While Americans watch anxiously at the efforts to plug the massive oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, another crisis is looming off Norwegian waters.
A serious gas build-up on a rig off Norway has caused the evacuation of 90 oil-rig workers and led to efforts to plug the well-head similar to the "top kill" exercise going on in the Gulf of Mexico.
Thought he rig was equipped with a back-up blow-off preventer, one of the two has failed and the situation is deemed "critical."
In the meantime, in Alaska, BP has shut the Alaska Pipeline down to 8% flow due to problems on that line.
Sounds like the whole world is screaming at us--stop it now. And perhaps the Obama administration is taking some action.
From the Guardian:
Ninety oil workers have been evacuated from a North Sea rig as engineers fight to control a huge build up of pressure in a well which critics say has the potential to blow-up the platform and cause a major environmental problem.
The Norwegian company Statoil has been pumping cement into an offshore well on the Gullfaks field in an operation similar to the one being attempted today by BP in the Gulf of Mexico.
The equivalent of around 70,000 barrels of oil a day of production from the Gullfaks C, Tordis and Gimle platforms has been shut down and more than 90 staff evacuated from the area, which lies in Norwegian waters...
"They have a situation in which there is uncontrolled pressure from the well, one of the barriers is gone and one barrier is left," said Frederic Hauge, head of Bellona, one of the leading environmental groups in Norway.
"Uncontrolled pressure is very serious and has the capability of being a large accident," he said, adding that in the first quarter of 2010, eight incidents took place in the Norwegian oil industry that could have had huge consequences. "That is very serious. Regulatory work in Norway may look nice from outside, but we have a lot of security issues in the Norwegian industry."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
From DW-World
Last Thursday, Norwegian oil company Statoil partly evacuated the Gullfaks oil rig off the western coast after unexpected fluctuations in pressure were encountered while drilling.
The company said all 89 non-essential workers were taken off the rig as a precaution, while the other workers remained to normalize well pressure.
This image made from video released by British Petroleum shows equipment being used to try and plug a gushing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, May 26, 2010Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Pressure maintenance in oil wells can be highly complicated
That task, however, has proved more difficult than thought, with pressure levels still unstable six days later...
...Fredric Hauge, the president of the Bellona Foundation, an environmental NGO based in Oslo, said Statoil was concealing the extent of the danger at the Gullfaks rig.
This image made from video released by British Petroleum shows equipment being used to try and plug a gushing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, May 26, 2010Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Pressure fluctuation led to massive leakage at the BP rig
"This is a completely unacceptable situation with regard to all security principles for the Norwegian shelf," an impassioned Hauge told Deutsche Welle.
"And, furthermore, I think it's very cynical of Statoil to fail to communicate this. They are scared now, because there are definitely similarities between what's happening at the Norwegian shelf and what's going on at BP in the Gulf [of Mexico]," he added...
http://www.dw-world.de/...
From the Shetland Times:
Experts have this week been struggling to stabilise a North Sea oil well 120 miles east of Shetland.
The problem started with a sudden rise in gas pressure under the seabed, forcing Norwegian operators Statoil to evacuate 89 workers from the platform six days ago. The company said it could be days until the Gulfaks C well, which lies in Norwegian waters, can be safely capped.
Although the risk of a spill in the waters east of Shetland is thought to be very low, Norway’s safety regulators said the incident had been "serious".
Tonnes of specialist drilling mud have been pumped into the Gulfaks well in a bid to contain pressure, and Statoil is attempting to cap the well with cement...
http://www.shetlandtimes.co.uk/...