Troubles run deep on Gulf oil platform

“We have passed the peak for world discoveries,” said Robert Gillon, an analyst at oil-industry research firm John S. Herold Inc. “It’s hard to see how the industry can do anything whatsoever to materially increase its oil reserves or production.”

Against this backdrop, Thunder Horse, sitting atop a reserve that possibly holds 1.5 billion barrels, promises to deliver up to 250,000 gallons of oil a day, making it one of the gulf’s biggest producers. For U.S. consumers now paying an average of $3.10 a gallon for gas, Thunder Horse would relieve some of the price pressure: Fully operational, it would boost total U.S. production by 5 percent.
For BP, the troubles at Thunder Horse have turned the oil platform into a dual symbol. Like Janus, the two-faced Roman god that glimpses both the past and the future, Thunder Horse stands as a reminder of BP’s mistake-prone recent track record. Looking forward, though, it holds out the prospect of a lucrative, rewarding future.

The Thunder Horse mishap followed by nearly four months BP’s worst-ever accident on U.S. soil, a refinery explosion in Texas City, Texas, that killed 15 people. Then, last spring, BP spilled 200,000 barrels of oil onto the Arctic tundra, the first of several pipe leaks that ultimately led BP to temporarily shut down half of North America’s largest oil field.

Yet getting Thunder Horse on line will not be easy. The deep Gulf of Mexico is challenging in its own right. Removing and reassembling an oil field at such depths has never been attempted.

One daunting challenge: delicately lifting miles-long strings of steel pipe from the sea floor. If the pipes stress or twist too much, they might weaken and perhaps spring a leak one day, resulting in disaster.

“It will not be easy to pull off,” Bond said. “You’re trying to change things to make something good. You’ve got to make sure you don’t change things and make them worse.”

Chicago Tribune