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Like generals planning for the last war, oil company managers and government inspectors tend to believe that because they survived the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, they are ready for all contingencies. Today they are expanding drilling into deeper and deeper waters, and the Trump administration is opening more offshore areas to production.

In fact, however, the worst-case scenario for an oil spill catastrophe is not losing control of a single well, as occurred in the BP disaster. Much more damage would be done if one or more of the thousand or so production platforms that now blanket the Gulf of Mexico were destroyed without warning by a deep-sea mudslide.

Instead of one damaged wellhead, a mudslide would leave a tangled mess of pipes buried under a giant mass of sediments. It would be impossible to stop the discharge with caps or plugs, and there would be little hope of completing dozens of relief wells to stop discharge from damaged wells. Oil might flow for decades.

This scenario has already occurred, and we are seeing the results at a well off Louisiana, owned by Taylor Energy, that has been leaking oil since 2004. Based on this disaster and my 30 years of experience studying deep-sea oil and gas seeps, I believe that regulators and energy companies should be doing much more to prevent such catastrophes at other sites.

Underwater avalanches

The mudslide that caused the Taylor Energy leak was not an isolated event. Many major features of the Gulf of Mexico’s continental slope – where the sea bottom descends from the continent’s outer edge down to the deep ocean floor – were formed when that slope failed. Their bathymetric contours show unmistakable signs of massive mudslides in the past.

Despite generations of oil production, the sedimentary strata of the northern Gulf of Mexico still harbor billions of barrels of oil. The modern, loose material that lies atop these rock layers is also susceptible to failure, which generates a phenomenon known as turbidity currents. These are massive avalanches of sliding material partly suspended in water, which can travel for miles with astonishing speed.

One of the most famous turbidity currents occurred in 1929 following a 7.2 magnitude earthquake centered near Newfoundland’s Grand Banks. The resulting slide displaced over 40 cubic miles of material, traveling at 50 miles per hour for up to 300 miles.



More including video: http://theconversation.com/underwater-mudslides-are-the-biggest-threat-to-offshore-drilling-and-energy-companies-arent-ready-for-them-111904

RELATED: Trump administration halts study of offshore oil inspections. The Trump administration has halted an independent scientific study of offshore oil inspections by the federal safety agency created after the 2010 spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine was told to cease review of the inspection program conducted by the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. Established following the massive BP spill, the bureau was assigned the role of improving offshore safety inspections and federal oversight.

The order marks the second time in four months that the Trump administration has halted a study by the National Academies. In August, the Interior Department suspended a National Academies study of potential health risks for people living near Appalachian surface coal mines.

Part of the Interior Department, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement is also tasked with improving offshore drilling environmental protections. It was established in 2011 to separate enforcement of offshore drilling from federal revenue collection and permitting to avoid possible dysfunction and conflicts in enforcement against violations.

Bureau spokesman Greg Julian said Thursday a new “risk-based” component to the inspection program is being developed within the bureau, and the academies study “was paused … to allow time to ensure that there are no duplicate efforts.” The bureau focus is increasing the safety of offshore oil and gas operations, he said.

The Dec. 7 bureau letter ordering the suspension of all work under the contract said that within 90 days the department would decide whether to lift the order or terminate the study altogether.

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/dec/21/trump-administration-halts-study-of-offshore-oil-i/

#Oil #OffshoreDrilling #Environmental