from Macondo they just follow the recommendations while not understanding why, this is unfortunate.

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

A sad state of affairs when you are more concerned with polluting the GOM than blowing up a rig and killing people...

[Old-Ruffneck + 1,177]

On 2/21/2020 at 9:25 AM, James Regan said:

Regarding Macondo did I see 13000psi quoted, i find that hard to believe and would like to know how and where that pressure was measured, 13K at surface being measured is hard to swallow but I may be wrong.

Yeah, originally it was tested right (several days) ahead of terminating. It lost all of 3k in the 26? days after. I will try finding the sight where I found that info. As I watch no TV it was likely another source, as I can't remember who actually even closed the well off. Memory issues with age.

[El Nikko + 2,145]

On 2/20/2020 at 7:19 AM, Douglas Buckland said:

Ruffneck,

In my opinion, the whole Deepwater Horizon issue started when they refused to believe the results of the initial inflow test...and talked themselves out of believing that the liner lap wasn’t leaking. Up until this point things were routine and the problem could have been resolved at this point.

What are your thoughts on this?

 

The Schlum crew were onboard but were sent home without running the CBL probably to save money/time.

After all the problems that well had it seems insane not to run the CBL

Edited February 22, 2020 by El Nikko

[El Nikko + 2,145]

Here's one that happened when I was in Algeria, we had a contract for mudlogging for Repsol, from what I was told they'd been taking continous kicks for days. There was some failure with the BOPs but I believe they still continued drilling. When it blew out it caused a huge fire and the 2 guys working on the BOPs were killed and several others injured. It was common practice for MWD/Mudlogging units to be very close to the wellhead due to the work involved running cables etc. It also wasn't uncommon to find some lazy guys not bothering to take the padlock off the emergency escape hatch but luckily in this incident the two engineers had done and that probably saved their lives. I know when one of them attempted to open the door (facing the rig) his hands were baddly burned by the heat from the fire.

longer video (volume warning)

 

Shorter one showing the derrick collapsing

 

Edited February 22, 2020 by El Nikko

[James Regan + 1,776]

17 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

A sad state of affairs when you are more concerned with polluting the GOM than blowing up a rig and killing people...

Yep but that’s what happens with the big corporate wheels of the evil empires start turning, from within the wheels are derailed with joy one dept looking to out do the next, one position prepared to throw the next under the bus to keep the upward momentum going. These companies don’t know if they are coming or going bogged down with legislation so thick that it blurs the main vision of the company which in short is to drill and produce oil wells safely. Nowadays the well and “those guys offshore” are just a PITA and the office would be a much better place to work without them. Go figure that one out, that exact statement was overheard by my Dad at Chevron when two secretaries said the job would be great if it wasn’t for those F$&@ers offshore. Nuff said.....

I’m still really interested to know what will take the place of oil as a feedstock and fuel so we don’t blow up rigs and make shrimp fishing tough, blow the rig but by god don’t intentionally put any drilling mud in the sea, while drilling out top hole it’s okay but it’s all just chemicals , I never really swallowed that one other than oil based and water based still putting lots of pollutants into the sea, more corporate BS

Edited February 22, 2020 by James Regan

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

59 minutes ago, James Regan said:

Yep but that’s what happens with the big corporate wheels of the evil empires start turning, from within the wheels are derailed with joy one dept looking to out do the next, one position prepared to throw the next under the bus to keep the upward momentum going. These companies don’t know if they are coming or going bogged down with legislation so thick that it blurs the main vision of the company which in short is to drill and produce oil wells safely. Nowadays the well and “those guys offshore” are just a PITA and the office would be a much better place to work without them. Go figure that one out, that exact statement was overheard by my Dad at Chevron when two secretaries said the job would be great if it wasn’t for those F$&@ers offshore. Nuff said.....

I’m still really interested to know what will take the place of oil as a feedstock and fuel so we don’t blow up rigs and make shrimp fishing tough, blow the rig but by god don’t intentionally put any drilling mud in the sea, while drilling out top hole it’s okay but it’s all just chemicals , I never really swallowed that one other than oil based and water based still putting lots of pollutants into the sea, more corporate BS

There's another problem, they're terrified about using Aqueous Film-Forming Foam Concentrates (AFFF) or PFAS or equivalents. Remember when those stupid boats were trying to put out the Macando with water cannons? A 100% complete waste of time. Foam would have put it out, if they used enough of it, but again, worried about some fish getting cancer I suppose. 

[El Nikko + 2,145]

 

On 2/20/2020 at 9:28 PM, Ward Smith said:

Something else they did was criminally stupid. They offloaded the mud to a tender vessel over 100' below them. This to save about 6 hours off the schedule. If they'd have just left it in the mud tank where it belonged, we wouldn't be having this conversation and BP would be producing 100k bbls per day from that well. They could have killed that kick in 2 minutes. 

When the sht hit the fan, the poor crew was screaming to get that mud pumped back up to the Deepwater. Wasn't going to happen in time, the tender only had something like a 2 inch pump setup. 

I just had to check that out and it's true, absolutely unbelieveable.

Here's some sources to reports etc

https://www.csb.gov/macondo-blowout-and-explosion/

 

[El Nikko + 2,145]

another one

https://ccrm.berkeley.edu/pdfs_papers/bea_pdfs/DHSGFinalReport-March2011-tag.pdf

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

5 hours ago, El Nikko said:

another one

https://ccrm.berkeley.edu/pdfs_papers/bea_pdfs/DHSGFinalReport-March2011-tag.pdf

Yes, I don't know if @Douglas Bucklandthoroughly read this report, but I did the moment it was released. 

Here's the salient point I was making

Quote

April 20, 11:30 a.m. – The BP plan for placement of the surface plug after displacement of the upper portion of the drill mud column was reviewed with the Transocean drill crew. Significant concerns for displacement of the drill mud before placement and testing of the surface plug and installation of a lockdown sleeve were expressed. Agreement was reached to proceed with the BP well abandonment plan.82
Drill pipe was run in the hole to 8,367 ft and in preparation for the mud displacement and the negative-pressure test, the displacement procedure was reviewed.83
April 20, 1:28 p.m. – The Deepwater Horizon started offloading mud to the supply vessel Damon Bankston.83 Concerns were expressed by the mudloggers that given the simultaneous operations the mud pit levels could not be accurately monitored.83 The assistant Driller told the mud logger that once the offloading operations were ceased, a notice would be provided.83

Obviously the entire fustercluck was of epic proportions. Everything BP did was wrong, including doing the long string rather than a proper tie back, not waiting long enough for the cement to cure properly, skipping the logs etc. MMS bore some responsibility for rubber stamping everything without even looking at it, but as we've all seen, once you're in government service, you're a "made man" and will never be reprimanded for incompetence of any kind, nor ever fired. 

Obama knew the bunglecrats had messed up, so he "solved" it by renaming the department. All the same people doing all the same jobs but the "stench" stayed with the old name. Because people don't remember and reporters are stupid. 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

 “Agreement was reached to proceed with the BP well abandonment plan.82
Drill pipe was run in the hole to 8,367 ft and in preparation for the mud displacement and the negative-pressure test, the displacementprocedure was reviewed.”

Ward, at the time, I did read the report. The salient point that I am trying to make is that if they had believe what the well was telling them in the negative-pressure test (also known as an inflow test), recognized that the liner lap was leaking, and killed the well at this point....unloading drilling mud to the barge would not have had an impact and the blowout would not have occurred!

If there was not enough kill weight mud onboard to kill the well at the time of the inflow test they could have simply reset the test packer until the mud was back onboard OR mixed new kill weight mud exactly as if you were killing a well using the ‘weight & wait’ method.

With all the nonsense going on onboard, the ‘death knell’ was unseating that test packer with a leaking liner lap.

Do the calculations for a cubic foot of influx and the volume that would have been when it reached the surface...