Posted on 11/01/2009 2:41:20 PM PST by Pan_Yan
THE Federal Government told scientists monitoring the huge oil leak off Australia's northern coast to focus on the Indonesian side of the leaking well.
The instruction meant waters closer to the Australian coast, which contain more biodiversity and include important whale habitats, were not assessed for oil contamination in a report that the federal Environment Department released on Friday.
To complicate matters, fire broke out yesterday on the oil rig, which has been leaking oil into the Timor Sea for 10 weeks. Oil field operator PTTEP Australasia said the West Atlas rig and Montara well-head platform were on fire. No one on board the rig was reported injured and all non-essential workers were being evacuated.
A spokesman for PTTEP said the fire was being fuelled by oil and gas and the only way to stop it was to plug the leak.
''The measures which we have been able to take so far can only mitigate the fire, they will not stop the fire,'' he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at watoday.com.au ...
Oi.. now thatsa leak.
Remember Eddie Murphy talking about family barbques?
“Now that’s a fire!”
Man the boats!
Freon (Halon) would have put that out in seconds; thanks enviro-nutzies.
The world will not come to an end over this leak. Thousands of ships were sunk during WWII, many carrying fuel oil and most of them were peowered by the evil oils. Somehow the oceans survived.
Of course, I'd rather see John Wayne putting it out ...
This leak is fed by gas pressure at the well head; the fire will burn for years, and will soon destroy the rig, if it isn’t extinguished.
Now that was funny.
And just a little bit too close to real politicians for comfort.
When you are miles from dry land and your house is on fire, it is a very bad thing.
I can tell you from personnal experience that it's even worse when you are several hundred feet below the surface.
The article doesn't give a good description of the location. Years ago, off of Northwest Australia, I went to rigs that were in pretty remote locations. That can complicate any efforts to take care of the problem.
In retrospect I chose the article with the best picture to post instead of the most information. Other articles talk about it only as a ‘gas’ leak, apparently under pressure. They are moving another rig into the area to pump heavy mud in it to plug the leak.
You have to admit that either circumstance does add a certain intensity to fire fighting efforts.
The submarine fire fighting school was one of the funnest things I’ve ever done in my life. Strap the gear on, grab a hose and attack a 10’ high 20’ wide wall of flame is awesome. Luckily, I’ve never had to deal with a major fire at sea. I went through enough other sticky situations to make me appreciate mortality, however.
The schools were a lot of fun. Besides boot camp, I did fire fighting school in both Lemoore and Yokosuka. The latter was a real trip, they cut the school short and had us march back to the ship. We’d worn our flight deck greens for the school and would have been written up for wearing unauthorized uniform. The reason we couldn’t wait for the bus that had brought us was we were pulling out to support Operation Paul Bunyan in Korea’s DMZ.
With all due respect, you have no clue about what you are saying. Therefore, you should just listen to those who actually know something about this subject.
The likely fix to stop this “Blowout” is a simple standard method of drilling a relief well into the troubled well with another drilling rig set up near the location. Penetrate the well bore to a depth were a down-hole packer can be set in the conductor pipe or casing, from which the pressure can be controlled and the influx of gas and oil will stop. Then, the well can be cemented or killed using heavier materials than that of the formation that is out of balance.
Those of us in this business who actually do this for a living, will all say pretty much the same thing and this proven method has been used repeatedly for decades.
Even if this well is left alone to blow without an attempt to stop or control it, it will NOT burn for years. The rapid depletion of the formation will soon cause it to bridge itself off naturally, because the formation will break itself down under it's own pressure and down-hole pressures will equalize.
The primary reason to stop this quickly is to not damage the formation permanently and ruin production for other wells in the local field.
And once again this is why Free Republic is so addictive. i had never heard of Operation Paul Bunyan before today. Now I’ve read up on the topic.
USS Midway?
I’m guessing you put in finishing nails with a 50 pound sledge.
You say “With all due respect” and then throw all ‘respect’ out the window, then proceed to supply affirmation of my sentence that you proposed to refute.
Think before you post.
It wasn't one of the most earth shattering events in human history, but it is mine and I'm proud to have been some tiny part of making it happen.
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