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Crushed Can
According to government reports, when oil giant Shell (LON:RDSA) tested the containment dome they would use in the event of a spill at an offshore drilling operation in the Northern Arctic seas, the dome “crushed like a beer can” under pressure.
Thanks to the Gulf of Mexico spill two years ago we all know what a “containment dome” is and how important it is when it comes to an undersea oil drilling catastrophe.
According to documents obtained by the Seattle radio station, KUOW, through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, Shell’s containment dome was tested off the calm shores of Seattle, Washington in September of this year and the dome test failed miserably.
In the documents, a federal official witnessing the test “on a dead call Friday night” at sea, reports that Shell’s dome “crushed like a beer can.”
Considering just how close we came to seeing Shell drilling offshore for oil in the Arctic this year, this is a pretty disturbing revelation. Never before has a company proposed to drill in the Arctic seas of the Chukchi and Beaufort (the same place they film the TV show World’s Deadliest Catch).
If Shell can’t even come close to getting it right on a calm evening in September off the coast of the protected waters around Seattle, then they are far from being ready to drill in the harsh conditions in the Northern Arctic seas.
Photo from “How can I recycle this” licensed under Creative Commons
12 Comments
Thanks for also covering this, Kevin.
Is Shell’s approval to drill in part based on the dome actually working?
Aside from the political decision to allow drilling for oil in Alaska, I’d like to address your diary.
This statement:
complete ignorance of the concept of “test.”
It is good news when tests fail. Engineers know they do not get everything correct on the first attempt, thus they test.
Failures are expected, and provide the opportunity to refine designs and procedures.
Only assholes pound on engineers who are performing their due diligence, and mock them when test fail.
thanks a lot.
When an engineer works on a project that affects us all and they fail so miserably at understanding the power of nature v.s. the materials they chose to work with………that’s not a “test”, that’s a fuck-up!
Also, do you call people assholes in person regularly?
Yeah, except that they were allowed to go ahead and start drilling with out a working containment dome. Furthermore, tests don’t always fail. Well engineered items pass tests. Cheaply designed, poorly constructed items thrown together to meet bogus requirements often fail tests, IMHE.
You responded similarly in my most recent diary about this event, Synoia. While I agree that tests often fail and that more lessons are learned from failure than from tests that are rigged to not fail, or are not strenuous enough to gauge how equipment will perform under adverse circumstances, you didn’t seem to have registered through reading the links, that information about the nature and extent of the failures at the Arctic Challenger test site between 14 and 17 September have not been disclosed to the public, and without the tools of media like KUOW and watchdogs like PEER, we would know nothing.
You’ve described “testing” as though it is some sort of peer review process, when more often in the acceptance of performance of such equipment as this containment dome is, we have no way of being able to determine if the testing regime was either adequate or was fully documented by the contractor or the government agency requiring the test.
Shell received approval from the Feds to assemble their drilling force in the Arctic pending approval of the Arctic Challenger, without which their approved drilling plan was incomplete. After the mid-September test failures, Shell sought and got approval to drill top holes down to most of the way under the bottom to where the oil is supposed to be. They did that at several locations in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas in September, October and November. They pulled up stakes in mid-November, with the rigs returning to Dutch Harbor for the winter. With the exception of the failed containment dome apparatus on the Arctic Challenger, the AC has been approved for service in 2013, and is currently berthed in Bellingham, WA.
Kevin, thanks.
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Your heroic and probably correct defense of engineers is duly noted.
My belief is that at a minimum, that was supposed to be a “working prototype.” Such a massive failure should have been caught much earlier, probably by the software. That likely means it was rushed into production and testing before engineers signed off on the design. Other culprits include early testing, which may have been falsified.
I know it’s a little thing but i think the “Deadliest Catch” is filmed not in the Chukchi but a little south in the Bristol bay-Bering sea area. I doubt there is any place to deliver crab in the Chukchi or Beaufort. Yet!
I’m defending engineers. Not management.