An Unlicensed MMS Engineer and The Gulf Disaster

June 20, 2010August 11, 2017 / L. M. Walker / 2 Comments

By: Larry Walker, Jr.

Frank Patton is the name of the unlicensed Minerals Management Service (MMS) Engineer who approved the Deepwater Horizon Disaster. No, that’s not his picture to the left. That’s another matter for another day.

Funny, but I can’t find Tony Hayward’s name on any of those, smoking gun, internal emails being touted around by the House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, but I do see Frank Patton’s name. Yep, on April 16, 2010 – ‘Approved By’ – Frank Patton.

From the trial (or hearing) the other day, you would think it was Congress’ job to oversee and investigate private businesses. I somehow don’t think that was part of the original plan. What I would like to see is a subcommittee investigating why federal workers are not required to maintain credentials equal to, or greater than, those whom they regulate.

Who’s regulating the regulators? Unlicensed engineers are approving plans submitted by licensed engineers. When are we going to have a trial about stuff that really matters?

According to licensed Professional Engineer (PE), and whistleblower, Joe Carlson, the Minerals Management Service (MMS), just as other federal agencies, does not require their Engineers to be professionally licensed. Instead, federal agencies have invoked a special ‘exemption’ whereby unlicensed federal workers are above reproach. In other words, “We don’t need no stinking license.” You’ve got to be kidding me!

As one who holds two professional licenses (not in engineering), each with its own rigorous set of ongoing requirements, I have nothing but contempt for the federal government, the Congress, and our feckless POTUS, in this matter. There are no excuses. How is an unlicensed ‘engineer’ supposed to have the ability, training, and the professional integrity to review and approve plans designed by professionally licensed engineers?

What’s worse is the fact that Frank Patton can’t be blamed, fired, reprimanded or fined. Why not, you say? Because, remember, Frank Patton is not even licensed. But Congress can go around blaming Tony Hayward, who is also not licensed, and whose name is curiously not found on any of those damning internal emails. I do however see the names: Brian Morel, Mark Hafle, and Richard Miller. Perhaps they are licensed and should be brought up on charges by the appropriate engineering licensing board. And as for Frank Patton, I just wonder how many safety awards are hanging in his office?

Following are a few excerpts from Joe Carlson:

Frank Patton is the unlicensed MMS engineer who approved the BP drilling plan. During his May 11, 2010 testimony (see pages 252-314) to the Deepwater Horizon Joint Investigation, he admitted, (see pages 274-76), that he failed to ensure the BP Drilling Plan complied with federal regulation at 30 C.F.R. §250.416(e), because it did not contain the required information about the design and performance adequacy of the blow-out preventer. The New Orleans Times-Picayune, which live-blogged the hearing, described his testimony here.

If MMS required its engineers to be PE’s, then Mr. Patton would have been required to “blow whistles,” publicly if necessary, to prevent BP’s inadequate drilling plan from being approved. This could well have resulted in his being fired or otherwise discriminated against at MMS, given widespread, longstanding, MMS corruption. However, had MMS required Mr. Patton to be a PE, then anyone could now file a professional misconduct complaint against him with the Louisiana Professional Engineering Licensing Board, for his professional negligence/incompetence in approving a plan that failed to comply with federal regulation. If he lost his PE license as a result, then MMS could fire him. If he had been a PE, Frank Patton would have made sure the BP drilling plan contained the required information about its blowout preventer and perhaps this unprecedented disaster is averted….

The federal government has a duty to protect American health and safety, at work and elsewhere, including our environment. PE’s, by law, must “hold paramount the health, safety and welfare of the public in the performance of professional duty.” That federal agencies exempt their engineers from having the legal obligations of PE’s is nonsensical and a contributing cause to the Gulf disaster and many other accidents and disasters, such as the recent Upper Big Branch mine disaster which killed 29 in West Virginia.

Here is a formula we can all live with:

Federal PE licensure + reformed federal whistleblower protection = much improved workplace and public health and safety in America.

Read More at the Source: Whistleblowers Protection Blog

Illegal Dutch Oil Skimmers, the EPA and the Feckless POTUS

June 16, 2010August 11, 2017 / L. M. Walker / 3 Comments

Compiled by: Larry Walker, Jr.

Two Dutch companies were on stand-by, on May 4, 2010, to help Americans tackle the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico. The two companies use huge booms to sweep and suck the oil from the surface of the sea. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), however, has difficulties with the method they use.

So it seems that according to the EPA, it’s acceptable to burn millions of gallons of raw crude, sending the harmful waste into the atmosphere, or to dump millions of gallons of toxic dispersant’s into the waters, but it’s not acceptable to actually collect 75-80% of the oil for recycling?

So has Obama stepped in to waive the Jones Act yet? Not quite, but he did sleep at a Holiday Inn Express on the Gulf Coast. Then, like any good community organizer, he excogitated the extortion of $20 billion from BP.

What do the Dutch have that the Americans don’t when it comes to tackling oil spills at sea?

“Skimmers,” answers Wierd Koops, chairman of the Dutch organization for combating oil spills, Spill Response Group Holland.

The Americans don’t have spill response vessels with skimmers because their environment regulations do not allow it. With the Dutch method seawater is sucked up with the oil by the skimmer. The oil is stored in the tanker and the superfluous water is pumped overboard. But the water does contain some oil residue, and that is too much according to US environment regulations.

US regulations contradictory

Wierd Koops thinks the US approach is nonsense, because otherwise you would have to store the surplus seawater in the tanks as well.

“We say no, you have to get as much oil as possible into the storage tanks and as little water as possible. So we pump the water, which contains drops of oil, back overboard.”

US regulations are contradictory, Mr Koops stresses. Pumping water back into the sea with oil residue is not allowed. But you are allowed to combat the spill with chemicals so that the oil dissolves in the seawater. In both cases, the dissolved oil is naturally broken down quite quickly. It is possible the Americans will opt for the Dutch method as the damage the oil spill could cause to the mud flats and salt marshes along the coast is much worse, warns Wetland expert Hans Revier.

“You have to make sure you clear up the oil at sea. As soon as the oil reaches the mud flats and salt marshes, it is too late. The only thing you can do then is dig it up. But then the solution is worse than the problem.”

Senator convinced

On May 4, 2010, a team of around eight men were on stand-by and four skimmers and extra material were ready to be loaded. The local senator is already convinced and is trying to talk the admiral who is coordinating the operation into accepting help from the Netherlands. The answer may be given today (May 4, 2010).

But nothing is certain. In 1989, a Dutch team and equipment had already been flown in to tackle the Exxon Valdez oil tanker disaster off the coast of Alaska. But in the end the US authorities sent them home.

Source: Radio Netherlands

On day 58, I am just wondering exactly which environment the EPA is trying to protect?

The Secret, 700-Million-Gallon Oil Fix That Worked — and Might Save the Gulf

June 2, 2010 / L. M. Walker / 1 Comment

May 13, 2010 at 6:46AM by Mark Warren

Workers on the Arabian Gulf overlook a supertanker owned by Saudi Aramco, the oil company that used a suck-and-salvage American technology to recover 85 percent of its previously unreported spill in 1993 and ’94.

There’s a potential solution to the Gulf oil spill that neither BP, nor the federal government, nor anyone — save a couple intuitive engineers — seems willing to try. As The Politics Blog reported on Tuesday in an interview with former Shell Oil president John Hofmeister, the untapped solution involves using empty supertankers to suck the spill off the surface, treat and discharge the contaminated water, and either salvage or destroy the slick.

Hofmeister had been briefed on the strategy by a Houston-based environmental disaster expert named Nick Pozzi, who has used the same solution on several large spills during almost two decades of experience in the Middle East — who says that it could be deployed easily and should be, immediately, to protect the Gulf Coast. That it hasn’t even been considered yet is, Pozzi thinks, owing to cost considerations, or because there’s no clear chain of authority by which to get valuable ideas in the right hands. But with BP’s latest four-pronged plan remaining unproven, and estimates of company liability already reaching the tens of billions of dollars (and counting), supertankers start to look like a bargain.

The suck-and-salvage technique was developed in desperation across the Arabian Gulf following a spill of mammoth proportions — 700 million gallons — that has until now gone unreported, as Saudi Arabia is a closed society, and its oil company, Saudi Aramco, remains owned by the House of Saud. But in 1993 and into ’94, with four leaking tankers and two gushing wells, the royal family had an environmental disaster nearly sixty-five times the size of Exxon Valdez on its hands, and it desperately needed a solution.

Pozzi, an American engineer then in charge of Saudi Aramco’s east-west pipeline in the technical support and maintenance services division, was part of a team given cart blanche to control the blowout. Pozzi had dealt with numerous spills over the years without using chemicals, and had tried dumping flour into the oil, then scooping the resulting tar balls from the surface. “You ever cooked with flour? Absorbent, right?” Pozzi says. Next, he’d dumped straw into the spills; also highly absorbent, but then you’ve got a lot of straw to clean up. This spill was going to require a much larger, more sustained solution. And fast.

That’s when Pozzi and his team came up with the idea of having empty ships park near the Saudi spill and pull the oil off the water. This part of the operation went on for six months, with the mop-up operations lasting for several years more. Pozzi says that 85 percent of the spilled oil was recovered, and it is precisely this strategy that he wants to see deployed in the Gulf of Mexico.

Yesterday, I spoke to Pozzi and his business partner, longtime Houston lawyer Jon King, about their proposed solution, and the difficulties they’ve encountered trying to assist in the disaster, with both BP and the government. While BP is attempting its very difficult maneuvers to contain the gusher at the source, they say, nothing is being done to adequately address the slick itself. Dispersant is being used by the ton, some of the oil is being burned, and there have been other efforts, which taken together, Pozzi likens to “a flea on an elephant’s ass.” The two men have been trying to rally support since just after the rig blew up, without much success. This has been typical of their experience:

“Daddy, did you remember to send out the supertankers?”

Slick Barack’s Oil Spill | White Lies | IXTOC I

May 26, 2010August 11, 2017 / L. M. Walker / Leave a comment

History Lesson: Sedco 135F – IXTOC I

Compiled by: Larry Walker, Jr.

So if the Gulf Oil Blowout is going to take 3 to 10 month’s to cap, then why lie? I’m tired of the lies. If it took Red Adair nearly 10 month’s to cap IXTOC I, why would Obama think his disaster could be resolved in a few weeks? The only way that’s going to happen is through the use of military ordinance to blow the well, creating an underwater seismic event. Any thing short of this is wishful thinking.

In the IXTOC I accident the U.S. had two months to prepare the coast with booms and still failed to prevent a disaster. The Obama administration has wasted a month already. The IXTOC I dumped 3.5 million barrels into the Gulf making it the worst oil disaster ever, until now. Obama could blow the well, but he won’t. Obama could do more for the Gulf States, but he won’t. All Obama knows how to do is run his mouth (with a teleprompter), tell white lies, and make us think everything is F.I.N.E. Those who fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it. Deja Vu…

_____________________________________________________

Summary

In 1979, the Sedco 135F was drilling the IXTOC I well for PEMEX, the state-owned Mexican petroleum company when the well suffered a blowout. The well had been drilled to 3657m with the 9-5/8″ casing set at 3627m. Reports then state that mud circulation was lost (mud is, in essence, a densely weighted drilling fluid used to lubricate the drill bit, clean the drilled rock from the hole and provide a column of hydrostatic pressure to prevent influxes) so the decision was made to pull the drill string and plug the well. Without the hydrostatic pressure of the mud column, oil and gas were able to flow unrestricted to the surface, which is what happened as the crew were working on the lower part of the drillstring. The BOP was closed on the pipe but could not cut the thicker drill collars, allowing oil and gas to flow to surface where it ignited and engulfed the Sedco 135F in flames. The rig collapsed and sank onto the wellhead area on the seabed, littering the seabed with large debris such as the rig’s derrick and 3000m of pipe.

The well was initially flowing at a rate of 30,000 barrels per day (1 barrel = 42 US gallons = 159 litres), which was reduced to around 10,000 bpd by attempts to plug the well. Two relief wells were drilled to relieve pressure and the well was eventually killed nine months later on 23 March 1980. Due to the massive contamination caused by the spill from the blowout (by 12 June, the oil slick measured 180km by 80km), nearly 500 aerial missions were flown, spraying dispersants over the water. Prevailing winds caused extensive damage along the US coast with the Texas coast suffering the greatest. The IXTOC I accident was the biggest single spill ever, with an estimated 3.5 million barrels of oil released.

Aftermath

In the next nine months, experts and divers including Red Adair were brought in to contain and cap the oil well.[6] Approximately an average of ten thousand to thirty thousand barrels per day were discharged into the Gulf until it was finally capped on 23 March 1980, nearly 10 months later.[7] Prevailing currents carried the oil towards the Texas coastline. The US government had two months to prepare booms to protect major inlets. Eventually, in the US, 162 miles (261 km) of beaches and 1421 birds were affected by 3,000,000 barrels (480,000 m3) of oil.[7] Pemex spent $100 million to clean up the spill and avoided paying compensation by asserting sovereign immunity.[8]

The oil slick surrounded Rancho Nuevo, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, which is one of the few nesting sites for Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles. Thousands of baby sea turtles were airlifted to a clean portion of the Gulf of Mexico to help save the rare species.

Sources:

http://home.versatel.nl/the_sims/rig/ixtoc1.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixtoc_I_oil_spill

Office of Response and Restoration: IXTOC I

The Royal Society of Canada: Report on Science Issues Related to Oil and Gas Activities

Photos
1. Encyclopaedia of New Zealand
2. NOAA Photo Library
3. New Hope, PA
4. ORR Incidents Gallery