Category Archives: Oilfield Incidents

Enchova Central Blowout Oilfield Disaster

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Learning from the past oilfield disaster will help you realize about well control, safety management, etc which you can apply to mitigate the future catasrophe. Today, we would like to share the information about Enchova Central which blown out years ago. This is very good information for everybody.

The Enchova Central platform, which was the place where two big catastrophies occurred was situated in the Campos Basin close to Rio de Janeiro and was administered by Petrobras. The initial incident was on August 16, 1984, when there was fire and an explosion. Most of the people and personnel at the time of the incident were saved with a helicopter or lifeboat. However, 42 workers lost their life in this catastrophe.

It was the most consequential and grave occurrence when there was an issue in the functioning of the lowering mechanism of a lifeboat due to which there was a malfunction with the bow hook. Consequently, the lifeboat was left hanging vertically till there was a rupture in the stern support and following this the lifeboat drowned 10 to 20m to the sea, which resulted in the death of 36 personnel. Around 6 personnel lost their lives on trying to jump 30 or 40m from the platform to the sea.

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Ekofisk Bravo Blowout Oilfield Incidents

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Ekofisk Bravo blowout incident happened when performing workover operation. If you study in the oilfield industry about well control incidents, there are several cases when the well was unable to control during workover operation. This is what personnel working in this industry needs to learn and fully aware of the hazard which could be occurred and this can affect lives, environment, etc. This is one of the reason why we always emphasize the important of well control in every operation.

The Ekofisk Bravo Platform Blowout

The Ekofisk Bravo Platform is located towards Ekofisk field’s north and is one of the two prime wellhead production facilities of Ekofisk. However, on April 22nd, 1977, it went through a major blowout which is regarded as the biggest oil spills till date at the North Sea.

Ekofisk Bravo 1

The Ekofisk B blowout took place when workover was being carried out at B-14 production well where they were busy pulling about 10,000 feet of production tubing. Before the task, the production Christmas tree valve stack was removed. Besides, the BOP was not installed. However, the well kicked and wrongly installed while the downhole safety valve failed, which caused immediate blow out of the well with wild release of gas & oil. However, fortunately the crew onboard was evacuated safely through lifeboats and was later transferred to the supply vessel. Miraculously, no one was injured.

This event led to wastage of approximately 28,000 barrel/day, later resulting into overall discharge of 202,380 bbls. Around 30-40% oil was assumed to be evaporated and the overall spill estimate by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate was to be considered around 80,000 bbls & 126,000 bbls.

Ekofisk Bravo 2

Finally, after 7 days, the well was capped in April 30th, 1977. However, higher air temperature & rough seas helped the break-up of the most of the oil. Further investigations concluded that there was no major damage to the environment & shoreline pollution. Besides, there was no major damage to the platform.

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Sedco 135F – IXTOC I Blowout and Oil Spill

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We learn from the past in order to prevent the bad incidents to be happened. This time we would like to discuss about Sedco 135F – IXTOC I Blowout and Oil Spill.  The Sedco 135F was perforating and drilling the IXTOC I well in 1979 for PEMEX, which is a petroleum company in Mexico owned by the state at the time when the well underwent an eruption. Through a drilling, the well had been dug up to 3.6 km with the 9-5/8″ casing set at 3.6 km. It has been vindicated by various studies that there was a failure in mud circulation (essentially mud is a massive and heavy weighted drilling fluid which is utilized as a lubricant for the drill bit, helps in cleaning the drilled rock from hole and present a column of hydrostatic pressure as a prevention from influxes), hence a consensus was reached that it is the best to pull the drill string & plug the well. The absence of mud column’s hydrostatic pressure triggered an unconstrained and liberal circulation of oil & gas to the surface, and this was what happened when the crew was working with drillstring’s lower part. The BOP was shut on the pipe however it was unable to chop the chunky drill collars, permitting oil and gas to come up to the surface where it burned and inflamed the Sedco 135F. The rig broke down and drowned on top of the wellhead space on the seabed, cluttering the seabed with debris like the rig’s derrick & 3000m of pipe.

Sedco-135F---IXTOC-I-Blowout-and-Oil-Spill-2

Sedco 135F – IXTOC I Blowout

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Petrobras P-36 Sinking – The Biggest Oil Rig Sinking In the Oilfield Industry

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Petrobras P-36 – This incident cost several million us dollars and it’s worthy to learn from it. One of the biggest global floating semi-submersible oil platforms Petrobras 36 (P-36), which was owned by Petrobras, an oil company in Brazil with its base of operations at Rio De Janeiro was destroyed after 20th March 2011 when it sunk. The platform was then approximately valued at US$350 million. Its current value is US$466 million. Constructed and erected as a drilling rig in the year 1995, at the Fincantieri shipyard (Genoa, Italy), was owned by SocietàArmamentoNaviAppoggioS.p.A. The rig, which was a good 33,000 tonnes was transformed to the biggest global oil production platform by Davie Industry, Levis, Canada. P-36, which was functioning for Petrobras, about 130 kms off the coast of Brazil on the Roncador Oil Field daily generated approximately 84,000 barrels (13,400 m3) of crude oil. P-36 was substituted by a chartered vessel from SBM Offshore, FPSO-Brasil, which is in a lease contract with Petrobras since Dec 2002. Continue reading →

Piper Alpha The Biggest Oilfield Catastrophe – Oilfield Incidents in The Past

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Piper Alpha was basically a North Sea oil production platform, commencing production way back in 1976, run by Occidental Petroleum (Caledonia) Ltd, which initially started oil production and later gas production as well. Unfortunately, it was wrecked and demolished on 6 July 1988, by an explosion which triggered oil and gas fires. It resulted in a lot of destruction, including 167 casualties and only 67 men survived.

 

History of Piper Alpha

 

Occidental discovered The Piper Field in the beginning of 1973, following which Piper Alpha initiated production 3 years after. The platform was situated roughly 120 miles towards the north-east of Aberdeen. In the beginning, it only dealt in the production of oil however after a few years, in 1980 with new equipments being installed, gas production was facilitated. Piper Alpha was linked with the Flotta oil terminal on the Orkney Islands by a sub-sea pipeline that was further shared with Claymore platform. Gas pipelines of Piper Alpha linked it to Tartan platform and distinct MCP-O1 gas processing platform. In a nutshell, Piper Alpha had 4 prime transport risers: an oil export riser, the Tartan gas riser, the Claymore gas riser, & MCP-01 gas riser.

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