Should drilling relief wells be a requirement for all offshore drilling operations?

Question

Canada currently requires that companies operating in the Arctic have to drill relief wells in the same season as the primary well.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N13265562.htm

As we're seeing from the BP Gulf oil disaster, relief wells are the only solution with a high probability of success in the event of a major leak. But they take about 3 months to drill, and add cost to the operation (though I don't know how much added cost). In other words, the oil wouldn't be as cheap to extract if a relief well were required.

Given the environmental disaster created by the Gulf oil spill, do you think relief wells should be a requirement for all offshore drilling operations, or would this be an excessive requirement?

Answer 1

What an interesting idea -- wow!



That's plainly what we should be doing.



Here's another idea, a bit broader, but also suggested strongly by events --



Whenever a regulatory agency finds that its level of expertise is so low compared to the expertise in the industry that it must routinely defer to the industry, the whole activity of that industry should be closed down and secured pending the catch up in knowledge and technical skill by the regulatory agency.



So if Minerals Management Service had 1% of the technical know how of the oil companies, then it was not in a position to regulate them. It should have suspended all oil drilling in deep water offshore until it could hire some top quality talent. With enough money, this couldn't possibly take more than 90 days. MMS could have had a half dozen top level technical people on its staff -- probably paid at GS-16 or SES levels, but that's a small price to pay to keep an agency functional.



What is a crime against reason is to stay open when you know darned well that you are uttertly clueless about what you are doing and that the industry has to tell you everything about what you are doing. What could go wrong Ms. Birnbaum, world of Duh!



The captive agencies problem needs to be solved.



But your idea of relief wells drilled along with the main well is brilliant, all hail to the Canadians, whoever said they were nimwits was mistaken, they are not, they are smart. We should copy them on this.

Answer 2

It is a thought but the truth is if it was implemented and checked by the same engineers and regulators that were running things to begin with, we can't be sure would it have been operational (altered, not tested, inferior materials, no resources to activate it, etc) so that it could be used. Remembered that their were already multiple safeguards in place with a fail safe blowout preventer as the ultimate last resort. All the redundant safeties failed and the blowout preventer was altered to the point of useless. BP made an assumption was that a spill could not happen, and if it did, the environmental damage would be minimal. This was not challenged by the regulators and let go. Classic case of bad assumptions and bad oversight. Maybe a pre-drilled relief well would have helped, but don't count on it.



What is required is true oversight and strict adherence to safeguards that are properly installed and tested. If you let the fox guard the hen house, don't be surprised if you end up missing the hens! No doubt that BP has world class engineers working for it, but BP foremost watches out for BP's interest, as we should expect. The government should watch out for society's interest. If an environmental impact statement cost to much, the oil company can just say that no significant impact can occur and shift the burden of proof to the government to show that it is possible and could be a problem. Then, buy off congressmen to be sure that the government doesn't have enough manpower to do an EIS in a timely manner.



Just wait until the bill is tallied. You'll see BP weasel out of it and blame the government (rightly so) for poor oversight that they payed to ensure, and argue the taxpayer should pay the greatest amount. This will be the strategy they play while pumping billions into lobbyist over decades to ensure weak oversight in the future.



You can't fix stupid, but you can sure buy it!

Answer 3

I have never heard of drilling a relief well before the exploratory well even encounters problems. It may be necessary in Arctic waters because of the very short drilling season , but I would think that it is an unwise request in almost every other conceivable regard!

The reason is that until you drill an exploratory well as a precedent, you really have no idea on how to engineer the second well so that it might be used (or in the failure case useless) as a relief well. Is the problem going to be in the 20 inch portion of the initial well or maybe the 13 inch or maybe the 8 3/4 inch. Is it going to be a casing annulus problem like this one? Is it gong to be a shallow hydrate zone? Is it going to be the casing shoe? Is it going to be collapsed casing at some indeterminate level?

All these things have different solutions and different required well designs!



I would much rather see all drilling in the Arctic cease all together, since (personally) I believe the potential to be limited and the risks to be enormous! In addition I wouldn't even be talking to BP until all the relevant inquiries have been answered from a technical standpoint. In fact I would definitely suspend their Licence to Operate pending a complete inquiry. Do they not take your License away for drunk driving?

Answer 4

I am assuming the federal agencies knew very well about relief wells. There aren't that many safe guards available to drilling. I am sure everyone has noticed a dangerous intersection that doesn't get the traffic light until someone has been killed. Similarly, these deep drillers apparently didn't warrant much oversight until they had a catastrophic release. It seems to me that they simply were willing the roll the dice and since they knew the chance of a mishap was low, they didn't require it. The problem is that if you roll the dice enough times, the numbers will catch up to you sometime.



There is always a lot of politics behind the scenes. I wonder if this will be uncovered (or covered up) in the future investigations. Hindsight is always 20/20.



I think relief wells, as well as other safeguards, should be required. It is a littel odd to me that insurance companies didn't require it. Typically they are more knowledgeable about risk management than the government but perhaps BP was self insured.

Answer 5

I think creating laws against oil companies is nearly impossible and useless in the end. The best solution is to get BP and all other companies take those types of precautionary measures is to make them fully financially responsible for the results from such incidents as the current oil leakage. Companies won't take risks they can't afford to pay for if they go bad.

Answer 6

According to your source, a Reuters correspondent, BP itself has spent almost $2 billion on buying exploration rights in the Canadian Arctic, despite the drill relief well provision being in place, although they are now trying to persuade the current Right-leaning Canadian government to relax it (bad timing!)



So it is not the case that the provision would make drilling prohibitively expensive, and the case for it grows stronger every day Deepwater Horizon carries on polluting.

Answer 7

Since nobody seems to know what to do about this oil spill, I'm in favor of suspending deep water drilling until they do.



The first attempt to contain the spill was defeated by methane hydrates floating the cap. They didn't predict that.



If it is economical at current oil prices to drill a relief prophylactically may be an option. Some solution must be readily available.



BREAKING NEWS: U.S. has opened a Criminal Investigation on the oil spill.

Answer 8

It could be excessive. Consider that BP could have better followed its own recommendations and probably avoided this problem. The relief wells are an additional measure to assist when mistakes happen, but if we can prevent the mistakes from happening in the first place...

Answer 9

Yes a relief well should be required.Its time to stop subsidizing the fossil fuel industry. We need to stop and realize just how much fossil fuels truly cost.The lives of people who live and make their living in the gulf are seeing their lives changed forever.Anyone alive today will never see the return to normal of those coasts in their lifetime.

The idea of an industry being to big or to important to fail, to vital to the economy, to advanced to be regulated,is nothing more than the babbling of mindless idiots.

When the real costs of fossil fuels are put on the table, the alternative look very attractive.

Answer 10

I think they should allow close inshore drilling if they were allowed to do that they wouldn't need to drill in 5000 feet of water

Answer 11

Hell no





1 more well would costs projects on average 100 million dollars. Plus lost time. Don't be stupid, this one company screwed up and now we want to penalize the entire energy sector.



Other answers are not written by anyone who has ANY knowledge of what service we provide. It is freaking easy to say we should regulate goddang everything then the world would be all roses and smiles. But realistically it will do nothing but pass costs to the consumer.









--Petroleum Engineer

Answer 12

neither you nor i know anything about drilling for oil, so why presume we could even suggest any kind opperational procedure, really, BP had guide lines to follow but got a pass from the MMS. and unfortunatley, oops.