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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: semi_infinite who wrote (368679)	6/14/2010 12:45:09 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793840

The riser was never disengaged because of the way the rig sunk so even if everything was in perfect working order, it won't have fired. I haven't actually worked with such rigs, but I would think that the signal would come from the rig, so if the rig is destroyed the signal should stop. If it comes from below that, perhaps the source should be moved, or you could duplicate the signal. But whether or not the signal would go off from this type of incident seems irrelevant. The deadman switch on Deepwater Horizon was essentially the same as on any other rig, so your whole "Prior to this, fail safe meant that if a hurricane knocks a rig off a well, the well's equipment would automatically shut off the flow at the sea floor" seems to be pointless. The precaution here was the same as on other rigs. Some have a 2nd backup (with the primary being "push a button, send a signal, activate the blowout preventer, and the first backup being the deadman switch) with an acoustical signal to a switch to activate the blowout preventer, but that apparently wasn't what you where talking about since it didn't really fit your comments. Also the failure here seems to be something with the blowout preventer (since locally triggering it didn't work) so signal issues probably have nothing to do with the problem.

To: semi_infinite who wrote (368679)	6/14/2010 12:46:54 PM
From: Brumar89	1 Recommendation Respond to of 793840

Norway hasn't stopped ongoing drilling. They've only delayed licensing in new deepwater areas and that delay probably won't be long: Norway freezes drilling in new deepwater blocks OSLO Tue Jun 8, 2010 12:59pm OSLO June 8 (Reuters) - Norway will not open new deep-water areas for drilling until an investigation sheds light on BP's (BP.L) well blowout and massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Oil and Energy Minister Terje Riis-Johansen said on Tuesday. Market Movers "We are now working on the 21st licensing round. It will be conducted in light of what we have experienced in the Gulf of Mexico," Riis-Johansen said in a statement. "It is not appropriate for me to allow drilling in any new licenses in deep-water areas until we have good knowledge of what has happened with the Deepwater Horizon (rig operated by BP) and what this means for our regulations," he added. Asked by Reuters if this meant that the licensing round, due for completion around mid-2010, was delayed, a ministry spokeswoman said: "The round will take place as planned and the government will decide which areas to open for activities before the summer break (in July)." (Reporting by Wojciech Moskwa and Ole Petter Skonnord) uk.reuters.com Norway Directorate Sees No Reason to Stop Deepwater Drilling Share Business ExchangeTwitterFacebook\| Email \| Print \| A A A By Josiane Kremer and Marianne Stigset June 8 (Bloomberg) -- The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate said there’s no reason to curb or halt deepwater drilling after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, clashing with the country’s oil minister. “We don’t see any reason to postpone or stop the activity in deep water,” Bente Nyland, head of the agency, said in an interview today in Stavanger, Norway. U.S. President Barack Obama declared a six-month moratorium on offshore drilling last month as a presidential panel probes the explosion and sinking of the BP Plc-leased Deepwater Horizon rig, which killed 11 workers, spilling as many as 19,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico. Norway won’t award deepwater drilling permits in new areas until the causes behind the Gulf of Mexico incident have been determined, Oil Minister Terje Riis-Johansen said today. “The Gulf of Mexico is the Gulf of Mexico and Norway is Norway and we’ve had deep water drilling for many years,” Nyland said. “It is not necessarily the water depth that is the main issue. There are other issues such as the depth of the reservoir, which is fairly deep in the Gulf of Mexico and shallower below the seabed in Norway.” Norway, the sixth-biggest oil exporter, is opening up new areas for exploration further north, in deeper waters and harsher climates, to counter dwindling production from its maturing North Sea fields. Royal Dutch Shell Plc is preparing to drill a new well at its Gro natural-gas discovery in the Norwegian Sea with the Aker Barents rig at record depths. “This will have no consequences for ongoing activity” in deep waters, Inger Anda, a spokeswoman for the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority, said by phone from Stavanger today. “There have been no changes to the approval to drill at Gro. There’s no reason to retract it.” The Gro discovery was made 360 kilometers (224 miles) offshore Broennoeysund in Nordland in a wildcat well at a depth of 1,376 meters (4,515 feet), the greatest water depth ever in Norway. The find holds an estimated 10 billion to 100 billion cubic meters of recoverable gas, according to the petroleum directorate. “We’re working continuously on gathering information on the Deepwater Horizon case and we’ll initiate changes to the regulations should that prove to be necessary,” Anda said. bloomberg.com