Prof. Bea Script M._sch_Transcript

7/27/2019 Prof. Bea Script M._sch_Transcript

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Came from woman in New.Orleans. as result of that Katrina mess. Former worker forTransocean. Then got contact for former student . Network spread to approx 50 peoplewho have been providing info to me. To help me understand how the hell this thing thinghappened and more importantly why. Been a very interesting 220 hours. First contact 7in evening on April 20. continuing to gather data similar to early days of Katrina.

Many important details are still lacking. Call outline of picture puzzle is getting prettyclear.

We had pretty good outline in few days. Thats what you and Marshall wrote about.Same kind of understanding.Falls into two categories. How did this disaster unfold. Most of outline coming fromtranscripts, mostly written, but one oral transcript, from people who reportedly workedon rig. Based on own experience, see

Either a drill toolpusher on rig or Halliburton employee on beach.. provided extremeimportant technical details. Deep technical engineering insight.

Backed up by input received from people who worked on the rig in the past and have ahistory of knowledge of ops.Next from colleagues, many retired, and some internationally watched unfold andstudents who have been thru Berkeley who provided input.

Transocean, British Petroleum and engineering service companies.

Input of outline how unfolded. Leads good insights why.

Have read article and studied diag carefully and will call it in a general outline, whichnormal people. pretty close to spot on based on info I have.

Start at time spudded the well. Which means 90 days before the blowout. During theprocess of getting to 18k ft below sea floor and 23k ft below drill floor, the drill crewencountered consistently gas kicks. One gas kick that occurred as got toward bottom ofhole, approx 10k ft below sea floor, was such large gas kick, had to shut down. Sparksources had to shut down because so much gas coming out of rig, afraid explosion.

At that point, people in the drill mud room. Incoming gas kit brought under control inmud room. Weight up the drill fluid. One of key elements involved in the story because itprovides the weight, pressure to counteract the pressures; coming from the formationsthat are being penetrated. Increased weight and decreased, used different material.Weight material, like cement sacks at home dept but more sophisticated.

Water weighs 8.3 lbs per gallon. The drill mud they were using at this stage isapproaching 16-17 pounds per gallon. When drill mud extends over the full length of thedrill casing strain, as get toward bottom of hole, have 23,000 feet of heavy mud pressing


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contacts in Houston. Halliburton, Schlumberger, Transocean and BP all in contact withunit.

Was very interesting however complex communication network that terminated at therig.

So theres some blanks.

The detailed transcript says 7 inch diameter casing. Tells you person writing transcript issure as hell a floor worker.

We have lowered onto the wellhead that isolated below the blowout preventer stack atthe sea floor, 5000 feet below drill deck.

Next step, Halliburton starts cementing job. Heres where I had to bring together someclues, because the cement job is a new type of cement. When saw that word new in the

transcript, like my grandson, said uh oh. Was infused with chemicals and nitrogen, andthose chemicals and nitrogen forms frothy cement like shaving soap from can, was putin there because concern about damage or destruction of seals by methane hydrates.

Halliburton has published in technical literature during the past two years manyexcellent papers and many excellent presentations in which they have been clearlytrying to understand how to seal wells in the presence of large amounts methanehydrate.

So they set the cement seal and plug. The next critical step is the weight. Theyrewaiting for the cement seal and plug to cure. Just as you would do if you pour concreteand wait for the sidewalk to cure.

Because of chemicals, cement can cure rapidly. Nitrogen is meant to counteract theheat coming from cement as it cures - the heat of hydration. Produces large amounts ofheat.

Concern about heat is can thaw methane hydrate, crystalline gas, and call that uh ohagain. This critical information tells me they were reasonably aware and expectant ofhazards associated with the methane hydrates. They aint stupid.

The next step is after they waited for the cure, they run positive and negative tests onthe BOP stack. What theyre attempting to determine is if the pressures at the reservoirare; still in that drill column. Whether the plug worked right.

This is a very crucial step.

There is a disagreement on the transcripts. One said just run the positive and negativetests. Other transcript said did it twice.


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All three of crucial transcripts I got say the conclusion was the coast is clear to proceed.At this point one transcript describes in great detail a debate on board rig carried outwith assistance and advice of Houston beach team, mud and drilling engineers inHouston, BP and Halliburton and engineers for Transocean.

At this point, the debate is - do we set the next critical barrier called a bridge plug inmud or in salt water. What that second alternative means is that they will displace partof mud drill colum, at deck and put in tank and replace with salt water. The reason thishas to be done is when they get through this operation, they have to disconnectassembly at sea floor.That means marine conductor at top to drill floor, released from tensioners and relieveto drill deck. If filled with mud, pollutes and everybody mad. So have put salt water thereso disconnect.

Debate comes back that pressure tested, coast clear so will displace upper 10k ft of

heavy mud and replace w salt water. Crucial step, reason crucial, if seal at bottom isfine,okay. But if not okay, were screwed.. dont have enough pressure in column to fightthe reservoir pressure.

At this point have circulated out the top 10 k ft of mud and got salt water in upper portionof column. This is called dual column drilling. Upper salt and bottom mud.

At this point ready to take the next step. Next step what got to do is take very heavy drillpipe. Reason extra heavy drill pipe is because just before coming to this location, drilledto 34-35k feet in different location. Had to handle extra heavy pressure.

At this case going to attach bridge plug assembly to bottom of drill pipe and have toolsinside the drill pipe so once get below, latch in place, pressure test and second in place.

Have to open the annulus in the BOP stack so can lower this bridge plug drill pipeassembly to 10k ft below drill deck, 5k feet below sea floor.. at this point, the transcriptshave a blank for me.

Reason its blank is because indeed did open BOP stack, but dont know how farbeneath BOP the pipe and bridge assembly got. But did open and lower through theannulus.

Next thing that happens in all of the 3 transcripts was sea water shot to drilling deck 240ft above deck, a geyser of water coming up. Next is arrival of gas that spills out into themoon pool area, onto drill deck and begins spreading to unit. They can smell it, they cansee it, but at this stage it does not ignite. Looks like ice slush and can see gasemanating from it. Can watch ice burn, just like ice. Converting direct from solid to gasform.


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Reports say could see gas, smell gas, but it didnt explode immediately. For about 100 ftsquare around moon pool below drill derrick, equipment is intrinsically safe.no sparksthat can ignite.

But beyond that area, not true. Galley. Pumps with exposed parts. Etch.

At drill floor, next thing see is mud. Mud can only be coming from below 10k ft wheresupposed to be. So coming from bottom of well.

At that point calls come from rig asking for more mud. Certain these radio calls willultimately be traced and produced. This at 7 p.m.

The gas continues to come out. The mud continues to come out and only one transcriptsays hit drill switch to BOP stack 5k feet below.

Having worked on drill floor couple of years and spent time as monkey board laborer,

makes all kinds of sense these people hit drill switch. This coming from bottom andtheyre not stupid.

Transcript says it kept coming, which meant the blind rams down at blow out preventerdid not sever or crush the pipe. Thats the next major uh oh.

The gas continues to flow. It reaches the mud put room. There are two engineers in themud pit room. Pumps and equipment, mud sacks. Working to control runaway well.

First explosion happens in the mud pit room. The transcripts dont say this, becausethose two people are there, theyre killed instantly.

At this point, the story has two branches it has to follow.

The first branch is as result of explosion, quarters that are immediately next to mud pitarea, one wall to the quarters collapses because of the explosion overpressure. At thispoint, and heres where the detailed descript really gets detailed, in the galley portion ofthe quarters, a party is being held. The party is to celebate the Transocean DeepwaterHorizon 7 years without an accident. 7 British Petroleum bigwigs are there. One ofarticles written said execs. If got engineers in suits could look like execs.

Makes sense because BP people, engineers, managers, drill pushers on shore closelymonitor and work with unit. Should be proud of 7 yrs without an accident. Busy havingcookies, cake and soft drinks. Explosion hurls them against the other wall. Can tell thattranscript written by somebody there.

Heres where broke down. Describes bodies being broken, necks gashed and bleeding.Now in dark. People screaming for help. People busy helping comrades get to twolifeboats.


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The story even goes to the lifeboats where people in the lifeboats are screaming we gotto get out of here but the lifeboats arent full. Slam doors and drop units and see someof their colleagues jumping into sea. They can see their outlines because the rig isburning.

Back on the drill floor all hell has broken loose.

Explosions are propagating from the mud pit room back toward them.

First explosion is propagating back to drill floor. Fire pushing toward that location.At that point, one transcript thats obviously been observer headed toward lifeboats,says the drill floor disappears in a ball of flame.

At that point, the three on-board transcripts stop.

These transcripts are coming directly from rig operators. BP conducting investigation,

but dont appear to be documents resulting from an investigation. It appears likesomebody after these workers get off the rig, went to kenner under care of formerBlackhawk very tight security.

Audio transcript comes from worker who lives near or in Dallas. Written after gottenhome. Former students and former drill floor worker, network about 50 people sendingto him. All electronic. Havent spoken to any workers on telephone.Concluding Paragraph:

In order for a disaster of this magnitude to happen, more than one thing has to gowrong, or fail. First, a shitty cement job. The wellhead packoff/seal assembly, (assemblyimmediately below BOP stack) while designed to hold the pressure, is just a backup.

And finally, the ability to close the well in with the BOP somehow went away.Why shitty cement job happened Halliburton, then located test data bops and only 50pct chance of working and with heavy drill pipe, no BOP stack.

Stack manufactured in 2001. same year Deepwater Horizon is commissioned. Stack isdesigned to handle certain types and grades of casing and drill pipe.

We really dont know where the shear rams cut the pipe, but obv iously couldnt cut it.Whether pipe or tool joints that connect pipe, they didnt work. Info received was specialdrill pipe was too heavy for blind shear rams to cut. BP and Transocean zipped up infoon what the hell is that.Following up mans final statement why BOPs go away?

Did not have sufficient cutting power to cut drill stem.


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Pix cg gathered of underwater smokers clearly show oil coming thru drillpipe. Meanspipe communicating with oil at formation level.Other wonderful clue provided, clogged up with toilet paper, which is word for methanehydrate gas. Sure sign methane hydrate is one of the causes. BP trying to make believe

its bigass surprise.

Come from weird world of risk assessment. This risk is likelihood and other isconsequence of failing.

Collectively we underestimate likelihood of failure of blowout. One document saidunlikely. Shift to the other again,documentation. We totally underestimate the likelihoodof catastrophic spill, loss of containment call it. This is a critical step that crews workingbusy proving.

One of the reasons I came to New Orleans starting career corps and got kicked back

betsy, learned lot since then, maybe learn lot with this screwup. My God, heres nextpart of my life. Worked for Shell. Ultimately chief offshore civil engineer for Shell. Thenassigned to Bay Marchand blowout.much shallower water had surface trees. Myassignment was to trace the oil. Find out where going so deploy cleanup and mop upcrews. In 1969. in Bay Marchand with Red Adair, hes trying to get ahold of fire and Imtracing oil. Also got horrible surprise. We started suspicion that two parts to spill. Whatwas on surface, scaring hell out of birds and stuff. But subsurface oil. Sniffers towed inwater column to detect where hydrocarbons are. Traced it all the way to YucatanPeninsula. Went down slope of OCS. Theres physical reason because Gulf Streamsplits downFlorida, shoots up mouth of Mississippi and eastward and westward loop.Very high currents. 3-4 ft per second. Thats whats transporting subsea oil. But oil literw water. Yeah till mix with lot of shit. Soil and other stuff reservoir producing makessubstantial and heavier. And if use dispersants have another subsea contributor. Inthose days didnt have dispersants. So half went out subsurface. Got videos of subseaattempts work. When ROV gets close to area of lite. Blobs coming straight at you fromthe smoker. People in your part of world, got two levels of consequences of failureproblem.

Next thing happens that year was called Santa Barbara. Heres where get to understandUNOCAl friends and watch interesting shenanigans. 1970. Shell tasked to Piney WoodsMiss, where blowout from 22,000 feet was killed. Was tasked to deal with relief wellteam. Initial drilling of two wells. One shallow and one deep. When get wells to depth,use explosives to close the well. Cameup with this bright idea from Russian colleagues,who used successfully in Black Sea.

Tasked other Shell engineers to work with explosives. Some with conventional andothers with nuclear explosives. Two teams putting together packages lower into wellstrings both deep and shallow to blow the sucker. Fortunately God stepped in and wellbridged naturally. Shell brought every Halliburton. Had conventional and nuke towardlocation when happened.


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Now at Berkeley, put tanker aground at Prince William Sound. Students and facultyfriends Canada oil spill cleanup experts. Oxymoron.

You knew history got less than 10 pct of the oil. The other sank to bottom or

disappeared or still there.

Then working with MMS as consultant, working with Canada clean up spill.mosteffective thing was burning it.

Tricky. Collect in area big enough concent. in oil, but didnt burn so good.Here is clear indication BP says no problem with containment and cleanup and readthat and got sick.

Notice on risk done two critical things. Likelihood anything happen is bad and

consequences of anything going wrong are low, theyre not anything, no problem man.And of course propability of failure was not low and consequences not low, billions andenviro impact measured in years not decades. I think we have a problem,Houston.

Lets go back to residual risk and risk theme. Make link to IPET work on risk. At thispoint jumping up down spoiled kid. Only got part of risk. Have depopulated the riskanalysis. There arent any people there

The assumpts live and die by are not going do right things. What think 100 yr returnperiod is 20. what dif is human and organizational component. Trail of tears led to andafter that led to these critical org things. BP fell into the same damn trap and they werenot engineering, they were Imagineering. Risk analysis continues to mislead usbecause were only looking at part of the risk.

In 1998, wrote paper to Society of Petroleum Engineers and essentially says if want tostop blowouts have to approach the human organizational complex. Another paper in2002 to international onshore industry on exploration drilling and production. If you wantto get this risk in focus, better get people and organisation in focus. Proactive andreactive learned from nuke and commercial aviation. BP read paper and employee saidelevating risk analysis to next level. Those employees have sadly disappeared.

What brought this whole miserable mess to me and dont want to jump to badconclusions, but can see same bad trail of tears contrib. to Katrina, massey big branchmine disaster and its showing up here again.

Kept trying to explain what risk assessment and management business is like, think its easy. Its called stop, think and then act. Dont do something stupid.

For me the tragedy of Katrina was floating bodies and homes and businessesdestroyed. This time its different. Certain people on rig and prop pc of equpment


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destroyed, but theres another non-voting population getting hurt this time and it is thosemarine animals that are our equivalents.

Part of it would be why in hell back in New.Orleans. Bob.

Had to back off and ask self should I go forward. Advice getting from colleagues,if youdont, probably go back where were. Thinking just me. U.S. colleagues cant stand up.International colleagues reached out and said if need help, coming.

White House presidential commission to investigate, with Adm. Gehman

Prof. Bea Script M._sch_Transcript

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