HEALTH & SAFETY
disaster and it’s clearly difficult for firms to manage so many variables. Will there always be weak links in huge engineering projects such as this? “Yes, and that is why you have to be diligent in seeking them out and compensating for them,” says Boebert. “Te first place to look is at the interfaces, especially between different technologies. And it’s important to understand that there is more to systems integration than just putting all the boxes in the same room.” On reading the book, one thing
that’s truly shocking is the sheer volume of major errors that led to the disaster. When other comparable disasters occur, we tend to hear of one almighty mistake – such as somebody lighting a cigarette during a gas leak – but this incident featured major errors across pretty much every conceivable parameter that can be measured. Surely that is not common? Boebert says that, “It’s not common, but it happens. Examples are Chernobyl, Fukushima, the Korean ferry disaster and the Texas City refinery explosion.”
THE SKILLS GAP
Te human factor was evidently a contributor to the overall disaster – and part of the explanation here links into a worrying trend across the oil & gas engineering sector; that of the growing skills gap occurring as older, experienced engineers leave the sector, and are not being replaced by enough smart new minds. Boebert acknowledges the intuition of drillers – acquired through their vast experience on rigs – in the book. And he also offers some thoughts on how to counter this skills gap. “We think it would be very useful if some industry entity – API, a university, whatever – would institute a ‘knowledge capture’ project that went out and interviewed
42
www.engineerlive.com
THE BLOWOUT PUZZLE T
he following is an extract from the book: “Data from the Sperry Sun system suggests that the production casing passed the positive pressure test. However, about four hours later, when the crew began the first
displacements of spacer and seawater, some fluid began flowing out of the production casing and into the formation – contradicting the results of the positive pressure test. These lost returns continued through the second displacement until the well became unbalanced and hydrocarbons began flowing into the production casing. This leaves us with one of the central puzzles of the blowout, one that any
acceptable explanation of what happened at the bottom of the well must solve: what changed in the well between the positive first pressure test and the first displacement? We will probably never know." l
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52