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It now appears likely that BP was deliberately cheating on blowout preventer testing:
… an oil industry whistleblower told Huffington Post that BP had been aware for years that tests of blowout prevention devices were being falsified in Alaska. The devices are different from the ones involved in the Deepwater Horizon explosion but are also intended to prevent dangerous blowouts at drilling operations.
Mike Mason, who worked on oil rigs in Alaska for 18 years, says that he observed cheating on blowout preventer tests at least 100 times, including on many wells owned by BP.
As he describes it, the test involves a chart that shows whether the device will hold a certain amount of pressure for five minutes on each valve. (The test involves increasing the pressure from 250 pounds per square-inch (psi) to 5,000 psi.) "Sometimes, they would put their finger on the chart and slide it ahead — so that it only recorded the pressure for 30 seconds instead of 5 minutes," he tells HuffPost …
Many people already chasing after an industrial witch will shift focus on to BP, as opposed to the previous witch du jour, Halliburton. Given the potential, likewise, that a hydraulic line leak in the blowout preventer may be the root cause, this is valuable. However, I think this is the key information today, that will probably go less observed:
… [The whistleblower] Mason claims that a BP representative was usually present while subcontractors performed the tests …
The question is: "Why wasn’t a representative of the US Minerals Management Service present to verify the validity of testing?"
In other words, it is shortsighted to simply start and stop with BP on the blame for test result falsification on critical safety equipment such as blowout preventers. The real fault lies with the Federal government – it is news to noone that industry will lie about virtually anything to cut costs and put more money into corporate pockets. It’s the role of the Federal government to insure that industry doesn’t get away with this when companies like BP inevitably try to falsify tests, and the hearings in the Senate should involve questioning the current and past heads and officials in MMS in order to determine how it is that tests could be falsified ever let alone in number. The witch to burned is the witch of corrupt public officials.
The Deepwater Horizon disaster was utterly predictable. Preventable? Perhaps not – that is the lesson of attempting to exploit resources at or beyond the ability of an industry to guarantee safety and reliability. But the predictable this disaster was, and beyond the fact that MMS didn’t demand sufficient disaster response plans from BP as a condition to authorizing drilling, it now seems quite plausible that MMS looked the other way while BP officials falsified test results on blowout preventers much like the one sitting under a mile of Gulf water spewing oil.
The Federal government should force BP to pay for the recovery and analysis of the totaled blowout preventer once the leaking well is stopped from flowing by intervention wells. The Deepwater Horizon itself, a massive structure in the tens of millions of kilograms, can never be raised and without a doubt will rust on the bottom of the Gulf with hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxic diesel fuel on board for a very long time. But the preventer may be recoverable and if it is it could provide valuable forensic evidence.
Still, the first thing the Senate hearings underway should do is grill the MMS officials who signed off on BP’s drilling plans. The first questions these officials are asked should demand a detailed explanation of what sort of tested were done on the Horizon blowout preventer, who certified these tests were real and valid, and what due diligence MMS did to insure that an organization like BP, with its famous wanton disregard for environmental health and safety issues, did not get away with falsifying any test results.
If these questions are not asked now, there is no hope whatsoever for sound Federal enforcement of regulations on extraction. While BP and the industrial players must be held accountable for every last cent, and while they should not have any sort of profit being made during the extent of this spill, the real goal must be to drive a stake through the heart of corruption in government enforcers of industrial regulations. Corporate businesses will always try to break laws and rules to put money in their pockets. The government must be the bulwark against this behavior. The entire Bush-era MMS leadership should be brought in front of the Senate as soon as possible and the hearings not concluded until all of the failure and corruption is revealed.
44 Comments
They’ve known of there have been problems with them for 10 years
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/45505
Another good one, thanks SF for all yer work.
Feedback appreciated!
The falsification of test results is the issue – and more deeply, the fact that the government has instituted a regulatory regime for the entire oil industry in which test results on the basic functioning of an absolutely critical, last-chance safety device intended to stave off disaster could be falsified with impunity.
Oooops, this message evidently has been brought to you by my inner yoda
I guess that means that extra blowout preventer BP installs in the North Sea doesn’t do all that much to prevent blow-outs, either.
Too busy snorting meth off his crack whore’s belly?
No, I’ll bet the regulatory people there actually do their jobs.
BP: “It’s lost forever.”
This could only have one end … the whistleblower gets jailed !
Great post, Seymour !
Now come on, Margeret. You’re exaggerating.
That meth was snorted off a toaster oven, not a crack-whore’s belly.
I also I doubt the UK is doing a whole lot better. If there are blow-out preventers that BP knows work as designed in front of inspectors in the UK, they would use the same equipment here.
You don’t have some device that works part of the time, and isn’t capable of passing at all the rest of the time.
Namaste Petro!!!
…and has to pay for the cleanup.
What Petro said.
Another scary story is one that appeared in yesterday’s Times-Picayune in which the New Orleans drilling engineer appeared to know almost nothing about his job. He didn’t know that the operator was required to submit proof the blowout preventer would work (as if you could rely on BP’s “proof”), & on 100 applications he had approved he had never required any evidence of the capacity of the blowout preventer. He also didn’t know about an MMS study that had found multiple problems with blowout preventers. Another inspector didn’t bother to write down the test readings he’d taken on the Deepwater Horizon rig.
This is surely not the half of it. Between oil rigs & coal mines, it’s anybody’s guess as to how many deaths MMS “inspectors” are indirectly responsible for because they chose not to do their jobs for whatever reason.
Ken Salazar claimed he was going to clean up the MMS. Well, he might have got rid of a few bureaucrats who were doing drugs & having group sex with mining company operatives, but he obviously hasn’t done much to improve the procedures or the quality & training of inspectors who are supposed to protect miners & oil workers & keep the environment safe.
Every time this — or any other — Administration shows any pretense of caring about improving safety measures, it’s after some horrible disaster with loss of life. Where, exactly, does the buck stop?
The Constant Weader at http://www.RealityChex.com
No but you can keep the WORKING equipment where the inspectors are looking and use the broken down crap where you know they aren’t going to enforce the rules. The thing about that particular blowout preventer was that it had hydraulic leaks and had been illegally modified.
Blow Out Preventers are tested to failure! I’ll explain this later when everyone starts to freaks out over the number of tests the Deepwater Horizon BOP failed over the years.
“The devices are different from the ones involved in the Deepwater Horizon explosion but are also intended to prevent dangerous blowouts at drilling operations.”
Guilty by association.
I don’t like anything about what is happening in the Gulf, but there is so wide a gap from devices of one type to devices intended for a totally different application.
I run similar stress tests myself, electrical, not mechanical) with testing ratcheted up from 30 sec to 8 hours. The most fidgety test is the 5 minute one; too short to take a coffee break.
Some additional questions and they need truthful answers are:
Were there longer tests in the test suite (only 5 min for a blowout protector?) What about those?
What is the procedure and records of testing on the ones intended for Deepwater Horizon?
And I am just an onlooker with a bit of stress testing experience!
But the Congress had their bit of five minute haranguing grandstand theater and determined that a gizmo was a fault. Who are you going to believe, the conclusions of people paid handsomely to look the other way or your own lying eyes?
The problem was in the process that accepted possible failures as an acceptable alternative to loosing money by erring on the side of caution. The regulators felt that their mission was to optimize profits because the revolving door showed them where the real money was to be made. The failure of a gizmo is actually the failure to properly specify and regulate potentially dangerous businesses.
Having listened to some of the rhetoric coming out of David Cameron and Nick Clegg talking about a kind of politics that looks long term, not short term – and also about taking on banksters – I can only say that the Brits seem to be developing a vision of Government 2.0 that we desperately need.
Government 1.0 is corrupt, inept, and basically a whore for profit in the interests of economically inefficient mega corporations who rely on tax structures and regulatory capitulation in order to plunder the entire economy.
Jeebuz, we need an upgrade.
(Starting, I suspect, with new electeds; it’s striking to see how youthful the new British PM and his Deputy PM are…. whether I agree with them is a separate matter. The fact that they can envision a kind of government that it’s a whore for profit is a breath of fresh air.)
Sadly we are hoping against hope that Team Obama will someday get the message that leaving Bush’s people in all levels of government after his inauguration was an epic failure.
Most likely Obama and Rahm got together and concluded that they would not have done anything all that much different and they would have had to hired other Republicans if they let this crew go.
The Times Picayune article is a great description of what surely happened.
The more I read of this debacle, the many in the coal mines and nuclear power plants, and all other works the public depends on, I become convinced that our technological performance has become terribly and dangerously degraded. It is so far advanced that the current actors don’t even know it.
It takes the people who have followed their professions and crafts as a calling to recognize how defective the functioning is now. For the real engineers who remain it must feel similar to how I feel when I view the quality of medical care, even for the rich, seriously degraded.
Meanwhile, Obama’s legacy is coming into focus:
According to the (latest NBC/WSJ) poll, 38 percent of so-called independents say they will vote for Republicans this November, with only 30 percent for Democrats. Four years ago, ahead of the ’06 midterms, the same poll found that 40 percent of independents favored Democrats, with only 24 percent for Republicans.
Asked which of the two major parties should control Congress, respondents were deadlocked. But when asking only voters most interested in the outcome this November, 56 percent supported the GOP and only 36 percent supported the Dems. That’s the largest split in more than a year.
Thanks for nothing, President Blue Cross…
The BOP belongs to Transocean, not BP. If the relief well being drilled is used to cap off the flow of gas and oil, or the LMRP can be removed and a second piggy back BOP installed on top and used to seal the well, then the Horizon’s BOP will likely be salvaged and examined.
“In other words, it is shortsighted to simply start and stop with BP on the blame for test result falsification on critical safety equipment such as blowout preventers. The real fault lies with the Federal government – it is news to no one that industry will lie about virtually anything to cut costs and put more money into corporate pockets.”
Oh, mega bullshit!!!
Are you buying on to the GOPPER myth that any person can do anything as long as they are not caught in the act with witnesses and tape and DNA samples and total verification? “Your honor, I didn’t spill that oil! I wasn’t even there! Mr. X spilled that oil!! Why, there never was an oil spill in the first place because shit happens!!! And, if I did spill that oil, I did it because I’m too big to fail!!!! Think of the jobs that would be lost if I had to pay an appropriate cleanup and fine!!!! I’m not to blame, it’s the government’s fault because Obama didn’t send anyone around to make sure that I couldn’t let loose a spill that would kill most plants, birds, fishes and mammals in a three thousand square mile area (and growing)!!!!! It’s really the fault of society; they keep pressing me for more and more and more oil and more profits!!!!! ….And, we have the governors of TX, LA, MS, AL and FL in our pockets plus 51 senators, so NAH, NAH, NAH, NAH, NAH! Go screw yourself!!!!!!!
You say, “The question is: “Why wasn’t a representative of the US Minerals Management Service present to verify the validity of testing?”
Are these the lines you actually believe?
These BP guys ought to go the route of Union Carbide after they gassed the Indians.
Please tell me that these quotes are taken out of context or are meant as sarcasm or you are simply setting up strawdogs so that I may take you seriously in future blogs.
Thanks, I stand corrected. Should I have written?
Transocean: “It’s lost forever.”
spocko is upstairs!
Rupert and Me: I question the NewsCorp CEO about Subsidizing Glenn Beck
I watched Steven Newman in the congressional hearings yesterday and today. He is in a tough position. He needs to protect himself, his company, his people and their combined reputations.
I don’t think he will want to leave the BOP or the hull of the Deepwater Horizon down there if they can be recovered.
*G*
Danged critter a few millenniums old STILL can’t handle his merlot . . . ;-)
Don’t know, no evidence you’ve shown support that statement.
Depth of wells?
Equipment stats, standards, tests, yadda yadda yadda . . ????
*assumesit’sherbelly*
;-)
Yer kidding, right? You’ve read PW’s post about who Boudoin Prot is? The French billionaire bankster who crafted Cameron’s and Clegg’s alliance by threatening to TANK the UK Economy and banking system?
Yer usually so on top of stuff, I’m sorry, your comment caught me off guard . . . .
*takesdeepbreath* *exhales*
Um, ok.
First, you offer NO evidence (nor have any other Pups I know of) of BOP Best Practices that were actually tested FULLY!! In sum toto!!!! Show me the linky, hoss.
Second, BP was not REQUIRED to use the same equipment, enforce the same safety standards as in North Sea, due to the leasing agreements they signed during BushCo in ’01, ’03.
And they brought Deepwater Horizon here and began drilling in The Gulf back in, what, ’07? I’ve posted a Wiki Link for that . . . look it up.
They (BP) then moved it to the Tiber Oil Field, started some exploratory drilling in March of ’09 (‘sposed to have started in Sept ’08), and then drilled down past the 18K foot permits to some 30K or more below the oceans surface at 5K ft down on the site of the disaster.
Now, I don’t have any info on what the depths and pressure’s are they drilled to in North Sea, I have no depth info OF the North Sea where BP has drilled, where most of Europe who had a piece of it all insisted on HEAVY regulations and controls and safety standards that FAR transcend what the USA has had during BushCo (of before).
But I’m tellin ya hoss, your premise is fulla mud, sand, thawing methane and crude oil as bad as that which erupted from the disaster site recently.
The BOP’s anyone has made, be it TransOcean, BP or anyone else, have NOT been fully, accurately and honestly tested for 5k ft. of ocean, and 30k of bedrock and crust. Not to those pressures, not to the conditions of what MIGHT have failed, not at all.,
And I want to see SOME proof, that in the North Sea (your point of orgin for your posits) or anywhere else on the planet in over 2K ft of ocean and to 18K foot of crust, that the BOP’s have been tested, employed, or worked.
I guess I’m sayin, your posits are a bit off. To me at least.
And hell, there’s SF, librty, OilFieldGuy, Margaret, and more I can’t name off the top of my head that have experience in the industry or in the sciences of the industry who have pretty much educated the rest of us laymen/women readers so well, you can go source up if ya don’t like my criticism of your posits.
Since Day One of this disaster. Yer late to the dance, hoss.
In many places, they charge for a SPANKING that good.
Or so I’ve been told. ;-)
Hoss, your insights are well appreciated, can’t wait to hear more!
I don’t know, devices wise, being different.
But what’s certain and proven, is that those devices are NOT required in USA waters to be of the quantity or quality of what North Sea devices are, or elsewhere in the world.
And, from what I’ve learnt in a week or two, almost a month now . . . our US regs have MUCH less regulation over drilling than in other countries.
And from Oil Drum dot com and Truthsky dot com, I’ve also read about skimpy operating procedures on the part of BP, TransOcean and Halliburto. Both in OUR Gulf, and around the world.
Having said all that, I wonder if all the proper procedures in the world could have prevented this disaster, as it went FAR beyond the technology, previous drillings, scope of depth and pressure and LARGESSE of the field.
Add all that together, mix with shit regulatory enforcement or implementation, and you’ve got a certain disaster based on greed, overreach, and careless regard for the planet, it’s species and certainly OUR species.
Back to you, Chet.
What’s yer opinion regarding the potential success or failure of a relief well drilling?
Will it relieve, or will it merely allow for another pressurized outlet to gush in yet more failure?
Same depth, same Tiber Field. Same problems that blew up on Deepwater/Horizon.
Same outcomes? What variables might have changed to prevent yet another open volcano to gush?
Crikey I can’t even tell what yer complaining about . . .
Wanna narrow that down a bit, clean it up, so it’s readable and understandable?
Who ya blamin for what, or are only blaming comments?
I’m real cornfuszzeld as to the point of your entire messaging there.
Enlighten me!
*G*
But isn’t recovery of all that the LAST thing TO, BP or Halleybutt want?
Truthout: Whistleblower: BP Risks More Massive Catastrophes in Gulf
From the Truthout article, BP retained the services of establishment “cleaner” Stanley Sporkin to handle whistle blowers a few years ago. That says a lot. Establishment brings Stanley in to clean up thier messes…. the really big ones.
Stanley has quite a track record:
General Council for the CIA during Iran Contra
Made a partner in Enron’s bankrupcy law firm( Weil, Gotshal & Manges ) during the relevant time period.
Hired by OFHEO to “help” them examine serious Fannie Mae problems in 2004.
I doubt that BP hired Stanley to facilitate whistleblowing. More likely, he was retained to function as a memory hole for whistleblowers.
now that’s the burr that stickles isn’t it OFG ?? to think that the very practice of testing BOP’s leads to their failure in and of itself .. that such testing wears out critical parts .. weakens seals .. i.e. leads to mechanical deterioration and eventual failure of the BOP..
as critical a piece of equipment as BOP is why wouldn’t BOP testing properly be… at the least.. done and certified by .. independent third parties .. i wouldn’t be surprised if the MM’s rules allow self-certification..
what can we expect of an agency who suspected in 1994 ..and confirmed
by a field study concluded in 1996 that modern drill-pipe was being made of materials stronger than the BOP’s could shear when used in their last-gasp emergency mode ..
what good is even a 50-100 perfect tests on any BOP in the GOM when .. there isn’t a rule forbidding the oil boyz from using drill pipe the BOP can’t cut ..
since they knew about this and let it slide for 14 years after finding out about it.. it’s hard to know what they’d consider important enough to actually warrant regulation ..
Sorry about the late response. Oldoilfieldhands have to sleep. Relief wells have worked in the past, but at this depth and in a zone as pressured and now stimulated to flow, it’s uncertain whether it will work. If the enterprise can drill into the same depth, into the same formation and pump enough cement into the formation, the effect of the cement “squeezing” into the escape route being used by the hydrocarbon flow can definitely plug it off. It is the best proven method to stop the flow unless mother nature steps in and the formation collapses and bridges itself off. This could happen because the zone will also be flowing whatever is between the hydrocarbons and the hole punched into it. There likely will also be sand and water flowing with the gas and oil. The hydrates might wind up helping stem the flow. BP will have a better idea of the flow rate changes from the monitoring they have been doing using ROVs. Interference from the formation could definitely weaken and stop the flow.
Along with a lot of other oil field personnel I have seen the effects of inadvertently closing the shear rams on the pipe, closing the wrong set of pipe rams on dual sized strings of pipe and incorrectly spaced closing of the correctly sized pipe rams on tool joints. I have seen annulars, pipe rams and shear rams work too. Many times. I have tested BOPs hundreds of times for all of the major operators and in spite of the fact that numerous times expensive repair work was required to fix a failed component, it happened during testing of the equipment. Every time I have needed the BOP, it has worked. In all the years that I have been involved with BOP’s I have never been asked to falsify or fudge a test.
Fortunately I have never actually been involved in the loss of personnel or a rig due to what is broadly termed in the industry as a well control incident.
The BOP is not the primary method of well control, it is a back up. The mud column that was displaced after the casing was set and cemented on the Deepwater Horizon was the primary method of well control. Someone made the decision to displace the mud with seawater and in doing so gave up primary control of the well.
Is there ever a case where the mud column is not heavy enough to counter the pressure encountered in the formation?
If so, what sort of control is usually employed for this situation?
Thanks for your contribution to clarity; it helps dispel feelings of hopelessness in the face of mountains of mendacity.
You think Obama and Rahm care if they have a Republican Congress? That isn’t a rhetorical question. With the sophisticated polling they no doubt have at their finger tips, they haven’t thrown ANY red meat to the base, at all, and have continued on their Republican way. Maybe they figure it will be easier to get through the policies they favor, without any of the kabuki they have to go through with the D’s nominally in charge. Let the GOP introduce and pass corporate friendly legislation, and Obamar signs it. In the name of Bipartisanship.
In days past, operators would deliberately drill in an under-balanced situation, or “drill for kicks”. A kick is an influx of higher pressure fluid into the well bore. This is supposed to be recognized by a gain in the volume of the circulating system and shut in using the BOP. The fluid column in the well bore containing the influx is then circulated out through a choke holding sufficient back pressure to keep the remaining pressurized fluid in the formation while the density of the fluid column is increased to prevent continuous incursion. This practice has largely been discredited and is fortunately no longer in fashion.