We reckon the waves that hit this rig were about 50'-60' high. Note the twisted steel girders that support the lowest "deck".
I think this is an excellent sign. The engineers and workers have done an outstanding job of "hardening" these rigs against Gulf Coast hurricanes since Dennis, Rita and Katrina. It's amazing to me that something that looks so flimsy can withstand waves that high for hours.I regret bailing out of the geology program in 1987. This is a very exciting job field. Beats being a desk jockey. But at the time they were laying off seasoned geologists left and right. I would have graduated into a world underemployment.
4 comments:
Sharky, in that top photo, what is that red-painted tool connected to the black hose on the deck of your boat? It looks sinister.
It's amazing how blue the Gulf is just a few hundred yards off the Galveston beaches. I have been swimming in Yoohoo-colored water since I was a kid.
lou:
I'm not entirely sure, ut it looks like gear used by the survey guys.
They pneumatically pressurize a segment of pipeline and watch the pressure gauge to see if there's any leaks.
With the ROV in 2-3000 feet of water, it would be pinpointed pretty quickly.
Of course it COULD have something to do with the toilets...
Sharky
Lou, Thunderhorse's near-sinking had absolutely nothing to do with Dennis except that it was the abandonment ahead of Dennis that led to the discovery of the flaw. I have it on excellent authority that it was a flaw in both the design and the abandonment procedures that led to the problem. The active ballast system has hydraulically opened, spring closed valves on the sea water intakes. The hydraulic system has a large accumulator bottle in the system to maintain pressure in the event of a system failure. the isolation valve supplying hydraulic pressure to the intake valve was closed and a bleed valve opened to allow the hydraulic pressure to bleed off so the valve would shut. But the procedure called for the bleed valve to then be closed to prevent system contamination. the accumulator was not bled off so the hydraulic system still had pressure in the system. But the isolation valve leaked, allowing pressure to build back up in the "isolated" circuit, causing the valves to slowly open back up after everyone left the rig. Exxon-Mobil/BP don't like to talk about it because it makes them look like dunces, but nobody thought to test the abandonment procedure prior to leaving dry dock or port. Additionally apparently the shipyard in SK could not read piping diagrams. A lot of the plumbing was installed wrong as well and may have been a contributing factor.
The kingdom was (almost) lost for want of a nail.....
Complex control systems using valves requires an automatic control based input of an actuator. The actuator strokes the valve allowing the valve to be positioned accurately and allowing control over a variety of requirements.
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