“the well from hell”

Location map with landfall and

up-to-date status map

Times-Picayune,
22 May BP Miss Canyon 252 #1
 Deepwater Horizon:
State of the art “Semi-Submersible”
Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit
• Built in Korea,
completed 2001
• Cost $560 Million
• Contracted to BP since
2002, $500k/day
• Designed for 8000 ft
water depth, 30000 ft drill
depth
• When operating, rig is
partially submerged to
keep it stable.
• Equipped with real-time
monitoring (satellite link
to BP’s Houston office)
 MC 252: Normal well operations
to complete a successful well
• Drilled to 18000 ft total depth, to be completed as a
productive oil/gas well
• Production casing set and cemented 20 hours prior to
explosion
• Preparing for
temporary
abandonment
• Bottom hole packer,
production tubing
and perforations
to be installed at a
later date (the wellbore
should not permit fluid entry
at this time).
 MC 252: Normal well operations
to complete a successful well
• Under normal operations, neither oil
from depth or surface “shallow gas”
can enter the wellbore in this
condition
• Main question:
What part of the
wellbore integrity
was breached?
 April 20: Blowout and fire
• Explosion 9:59pm CDT
• 126 on board: 79 TransOcean employees,
6 BP employees,
41 contractors
• 115 survivors;
9 man drilling
crew (TransOcean)
and 2 mud
engineers
(Smith Intl) lost
 Oil slick
visible
prior to rig
collapse
(April 21)
possibly rig
fuel; could
be leaking
crude oil
Second day on fire:
Rig about to capsize
 Video of the oil leaks
• Multiple leak points:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RngYv4SYMCY
• Comparison of before and after riser insertion tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyxjGoBn-YM
 What happened and why?
Areas of concern and who would
bear responsibility
• Routine BOP test followup (BP as operator, TransOcean
as drilling contractor, MMS exemptions)
• Risky(?) well plan (BP)
• Integrity of casing cement (Halliburton)
• Wellhead seal integrity (TransOcean and DrilQuip
(supplier))
• Post-cementing test procedure and time allotted for
cement to cure (BP)
• Hurried preparation for temporary abandonment (BP)
Continued 
 What happened and why?
Areas of concern and who would
responsibility

• Prudent monitoring of wellbore condition during

prep for temporary abandonment (TransOcean)
should trump any hurry
• Blowout preventer (BOP) activation
(TransOcean) and mechanical failure (Cameron)
 Plenty of blame to go around
• This disaster was due to a series of errors and
mistakes that compounded one another.
• Had any one of these preventable problems
been avoided, this disaster might have been
averted.

Details and analysis of events follow.

Analysis taken from opinions at
www.drillingahead.com, a social network for oil
and gas drillers and engineers. Those pages are
highlighted in light blue.
 Oil field terminology
• Bbl – barrel of oil, 42 US gallons
• BOP – blowout preventer
• Drilling mud – heavy fluid used to control
pressure while drilling and completing
• Casing – large diameter pipe cemented
into well at various depths for safety
• Drillpipe – smaller pipe that connects
drilling rig to drilling bit, removed when
well is completed
 Oil field terminology
• Riser – used in offshore wells to protect
drillpipe from seawater
• BHP – bottom hole pressure (measured in
mud weight equivalent (pounds per gallon)
or pounds per square inch (psi)
 Connecting drill rig to the subsea
wellhead: Riser/BOP stack on sea
floor

Riser: flexible 22” OD pipe;

drillpipe and wellbore fluids
contained within.

Subsea blowout preventer (BOP)

 Riser is conduit for drillpipe into
BOP on seafloor

Volume between drillpipe and

riser or between casing and
wellbore is known as an
“annulus”

Specific part of BOP closes

off the annulus; other parts
clamp down and “shut in”
the drillpipe
Analysis (1): Did the riser fail when
the rig sunk?
• “The riser did not burst or break. When the rig
went down, it took the riser with it.
From the schematics I've seen,
it pretty much sticks up from
the BOP about 1,500',
then is kinked downward
to the gulf floor, and a good
portion of it lies on or
beneath the seabed.“

– independent analysis
at www.drillingahead.com
“One tough well”:

• Four drilling liners,

9 strings of pipe
indicate pressure
problems while drilling

--Times-Picayune, 19 May
(from nola.com)
 Analysis (2): BP’s well plan
• “BP's well design had a fatal flaw (ie. long
string production casing instead of liner
and tieback). This casing design depends
upon a 100% effective cement job in order
to keep the production out of the annulus
behind the production casing right up to
the wellhead.”
-- drillingahead.com
Bottom hole casing string detail
 TransOcean CEO testifies to
Senate committee, 11 May
• "At this point, drilling mud was no longer being
used as a means of reservoir pressure
containment; the cement and the casing were
the barriers controlling pressure from the
reservoir," Newman said. "Indeed, at the time of
the explosion, the rig crew, at the direction of the
operator, was in the process of displacing drilling
mud and replacing it with seawater."
 Known bottom hole pressure
problems
• Drilling mud: 14.5 pounds per gallon (ppg), at
total depth equates to 13000 psi at the bottom of
the well

• Prior to abandonment, cemented casing controls

this pressure; drilling mud is displaced from
drillpipe with seawater via routine pumping
operation.

• Seawater at 8.3 ppg alone is incapable of

withstanding that BHP. Any cement or casing
failures at this time can cause well to start
flowing.
 TransOcean CEO testimony,
11 May
• “… the one thing we do know is that on the
evening of Apr. 20, there was a sudden,
catastrophic failure of the cement, the casing, or
both," Newman said. "Without a failure of one of
those elements, the explosion could not have
occurred. It is also clear that the drill crew had
very little, if any, time to react. The initial
indications of trouble and the subsequent
explosions were almost instantaneous."

-- Quoted in Oil and Gas Journal, 17 May 2010

 Testing cement integrity
• Cement Bond Log is normally run after
cement has set to verify
solid contact between
casing and wellbore.
• Performed by cementing
company (Halliburton)
or by logging contractor
(Schlumberger).
BP did not run Cement Bond Log…
• “BP had a Schlumberger team and
equipment for sending acoustic testing
lines down the well "on standby" from April
18 to April 20. But BP never asked the
Schlumberger crew to perform the
acoustic test and sent its members back to
Louisiana on a regularly scheduled
helicopter flight at 11 a.m.”

-- Times-Picayune, 19 May (Nola.com)

 … despite known deepwater
cementing issues …
• Gas flow may occur after a cement job in
deepwater environments that contain major
hydrate zones.
• Destabilization of hydrates after the cement job
is confirmed by downhole cameras.
• The gas flow could slow down in hours to days if
the destabilization is not severe.
• However, the consequences could be more
severe in worse cases.

Presented by Halliburton to AADE, 18 Nov 09

 … in the presence of methane
hydrates
• Cement slurry should be placed in the entire annulus
with no losses
• Temperature increase during slurry hydration should not
destabilize hydrates
• There should be no influx of shallow water or gas into
the annulus
• The cement slurry should develop strength in the
shortest time after placement

Conclusion reached by Halliburton: Conditions in

deepwater wells are not conducive to achieving all of
these objectives simultaneously
Presented by Halliburton to AADE, 18 Nov 09
 Methane Hydrates known to be present
in deepwater Gulf of Mexico
• Ice crystals surrounding
methane bubbles
• Ice forms in cold water at the
seabed, not in the warmer
conditions at the bottom of a
deep well.
• Cement curing gives off heat,
the ice melts, methane
released, resulting in “the ice
that burns.”
 Analysis (3): Cementing
• “This flaw was "enabled" with an equally fatal
cement design. The 51 bbl cement job was too
small to begin with and was undoubtedly very
contaminated by the time it reached the casing
shoe, ie. being pumped 18,360 ft through 3
different sized inside diameters …. Any
experienced cement hand would have
counseled against it and would have
recommended running a liner just to get the
cement in place uncontaminated.”
-- drillingahead.com
Damages during
prior operations?
• At the top of each liner, a rubber
packer is installed to seal the joint
with the liner above.

• Mike Williams … claimed that the blowout preventer was

then damaged when a crewman accidentally moved a
joystick, applying hundreds of thousands of pounds of
force [?]. Pieces of rubber were found in the drilling fluid,
which he said implied damage to a crucial seal. But a
supervisor declared the find to be “not a big deal”, Mr
Williams alleged.

--http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/
article7128842.ece
 Analysis (4): What were the exact
order of procedures?
• “monitoring the volumes and rates that fluids are
pumped and returned from a well is the number one
cardinal rule to maintaining constant BHP and control of
the well. ”

• “Probably … taking the well returns to the rig and

pumping them to the workboat at the same time made it
difficult to measure and track the returns rate. ”

• “If the fluid was going to the boat from the same tank it
was being received from the well - it would be very
difficult to determine pit gain or loss with any degree of
accuracy. ”
 Analysis (5) “Nature always finds the
hidden flaw”

• “it may be true that BP had the misfortune to

have two bad things happen - bad primary
cement job (ask here how long they [waited for
cement to cure]?), and to also have the wellhead
seals fail (ask here why displace the well to
seawater until the cement plug is hard and why
was the riser open during the displacement?)”
-- drillingahead.com
 Events recorded on Halliburton’s
real-time log, 20 April
Flow up Mud pit
• At 2010, mud riser Gas units vol change
pit volume
increases
• At 2018, mud
is gas-cut
• At 2020, flow
up riser
detected
Note: this is a
chronological record;
time increases down
the page
 Halliburton log: 20 April

• At 2108 downhole Static pressure Mud pit vol

ciruculation was
stopped; indication that
driller was working the
problem

• At 2110 mud pit

pumped down

• At 2112 static pressure

rise confirms that well is
flowing up riser, BOPs
partially activated
 Halliburton log: last minutes
• At 2130 circulation stopped: well manually shut in?
Static pressure
• At 2147
pressure jump
(1200-5800 psi),
prior to explosion,
could this be
seawater in riser
pushed up gas
from below?

• At 2149
(not logged)
gas in riser
escapes at surface,
reports of loud hissing noise, explosion follows
 Analysis (6): well control
procedure

• “With a gas & oil influx rising in the annulus

increasing the pressure in the annulus - BP
further lightened the weight of the casing string
by displacing with seawater - the entire
production became buoyant and lifted allowing
the seals to become unseated which allowed the
gas & oil into the BOP's and riser.”

--drillingahead.com
 Eyewitness account:
TransOcean rig hand
• "The derrickman called Derrickman
works up
the driller and said he here
needed help, he had mud
going everywhere, and
about this time the drill
floor disappeared, then
there was an explosion,
then a second explosion."
-- quoted on www.drillingahead.com
Captain of the nearby
workboat Damon Bankston
• Shortly after 9 p.m. CDT, "my mate advised
there was mud coming off the rig. It looked like it
was a black rain coming down," Landry said.

• Landry said he heard something else that

concerned him: the loud hiss of a high-pressure
release of air and gas that lasted for 30 seconds
or more. … this was the sound of a surge of
methane rushing up the drill pipe which engulfed
the rig's deck in highly-flammable gas.
--- money.cnn.com, 11 May
 Captain of the Damon Bankston
• The rig's captain, Curt Kuchta, said his
crew had slammed a "kill switch" on the
drill deck meant to activate an underwater
blowout preventer that is designed as a
fail-safe method of shutting off the well.
• "He said they pressed
the kill switch," Landry said.
"They didn't know
if it worked."

Driller’s control panel

on modern rig
 Subsea BOP stack: Manual
controls on rig floor and fail-safe
automatic controls at seafloor

If communication with
rig is lost or other
serious problem
detected, BOP shuts
itself in.
 MMS grants subsea BOP stacks
an exemption? 10 Feb test

• http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20100512/Transocean-
Deepwater%20Horizon%20BOP%20Test.pdf
 No backup needed for the
automatic kill system?

• In 2003, U.S. regulators decided remote-

controlled safeguards needed more study.
A report commissioned by the MMS said
"acoustic systems are not recommended
because they tend to be very costly."
(WSJ, 28 April)
… it decided the remote device wasn't
needed because rigs had other back-up
plans to cut off a well." (WSJ)
 TransOcean studied prior
BOP failures
• “Floating drilling rig downtime due to poor
BOP reliability is a common and very
costly issue confronting all offshore drilling
contractors. ... Depending on the drilling
contract in place and the nature of the
downtime cause, BOP failure can result in
substantial revenue loss”

-- http://media.mcclatchydc.com/static/pdf/Les-oilspill-ABSC.pdf
 BOP Problems Continue
• “A 2008 paper co-authored by Jeff S.
Shepard,” [a TransOcean manager],
"cautioned that "BOP shear rams may also
have difficulty shearing today's high-
strength, high-toughness drill-pipe”
--http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/05/14/27286.htm
 BOP problems addressed by
UNOCAL moving this equipment to
the surface (SBOP)
• In a study … 7,200 subsea BOP days were
considered in water depths greater than 1,312 ft.
… 31 BOP failures occurred that had the
potential for uncontrolled flow. This translates to
4.1 incidents per 1,000 BOP days.
• In comparison, Unocal has recorded four
incidents that had the potential for uncontrolled
flow over 1,360 SBOP days. This yields 2.9
incidents per 1,000 SBOPdays.
-- http://www.iadc.org/dcpi/dc-julyaug03/July3-surface%20BOP.pdf
 No question that the BOP failed
• “oil was flowing into the [BOP] at 8,000 to
9,000 psi and flowing out into the Gulf at
around 2,650 psi.”

http://blog.al.com/live/2010/05/national_incident_commander_oi_1.h
tml
 Conclusion: The TransOcean
driller did his job to the end,
knowing he was in imminent
grave danger.

If the activated BOP worked as designed

at this point, the fire could still have
taken the rig with the losses, but the
well’s subsequent flow (and resulting
massive oil spill) would have stopped.
Analysis (7): BOP failure and failure
to react
• “When the blind/shear rams were closed - they couldn't
quite cut cleanly through the production casing and the
3-1/2" tubing.”
• “Basic well control procedures were overlooked (ie. we
are now in a cased hole situation - what could possibly
happen?), and the rapidly expanding gas resulting in
classic kick signs of rapid increase in returns rate and pit
gains - were not recognized and acted upon.”

-- drillingahead.com
 How big is the spill?
• BP’s initial guess of 5000 Bbl/day * 60 days to
relief well (hopefully) = 300 MBbl
• Other estimates mid range 50000 Bbl/day * 60
days = 3 MMBbl

If relief well takes 90 days, at current flow rate,

that’s 4.5MMBbl
• The reservoir is estimated to contain
100 MMBbl recoverable oil with a high ratio of
gas to oil (unconfirmed)
Note: oil industry uses ‘M’ to indicate thousands,
‘MM’ for millions
 Compare 3-4.5MMBbl to the three
largest spills on record
• Gulf War (Persian Gulf, 1991) 10 MMBbl
• Ixtoc 1 (Bay of Campeche, 1979-80) 3.4 MMBbl
• Atlantic Empress (Caribbean Sea, 1979)
2.1MMBbl (most spills of this size are tanker
accidents)
Note: this is much worse than the Exxon Valdez
(Alaska, 1989) 250MBbl, a relatively small
volume of oil as spills go

Note: oil industry uses ‘M’ to indicate thousands,

‘MM’ for millions
 Beware: there’s lots of
overstatement going on!
• Brian Williams, 5/25: “this well could give off oil,
unfettered, for the rest of our lives”

• NO offshore oil field has EVER produced that much or

flowed for that long.

• Most blowouts that are left uncontrolled eventually die on

their own: High flow rates
damage the oil reservoir.
 What didn’t happen
• North Korean torpedo attack
• Secret conspiracy between BP and government
to thwart offshore drilling
• Secret government weapons test
 What can’t happen

• Use explosives to blow it up – just makes a

small hole much bigger
• Use a nuclear weapon – this isn’t a movie
• Use a submarine – at 5000’ water depth?
• Government take over operations – neither DOE
nor MMS have drilling expertise
• “Mother of all gushers could kill Earth’s oceans”
– check those volume comparisons again!
 Additional information
• One easy-to-read explanation of offshore oil
exploration and drilling; another and yet another
• Live video feed from seafloor
• Video of rig fire and sinking
• Official response site
• EPA spill site
• NOAA spill science
• List of over 200 deepwater (>1000’) oil and gas
discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico