what will happen when a hurricane hits Gulf spill?

Discussion in 'All Things Boats & Boating' started by Squidly-Diddly, May 23, 2010.

  1. troy2000
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    troy2000 Senior Member

    I've included a picture of the Deepwater Horizon before the accident. Look that platform over thoroughly, then try to tell me they sank it by spraying it and 'filling it up with water.'

    edit: here's a link to a picture that illustrates the difference between a semi-submersible drilling platform and a drillship, Mark. A drillship you might fill with water by spraying.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Deepwater_drilling_systems_2.png
     

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  2. mudman
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    mudman Junior Member

    A semisubmersible drill ship has pumps that ballast it out. Electronic controlled pumps. A fire does alot of damage to wiring and if pumps are not working, down she goes. Only a matter of time.

    I think that it was the Thunderhorse platform that the pumps were hooked up backwards and they nearly lost the platform. The computer thought that it was pumping water out when it was actually filling it up. Took a while to correct it, but it was saved.

    The drillship did not sink because they put a firehose to it.
     
  3. troy2000
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    troy2000 Senior Member

    Because it wasn't a drillship, if you're talking about the Deepwater Horizon. A semi-submersible drilling platform is not a ship. It's a floating drilling platform, and it isn't going to sink simply because it gets caught in the rain or sprayed with a fire hose:)
     
  4. murdomack
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    murdomack New Member

    #66
    Don't make me laugh. I was working on a Shell installation and two guys were passing large bolts down through a hatch in a gas tight floor in a concrete leg, 300ft down. The guy above dropped one of the bolts and it struck his mate on the head, knocking him unconscious.

    While the medic and a response team went down the leg to attend to him, another team of Shell's finest prepared to remove the leg hatch so that a stretcher basket could be lowered down. Instead of fetching a four legged sling, they put a single sling diagonally across two padeyes and put the crane hook in the centre. As soon as it lifted the hatch fell sideways and jammed in some pipework next to the coaming.

    They were still trying to free it two hours later. The injured party had by now recovered and climbed up out of the leg under his own steam.
     
  5. mudman
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    mudman Junior Member

    Sorry Troy about the drillship, I should know better. You are right, not a ship. As I said though, I'm quite an amateur when it comes to drilling. I mainly deal with jackups, and I barely know some the workings on those. I'm actually more of a pipeline guy.

    Those cans on the semi submersible do have pumps that most likely failed in the fire. That's what I'd say it sank. That and a massive fire above and below deck.
     
  6. troy2000
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    troy2000 Senior Member

    My assumption was that the fire damage eventually affected the watertight integrity of the support structure, or simply unbalanced the platform until it capsized. But your guess about the pumps makes more sense.
     
  7. mark775

    mark775 Guest

    Purely conjecture on both of your parts - no less than than mine. So, everything can be damaged to the point of sinking by a fire (you didn't even mention the explosion) but not by 4,5,6 fire boats squirting 2'5" streams? I've been on platforms too, Troy - mostly grating out-of-doors but plenty of places to fill with water. It's not "rain or a hose" or whatever you said. It is a damaged structure with millions of gallons of water filling it. Would it have only floated a few days more...or long enuf to get "Son of" Red Adair in there to get the job done? I don't know but one of you experts suggested that it was something like 50,000 psi of flammable gas - at some point, it seems to a layman like me, that after squirting on it for 6 hours, a day, two days...that a lightbulb would come on and somebody would say "hey, this fire isn't going to go out like this. Let's burn what oil we can for as long as we can while they figure out how to blow the flame out without sinking the ship." Sinking the ship, experts, FOR SURE puts a break in the pipe a mile down.
    "My assumption was that the fire damage eventually affected the watertight integrity of the support structure, or simply unbalanced the platform until it capsized. But your guess about the pumps makes more sense." -So, the watertight integrity may have been damaged? Or the pumps that might have controlled balance were water to intrude damaged? Hm..you are making my case!
    I guarantee that the fireboat crews were saying "this is stupid".
     
  8. mudman
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    mudman Junior Member

    I don't think that you can fully appreciate the size of that drill rig.

    http://www.deepwater.com/fw/main/Deepwater-Horizon-56C17.html?LayoutID=17

    Note the draft. During drilling it sits 47 feet lower. It also has a 21'x93 ft moonpool in the middle. Dynamically positioned. 130 ft crewboats look like bath toys next to this thing.

    On the burning the oil part, this is Heavy Louisiana Sweet Crude. It does not burn very well, especially when emulsified. We tried to burn it off even after the Horizon sank, and we could not light it off. This crap looks like pudding.

    Back on subject of a hurricane. Hurricane experts say that the oil on the water will heat the gulf faster and to a higher temperature therefore creating more and stronger hurricanes in the gulf.

    I think that a hurricane would be worst case. Tidal surge bringing that pudding like crude into the marshes for sure. We can try and keep it out, but I still think that they need to build those islands. Government always slowing things down.
     
  9. mark775

    mark775 Guest

    Been there. Did I mention the millions of gallons of water part? Each fire boat probably pumps fifty gallons a second, half of it missed its mark or evaporated. The big boat still was receiving several hundred gallons of seawater a second in addition to whatever may have been leaking.
     
  10. troy2000
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    troy2000 Senior Member

    Actually, I guarantee that you shouldn't be trying to put words into the mouths of fireboat crews. And the differences between my "conjectures" and yours are two-fold.

    First, yours make no sense.

    Second, you were stating yours as established fact, instead of as conjectures:

     
  11. troy2000
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    troy2000 Senior Member

    You're still hung up on your image of a drilling platform as some sort of oversized open dinghy, that would fill up with water like a cookpot set adrift under a garden hose.

    The fact that a semi-submersible drilling platform floats doesn't make it a "big boat" that you can fill up with water. That is complete nonsense.

    Here's a spec sheet on this one:

    http://www.deepwater.com/fw/main/Deepwater-Horizon-56C17.html?LayoutID=17

    Note that it's designed to keep operating in sustained 29-foot waves every ten seconds, and designed to withstand storm conditions of sustained 41-foot waves every fifteen seconds in a 103-knot wind. And you're trying to tell us it sank because they were spraying water on it?!? Use a little common sense; they might as well have been spraying water on a submarine.
     
  12. murdomack
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    murdomack New Member

    Hindsight is 20/20 as they say. I think firing all that water onto the semi was a mistake. A lot of it would have got into the cans and down to the hulls.

    Maybe the rig could have floated as a flare, although it may have melted the superstructure away. If the flame had self extinquished the spillage would continue around the rig and could be contained better.

    Then again, it had no anchors, being dynamically positioned (is that right?), it would probably have broken off from the well in any case. Did they put lines round it to try and keep it in position?
     
  13. troy2000
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    troy2000 Senior Member

    Although the fire was flaring the natural gas, I seriously doubt it was burning any significant amount of crude--particularly since natural gas is lighter than air and would be separating from the oil and rising. I see no reason to think the flame would have self-extinguished before the platform went down; it had plenty of fuel.

    Your last two points are interesting. I don't know if it was anchored or not, and I don't know if they tried to hook lines to it.
     
  14. hoytedow
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    hoytedow Carbon Based Life Form

    Wow, 2 I don't know's in the same paragraph written by Troy. My heart almost stopped from the shock!
     

  15. mudman
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    mudman Junior Member

    It was not anchored. It is dynamically positioned. It would take at least 4 massive anchors and 10 miles of chain or so for each anchor. The rig has thrusters that hold it in place.
     
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