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Alarming alarms: "no protocols" for the ultimate alarms apparently delayed the speed with which all the alerts were sounded and some safety features were never enabled. - khowell
... In testimony before a federal investigative panel in Metairie late Tuesday, Andrea Fleytas said she felt the rig jolt that evening and saw more than 10 magenta lights flash on her screen notifying her that the highest level of combustible gas had entered the rig's shaker house and drill shack, critical areas where the rig's drilling team was at work.
Everyone who was thought to be working in that area of the rig was killed. If the general alarm had sounded, it may have given them time to evacuate to safer areas. All 115 workers who survived were located in other parts of the rig.
Fleytas said she was trained to sound a general alarm any time more than one indicator light flashed, but didn't do so immediately in this case because she had never been trained to deal with such an overwhelming number of warnings.
...
Also critical to protecting the doomed members of the Deepwater Horizon's drill team was a system that could have cut off ignition sources once gas entered the rig. Fleytas said there was an emergency shutdown system someone could have activated to shut off ventilation to certain areas, such as the drill shack and engine room, to keep methane gas from igniting or overspeeding the engines.
But Fleytas said she knew of no protocols for activating the emergency shutdown and no one activated it. Gas likely ignited in the drilling area, killing everyone there, and also caused the two active engines to rev so high that all power on the rig was lost, preventing fire pumps from working and keeping the rig from moving away from the spewing well.
Collaring BP: what happened to the components? This article reveals that not all the requisite components were available to prevent gas seepage into the well. - khowell
... The stop collars were supposed to go with devices called centralizers, which are used to keep well-lining tubes centered in the well bore. BP had ordered 15 additional centralizers and stop collars when cementing contractor Halliburton warned that the well had too few centralizers to keep dangerous gas from seeping into the well.
But when the collars never showed up, BP decided not to use the 15 additional centralizers a few days before the well blew out. BP engineers said in e-mails that the centralizers were the wrong type. An internal BP investigative report released last month said that was incorrect.
...
He [Daniel Oldfather] said he was sent home April 18 by BP company man Donald Vidrine. Oldfather said it was the first time he'd ever had a centralizer installation job cancelled. Two days later, gas seeped into the well, shot up to the rig and destroyed it, killing the 11 men.
A Gomer Pyle moment: It's occurring to some that this oil spill may represent a continued threat to Louisiana, but berms remain controversial. Plus there's still plenty of oil to go around. - khowell
Construction of sand berms along 40 miles of Louisiana Gulf Coast barrier islands needs to continue because oil from the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico continues to threaten interior wetlands that make up some of the state's most fragile fisheries and wildlife habitats, Louisiana officials told the Army Corps of Engineers on Monday.
...
In a letter to the corps, Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration Director Steve Mathies said there's still a need for the emergency permit for berm construction granted by the corps on May 27, despite complaints received by the corps from federal agencies, independent scientists and environmental groups. The complainants said the berm construction is a threat to endangered sea turtles, fish and other wildlife, and that the berms are no longer needed because the Macondo well was finally plugged.
...
A flyover of Bay Jimmy told a different story about the oil's persistence. There, oil sheen was clearly visible moving south from oiled wetlands as tides moved water from wetlands into the Gulf. Oil cleanup workers were mopping up 2-foot to 3-foot-wide oily borders of wetland patches throughout the area.
Delayed reaction to spill caused by low estimates, jurisdiction battles. This article discusses the optimism of the administration and the booming tension between and among the various federal and local entities. - khowell
WASHINGTON -- Conflicts between federal and local officials as well as the Obama administration's low estimates of the BP oil spill slowed the response to the disaster, according to one of four draft staff reports issued Wednesday by a White House commission.
...
The tensions between parish officials and the federal government were extensive, according to the staff report. Most of the conflict, the report said, centered on the distribution of boom intended to block oil from reaching marsh and beaches.
"Once parishes had boom, they did not want to let it go. On July 22, 2010, (Plaquemines Parish President Billy) Nungesser opposed the Coast Guard's decision to begin removing boom in preparation for Hurricane Bonnie. He threatened to slash the tires of trucks carrying away protective boom. He later explained that his statement was only a joke," according to the commission staff.
...
It pointed to the political problems caused by the government working with the party responsible for the disaster, in this case BP. Many considered it inappropriate for the company responsible for a problem to play a large role in determining possible fixes, the report said...
In the "say it ain't so" category: It may take deja vu all over again for the oil industry to actually learn some lessons from this disaster. - khowell
"It's going to take five years before all those lessons are fleshed out and can be implemented," warned Louisiana State University environmental sciences professor Ed Overton. [editor's note: anything symbolic about that name?]
The Obama administration's moratorium on deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico is set to expire Nov. 30 and could be lifted even sooner amid pressure from the industry and its allies.
...
Exxon Mobil Corp. is leading a coalition of oil companies building a one-of-a-kind system to contain an oil leak in up to 10,000 feet of water - twice the depth of the BP blowout. BP recently joined the $1 billion project and agreed to submit the equipment it used to eventually kill its runaway well.
But it could be 16 months before the system is completed, tested and ready to be used. Drawings of the proposed system show a cap and a series of undersea devices - including cables, a riser, a manifold and a piece of equipment that would pump dispersant. Lines would be hooked up to vessels on the surface."
Safety vs. interference: BP argues "tastes great" vs "less filling" to address why they kept the undersea robot topside. - khowell
"BP interfered with critical efforts to lower an undersea robot to try to close the device that failed to stop the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill because of concerns over heat buildup from the burning rig, a salvage firm executive said Monday. The company countered that it was trying to keep workers safe.
Doug Martin, president of Smit Salvage Americas, which was hired to help try to save the Deepwater Horizon after it exploded, told a federal investigative panel that in the hours after the April 20 disaster, he thought it was important to quickly get the robot into the water so engineers could choke off the oil. But BP officials discussed calculating how the heat from the fire would impact the boat that was to launch the robot, which Martin said he considered a waste of time." ...
BP considered abandoning the 61% over budget Macondo well before it blew out. It also seems the BP engineers were confused about how they were to conduct critical pressure tests. - peraspera
A team of engineers and technicians based in BP’s Houston office discussed suspending drilling and abandoning the project during a conference call in mid-April, Greg Walz, an engineer for
London-based BP, said in testimony today to a federal panel investigating the blast.
The possibility of quitting the project was part of a broader discussion of what sort of well design to use, he said. Walz was questioned for more than three hours by the panel about a disagreement he had with a BP colleague over whether to employ a larger number of safety devices when lining the well with cement.
...
Engineers also were confused over the procedures for conducting a
pressure test aboard the drilling rig to determine whether the steel pipe inside the well was fully sealed from the surrounding oil-soaked rock, said Walz, a 30-year veteran of offshore drilling who joined BP in 2000.
BP and the rest of the oil industry need to develop standard guidelines for how to conduct and interpret the pressure tests conducted during the final stage of completing a well, Walz said.
Last but not least, a 3 minute music instructional video to enhance our appreciation and ability to sing along with Phil's musical contributions. Gotta love that gool ol' music theory!
==== ROV Feeds =====
20876/21507 - Development Driller II's ROV 1
32900/49178 - Development Driller II's ROV 2
41434/41436 - Olympic Challenger's ROV 1
40788/40789 - Olympic Challenger's ROV 2
39168/39169 - Chouest Holiday's ROV 1
40492/40493 - Chouest Holiday's ROV 2
47146/47147 - Development Driller III's ROV 1
43698/43699 - Development Driller III's ROV 2
==Multiple stream feeds (hard on browser/bandwidth)==
BP videos All the available directly feeds from BP.
Bobo's lightweight ROV Multi-feed: is the only additional up to date multiple feed site.
See this thread for more info on using video feeds and on linking to video feeds.
Previous Gulf Watcher diaries:
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #404 - peraspera
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #403 - Darryl House
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #402 - Yasuragi
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #401 - Lorinda Pike
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #400 - Yasuragi
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #399 - Gulf Watchers/peraspera/story/
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #398 - Gulf Watchers/peraspera/story/
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #397 - Gulf Watchers/peraspera
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #396 - Gulf Watchers/peraspera
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #395 - Condition: transition - BP's Gulf Castastrophe - David PA
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #394 - Transitions - BP's Gulf Castastrophe - Lorinda Pike
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #393 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Lorinda Pike
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #392 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - When Can we Share a Soda? - khowell
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #391 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Talking about Change - khowell
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #390 - Drips Redux - Lorinda Pike
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #389 - Night of the Living Drips - Lorinda Pike
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #388 - Sittin' Up With the Dead - khowell
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #387 - Time for a Wake? - khowell
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #386 - The Coroner Won't Pronounce - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Yasuragi
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #385 - Is it Dead? - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Lorinda Pike
The last Mothership has links to reference material.
Previous motherships and ROV's from this extensive live blog effort may be found here.
Again, to keep bandwidth down, please do not post images or videos.