Deep Water
- the Gulf Oil Disaster Report -
- "the principal challenge in deepwater drilling"
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- "is to drill a path to the hydrocarbon-filled pay zone in a manner"
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- "that simultaneously controls these enormous pressures"
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- "and avoids fracturing the geologic formation in which the reservoir is found"
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- "it is a delicate balance"
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- "in the days leading up to the final cementing process"
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- "BP engineers focused heavily on the biggest challenge:"
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- "the risk of fracturing the formation and losing returns"
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- "John Guide explained that losing returns "was the No. 1 risk""
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- "the BP team’s concerns led them to place a number of significant constraints on Halliburton’s cementing design"
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- "the first compromise in BP’s plan"
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- "was to limit the circulation of drilling mud through the wellbore before cementing"
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- "BP circulated approximately 350 barrels of mud before cementing"
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- "rather than the 2,760 barrels needed to do a full bottoms up circulation"
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- "BP compromised again by deciding"
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- "to pump cement down the well at the relatively low rate of 4 barrels or less per minute"
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- "BP decided to reduce the risk of lost returns"
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- "in exchange for a less-than-optimal rate of cement flow"
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- "BP made a third compromise"
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- "by limiting the volume of cement that Halliburton would pump down the well"
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- "more cement means less risk of contamination and less risk that the cement job will be compromised by slight errors in placement"
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- "finally, in close consultation with Halliburton"
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- "BP chose to use "nitrogen foam cement""
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- "this formula was chosen to lighten the resulting slurry from approximately 16.7 ppg to 14.5 ppg"
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- "thereby reducing the pressure the cement would exert on the fragile formation"
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- "on February 10, soon after the Deepwater Horizon began work on the well"
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- "Jesse Gagliano asked Halliburton laboratory personnel to run a series of "pilot tests""
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- "on the cement blend stored on the Deepwater Horizon that Halliburton planned to use at Macondo"
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- "to the trained eye"
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- "that test showed that the foam slurry design was unstable"
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- "Halliburton personnel had also conducted"
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- "another foam stability test earlier"
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- "the earlier test had been conducted under slightly different conditions than the later one"
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- "and had failed more severely"
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- "Halliburton has never reported the results of the test to BP"
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- "Halliburton conducted another round of tests in mid-April"
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- "just before pumping the final cement job"
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- "the laboratory personnel conducted several tests"
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- "including a foam stability test"
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- "the first test Halliburton conducted showed once again"
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- "that the cement slurry would be unstable"
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- "Halliburton did not send the results of the final test to BP until April 26"
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- "six days after the blowout"
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blowout preventer - BOP:
- "the BOP is designed to contain pressure within the wellbore"
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- "and halt an uncontrolled flow of hydrocarbons to the rig"
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- "the Deepwater Horizon’s BOP"
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- "did not succeed in containing the Macondo well"
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- "even so, the BOP’s automatic mode function"
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- "the "deadman" system"
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- "should have triggered the blind shear ram after the power, communication, and hydraulics connections between the rig and the BOP were cut"
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- "but the deadman failed too"
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- "post-incident testing of the two redundant "pods" that control the deadman revealed low battery charges in one pod"
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- "and defective solenoid valves in the other"
- "the Macondo blowout was the product"
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- "of several individual missteps and oversights"
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- "by BP, Halliburton, and Transocean"
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- "which government regulators lacked the authority"
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- "the necessary resources"
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- "and the technical expertise to prevent"
the GULF OIL DISASTER - Report to the President - PDF: LINK ¤ the GULF OIL DISASTER
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Halliburton to plead guilty to destroying Evidence - the Guardian: LINK ¤ the GUARDIAN
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- "Halliburton has agreed to plead guilty to destroying evidence related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill"
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- "the government said Halliburton's guilty plea was the third by a company over the spill"
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- "and will require the world's second-largest oilfield services company to pay a maximum US$ 200,000 statutory fine"
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- "during an internal probe into the cementing after the blowout"
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- "Halliburton ordered workers to destroy computer simulations"
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- "the disaster caused 11 deaths and triggered the largest US offshore oil spill following the rupture of the Macondo oil well"
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BP to pay US$ 4.5bn Penalty - the Guardian: LINK ¤ the GUARDIAN
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- "BP met its day of reckoning in the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster"
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- "when the company admitted guilt on 14 criminal charges"
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- "and agreed to pay an historic US$ 4.5bn penalty"
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- "in connection with the fatal explosion of its rig and the catastrophic oil spill"
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- "BP is still on the hook for environmental damage to the Gulf of Mexico"
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Halliburton vernichtete Beweise nach Öldesaster - der Standard: LINK ¤ der STANDARD
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- "wie das US-Justizministerium mitteilte, gesteht Halliburton"
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- "nach der Katastrophe im Jahr 2010 Beweise vernichtet zu haben"
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- "bei den vernichteten Beweisen handelt es sich um Ergebnisse von Computersimulationen nach der Katastrophe"
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- "Halliburton hat Arbeiter beauftragt, die Unterlagen zu zerstören"
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Strafe gegen Transocean wegen Ölpest bestätigt - der Standard: LINK ¤ der STANDARD
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- "ein US-Bundesgericht hat eine wegen der Ölpest im Golf von Mexiko verhängte Strafe"
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- "gegen den Schweizer Bohrinselbetreiber Transocean bestätigt"
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- "der Betreiber der Bohrinsel Deepwater Horizon hatte darin eine Strafzahlung in Höhe von 400 Millionen Dollar akzeptiert"
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- "Transocean betrieb die Bohrinsel für den britischen Ölkonzern BP"
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- "die Explosion der Deepwater Horizon war eine sinnlose Tragödie"
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- ""die hätte verhindert werden können", erklärte das Justizministerium"
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die Verschmutzer müssen zahlen - Jeffrey Sachs: LINK ¤ der STANDARD
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- "Nigeria ist das Musterbeispiel dafür, wie Konzerne ungestraft die Umwelt schädigen"
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- "seit Jahrzehnten produzieren viele große Ölgesellschaften, u. a. Shell, ExxonMobil und Chevron, Öl im Nigerdelta"
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- "einem ökologisch fragilen Gebiet aus Sumpfwäldern, Mangroven, flachen Regenwäldern und der Küste vorgelagerten Barriere-Inseln"
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- "dieses fruchtbare Gebiet ermöglicht eine bemerkenswerte biologische Vielfalt - oder tat es, bevor die Ölgesellschaften es entdeckten"
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- "die im Delta tätigen globalen Konzerne haben seit Jahrzehnten ohne Rücksicht auf die Umwelt"
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- "Öl auslaufen lassen, Erdgas abgefackelt und die örtlichen Gemeinwesen durch ihr Handeln in Armut gestürzt und vergiftet"
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- "eine Schätzung setzt die Gesamtmenge des in den letzten 50 Jahren ausgetretenen Öls"
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- "bei etwa zehn Millionen Barrels (je 159 Liter) an - doppelt so viel wie im Falle von BP"
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- "die Sanierung des Nigerdeltas wäre das bestmögliche Beispiel"
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- "für ein neues Zeitalter der Rechenschaftspflicht"
DEEPWATER HORIZON - Wikipedia EN: LINK ¤ DEEPWATER HORIZON
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