Thunder Horse Breaks a Leg

…BP executives have waited for the oil and profits to gush forth, yet this behemoth has never produced any oil or gas, and the current plan is that it may begin production in late 2008. It was slapped around by two hurricanes in 2005. This delayed initial production for months, which has now become years. BP’s latest excuse is:

“The subsea equipment had remained in a cold state, with cathodic protection, on the sea bed for some time following the listing of the platform after its evacuation during the 2005 hurricane season. Following a thorough investigation, we concluded that these unusual circumstances led to hydrogen embrittlement of the equipment so that it could not perform its intended high pressure, high temperature service. We will now retrieve and replace all the subsea components we believe could be at risk, before starting production in the second half of 2008.”


What happens if another hurricane pounds Thunder Horse and the other new monster floating oil platforms in the coming years? How will the dozens of umbilical lines running up to 30 miles to the wellheads hold up in the face of major storms, not to mention hurricanes? Much of the damage from previous hurricanes was not to the oil platforms, but to their undersea pipelines that were thrown around by moving seabeds. Deepwater means far offshore with hundreds of miles of pipelines laid on the sea floor, so deep that only ROVs can repair them. The use of coastal oil barges to shuttle oil ashore has been considered. However, most oil wells also produce natural gas that cannot be moved by ship, so oil companies would need government permission to flare “burn off” this valuable non-renewable resource.

Meanwhile, oil companies continue the expensive process of seeking oil deposits. Drilling a deepwater well requires a ship and costs around $100 million, and not all attempts find oil. When they do strike oil, a major success is heralded and the company eagerly adds the find to its probable oil reserves, with no firm plans to develop the well. Last year, Chevron announced that it had extracted some oil from a new well 7000 ft. below the ocean surface to prove its potential flow rate. This was hailed in the press as the greatest American oil discovery since Prudhoe Bay. However, this was just a test, and not a serious attempt to produce oil, something that remains in the evaluation stage.

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