Comment by Frost1x
5 years ago
>Deep-water wells are all but impossible to stop.
While I realize you're referring to a functioning deep-water well, working as designed, I can't help but remember the complete mess from Deepwater Horizon. If it's difficult to stop a correctly functioning deep-water well, I have even more respect for that mess of a situation (and a bit more disdain for the practice in general):
That was ten years ago today, actually. I just watched this wonderful 11 minute video on the failure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCVCOWejlag
Those videos are great, very educational. Like a mashup of Khan Academy, Derek Lowe, and Calvin & Hobbes.
I ended up watching a bunch of those videos, they are really well made, thank you for the link
That occurred during drilling not production so all the standard well head facilities were not in place.
There were still mechanical failures all over in safety devices. We're drilling much deeper than under higher pressures now than Deepwater Horizon.
To imply that deepwater oil production is safe, is crazy. Storms happen. Mudslides (underwater) happen. Pandemics happen. This is why majors contract out to the offshore drillers. They want nothing to do with it.
That's not exactly accurate. Transocean was the contract driller on deepwater horizon but BP still took the brunt of the liability and PR backlash. The contract structure actually hasn't changed much in the past 20 years.