Deep Water: the Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling Page: 52
xiii, 380 p. : col. ill., mapsView a full description of this book.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling
advantage of advances in metallurgy to use higher-strength materials in the blowout
preventers' ram connecting rods or ram-shafts. More generally, he suggested "some
fundamental paradigm shifts" were needed across a broad range of blowout-preventer
technologies to deal with deepwater conditions.l"8
Under such conditions, methane hydrates raised a host of serious problems. Methane
gas locked in ice ("fire ice") forms at low temperature and high pressure, and can often
be found in sea-floor sediments. Temperature and pressure changes caused by drilling,
or even by natural conditions, can activate the release of 160 cubic feet of gas from
one cubic foot of methane, collapsing surrounding sediment, and thus destabilizing the
drilling foundation. Hydrates can also present well-control problems. As hydrocarbons
are produced and transported in cold temperatures and high pressures, hydrates can form
and block the flow through deep pipelines and other conduits. Government, academic, and
industry research programs on hydrates and associated flow problems begun in the 1990s
are continuing. 19
More broadly, knowledge about localized geology, types of hydrocarbons, and pressure
profiles in ultra-deepwater wells is still not thoroughly developed. Geological conditions are
complicated and vary from prospect to prospect, and from well to well. Each well, indeed,
has its own "personality" that requires maintaining an extremely delicate balance between
the counteracting pressures of the subsurface formation and drilling operation. Beneath
the salt, pressures in the pores of the sediment are exceedingly hard to predict. Reservoirs in
the Lower Tertiary are thicker and with higher viscosity than the fluids found in younger
rock. Finally, ultra-deepwater developments are far removed from shore and thus from
established infrastructure. As a BP technical paper prepared for the May 2010 Offshore
Technology Conference noted, "the trend of deepwater discoveries in the [Gulf of Mexico]
is shifting toward one with greater challenges across many disciplines represented by the
conditions of Lower Tertiary discoveries." 20
Nevertheless, the challenges seemed manageable and the rewards appeared worth the
perceived risk. The offshore industry had enjoyed a long run in the Gulf without an
environmental catastrophe. The hurricanes of mid-decade had caused widespread damage,
but not a major offshore spill. In recent years, the industry had touted its relatively clean
record in the Gulf as a justification to allow exploration elsewhere. As oil prices climbed
from 2003 to 2008, peaking at over $140 per barrel, so did the industry's interest in
exploring other frontier areas, especially offshore Alaska. In 2007, Shell and Total bid
aggressively for federal leases offered in the Beaufort Sea, and in 2008, Shell spent $2.1
billion for leases in the Chukchi Sea. The following year, however, a lawsuit in a federal
appeals court challenging the Minerals Management Service's environmental studies
preceding the sale held up applications for permits to drill on these leases.z21
Still, from 2008 through early 2010, both government and industry were largely bullish
about the potential of offshore drilling for the nation's future. Not incidentally, both were
earning even greater revenues from ever-more ambitious exploration. In 2008, President
George W. Bush and Congress ended the leasing moratoriums on vast stretches of the U.S.
outer continental shelf, and Bush proposed opening new areas for exploration. In a March
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This book can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Book.
National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling (U.S.). Deep Water: the Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling, book, January 2011; Washington, D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc123527/m1/68/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.