Another Gulf Oil Rig Explodes

A few readers have noted that another gulf oil rig has exploded. This one is off the coast of Lousiana. So far all the workers are accounted for, but they are in immersion suits waiting for rescue.

Comments

Bah.

[jpapon]

Call me back when there's oil spewing.

Re:Bah.

[Abstrackt]

slashdot = stagnated

Yeah, it's kinda funny how a news aggregator doesn't seem to post news before any other sites, isn't it?

Re:Bah.

[couchslug]

Meh. Industrial accidents kil, maim, and injure thousands of people every year.

There need be no conspiracy. Shit happens, sucks to be the victim, but that doesn't make it anything special.

BP

[UncleWilly]

I wonder if BP execs will give themselves a bonus.

"Hey! It wasn't one of ours!" bonus.

Re:BP

[Applekid]

Her comment on the BP disaster was, "Well, at least we are not responsible for the biggest ecological catastrophe any more"

There there, buck up. You'll get them next year.

Maybe

[moogied]

JUST MAYBE, we should look into this stuff.. I know, it happens off of the land so "civilians" are safe, but I am about 99% sure when big metal buildings *EXPLODE*, something is wrong. Once in a year? Extremely bad. Twice in a year? Something is broken.

Re:Maybe

[jpapon]

Just to back up my own argument that this is nothing new:

The U.S. Minerals Management Service reported 69 offshore deaths, 1,349 injuries, and 858 fires and explosions on offshore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico from 2001 to 2010. [wikipedia.org]

We're only hearing about every new fire/explosion now because of the massive spill. Give it a few months, and nobody will be reporting on these types of stories.

Re:Maybe

[bmajik]

Not to discredit the idea that domestic and off-shore drilling and oil recovery should be as safe as possible... but

It still kills fewer americans than getting oil from other places... like the middle east.

Re:Maybe

[omglolbah]

I've worked on the safety system of some major rigs in the Norwegian sections of the North Sea and I cannot see how this could happen if proper procedures and sane safety systems were in place...

Hell, there are so many sensors and so strict procedures in place that alarms go off like mad if there is even a tiny leak somewhere...

Re:Maybe

[dkleinsc]

Maybe, just maybe, safety standards for places like mines and oil rigs go down when the people appointed to head the inspection agencies for mines and oil rigs were former executives for mine and oil companies. And even if a new guy gets in charge, it can take a long time before their changes take any effect.

Re:Maybe

[RobVB]

There's a difference between malfunctioning alarms and very sensitive alarms. If there's a tiny little problem that could turn into something (even remotely) potentially catastrophic, it needs to be fixed. If people ignore it, that's because of a bad safety policy or being dangerously understaffed. Both of these are easily fixed if capable people are in charge, and both of these are inexcusable in this kind of environment.

Re:Maybe

[suomynonAyletamitlU]

Hell, there are so many sensors and so strict procedures in place that alarms go off like mad if there is even a tiny leak somewhere...

...And you don't think that could be part of the problem? Whenever alarms sound for tiny little problems, people grow deaf to them.

Only if they're not required to fix every one of them.

If the system is that sensitive, they're probably supposed to be, or they may actually be, fixing something every time an alarm goes off.

You know, in order to prevent explosions.

Just sayin'.

Re:Maybe

[nacturation]

Hell, there are so many sensors and so strict procedures in place that alarms go off like mad if there is even a tiny leak somewhere...

...And you don't think that could be part of the problem? Whenever alarms sound for tiny little problems, people grow deaf to them.

Only if those tiny little alarms happen quite a lot, and when no action is taken as a result. If you get a tiny little alarm once a week which is responded to promptly, professionally, and in such a manner that the alarm is silenced because the problem was properly fixed according to the strict procedures... I can't see how that would be an issue.

Re:Maybe

[ultranova]

Well, it's dangerous work.

No, it's not. The only way to get oil to explode is to vaporize it, mix it with air in the exact right concentration, and then set it on fire - and forget the movies, a cigarette is not going to do it; your car needs a spark of 20,000+ volts for reliable inginiton, and it's using a near-optimal concentration of fuel vapor, and that's easily-burning gasoline vapor, not crude oil.

Something is very wrong here.

Re:Maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's not. The only way to get oil to explode is to vaporize it

True, but irrelevant. Rig explosions are almost always the result of natural gas that was under under tremendous pressure underground. It doesn't take much to touch off a gas leak.

Re:Maybe

[NeutronCowboy]

It's called Methane. A lot of rigs burn off the Methane that comes with many oil deposits. But sometimes, Methane accumulates for whatever reason, isn't burned off in a controlled fashion, and explodes instead. And then ignites the oil. Methane/oil compositions are a bitch.

Re:Maybe

[Rogue974]

The parent knows what he is talking about. I am a Controls Engineer and I work at a facility that has all kinds of alarms and interlocks that are in place to keep things safe. There are very strict procedures (Management of Chance, Process Safety Management, etc.) that are meant to review and ensure that all of the systems in place are still in place and working properly.

Anytime, EACH AND EVERY SINGLE TIME, anyone asks me or one of the other Controls Engineers to make a change to these systems or interlocks, there is a MOC process where they have to submit what they want to change to their boss, someone in safety, head of engineering at a minimum. Each person has to take the time to look at what is being changed and then ask questions/raise concerns. When everyone is satisfied, then they approve it and eventually they come to me with an approved change and then and ONLY THEN will I make a change.

All of these things keep the operations working in proper order and are checked at least once a year to make sure they are in place per the design specifications, and those specs include the MOC changes, which is part of the whole process.

These are the interlocks that are in place that keep people in the place alive. These types of procedures are mandated things and if we didn't follow them, we would be fined out of existence or shut down entirely for not having a procedure and following it.

The break down in these cases are as follows:

1) Inspectors not checking and keeping the pressure on. Although, inspectors are stretched thin and can only check so many things, so ultimately, if people are cutting corners, most of the time inspectors will not catch them.
2) Operations taking short cuts to be able to meet demand that are figuring out ways to bypass something they shouldn't bypass to run anyway and they they are no longer protected.
3) People not following the procedures listed above and then things break and don't get repaired, changes made that are not documented, safety critical interlocks being modified so they no longer offer the protection that should.

If the procedures are followed properly and things documented, then the properly designed safety systems stay in place and these kinds of things can't happen. Yes there are problems with excess alarms in place and alarms getting ignored, but nuisance alarms are not the things that really matter for safety. What really matters are the interlocks where systems realize there is an issue and shut themselves down to protect the equipment and personnel. Alarms inform operators that something is not in the right range and they should look at it before it affects production. Interlocks (which have alarms with them as well) are the things that are the final protection level and the system reacts on it's own, equipment goes to fail safe mode and you are not running anymore.

I have heard in news sources of the BP spill and many other industrial accidents (check www.csb.org if interested in find out about chemical plant issues that have been investigated) and in most cases where there are issues with systems that were designed properly to begin with, like what omglolbah was stating, that the system is safe and these kind of things can't happen. It is when proper procedures are not followed and improper changes are made that we get BP and accidents happening.

So proper enforcement and inspections will only do some much, but have to be in place to make sure everyone is doing their do dilagence to stop these kinds of things from happening.

Drilling Moratorium

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah, that 6-month moratorium on deepwater drilling seems like an overreaction now...

Re:Cap

[spun]

This one isn't a deep water rig, so it should be much easier to cap.

Oil industry accidents are now 'newsworthy'

[JohnnyKnoxville]

Remember after the massive earthquake in Haiti, the news started reporting earthquakes about once a week? Accidents and casualties are nothing new to the oil industry.

Re:Fuck The Ecomaniacs

[Nadaka]

Clean coal? I hate to tell you this... No, actually, I love to tell you this. Clean coal is a lie.

You would get more energy out of coal if you were to filter the radioactive particles from it and use that in a nuclear reactor than if you had burned the coal normally.

All that ash and coke, full of mercury, heavy metals and other toxic stuff has to go somewhere, It either goes in the air for us all to breath or it gets stored and eventually makes its way into our soil and water supply.

CO2 sequestration can not work, you are talking about pumping billions of tons of gas underground into pockets in the rock. This has been shown to cause minor earthquakes, those earthquakes will eventually result in a blowout event, a blowout event will kill everyone in the area as the CO2 suffocates everyone, similar events happen all the time in Africa with natural CO2 sources.

Nuclear? sure, but we need to reprocess waste instead of storing it, preferably inside the reactor.
Solar? sure.
Wind? Ok, but it is unreliable so you can't rely on it for than a relatively small amount of the grid power.
Clean Coal? make me laugh.

Lousiana

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Apparently Louisiana really pissed off Poseidon sometime in the last few years. Y'all might want to update your Kraken attack response drills just in case...

Re:Fuck The Ecomaniacs

[Spectre]

What do you think that keyboard you type on is made of?

I don't know about your keyboard, but mine has the main body of the keyboard painstakingly shaped from the horn of a rhinoceros.
The keys carved from ivory obtained by hunting elephants for their tusks.
The ink to label the tops of the keys comes from finely dicing baby octopuses then running them through a centrifuge.
The springiness of the keys is particularly effective, to get the proper resistance for each key the sinews of baby seals is used.

Re:Fuck The Ecomaniacs

[Loki_1929]

It's really not that much of a spin. The GP's point is completely correct. If self-described environmentalists (actually just anti-nuclear activists) hadn't scared the American public away from a nuclear-based energy policy with scientifically bankrupt scare tactics, the United States would rely far, far less on fossil fuels today (probably almost exclusively for cars by now) and the chances of oil rigs exploding would be lessened by the fact that there would be far less oil rigs in the first place.

Not only that, but extracting oil from deep-water drill sites would probably not yet (if ever) be cost-effective for the prices wrought by demand and so the major Gulf spill of 2010 quite possibly would never have happened either.

So while they're not directly to blame, it's not a huge stretch to draw a line between the lies and ignorant actions of past anti-nuclear activists and the environmental disasters happening all the time in our fossil fuel draining little world.

no it's just people cutting corners to save cash

[Joe The Dragon]

no it's just people cutting corners to save cash sometimes it's cheaper to pay on then death of a working then to pay the cash to make it safer it's time for some big time fines for doing that.

Re:Cap

[mea37]

False.

"Mariner's platform is in 340 feet of water, which would make any spill response much easier than the response to BP's blown-out well."

Citation