Im ouuta here, going going....gaaaaaaaaaaaaawn!

[kiwigeo]

Well its that time again..no not Christmas..its CREW CHANGE DAY. Its 3am and Ive just relieved my offsider. A few hours of stooging around drinking coffee and doing the morning reports (not much drilling going on right now) and then Im on a chopper and inbound.

This time off its a full three weeks off.....a pile of domestics to get done, a trip to New Zealand to see the old man and who knows I might even get some time in the workshop.

The wife tells me theres a message on the answer machine from someone wnting a Geologist to go out to a job on thursday. Well that unfortuate individual can just go and kiss my .....

[Nick]

:serg

[Paul B]

Enjoy your time off buddy. I've just had a month off, and boy, didn't I need that. Been spending most of it with my 10 month old son James, life is good if you get to spend some of it doing the important things (like visiting the old man). Enjoy.

[Allen]

I'd recommend turning the phone off for at least 2 1/2 weeks Martin. Work probably doesn't know that the easiest way to find you is by logging on here.

[kiwigeo]

Well I must say conditions have improved markedly since I last posted. Got into Perth and once Id negotiated the attrocious f**** up otherwise known as the Perth Airport upgrade I got to the hotel and got upgraded to an executive suite on the top floor of the building. Didnt really care much as by then I was so tired I could have crashed out on a park bench.

Right now Im sitting out the back. It's a balmy 25 degC, Ive got an ice cold Stella in my hand and Jon Martyn's "Solid Air" playing.

[Nick]

That'll soon change when you get here next week! 9 Degrees at the moment and I'm sitting here sucking on heater fumes! Bloody weather

[Bob Connor]

Well I must say conditions have improved markedly since I last posted. Got into Perth and once Id negotiated the attrocious f**** up otherwise known as the Perth Airport upgrade I got to the hotel and got upgraded to an executive suite on the top floor of the building. Didnt really care much as by then I was so tired I could have crashed out on a park bench.

Right now Im sitting out the back. It's a balmy 25 degC, Ive got an ice cold Stella in my hand and Jon Martyn's "Solid Air" playing.

"I don't want to know 'bout evil. Only want to know.......

Great album. I've got all of his stuff.

[kiwigeo]

The Title track is my favourite. Sad that he passed away recently.

[kiwigeo]

Well Im glad I turned down the offer to go out and do the shortie last week.....it was a hitch on the West Triton...currently drilling the relief well up in the Timor Sea. Right now Im sitting here in Auckland NZ watching footage on the TV of the Atlas engulfed in a fireball. I cant see the drilling package (derrick and drill floor) so thats obviously melted and fallen into the sea.

Looks like the Atlas is still in one piece apart from losing its drilling package but as soon as the fire gets to the fuel tanks the whole rig is going to be history.

4000 barrels of kill mud was supposed to have gone down the relief well today.....hope it works. If it doesnt then theyll have to spend another day making up another 4000 barrels of mud.

[Allen]

Glad your in NZ as well Martin. Much better than being at work and wondering when the fire brigade is going to show up.

[kiwigeo]

Looks like they killed the well. This pic shows the smouldering remains of the West Atlas. Notice the complete absence of the derrick and most of the drilling package. Part of the lower part of the package may be the crumpled mass lying over the top of the Montaro platform.

Note also the buckled booms of the two cranes closest to the platform...they wont pass their next inspection.

[Lillian]

GAWD Martin, tell me everyone got off safely.

[sebastiaan56]

No human lives lost Lillian, but a massive disaster environmentally. The investigations need to be done but it looks like another pristine environment effed for the next hundred plus years. Fishing catches in Timor Sea are 5% of what they were before the pollution began. see http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/e ... 886728.ece

[kiwigeo]

The Times article needs to be taken with a grain of salt like alot of the other media reporting on the Montara blowout. One can blame a lack of information being released by the Montara operator to some degree but alot of the articles I've read have been penned by journos who don't have a clue what goes on on an oil rig and are too lazy to educate themselves by talking to a few people who work in the game.

The Times article mentions that the reluctance to use the rig offered by Woodside was due to a fear that the Montara operator would have to share company secrets with that company. This is rubbish. First of all the rigs are operated by drilling companies (eg Seadrill, Diamond Offshore) not operators such at Woodside. If a rig was "loaned" to the Montara operator it would have it's own reps supervising operations. Secondly, not all rigs are the same. The rig offered by Woodside would have been an aging semi-sub with an outdated mud mixing and pumping system. The West Triton is a brand new jackup with a far superior and more reliable mud mixing and storage system and mud pumps that are less likely to crap out halfway through a kill operation. I should comment here that half the semis working in Australia waters at present are aging rust buckets and in need of a few months in a shipyard undergoing overdue maintenance. If I had been asked to chose a rig to do the Montara relief well I'd have chosen the nearest available current generation jack-up rig to do the job. The journos could have found all this out by ringing up the PR officer at the APPEA here in Australia.

[kiwigeo]

GAWD Martin, tell me everyone got off safely.

Lillian, the rig in the photo is the West Atlas which was fully evacuated as soon as the blow out happened...some 10 weeks ago.

[kiwigeo]

One more pic..taken as the West Atlas erupted into flames. Notice the derrick in the midst of the flames and then look at the photo above where the derrick is no longer visible.

[seeaxe]

Martin, I understand the site is still spilling stuff into the ocean and that previous efforts to stop it hadnt worked.

Do you have any idea how will they plug it?

How deep is the water?

[Nick]

How deep is the water?

Not very deep, it only comes halfway up a duck's arse! Sorry Richard, been waiting years to use that one.

[kiwigeo]

Martin, I understand the site is still spilling stuff into the ocean and that previous efforts to stop it hadnt worked.

Do you have any idea how will they plug it?

How deep is the water?

From my count they had three unsucessful attempts to intersect the blow out wellbore with the relief well and got it on the fourth attempt. From what I hear they then pumped one lot of heavy kill mud which is when the Atlas rig caught fire. A second load of kill mud was then sent down the relief well and this killed the flow of gas and condensate feeding the fire on the Atlas. I think they had a couple of workboats with their fire monitors trained on the Atlas but id say choking off the flow of hydrocarbons starved the fire and it eventually expired by itself.

Forward plan I imagine will be to plug back and abandon the relief well and then get some permanent plugs set in the blow out well. The latter may require dealing with the damaged Atlas rig first. Not sure how theyll deal with that but there are a few options for this.
water depth from memory water depth is about 200m but dont quote me on that. Jack up rigs generally not used once you get over 300m..depending on how much leg length theyre carrying.

[WaddyT]

It's really nice to read the thoughts of an individual with some knowledge. It really shows how the "media" can inflame, no pun intended, a situation.

[kiwigeo]

Heres another rig disaster. The rig in the photo has just experienced a "punch through". This is when one leg of the rig penetrates further into the seabed than expected during jack up operations. Its actually a common occurance with jackups....it happened to the Maersk Valiant off Adelaide a few years ago. They ended up cutting the legs off and shipping the rig back to Singapore on a heavy lift ship.