Yeah, but there's guys making and shipping the pipe they drill with, the mud, all their equipment, running the boats and helicopters to the rigs. Then there's the jobs depending on the workers incomes to pay their bills.
Also, consider that in addition to the 33 rigs in deepwater, there are rigs in shallow water that are defacto shutdown now too .... not due to a moratorium but to no new safety regs released yet.
But regardless of the number of jobs ..... I still come back to why shut down ANYONE's job unless you have a good reason. And the administration hasn't made a case for it.
BTW the rate for blowouts in shallow water is actually higher than in deepwater. I posted a study on the Boomboom thread this morning showing that.
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FWIW Ixtoc I was in 160' of water. Montara (Aust 2009) was in 250' of water.
Interesting facts:
.....
This article summarizes information about blowouts that
occurred during drilling operations on the Outer Continental
Shelf (OCS) from 1992 through 2006 and compares this information with the previous study conducted for drilling blowouts that occurred from 1971 through 1991.
.....
Between 1992 and 2006, 39 blowouts occurred, compared with
87 during the time period of the previous study. Overall, the
rate of blowouts per well drilled improved during the period.
The current 15-year study period had a blowout rate of one for
every 387 wells drilled, compared with a rate of one blowout
for every 246 wells drilled during the previous study period. As in the previous study, most of the blowouts occurred in water depths of less than 500 f t.
The severity of blowouts, based on the duration and resulting
fatalities and injuries, decreased significantly compared with
the previous period. Similar to the 1971-1991 study period,
shallow gas influx persisted as a major contributor to blowouts
that occurred between 1992 and 2006. During the current
period, the percentage of blowouts associated with cementing
operations increased significantly from the previous period.
To address this, MMS and the American Petroleum Institute
(API) are working on a series of new standards detailing best
cementing practices for offshore oil and gas operations. During
the current period, one incident involving an accidental riser
disconnect on a floating drilling rig resulted in a blowout.As
drilling activity in deepwater increases, procedures for these
operations should continue to be evaluated to identify how
riser disconnects and the potential for blowouts associated
with them can be prevented.
.....
drillingcontractor.org
From Table 1 - wells drilled per blowout:
0 - 200' 459
201 - 500' 230
501 - 1000' 646
> 1000 499
Deepwater wells actually have fewer blowouts.
Per Figure 3 - only 2.5% of blowouts lasted more than 7 days. 67% lasted 24 hours or less. None lasted more than 30 days in the study period in US waters. This BP blowout is off the chart. |
