VERIFICATIONS
11JUN10
All text and links copied from actual postings, with editorial comments [in captions]
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Halliburton May Be Culprit In Oil Rig Explosion
Huffington Post 30APR10 03:59p
“Last year, Halliburton was also implicated for its cementing work prior to a massive blowout off the coast of Australia, where a rig caught on fire and spewed hundreds of thousands of gallons into the sea for ten weeks.
In that incident, workers apparently failed to properly pump cement into the well, according to Elmer Danenberger, former head of regulatory affairs for the U.S. Minerals Management Service, who testified to an Australian commission probing that accident.
"The problem with the cementing job was one of the root causes in the Australian blowout," Danenberger told Huffington Post"
Drilling Process Attracts Scrutiny in Rig Explosion
WSJ 30APR10 Russel Gold and Ben Casselman
“According to Transocean Ltd., the operator of the drilling rig, Halliburton had finished cementing the 18,000-foot well shortly before the explosion.
A 2007 study by three U.S. Minerals Management Service officials found that cementing was a factor in 18 of 39 well blowouts in the Gulf of Mexico over a 14-year period. That was the single largest factor, ahead of equipment failure and pipe failure.
The Halliburton cementers would have sought approval for their plans—the type of cement and how much would be used—from a BP official on board the rig before carrying out their job. Scott Dean, a BP spokesman, said it was premature to speculate on the role cement might have played in the disaster.
Halliburton also was the cementer on a well that suffered a big blowout last August in the Timor Sea, off Australia. The rig there caught fire and a well leaked tens of thousands of barrels of oil over 10 weeks before it was shut down. The investigation is continuing; Halliburton declined to comment on it.”
Gulf of Mexico Precedent: TIMOR SEA 21AUG2009
[Cement] Miscalculation and lack of support in [Timor Sea] oil disaster
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/19/2850836.htm
Posted Fri Mar 19, 2010 3:09pm AEDT
“A federal inquiry into last year's oil and gas spill off Western Australia has heard workers on the West Atlas rig did not get enough support from management onshore.
The well is owned by the Thai-based company, PTTEP Australasia. Noel Treasure was the most senior person from the company who worked on the rig in the lead up to the accident. He has told the inquiry he miscalculated the volume of cement used to strengthen the well. He agreed with Counsel Assisting that he received inadequate support from management in Perth. Mr Treasure also said he can not substantiate parts of his initial draft statement about the accident. He said he spoke to a PTTEP executive about the statement last week because he was worried he might be exposed to civil liability but he said the executive did not instruct him what to say in the inquiry”
West Atlas oil rig turns into fireball
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2009/s2731302.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation Broadcast: 02NOV2009 Reporter: Tracey Bowden
“The crisis at the West Atlas oil rig off the West Australian coast took a dramatic turn when the leak turned into a fireball. The platform in the Timor Sea continues to burn, fuelled by leaking oil and gas. While environmentalists are calling for tighter regulation of the offshore oil and gas industry, the Federal Government says it will hold a full inquiry once the emergency is over.”
Transcript
“KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: 10 weeks after it began, efforts are continuing to plug a massive oil leak off the Western Australian coast.
Over the weekend, the crisis at the West Atlas oil rig took a dramatic turn when the leak turned into a fireball.
The platform in the Timor Sea continues to burn fuelled by leaking oil and gas.
While environmentalists are calling for tighter regulation of the offshore oil and gas industry, the Federal Government says it will hold a full inquiry once the emergency is over.
In the meantime, concerns grow about the environmental impact and the damage to the credibility of the industry. Tracy Bowden reports.”
GILLY LLEWELLYN, WWF: What we have had from day one unfolding is an environmental disaster. It's now almost like a national emergency. You've got a rig that's got a fireball sitting on it and an uncontrolled fire and still uncontrolled flow. So absolutely, it's a disaster on many levels.
JOSE MARTINS, PTTEP AUSTRALASIA: The fire is out of control. What we are trying to do is to stop it by injecting heavy mud.
TRACY BOWDEN, REPORTER: Just days ago, the experts in charge of plugging the leaking well head at the Montara Rig were feeling confident. Mike Allcorn from Alert Well Control was extolling the virtues of his team.
MIKE ALLCORN, MANAGING DIRECTOR, ALERT WELL CONTROL (Oct. 28): It's been exceptional, world-class. For a group of men and women to come together and work in unison as we have for a unified objective: fantastic. Exceptional group of people to work with, and our achievements, equally, is exceptional.
TRACY BOWDEN: Over the weekend, a fourth attempt was made to intercept the leak, almost three kilometres underground, which has been spewing oil and gas into the surrounding waters for 10 weeks. The leak was intercepted and mud was being poured in to plug it. But then, fire erupted on board the platform fuelled by the oil and gas.
JOSE MARTINS: The incident is regrettable; it's a very, very unfortunate and very unusual incident, one we're not expected to recur again. The company continues to apply best practice to whatever it does
Leaking oil rig in Timor Sea catches fire
A massive fire has erupted on an oil rig that has been leaking into the Timor Sea for more than 10 weeks.
Telegraph 7:00AM GMT 02 Nov 2009 By Bonnie Malkin in Sydney
“West Atlas rig: An estimated 400 barrels of oil a day have escaped from the rig since Aug. 21. No one was injured in the blaze and all non-essential staff have been airlifted from the West Atlas rig, operators PTTEP said. The fire, which started during an attempt to plug the leak, comes as environmental campaigners criticised PTTEP and the Australian government over their handling of the crisis.
An estimated 400 barrels of oil a day have escaped from the rig since Aug. 21. Officials now plan to pour mud into the leak hoping to remove the source of fuel from the fire, which was sending huge plumes of smoke into the sky.
Jose Martins, PTTEP Australasia's chief financial officer, said the company didn't know how the blaze started. "Presently there are many unanswered questions, including what caused the fire," Mr Martins said. "Our sole focus now is the safety of all personnel, bringing the fire under control and completing the well kill."
Martin Ferguson, the Federal Resources Minister, said that once the spill was contained he would launch an official inquiry. "Our requirement is to assess the cause of the accident and any lessons to be learnt, and that could lead to a change in the regulatory environment," he told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. He admitted that the accident, the first major incident in the past 25 years of offshore drilling, had "clearly had an impact on the standing of the oil and gas industry in Australia".
The oil slick from the rig, which is located about 150 miles off Australia's northwest coast, now stretches across thousands of miles of remote ocean. Indonesia said last week that thousands of dead fish and clumps of oil have been found drifting near its coastline. Environmental groups have criticised the government's response to the spill, saying it was threatening bird and marine life off Western Australia's resource-rich northern coast.
Bob Brown, the leader of the Greens Party, called on Mr Ferguson to resign over his handling the emergency. "This is an irresponsible minister who has made a bad situation worse. He should go. "The whole thing is chaotic, It's a mess that's gone from bad to worse. We have to hope that today they will successfully plug now that they've actually found the well neck."
Tests show [Timor Sea] oil leak reached Indonesia
ABC David Weber reported this story on Thursday, February 25, 2010 12:43:00
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2010/s2830022.htm [Timor Sea]
Oil spill: response and responsibility
ABC National Radio Late Night Live 2218 10 NOV 09
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2009/2738460.htm
download audio
“A discussion about the response to the Montara oil leak in the Timor Sea. The leak has been plugged but the long term environmental implications are unknown. Australia lacks deep knowledge of the marine environment in the vicinity of the spill, and there is an international legal loophole around oil rig spills”
[Audio file includes mention of pressure from US oil companies to drop international treaty concerning oil rigs, a very curious feeding frenzy from wide variety of species swimming in the oil and dispersant slick, and questions of long term effects to food chain]
Timor Sea, the voiceless
Dua K.S.Y. Klaas, Wageningen, Netherlands Mon, 03/15/2010 12:27 PM Opinion
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/03/15/timor-sea-voiceless.html
"Montana oil spill polluted Timor Sea", Indonesian media reported last month. The news reveals the environmental consequences surrounding the explosion at the Montara Drilling Station in Australian territory in Aug. 21, 2009. The news might not have bothered Indonesia unless the impacts had not reached the Timor Sea.
The magnitude of the impact of more than 500 million liters of oil spill (ABC, Nov. 24, 2009) on sea biota, such as fish and seaweed is devastating.
The alarming situation is that the bioaccumulation of inorganic chemical substances from the oil spill in eaten fish could be passed on to unborn babies.
Consequently people living on the South Timor coast and Rote Island, especially poor fishermen, are at enormous risk of being contaminated by chemical substances.
The oil spill could seriously affect the ecological habitat of the Timor Sea and its surrounding islands. Therefore, there is a critical need to raise the issue with the polluter from the Australia side.
However, after almost seven months without appropriate action, Indonesian diplomacy has failed to advocate the very basic of its citizens' rights: The right to sustain their lives.
In many cases, the publication of the impact of environmental problems may not attract people's attention.
Made worse because the oil spill does not affect people in Java, it is hard to hope that the central government will pay serious attention to the suffering of the people in the remote areas of Indonesia. In this society, ecology problems may only invite the "nimby" answer.
The Timor Sea pollution case is a reminder of a book written by Rachel Carson in 1962 [Silent Spring]. In her book, she exposed land and water contamination by agricultural pesticide which had been used extensively in the United States between the 1940s and the 1960s...
The result was a stunning decline in the number of birds (Robbins and Stewart, 1949) as dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) substances bioaccumulated in adult birds' bodies through the food chain. The substance in fact caused egg shells to become thinner and thus breakable. As a result, no new birds hatched in spring.
The book, which was then titled Silent Spring, helped voiceless nature to speak out and emphasized the destructive capability of toxic substances which could incapacitate children through their mothers...
The writer is a Ph.D. candidate at Wageningen University and a member of Forum Academia NTT.
As US oil spill worsens, Australia delays report
Posted on 05 May 2010
http://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/press_releases/?193128/As-US-oil-spill-worsens-Australia-delays-report
Sydney, Australia - Australia has delayed until June 18 the release of a report into the oil blowout and spill at the Montara offshore platform in the Timor Sea last year.
The late 2009 blowout, less that one tenth the flow of the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico and in much shallower water, took 73 days to kill. The Inquiry was told the oil from the blowout covered 90,000 kilometres of sea and reef – much more than the area admitted to during the spill.
WWF-Australia is asking the Australian government why its response effort to the Montara oil spill was so weak in comparison to what is happening in the US.
“We’re seeing an environmental and economic catastrophe taking place in the United States,” said Dr Gilly Llewellyn, WWF-Australia’s Manger of Conservation. “There are lots of parallels between the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the oil spill we faced last year in the Timor Sea. That is, until you compare the responses.”
“In light of the current crisis and the wholehearted response, we must ask, did the Australian Government do everything it could when faced with a similar task?”
Information which has come to come to light since the blowout has shown that 247 people worked to contain the spill and that operator PTTEP refused offers of help from nearby rigs. Information made available by PTTEP and government authorities charged with coordinating the response to the spill was limited. The company, which admitted that the wells at the Montara site did not meet their own safety standards, was given another drilling licence during the spill.
In the US, 7500 people have been mobilised in an industry-wide response to the BP spill, with President Barack Obama spearheading a US government response which has included an immediate inspection of other wells and a halt in all new offshore oil and gas exploration while the spill is dealt with and investigated. The extent of the spill can be followed in satellite imagery on a public response web site.
As the oil and gas exploration around the globe moves into more remote, more vulnerable and more technically challenging areas, industry and regulators must recognise that these same places are also making the task of avoiding accidents and responding to spills more difficult.
“What concerns WWF is that in many of these remote places such as the Arctic and coastal East Africa, there will not be a US level response to a significant oil spill. Indeed we may see less than an Australian response,” said Dr Llewellyn
“The unacceptable costs of these incidents on the environment, the economy and the community should give us even more impetus to rethink our addiction to oil.”
Australia’s shame – the Timor Sea oil spill disaster in pictures
October 26, 2009 – 7:23 am, by Bob Gosford
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/northern/2009/10/26/australias-shame-the-timor-sea-oil-spill-disaster-in-pictures/
"The Jakarta Post reports today that the slick is already in Indonesian waters and is causing illness and will have a substantial economic affect on traditional fishers and harvesters on Rote Island:
Four weeks after the oil spill, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) submitted an official report to the Indonesian government mentioning that volumes of crude oil had entered the Indonesian Exclusive Economic Zone, some 51 nautical miles from Rote Island.
Traditional fishermen operating off Pasir Island found an oil slick resembling a pool around 20 miles from Tablolong beach in Kupand, or around 30 nautical miles from Kolbano, South Central Timor regency.
Last week, fishermen on the coast of Rote Ndao regency started complaining of illnesses as a result of the oil spill that had reached land and damaged thousands of hectares of ready-to-harvest seaweed.
“Seaweed, which is one of the province’s prime commodities, has been polluted. If the farmers fail to harvest their seaweed, they would incur losses of up to billions of rupiah,” said the West Timor Care Foundation NGO director Ferdi Tanoni.
Ministry team examines oil spill in Timor Sea
Yemris Fointuna, The Jakarta Post, Kupang Sat, 10/24/2009 11:38 AM National
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/10/24/ministry-team-examines-oil-spill-timor-sea.html
NTT residents concerned about oil spill in Timor Sea
Yemris Fointuna, The Jakarta Post, Kupang Thu, 10/01/2009 11:32 AM National
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/10/01/ntt-residents-concerned-about-oil-spill-timor-sea.html
Timor oil spill has yet to stop
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta Fri, 10/09/2009 9:37 AM National
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/10/09/timor-oil-spill-has-yet-stop.html
The daily spill of about 500,000 liters of polluting crude oil from an offshore rig near Timor Sea in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) province has yet to stop, as efforts to block the spill continue.
Ferdi Tanoni of the West Timor Care Foundation (YPTB) told Antara news agency in Kupang, said that PTTEP Australasia, the petroleum exploration company that owns the offshore drilling rig off northwestern Australia, would make a second attempt to stop the spill in the coming days.
The drilling rig, which has been has been leaking oil and gas into the sea since August 21, is located about 150 miles (250 kilometers) to the northwest of the Kimberley coast in Western Australia state.
The oil spill occurred 50 miles away from the West Timor coast and is likely to reach the shore within weeks.
Local administration has said the the spill threatens hundreds of fishermen.
NTT urges Australia to plug Timor Sea oil spill
Yemris Fointuna, The Jakarta Post, Kupang Wed, 11/04/2009 2:24 PM National
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/11/04/ntt-urges-australia-plug-timor-sea-oil-spill.html
Timor Sea Oil Spill: Among Three Worst Oil Spills in Australian History
The Timor Sea oil spill, according to Senator Rachel Siewert
http://marinesciencetoday.com/2009/10/30/timor-sea-oil-spill-among-three-worst-oil-spills-in-australian-history/
Fishermen to sue over Timor oil spill
By Stephanie March for The World Today Posted Tue Nov 24, 2009 6:09pm AEDT Updated Tue Nov 24, 2009 6:17pm AEDT
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/24/2752314.htm?section=world
At least 500 million litres of oil from the Montara oil field spilled into the Timor Sea over 10 weeks (PTTEP)
Hundreds of fishermen and seaweed farmers are seeking compensation from the Federal Government and a Thai operator after the Montara oil spill in the Timor Sea.
At least 500 million litres of oil from the Montara oil field spilled into the Timor Sea over 10 weeks from August this year, and more reports have emerged of decimated fish stocks.
Fishermen and seaweed farmers say the spill has cost them their only source of income and they are preparing a compensation claim against both the Government and the Thai operators of the rig.
While the Government maintains there is no evidence of damage to Indonesia's marine areas, the Indonesian Government has set up a team to calculate the losses incurred from the oil spill.
Reports of dead fish floating in waters off Kupang in Indonesia's east started to emerge in September, and environmental researcher David Jones spent the past six weeks taking water samples and speaking to fishermen in the area.
"They found dead fish in the area and as they started fishing they discovered their fish catch was off by 70 per cent or more," he said.
"So every time they went fishing, they were unable to produce any economic benefit and, in fact, they lost money every trip and so they eventually had to stop fishing."
Bob La Macchia manages one of the largest trawling operations in the area and is seeking compensation for lost income caused by the spill.
He says the claim from his company alone reaches into the millions.
"More than a million. I'm looking at 2-3 million," he said.
"It's got to be at least seven years, at least seven before we start seeing any product off these grounds."
Daily assessments
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority says it has been conducting daily fly-over assessments of the area since the leak started in August.
It maintains the type and amount of oil observed in Indonesian waters poses no significant threat to the marine environment.
But Mr Jones says the dispersant used by Australian authorities pushed the oil from the surface down onto the reef.
"Some of these guys, they fish and sometimes they dive down at night and they use a small spear gun and they shoot a few fish," he said.
"So ... it's only 15 metres deep, so they could see it on the reef even if it wasn't on the surface."
Moral obligation
Chairman of the West Timor Care Foundation, Ferdi Tanoni, is coordinating the compensation claim on behalf of the Kupang fishermen, and says the Australian Government has a moral obligation to help the fishermen.
"I can recall back in the Second World War, thousands and thousands of West Timorese and East Timorese got killed just to help with the Australian Army," he said.
Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in a statement it would act consistently with international law, but that it was not aware of any basis for a compensation claim.
A Federal Government inquiry into the disaster will hand down its findings in April. [Postponed to June 18, 2010]
But Mr Jones says that may be too late for the Indonesian fishermen.
"They fish until Christmas time and the first part of January, and then they have to make enough money to survive through the wet season," he said.
"And this year they are not going to have any way to survive because their boats are only designed for fishing in that area."
GULF OF MEXICO 20APR2010
“Learn From the BP Disaster. Then Drill Again. There hasn't been an accident like this for 40 years”
Wall Street Journal, Editorial, NANSEN G. SALERI [check date - May 2010]
[See Precedent in Timor Sea]
Did BP's Rig Pass A Key Safety Test—Or Not?
http://motherjones.com/environment/2010/06/bp-deepwater-negative-pressure-test
Fresh allegations from a Deepwater Horizon survivor raise new questions about the company's version of the accident.
— By Josh Harkinson Tue Jun. 15, 2010 3:00 AM PDT
More than seven weeks after BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig caught fire and sank, causing the worst environmental disaster in US history, what exactly happened during its final hours remains murky. There is broad agreement that the platform exploded shortly after a series of safety checks—but just how many tests were done and what they revealed is the subject of intense speculation and debate. Now a lawyer for some of the survivors says he has new evidence that casts doubt on BP's claims that a key safety check was successfully performed just hours before the explosion.
Tony Buzbee, a Houston attorney with a long record of winning settlements from oil companies, is representing Halliburton service supervisor Christopher Haire, who helped perform safety tests on the rig on April 20, the day of the blowout that killed 11 workers. That afternoon, Halliburton contractors performed negative pressure testing, a routine safety check that creates a sucking effect to test for leaks in a well's cement and casings. Haire helped with two negative pressure tests, both of which indicated potential problems with the well the rig had been drilling, known as Macondo. Buzbee says that statements he's taken from Haire suggest that an alleged additional test was not actually completed. Haire was injured when the rig exploded; Buzbee says his client is "focusing on his medical treatment" and unavailable for comment.
BP has acknowledged that two negative pressure tests on the day of the accident were unsuccessful. A company official told congressional investigators last month that the tests' results may have indicated that an influx of gas was causing pressure to mount inside the wellbore. According to a briefing (PDF) given to congressional staff by Halliburton, a negative pressure test is considered successful if no material such as drilling mud, a lubricant injected into unfinished wells, comes up to the surface. However, the first negative pressure test aboard the Deepwater Horizon returned 23 barrels of drilling mud to the surface of the rig and the second test returned 15 barrels, according to public statements by an attorney for Halliburton.
Haire, who performed the two tests with the help of another rig worker, discontinued the second test at around 7 pm because the tank that held the drilling mud was full, Buzbee says. He was then told to shut a valve on the well and stand by. After about 45 minutes, Haire and a coworker began to wonder what was going on and went down to the rig floor, where the platform's drilling equipment was set up. There they found four employees of rig owner Transocean—the driller, tool pusher, and two assistant drillers. "At that point, I was instructed by the driller and the tool pusher that they had achieved a successful negative test on the rig floor," Haire told investigators from the Coast Guard and Minerals Management Service last month. (All four of the Transocean employees died in the blast.)
Yet Buzbee now tells Mother Jones that Haire saw no evidence that this third and final negative pressure test actually took place. As Haire had been waiting above the rig floor, his pressure gauges did not show any changes in the well—as they should have if another test had been performed. "That's why I've always said from the beginning that there never was a 'third test,'" Buzbee says. "The only information that we have about any so-called 'third test' is the word of BP." BP did not respond to a call and email seeking comment.
“There never was a ‘third test,’” Buzbee says. “The only information that we have about any so-called ‘third test’ is the word of BP.”
Buzbee and Haire's description of events is partly reflected in testimony given by Tim Probert, Halliburton's chief health, safety, and environmental officer, before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on May 12. Probert said that negative pressure testing had continued "until Halliburton's cementing personnel were advised by the drilling contractor [Transocean] that the negative pressure test had been completed, and were placed on standby"—echoing Haire's claims of being told to wait for further instructions. Probert did not mention any additional testing taking place after that.
BP had final say on all operations on the rig. An internal email (PDF) submitted to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce shows that the company's Houston office signed off on a plan for negative pressure testing on April 20. Yet the company has offered offered contradictory accounts on whether a successful third negative pressure test took place. On May 10, James Dupree, the company's senior vice president for the Gulf of Mexico, told comittee investigators that he believed the well blew out moments after the second pressure test. A day after his testimony, lawyers for BP contacted the committee and "provided a different account," wrote chairman Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) in an opening statement (PDF) delivered before a hearing on May 12. "According to BP's counsel," continued Waxman, "further investigation has revealed that additional pressure tests were taken, and at 8:00 pm, company officials determined that the additional results justified ending the tests and proceeding with well operations." It was unclear from Waxman's statement what "additional pressure tests" BP might have been referencing other than the alleged third negative pressure test that Haire mentioned.
Testifying before Waxman's committee later that day, Lamar McKay, the president of BP America, would not elaborate on what happened after second pressure test. "I think the investigation needs to look hard at...what decisions were made after that point," he said.
Two weeks later, a memo released by Waxman (PDF) summarizing a briefing (PDF) from BP's internal investigation of the explosion made no mention of the additional pressure tests. However, it quoted BP's investigator as saying that a "fundamental mistake" may have been made in the performance of the second negative pressure test since its results indicated "a very large abnormality." After this test, according to the BP briefing, there was "discussion about pressure on the drillpipe" and well was monitored until 7:55 pm, when the rig team was "satisfied that [the] test [was] successful." The Deepwater Horizon exploded less than two hours later.
Waxman's office would not comment on its investigation. Yet on Monday, Waxman repeated accusations that the oil company had cut corners to save money and time on the Macondo well, which was significantly behind schedule at the time of the accident. In a letter (PDF) to BP CEO Tony Hayward, Waxman wrote that "BP appears to have made multiple decisions for economic reasons that increased the danger of a catastrophic well failure." His letter did not mention negative pressure testing. (Read Kate Sheppard's latest coverage of Waxman's investigation here.)
Adding more confusion to the third-test question was the May 27 testimony of Jimmy Harrell, a top manager for Transocean, who told federal investigators that BP originally had not planned to conduct any negative pressure testing. Harrell said that the first test had been performed at his suggestion; the second test was suggested by someone else (possibly BP or Halliburton). Harrell said that he and BP officials on the Deepwater Horizon had considered both tests successful despite the large amounts of drilling mud that came back to the surface. He said he did not know of a third pressure test.
The disputed third pressure test hasn't come up again in subsequent public hearings. Yet the conflicting claims about the Deepwater Horizon's safety checks are likely to remain a key focus for investigators trying to reconstruct the rig's final hours—not to mention BP, Transocean, Halliburton, and lawyers like Buzbee as they scramble to assign blame for the disaster.
Was the Cement Cured? Read cement specifications
Investigation Update - Interim Report Transocean, LTD 08JUN10
http://energycommerce.house.gov/documents/20100614/Transocean.DWH.Internal.Investigation.Update.Interim.Report.June.8.2010.pdf
Gulf spill: what caused it?
MARGOT ROOSEVELT May 3, 2010
http://www.watoday.com.au/environment/conservation/gulf-spill-what-caused-it-20100502-u1ji.html
“Investigators delving into the causes of the massive gulf oil spill are examining the role of Houston-based Halliburton, the energy services company that was responsible for cementing the deepwater drill hole, as well as the possible failure of equipment leased to British Petroleum.
Two members of Congress, Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak, called on Halliburton to provide all documents relating to ''the possibility or risk of an explosion or blowout at the Deepwater Horizon rig and the status, adequacy, quality, monitoring, and inspection of the cementing work'' by Saturday.
The company's chief executive, David Lesar, is scheduled to testify before Mr Waxman's energy and commerce committee on May 12, along with top executives Lamar McKay of BP America and Steve Newman of Transocean, which leased the drilling rig to BP.
In a statement issued on Friday, Halliburton said: ''It is premature and irresponsible to speculate on any specific causal issues … The cement slurry design was consistent with that utilised in other similar applications [and] tests demonstrating the integrity of the production casing string were completed.''
After an exploration well is drilled, cement slurry is pumped through a steel pipe or casing and out through a check valve at the bottom of the casing. It then travels up the outside of the pipe, sheathing the part of the pipe surrounded by the oil and gas zone. When the cement hardens, it is supposed to prevent oil or gas from leaking into adjacent zones along the pipe.
As the cement sets, the check valve at the end of the casing stops any material from flowing back up the pipe. The zone is thus isolated until the company is ready to start production.
The process is tricky. A 2007 study by the US Minerals Management Service found that cementing was the single most-important factor in 18 of 39 well blow-outs in the Gulf of Mexico over a 14-year period.
Halliburton has been accused of performing a poor cement job in the case of a blow-out in the Timor Sea last year. An investigation is under way.
In the Gulf of Mexico incident, the company had completed final cementing of the well and pipe 20 hours before the blow-out on April 20. But at the time of the accident, ''well operations had not yet reached the point requiring the placement of the final cement plug, which would enable the planned temporary abandonment of the well,'' a Halliburton statement said.”
How a gas bubble blew apart an oil rig
May 9, 2010 Leaked report explains terrifying chain of events that has rocked the British oil giant. By Philip Sherwell in Louisiana
http://www.watoday.com.au/environment/conservation/how-a-gas-bubble-blew-apart-an-oil-rig-20100509-ulf5.html
[Leaked reports are sometimes not reliable]
A deadly bubble of methane that forced its way up from beneath the ocean floor caused last month's oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, according to workers who survived the blast.
The gas shot up the drill column, expanding rapidly as it rose, and burst through a series of seals and barriers before exploding, triggering an even larger blast when the oil that gushed up behind it ignited.
The fullest account so far of events surrounding the blast on April 20 - which killed 11 workers and has led to more than three million gallons of crude oil pouring into the sea - has emerged from an internal investigation into the accident by BP, the oil company that leased and operated the rig.
Workers described the "screaming and hollering" as people ran for their lives to leap off the sides, according to tapes and internal documents whose contents emerged on Saturday. There were claims that the alarm system designed to warn of an imminent explosion failed to sound.
The chain reaction behind what some fear will be the worst oil spill in the industry's history was revealed by Robert Bea, engineering professor an the University of California, Berkeley, who worked for the British oil company as a risk assessment consultant during the 1990s. He was passed documents and a tape from the BP inquiry by others within the industry.
According to the account he has pieced together, a group of BP executives were on board the Deepwater Horizon rig celebrating the project's safety record while, far below, the exploration well was being converted for oil production.
The workers set and then tested a cement seal at the bottom of the well, he believes, but - as they reduced the pressure in the drill column and attempted to set a second seal below the sea floor - a chemical reaction caused by the setting cement created heat.
That heat converted a pocket of methane crystals into a bubble of compressed gas that grew as it rose up the drill column.
Within moments, workers on the surface saw seawater in the drill column rocketing 240 feet into the air, before gas and then oil surfaced. "It was chaos," said one survivor, Dwayne Martinez. "Nothing went as planned, like it was supposed to."
The gas flooded into a room with exposed ignition sources, Prof Bea said, causing the first explosion, and others followed. According to one interview, the gas cloud caused giant engines on the drill floor to run too fast and explode, setting "everything on fire".
Transocean Ltd, which owns the rig, declined to speculate on whether the alarms sounded. A BP spokesman would not comment on whether methane gas or the series of events described in the internal documents caused the accident.
The BP executives were injured but survived. Nine rig crew on the rig floor and two engineers died.
The accounts emerged as BP came close to completing the first stage of a massive operation to control the source of the leak.
In the swirling pitch-black waters more than 5,000 feet below the surface, a 100-ton (91 tonne) concrete-and-steel vault, the size of a house, was positioned over the ruptured well head using robotic submersibles. Today, BP workers will attempt to hook up a pipe and hose to begin to funnel the gushing oil to a tanker on the surface.
Inextricably tied to the mission, and perhaps as important for the company's future, is the need to contain US public and political discontent at the British oil giant.
Last month, Dame Helen Mirren bemoaned the trend in America to cast Britons as movie villains, and it has largely fallen to Tony Hayward, the 52 year-old brought in to replace Lord Browne as chief executive following an earlier US disaster in a Texas refinery, to try to ensure that BP is not added to the canon of British bad guys.
The career oil man has been popping up on US television networks daily, usually attired in an open neck shirt, slacks and, when on-site, a hard-hat.
At the same time, BP has poured funds not just into their containment and clean-up operation, but coastal communities, by hiring fishermen and targeting Gulf states with advertising messages.
Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph from the spill "front line" fishery town of Venice, Louisiana, Mr Hayward said: "If we keep the local community on our side we will win. I'm determined BP will come out the other side stronger."
He acknowledged early "missteps" over BP's handling of the crisis, but said that was "hardly surprising" considering the scale of it. The company and its critics agree on one point - that the technology being deployed to cap the leak has never been used at such depths to contain such a big spill. Foes say this is because BP did not take the risk seriously, deliberately downplaying the dangers when it won the exploration rights.
But Andrew Gowers, the company's communications chief, said: "This is an unprecedented situation, not just for BP but for the oil industry and we are inventing new technologies on the go tackle this."
The first oil has started to come ashore on remote barrier islands but for the most part, a combination of man's efforts and good fortune with winds and currents has kept the huge oil slick offshore. Meanwhile, Mr Hayward is launching a worldwide safety review of BP's oil rigs.
"The blowout preventer, the ultimate safety system that every drilling operation has, failed and that is unprecedented," he said. "The oil industry has been drilling wells in deep water for 25 years, drilled 5,000-plus wells, maybe 10,000, around the world and this has never occurred.
"It was a catastrophic event. You can't have something like this and imagine that significant change in safeguards are not required."
[See precedent set in Timor Sea]
Louisiana oil spill may be five times bigger than previously thought
Telegraph 7:44PM BST 01 May 2010 By Philip Sherwell, US Editor
“Oil from the wrecked Deepwater Horizon rig is feared to be gushing into the Gulf of Mexico at five times the latest estimate [5000 barrels per day] of the US Coastguard, according to satellite imagery studied by industry experts.
“Fifty miles away, on the Louisiana coastline, communities that rely on the sea for their existence are now braced for the worst. Oyster beds could take 20 years to recover and world shrimp supplies will plummet as the Gulf waters are the largest source of the seafood.”
[Are the fishing industries in the Gulf of Mexico, Indonesia, and South Korea just collateral damage, or is there a reason for the pattern?]
Workers Feared Dead as Gulf Rig Sinks
WSJ April 23, 2010 Russell Gold at russell.gold@wsj.com, Ben Casselman at ben.casselman@wsj.com and Guy Chazan at guy.chazan@wsj.com
“BP was days away from announcing a “commercially attractive” oil discovery, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Macondo prospect, where the rig was located, contained “tens of millions of barrels” of crude-oil reserves, this person said.
The Deepwater Horizon was a modern rig, a nine-year-old floating town on the cutting edge of exploration. In September, it drilled a record 35,050-foot-long well, the equivalent of about half the length of Manhattan. BP was paying about $500,000 a day to use the rig, which analysts say would cost an estimated $600 million to replace.
“My sympathies go out to the families of the lost platform/ship workers. Whether it be oil, natural gas, coal or nuclear energy there is risk. We need energy and instead of arguing about it, let’s work together to use less and conserve more."
- Frederick P. Bartlett
“Transocean officials said workers had recently finished installing a steel production pipe into the well. The pipe also had been cementing the well in place by filling up the open area between the pipe and well walls.
This should have prevented oil or gas from moving up the well, said Robert MacKenzie, managing director of energy and natural resources at FBR Capital Markets and a former cementing engineer in the oil industry.
“A blowout after you set your final casing and cement, I’ve never heard of that,” he said. “I cannot recall anything even remotely close to this, in terms of magnitude and scale. This is something that is exceedingly rare.”
There are gauges and alarms to alert workers on the rig to a pressure build, allowing them to pour a heavy liquid called drilling mud into the well to weigh down the oil and gas. There are also blowout prevention devices on the seabed to automatically sever the pipe and seal the well.
A 1969 well blowout off the coast of Southern California, which spilled between 80,000 and 100,000 barrels over a 10-day period, helped build anti-drilling sentiment that led in 1982 to a moratorium on offshore oil development. That moratorium only recently has been lifted.
Environmentalists are seizing on the incident. “While we don’t need to oppose all offshore drilling, those in the industry who tell us there will never be a problem, that they’ve changed their ways, are way over promising,” says Jim Marston, director of the energy program for the Environmental Defense Fund.”
Drilling Club Listserve
http://drillingclub.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=wellcontrol&thread=4837&page=14#13353
Re: Transocean fire
« Reply #393 on May 3, 2010, 11:27pm “burenye”
“This well had been giving some problems all the way down and was a big discovery. Big pressure, 16ppg+ mud weight. They ran a long string of 7" production casing - not a liner, the confusion arising from the fact that all casing strings on a floating rig are run on drill pipe and hung off on the wellhead on the sea floor, like a "liner". They cemented this casing with lightweight cement containing nitrogen because they were having lost circulation in between the well kicking all the way down.
The calculations and the execution of this kind of a cement job are complex, in order that you neither let the well flow from too little hydrostatic pressure nor break it down and lose the fluid and cement from too much hydrostatic. But you gotta believe BP had 8 or 10 of their best double and triple checking everything.
On the outside of the top joint of casing is a seal assembly - "packoff" - that sets inside the subsea wellhead and seals. This was set and tested to 10,000 psi, OK.
This was the end of the well until testing was to begin at a later time, so a temporary "bridge plug" was run in on drill pipe to set somewhere near the top of the well below 5,000 ft. This is the second barrier, you always have to have 2, and the casing was the first one. It is not know if this was actually set or not. At the same time they took the 16+ ppg mud out of the riser and replaced it with sea water so that they could pull the riser, lay it down, and move off.
When they did this, they of course took away ...... hydrostatic on the well. But this was OK, normal, since the well was plugged both on the inside with the casing and on the outside with the tested packoff. But something turned loose all of a sudden, and the conventional wisdom would be the packoff on the outside of the casing.
Gas and oil rushed up the riser; there was little wind, and a gas cloud got all over the rig. When the main inductions of the engines got a whiff, they ran away and exploded. Blew them right off the rig. This set everything on fire. A similar explosion in the mud pit / mud pump room blew the mud pumps overboard. Another in the mud sack storage room, sited most unfortunately right next to the living quarters, took out all the interior walls where everyone was hanging out having - I am not making this up - a party to celebrate 7 years of accident free work on this rig. 7 BP bigwigs were there visiting from town.
In this sense they were lucky that the only ones lost were the 9 rig crew on the rig floor and 2 mud engineers down on the pits. The furniture and walls trapped some and broke some bones but they all managed to get in the lifeboats with assistance from the others.
The safety shut ins on the BOP were tripped but it is not clear why they did not work. This system has 4 way redundancy; 2 separate hydraulic systems and 2 separate electric systems should be able to operate any of the functions on the stack. They are tested every 14 days, all of them. (there is also a stab on the stack so that an ROV can plug in and operate it, but now it is too late because things are damaged).
The well is flowing through the BOP stack, probably around the outside of the 7" casing. As reported elsewhere, none of the "rams", those being the valves that are suppose to close around the drill pipe and / or shear it right in two and seal on the open hole, are sealing. Up the riser and out some holes in it where it is kinked. A little is coming out of the drill pipe too which is sticking out of the top of the riser and laid out on the ocean floor. The volumes as reported by the media are not correct but who knows exactly how much is coming?
2 relief wells will be drilled but it will take at least 60 days to kill it that way. There is a "deep sea intervention vessel" on the way, I don't know if that means a submarine or not, one would think this is too deep for subs, and it will have special cutting tools to try to cut off the very bottom of the riser on top of the BOP. The area is remarkably free from debris. The rig "Enterprise" is standing by with another BOP stack and a special connector to set down on top of the original one and then close. One unknown is if they get a new stack on it and close it, will the pregnant dog broach around the outside of all the casing??
In order for a disaster of this magnitude to happen, more than one thing has to go wrong, or fail. First, a BallS**tty cement job. The wellhead packoff / seal assembly, while designed to hold the pressure, is just a backup. And finally, the ability to close the well in with the BOP somehow went away.”
BP 'top kill' fails, piling more pressure on Obama
Sat May 29, 2010 10:02pm EDT By Ed Stoddard and Mary Milliken [exerpt]
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN28127655
[Note recent American where Republicans gained political positions]
With the leak and the clean-up far from solved, BP now has a new headache: accusations that its 22,000 workers employed in clean-up are not adequately trained and equipped and some of them have been sickened by the oil.
Suttles said, "It's clear that people have gotten sick and we need to figure out what we need to do to change that." But he said illness was not widespread among the workers.
Oil cleanup workers report illness
By Nicole Santa Cruz and Julie Cart, Los Angeles Times May 26, 2010
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-workers-sick-20100526,0,4604887.story
Reporting from Venice, La., and Los Angeles —
Some fishermen who have been hired by BP to clean up the gulf oil spill say they have become ill after working long hours near waters fouled with oil and dispersant, prompting a Louisiana lawmaker to call on the federal government to open mobile clinics in rural areas to treat them.
The fishermen report severe headaches, dizziness, nausea and difficulty breathing. Concerned by the reports, Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-La.) wrote to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius asking the agency's help providing medical treatment, especially in Plaquemines Parish, a southern region where many fishermen live.
Melancon said he expected BP to fund the clinics, but his spokeswoman said Tuesday the company had not responded to last week's request for financial assistance.
George Jackson, 53, has been fishing since he was 12 and took a BP cleanup job after the massive oil spill forced the closure of fisheries and left him unemployed. As he was laying containment booms Sunday, he said, a dark substance floating on the water made his eyes burn.
"I ain't never run on anything like this," Jackson said. Within seconds, he said, his head started hurting and he became nauseated.
Like other cleanup workers, Jackson had attended a training class where he was told not to pick up oil-related waste. But he said he wasn't provided with protective equipment and wore leather boots and regular clothes on his boat.
"They [BP officials] told us if we ran into oil, it wasn't supposed to bother us," Jackson said. "As far as gloves, no, we haven't been wearing any gloves."
David Michaels, U.S. assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health, reviewed the conditions for cleanup workers, pledging this month that the federal government would ensure workplace safety in a toxic environment.
The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality and Department of Health and Hospitals warned that oil cleanup workers "should avoid skin contact, and oral cavity or nasal passage exposure to oil spill products [by] using appropriate clothing, respiratory protection, gloves and boots."
Meanwhile the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been cautioning since the April 20 offshore leak began in the Gulf of Mexico that the oil spewing from the undersea well is harmful to human and animal health.
Even the EPA's monitoring of air quality on the gulf shoreline, 50 miles from the oil leak, has detected petroleum odors strong enough to cause sickness. The agency's website warns coastal residents: "Some of these chemicals may cause short-lived effects like headache, eye, nose and throat irritation, or nausea."
BP spokesman Graham McEwen said Tuesday he was unaware of any health complaints among cleanup workers, noting that the company had taken hundreds of samples of so-called volatile organic carbons, such as benzene, and all the levels were well within federal safety standards.
McEwen said the fishermen the company is training are not being deployed into areas that require respirators or breathing apparatus. Those who are working for BP laying booms or skimming oil are issued protective coveralls and gloves, he said.
To Riki Ott, a marine toxicologist who studied the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska, it's "deja vu."
"What we saw with Exxon Valdez was a parallel track — sick animals and sick people. Harbor seals were looking like they were drunk and dying … and autopsies showed brain lesions.…What are we exposing these poor fishermen to?" Ott said.
Some fishermen suspect that health problems are going unreported because, with so much of the gulf closed to commercial fishing, unemployed shrimpers and oystermen are grateful for the cleanup jobs.
"It an unwritten rule, you don't bite the hand that feeds you," said George Barisich, president of the United Commercial Fishermen's Assn. in St. Bernard Parish, who said many fishermen have told him about feeling ill.
Barisich says he won't risk going out, especially after a crew told him of working around the Chandeleur Islands, a barrier chain hit by the slick. "All the birds were walking around like a bunch of zombies," he said.
At a recent meeting fishermen complained to a BP representative about illness, Barisich said, but got little response. "BP has the opinion that they are not getting sick," he said. Barisich said the company is not providing respirators because "if they give us that type of equipment then they admit there are health hazards."
He acknowledged that it was difficult for fishermen to prove their ailments since they seemed to recover after leaving the water. "It becomes a matter of honor," Barisich said. "You left in the morning, you were OK. Out on the water, you've got a pounding headache, throwing up."
George Arnesen was congested and coughing the day after he went shrimping off California Point. His wife, Kindra, 32, made him see a doctor. The 42-year-old was given a shot of antibiotics, an anti-inflammatory and a prescription for three medications.
"My husband's never had a breathing problem in his life," Kindra Arnesen said
Gulf Oil Spill Sickness: Cleanup Workers Experience Health Problems, Complain Of Flulike Symptoms
NOAKI SCHWARTZ and MATTHEW BROWN 06/ 3/10 07:25 PM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/03/gulf-oil-spill-sickness-c_n_598816.html
NEW ORLEANS — For days now, Dr. Damon Dietrich and other physicians have seen patients come through their emergency room at West Jefferson Medical Center with similar symptoms: respiratory problems, headaches and nausea.
In the past week, 11 workers who have been out on the water cleaning up oil from BP's blown-out well have been treated for what Dietrich calls "a pattern of symptoms" that could have been caused by the burning of crude oil, noxious fumes from the oil or the dispersants dumped in the Gulf to break it up. All workers were treated and released.
"One person comes in, it could be multiple things," he said. "Eleven people come in with these symptoms, it makes it incredibly suspicious."
Few studies have examined long-term health effects of oil exposure. But some of the workers trolling Gulf Coast beaches and heading out into the marshes and waters have complained about flu-like symptoms – a similar complaint among crews deployed for the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska.
BP and U.S. Coast Guard officials have said dehydration, heat, food poisoning or other unrelated factors may have caused the workers' symptoms. The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals is investigating.
Brief contact with small amounts of light crude oil and dispersants are not harmful. Swallowing small amounts of oil can cause upset stomach, vomiting and diarrhea. Long-term exposure to dispersants, however, can cause central nervous system problems, or do damage to blood, kidneys or livers, according to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention.
In the six weeks since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, killing 11 workers, an estimated 21 million to 45 million gallons of crude has poured into the Gulf of Mexico. Hundreds of BP contractors have fanned out along the Gulf, deploying boom, spraying chemicals to break up the oil, picking up oil-soaked debris and trying to keep the creeping slick out of the sensitive marshes and away from the tourist-Mecca beaches.
Commercial fisherman John Wunstell Jr. spent a night on a vessel near the source of the spill and left complaining of a severe headache, upset stomach and nose bleed. He was treated at the hospital, and sued – becoming part of a class-action lawsuit filed last month in U.S. District Court in New Orleans against BP, Transocean and their insurers.
Wunstell, who was part of a crew burning oil, believes planes were spraying dispersant in the middle of the night – something BP disputes.
"I began to ache all over ..." he said in the affidavit. "I was completely unable to function at this point and feared that I was seriously ill."
Dozens of complaints, most from spill workers, have been made related to oil exposure with the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, said spokeswoman Olivia Watkins, as well as with the Louisiana Poison Center, clinics and hospitals. Workers are being told to follow federal guidelines that recommend anyone involved in oil spill cleanup wear protective equipment such as gloves, safety glasses and clothing.
Michael J. Schneider, an attorney who decided against filing a class-action lawsuit in the 1990s involving the Valdez workers, said proving a link between oil exposure and health problems is very difficult.
"As a human being you listen to enough and you've got to believe they're true," he said. "The problem is the science may not be there to support them ... Many of the signs and symptoms these people complained of are explainable for a dozen different reasons – it's certainly coincidental they all shared a reason in common."
Similar to the Valdez cleanup, there have been concerns in the Gulf that workers aren't being supplied with enough protective gear. Workers have been spotted in white jumpsuits, gloves and booties but no goggles or respirators.
"If they're out there getting lightheaded and dizzy every day then obviously they ought to come in, and there should be respirators and other equipment provided," said LuAnn White, director of the Tulane Center for Applied Environmental Public Health. She added that most of the volatile components that could sicken people generally evaporate before the oil reaches shore.
BP PLC's Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said reports of workers getting sick are being investigated but noted that no one has pinpointed the cause. Suttles said workers were being given "any safety equipment" needed to do their jobs safely.
Unlike with Exxon Valdez, in the Gulf, the oil has been lighter, the temperatures warm and humid, and there have been hundreds of thousands of gallons of chemicals used to break up the oil.
Court records showed more than 6,700 workers involved in the Exxon Valdez clean up suffered respiratory problems which the company attributed to a viral illness, not chemical poisoning.
Dennis Mestas represented the only known worker to successfully settle with Exxon over health issues. According to the terms of that confidential settlement, Exxon did not admit fault.
His client, Gary Stubblefield, spent four months lifting workers in a crane for 18 hours a day as they sprayed the oil-slicked beaches with hot water, which created an oily mist. Even though he had to wipe clean his windshield twice a day, Stubblefield said it never occurred to him that the mixture might be harming his lungs.
Within weeks, he and others, who wore little to no protective gear, were coughing and experiencing other symptoms that were eventually nicknamed Valdez crud. Now 60, Stubblefield cannot get through a short conversation without coughing and gasping for breath like a drowning man. He sometimes needs the help of a breathing machine and inhalers, and has to be careful not to choke when he drinks and eats.
Watching the Gulf situation unfold, he says, makes him sick.
"I just watch this stuff everyday and know these people are on the very first rung on the ladder and are going to go through a lot of misery," said Stubblefield, who now lives in Prescott, Ariz.
http://www.halliburton.com/
2008 Press Releases FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 5, 2008
HALLIBURTON WINS THREE ENGINEERING ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS
“HOUSTON - Halliburton (NYSE: HAL) announced today that it has won three Hart's E&P meritorious engineering achievement awards. William Pike, E&P editor-in-chief, presented the awards today at the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston.
"It is an honor for Halliburton technology to be recognized year after year by this prestigious committee," said Tim Probert, executive vice president, Strategy and Corporate Development, Halliburton. "This is another example of how our employees are hard at work developing creative solutions for the industry's exploration, development and production challenges."
The three winning Halliburton technologies are: Baroid Fluid Services' INTEGRADE® diesel-based fluid system; Sperry Drilling Services' InSite ADR™ Azimuthal Deep Resistivity sensor; and Easywell's Swellpacker™ cable system.
The INTEGRADE fluid system is the first and only clay- and lignite-free diesel-based fluid. When maintained properly, the system helps significantly reduce downhole losses while drilling, running casing and cementing. Less diesel consumption and fewer additives help lower operator costs and reduce environmental impact. In a 32-well comparison, the wells drilled with INTEGRADE fluid used 62 percent less diesel than the wells drilled with conventional diesel-based mud representing an average savings of about $30,000 per well.”
[See also a description of trademarked “Tuned Spacer” used by “one Gulf of Mexico operator” at www.halliburton.com/productsandservices/cementing/casestudies/jan2009]
http://www.halliburton.com/
2008 Press Releases FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 21, 2008
HALLIBURTON ANNUAL MEETING OF STOCKHOLDERS AND DIVIDEND DECLARATION
“Houston, TX– Halliburton (NYSE: HAL) announced today that at its annual meeting of stockholders in Houston, Texas, its stockholders elected all ten nominees to the board of directors, ratified the selection of KPMG LLP as principal independent public accountants for 2008 and re-approved the material terms of performance goals under the 1993 Stock and Incentive Plan.
The stockholders voted against all three stockholder proposals regarding a human rights review, political contributions and human rights board committee.
Stockholders reelected board members Alan M. Bennett, James R. Boyd, Milton Carroll, Kenneth T. Derr, S. Malcolm Gillis, David J. Lesar, J. Landis Martin, Jay A. Precourt and Debra L. Reed and elected new board member James T. Hackett.”
BP Chief Warns New Effort to Cap Leak Isn't Guaranteed
WSJ BUSINESS MAY 23, 2010, 5:19 P.M. ET Benoit Faucon, Jason Womack
“Also Saturday, BP, in response to a directive from the U.S. government to switch the type of chemical dispersant it has been using to break up the spill, said it still believes that the product it has been using is the best option. "Based on the information that is available today, BP continues to believe that Corexit was the best and most appropriate choice at the time when the incident occurred, and that Corexit remains the best option for subsea application," BP said in a letter dated May 20 and released Saturday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. BP said Corexit is effective, safe for the environment and that other potential dispersants aren't available in sufficient quantities.
The EPA on Thursday ordered BP to identify and use a less toxic and more effective dispersant than Corexit, which is manufactured by Nalco Holding Co. of Naperville, Ill. The EPA said the alternative needed to be identified within 24 hours and implemented within 72 hours after that. The EPA said that, if BP didn't identify an available alternative, it had to provide the Coast Guard and the EPA with a detailed description of the alternatives that were investigated and the reasons why they aren't suitable.
The company is also drilling two relief wells to permanently shut down the well, an effort that is scheduled to take months”
[Find out if Corexit was the same dispersant used in the Timor Sea oil spill, and report on today’s effects, now 10 months after initial applications]
BP shares rebound after broad sell-off
CHRIS KAHN June 3, 2010 AP
http://www.watoday.com.au/breaking-news-business/bp-shares-rebound-after-broad-selloff-20100603-x061.html
Investors on Wednesday cautiously returned to BP PLC and some of its partners in the failed deepwater well that's spewing millions of gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico.
Shares of BP, Halliburton Corp, Cameron International Corp and Anadarko Petroleum Corp all rebounded in afternoon trading following a broad sell-off, including a 15 per cent drop in BP stock on Tuesday. Shares for rig owner Transocean Ltd continued to slide.
The jump did little to stop what has been a deep plunge in BP's value since the April 20 oil spill, however.
The British oil giant is still worth about $US73 billion ($A88 billion)less on the open market since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded. The ruptured well has gushed between 80 million to 160 million litres of crude into the Gulf, and experts say the cleanup, fines and lawsuits could eventually cost BP tens of billions of dollars.
Halliburton, which was in charge of sealing the well before it ruptured, led the rebound after the oil services company told investors it hasn't lost any work because of its ties to the Gulf oil spill.
Chief Financial Officer Mark McCollum said Halliburton's contract with BP protects it from lawsuits and damage claims.
"We believe we've followed BP's instructions," McCollum said. "You can't develop an argument around gross negligence if you follow their directions."
The company also said it is protected by a general liability insurance program worth $US600 million ($A722 million).
Jeffries & Co analyst Stephen Gengaro said the call "gave some people some comfort" about the company's liabilities regarding the Gulf disaster.
Halliburton also gave investors new details about how it would be affected by the federal ban on deepwater exploration, he said.
Tim Probert, Halliburton's global business president, said drilling companies could shift some of their Gulf operations and equipment to international waters. Meanwhile, deepwater drilling activity in the Gulf probably will recover in the next year or two, he said.
Probert added that drilling activity in international waters has seen a "modest impact" as countries ask operators to ensure the safety of blow-out preventers and other equipment. But so far there have been no policy changes regarding drilling off of foreign coasts.
A rise in oil prices and equities markets also helped boost stocks across the sector. Energy stocks rose despite an announcement from President Barack Obama that he wants to roll back "billions of dollars in tax breaks" for oil companies and use the money for clean energy research.
In afternoon trading, Halliburton rose $US2.60, or 12 per cent, at $US23.75 a share. BP shares added 98 cents, or 2.6 per cent, at $US37.50; Cameron gained $US2.33, or 7.3 per cent, at $US34.22 a share; Anadarko rose $US2.01, or 4.8 per cent, at $US44.11. Transocean lost $US2, or 4.1 per cent, at $US48.04.
http://blog.skytruth.org/
[Additional images of Gulf Spill, as well as slicks from other rigs]
SINGAPORE
Oil spill reaches Singapore naval base
The Associated Press, Singapore Wed, 05/26/2010 2:48 PM World
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/05/26/oil-spill-reaches-singapore-naval-base.html
Oil spilled from a tanker collision offshore Singapore reached a naval base but has so far spared the rest of the city-state's coast, authorities said Wednesday.
Officials have deployed oil dispersants, 15 boats, 120 personnel and 3,300 meters (10,800 feet) of containment booms in a bid to keep the oil from damaging Singapore's east coast, a popular beach and park area.
"Small patches of oil and sheen were sighted at Changi Naval Base," the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore said. "Other than this, the oil slick has not affected Singapore's coastlines."
About 18,000 barrels of light crude oil spilled from the Malaysian-registered tanker MT Bunga Kelana 3 after it collided with the St. Vincent's and The Grenadines-registered bulk carrier MV Waily early Tuesday in the Singapore Strait about eight miles (13 kilometers) southeast of Singapore's east coast.
The port authority and the National Environment Agency confirmed local press reports that east coast residents complained of a foul oil smell Tuesday.
"Some of the lighter portions of the oil could have evaporated and caused a smell that was detected by some members of the public," the port authority and environment agency said in a joint statement. It wasn't toxic, they said.
Malaysian coast guard Commander Abdul Hadib Abdul Wahab said Tuesday that any environmental damage would be "very minimal."
The MT Bunga Kelana 3 was built in 1998 and is owned and operated by AET Tanker Holdings (AET), a subsidiary of MISC Bhd. Malaysia's state oil and gas company Petroliam Nasional Bhd. is MISC's biggest shareholder. MISC owns a fleet of 44 petroleum tankers.
[Is incident similar to one in the Black Sea where local oil haulers were put out of business as result of accidental collision? Who owns the hauling companies in both accidents? See also odd barge accident in South Korea, where a crane atop a barge falls and accidentally punctures hull of oil tanker, killing over 300 nearby fish farms]
