The Oil thingy deja vú

Post by **joerg** » Thu Jun 03, 2010 1:26 pm

I´m speechless after i saw that!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjqY64Wq ... r_embedded[/youtube]

Post by **stipud** » Thu Jun 03, 2010 2:04 pm

Priceless

Misfire · Post by **Misfire** » Thu Jun 03, 2010 3:19 pm

Amazing! You think we could learn???

I still can't believe, the oil companies, aren't required by law to have a shut off valve at the base of the drill. That way if anything happens to the rig, the valve closes and prevents this stuff from happening. Just sad.

Post by **Eric D** » Thu Jun 03, 2010 3:50 pm

Misfire wrote:Amazing! You think we could learn???

I still can't believe, the oil companies, aren't required by law to have a shut off valve at the base of the drill. That way if anything happens to the rig, the valve closes and prevents this stuff from happening. Just sad.

My best guess is that is due to being in international waters. For all we know, oil companies may execute low productivity workers! Out there they can probably get away with anything...

SolacE · Post by **SolacE** » Thu Jun 03, 2010 3:56 pm

this is sick guys. Its soooo bad here. Oil is washing up on our beaches now and it smells of gasoline in the mornings really bad. This is killing our resturants, fishing industry, tourism, ect....

jbob0124 · Post by **jbob0124** » Thu Jun 03, 2010 4:06 pm

I can only imagine. Just think if they don't cap it for another 2-3 months. The ocean will be half water, half oil...

Post by **ttocs** » Thu Jun 03, 2010 5:20 pm

Misfire wrote:Amazing! You think we could learn???

I still can't believe, the oil companies, aren't required by law to have a shut off valve at the base of the drill. That way if anything happens to the rig, the valve closes and prevents this stuff from happening. Just sad.

I thought they did have a valve but it failed?

Thumper88 · Post by **Thumper88** » Thu Jun 03, 2010 6:50 pm

Yes, there was a shut off valve.

"Transocean drillers aboard the rig at the time of the explosion, who should have been in a position to hit the main cutoff switch, are among the dead. It isn't known if they were able to reach the button, which would have been located in the area where the fire is likely to have started. Another possibility is that one of them did push the button, but it didn't work."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 36798.html

Post by **Eric D** » Thu Jun 03, 2010 6:59 pm

This is the point where I get confused...

So if there was a "button" what did it do? Was it electrical, radio, pneumatic, hydraulic, what?

The valve should still be there, right? I thought it was on the ocean floor. I don't get why they cannot reconnect to the valve control and close it. But, I am not an oil drilling expert, so I really have no idea.

All I can say is if we can land a man on the moon, why the hell can't we plug a leaking oil well on the ocean floor?

Misfire · Post by **Misfire** » Thu Jun 03, 2010 7:51 pm

I agree Eric. Its really sad that there was no tests, maybe every few years, to demonstrate the companies ability to stop a leak if a catastrophic accident occurs at their drilling depth. I understand these accidents are far and few in between, but dam, the FAA does a pretty dam good job at keeping massive metal objects in the air!!!!

They are a lot of smarter people than myself who should have been working on these ideas over the last 31 years. Maybe there is just TOO much money in those companies buying off the politicians to keep their money rolling in.

SolacE · Post by **SolacE** » Fri Jun 04, 2010 6:55 am

The BOP Valve is located on the ocean floor attached to the riser. They are unsure as to whether or not the crew were able to activate the valve before the explosion. However, the valve is able to be activated at the seafloor as well by a remotely operated vehicle. There was a failure in the valve which prevented it from being able to be closed.

Ahh I hate the smell of oil in the morning....it smells like another failure by BP!

I just want to thank BP from the bottom of my heart for ruining our beaches here and killing the property value of my beach house.

Post by **Eric D** » Fri Jun 04, 2010 8:20 am

The really sad part IMO (other than the obvious sad part of oil all over the gulf), is this happened to BP.

I read somewhere recently (before the oil leak) that BP buys the largest quantity of domestic US oil. The more domestic oil the better, as it keeps us less dependent on the middle east.

So where I live (and maybe most of the country) everyone is chanting to boycott BP, which is just shifting dependency that much more to other companies who buy primarily from the middle east. We all know what issues that leads to.

So it becomes a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation...

I think BP is also the biggest buyer of ethanol, but don't quote me on that.

eulogious · Post by **eulogious** » Fri Jun 04, 2010 9:01 am

There are several reason why it failed, and also several times that they engineers had the opportunity to prevent this whole damn thing from happening.

Haliburton used a not so good method to cement the well in HOURS before the explosion. Once Haliburton finished with the well, the rigs operators decided not to run some test that weren't "needed" but were recommended. Then when they did actually run the required pressure tests and what not, the well failed those tests. So instead of shutting down the operation, they decided to move forward with some more tests, and that's when the explosion occurred. I think it was within 20 hours of Haliburton finishing work on the well itself that the explosion happened.

A couple of other things happened as well during this whole thing. The first was the BOP failing. The battery died, and it's hydraulic system was leaking, so even if someone managed to hit the button, it wouldn't do anything. Then after the fire started on the rig itself, they were trying to turn off some valve that they thought might stop the fire, only to find out that the valve was replaced with a test unit. Of course they found this out 20 hours AFTER they started trying to figure out what was up with the valve. They wasted a day on that for nothing. Awesome.

The sad part is that all the safety equipment is in place, they just never checked it, and then ignored the results of the tests that are setup to warn about these things. So not only was this a mechanical failure, but it was also caused by people trying to take short cut to make a buck. Hence why the state is trying to go after BP on criminal charges, because there is evidence that they ignored repeated warnings and took illegal shortcuts.

Having worked in the oil fields up in Canada, I can say that it is absolutely inconceivable to ignore these safety systems. I have seen this equipment, and seen what it can do, and why in the world someone would ignore them is beyond me. And why was this acceptable? I got YELLED at if I rolled up my selves on my covies on the work site for christ sake, and yet these fucktards are ignoring VITAL safety tests and nobody says a thing? Seriously? What the hell is that? If Canada can regulate the industry properly, why can't the US? Oh that's right, thats because the people in the government that are supposed to be watching over and regulating the industry are literally sleeping with representatives from said industry, and letting them write their own applications for permits and what not and then approving them. Gotta love the nice and uncorrupted US government

It's very sad that this whole thing was totally preventable. *sigh* God this country pisses me off sometimes!