bloggie

MARS in happier days

The TLP is 3,250ft high, from the seafloor to the crown block of the drilling rig and its steel weight is approximately 36,500t. The TLP was designed to withstand hurricane force waves of 71ft and winds of 140mph, simultaneously.

The hull is comprised of four circular steel columns, which are 66.5ft in diameter and 162ft high, and four pontoons, 27ft wide and 24ft high, which connect the bottoms of the four columns. It weighs approximately 15,650t. The fabrication of the hull was completed by Belleli SpA of Taranto, in Italy.

The deck is composed of five modules: the wellbay, living quarters, processing, power and drilling. It has an open-truss framing design, which is 245ftx245ftx45ft-high and it weighs approximately 7,200t. The fabrication of the modules was completed by McDermott.

Link

Wow. That superstructure looks pretty torn up. And these platforms are built to handle big storms.

Holy crap. It certainly helps to see the before picture. Ed - I once had a job offer from Kiewit Construction, but I ended up not taking it. The place I interned also did platform work, but not new construction. They overhauled the generators in place.

I always marvel at the irony when I see photos of deep-water oil wells, whether in LA, Scotland or Newf.

Absolutely the finest engineering, metallurgy and fabrication humankind is capable of.

All to pump dinosaur goo out of the earth, thereby creating CO2, NOx, sulphur, oil spill and other environmental damage.

I keep reflecting on the likelihood that if Richard Nixon's 37th SOTU "Operation Independence" initiative had been followed through on, if not cold fusion, we'd at least be well-advanced on hybrid or fuel cell tranportation. America is well-capable of bringing this technology forward- spend a few billion a year (through DARPA, Bechtel, MIT, wherever) for, say, ten years, and I'd guarantee we wouldn't be driving pure-internal combustion vehicles running on oil.

And the islamist threat to the West would be significantly reduced. Watching the saudis reduced to medieval squalor in my lifetime would be a pleasure.

Lighten up time;

TEACHER: Maria, go to the map and find North
America.
MARIA: Here it is.
TEACHER: Correct. Now class, who discovered
America?
CLASS: Maria.
__________________________________________
TEACHER: Why are you late, Frank?
FRANK: Because of the sign.
TEACHER: What sign?
FRANK: The one that says, "School Ahead, Go
Slow."
_________________________________
TEACHER: John, why are you doing your math
multiplication on the floor?
JOHN: You told me to do it without using
tables.
__________________________________________
TEACHER: Donald, what is the chemical formula
for water?
DONALD: H I J K L M N O.
TEACHER: What are you talking about?
DONALD: Yesterday you said it's H to O.
_________________________________
TEACHER: Winnie, name one important thing we have
today that we didn't have ten years ago.
WINNIE: Me!
__________________________________________
TEACHER: Gus, why do you always get so dirty?
GUS: Well, I'm a lot closer to the ground
than you are.
_______________________________________
TEACHER: Millie, give me a sentence starting with "I."
MILLIE: I is...
TEACHER:No, Millie..... Always say, "I am.
MILLIE: All right..."I am the ninth letter of
the alphabet.
_________________________________
TEACHER: George Washington not only chopped down
his father's cherry tree, but also admitted it. Now, Louie, do you
know why his father didn't punish him?
LOUIS: Because George still had the ax in his
hand.
______________________________________
TEACHER: Now, Simon, tell me frankly, do you say
prayers before eating?
SIMON: No sir, I don't have to, my Mom is a
good cook.
______________________________
TEACHER: Clyde, your composition on "My Dog" is
exactly the same as your brother's. Did you copy his?
CLYDE: No, teacher, it's the same dog.
___________________________________
TEACHER: Harold, what do you call a person who
keeps on talking when people are no longer interested?
HAROLD: A teacher.

Bigel- scattered strong thunderstorms with remnant low of Katrina possible Tri-State area!

Diamond Offshore Drilling Company's MODU Jackup Ocean Warwick drifted almost 100 km and ran aground near Dauphin Island, Alabama.

Ed, do people live on these oil-rigs? Excuse my ignorance but I know nothing about this subject at all. If they don't live there I guess they sail in and out every day? I assume the workers were all evacuated before the storm hit. The damage looks horrendous, and that pic in your #7 is incredible.

They do a mad scramble to evacuate them before the storm.

annie,

Yes, people live on the platforms for a couple of weeks at a time. They then have a couple of weeks off to go home. In situations like these, they either take a boat off, or helicopter out. There are lifeboats as well, in case of a fire or some other unforeseen emergency. Crew compliments can very wildy and is relative to the size of the platform. I really don't have any specifics on the numbers, though, and Ed might have a better idea.

All you want to know about Oil Platforms

RIP Ford - Aha, all becomes clear. Thanks for your answer.

Will Theodore the Tugboat help bring Ocean Warwick back to sea?

Highway to Venice near Empire. Parish underwater past Empire.

The massive tidal surge in the North Sea in September 1953 which flooded much of Holland and the Thames Estuary in England was instrumental in shocking the Governments into building, at enormous expence, the famous Delta Works in Holland and the Thames Tidal Barrier downstream of London. Could Katrina perform the same service for the Gulf States? Sad that it takes death and destruction to bring about such initatives.

Another view of Ocean Warwick

Apache was hard hit

Apache Corporation said it has reported to the U.S. Minerals Management Service and the U.S. Coast Guard that it lost eight of its production platforms in Hurricane Katrina.

All personnel were safely evacuated from offshore facilities before the storm, and all Apache employees living in the storm's path have been accounted for, the company said.

The platforms lost to the storm were: Main Pass 312-JA; South Timbalier 161-A; South Pass (SP) 62-A; SP 62-B; West Delta (WD) 103-A; WD 103-B; WD 104-C; and WD 133-B.

Aggregate gross production from the eight lost platforms was 7,158 barrels of oil and 12.1 million cubic feet of gas per day before the storm.

A detailed inspection of damage to other facilities is under way. Apache personnel have begun the process of restoring production as pipeline and processing facilities become available.

Apache carries insurance coverage for its facilities and has up to $150 million of business interruption insurance to help defray the cost of an extended shut-in.

Hate to see Mars 201 torn up like that.

My husband worked on Mars for several years from it's start up in Corpus Christi until about 4 years ago. My heart goes out to the guys who still work on the rig for their loss.

My daughter who is senior now did a Science Fair project on Mars in 5th grade and went all the way to state with it.

Best of luck to all of the Oilfield in its recovery.

Allen & Melissa Cruse

I think the normal POB(Personnel On Board) allowed by the Coast Guard for the Mars TLWP is around 240 souls, usually controlled by the space available in the life boats. I was scheduled to travel to Shell Mars on Friday to complete the installation of a new gas lift package, which may well be covered by 3000 ft of water.

Never been to Mars, but I spent about a month helping run the completion on a Serrano well (a subsea field that would be tied back to Auger), and I could see the Auger platform in the distance, and they seem to have a strong resemblance.

Mars was capable of over 200 thousand BOPD, and if that is gone, that is a chunk (almost a fifth) of the GOMEX oil production.

Besides Hurricane Maria, now pasisng North of 30N and no threat to any land, suspect areas 1)just East of Florida near Bahamas 2) halfway between suspect area #1 and Maria and 3) tropical wave near 10N, 55 W all bear watching.

Good news is that 12Z UK Met keeps it weak.

12Z GFS drifts it slowly up Florida coast as a tropical depression, maybe a weak tropical storm.

12Z Canadian is similar.

I wonder if Pompano sank. I spent about 2 weeks there, and that platform was big time overloaded.

From BP press release:

Exploration and Production
BP has not identified any significant issues with the BP-operated platforms in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. Most of BP’s oil and gas production from these facilities is shut-in due to the ongoing lack of power and the consequent failure of the delivery infrastructure.

BP teams have boarded the deepwater facilities and continue to conduct integrity surveys and minor repairs. These facilities won’t be restarted until export routes are inspected and deemed operational. BP’s Pascagoula gas plant remains idle due to a lack of power and lack of production from shut in oil and gas fields.

BP’s ongoing inspections have revealed a number of problems with its properties located in the shallow waters of the Gulf. Several Shelf platforms have toppled, and some are listing. The company has also identified and is evaluating several small sheens in the region. The company is responding to these, and they are believed to be very minor.

At this time a significant portion of our Gulf natural gas production remains shut in and there is no estimate for when it will return to normal.

I guess because the entire top sides were destroyed, so the satellite link is down, but the weather station installed on Shell MARS platform has stopped reporting.

Could you please provide source data for the picture of Mars above? We would like to include it in Wikipedia.

Thanks,

Matt Mellon

Matthew, the picture was taken by a Chevron employee in Venezuela.

Diamond Offshore Drilling Company's MODU Jackup Ocean Warwick drifted almost 100 km and ran aground near Dauphin Island, Alabama.

Ed,

What's the source for these photos? Are they in the public domain?

Warren,

I believe the images of the warwick are originally from a webiste called rigzone.com, but you'd have to search through their archives to find them.

And the Mars image is from offshore-technology.com.

Mars has been completely repaired and is now pumping above its pre-Katrina capacity. Expect oil production generally to continue to rise over the next two decades, as peak oil is forced to wait yet again.