DP Consultant's Page

"Very good points, but there is also a problem today with the safety guys.  Very often the rig guys are hired in 3rd party.  Experience is critically short everywhere, so some of these guys are much stronger on personnel safety than process…"

"Ask how big they are in Africa and how long they have operated there.  Pretty much, if the answer is BIG and LONE, then be wary.  Companies that focus on Africa could be doing it for profits, but fairly often it's because they have…"

"Find out where in Africa.  Africa is larger than the USA and Nigeria is vastly different than Guinea or Mozambique or Libya or Egypt.  A good general rule is avoid Nigeria period, avoid most of Africa on land, check out anywhere but…"

"Baker is 100% right, the real question is why didn't anyone act?  If you do a spreadsheet of the well and expansion rates, by mudflow alone it was beyond obvious that a blowout was in progress for about the last hour. These days most key…"

"One thing we are trying to line up for all these new rigs is a traveling well control expert.  He teaches well control for Randy Smith but classroom well control is only part of the solution.  What is needed is for the guy to go to the…"

"My company (ARKenergy llc) does rig inspections.  We are finding a LOT of rigs have nobody on the rig who really understands well control.  Plenty of smart people but no experience, a lot of situations require more understand than can be…"

"I've joined a new consulting firm and we were discussing a related issue yesterday.  One of our goals is to try and get the industry to change focus.  For 30 years now our industry has been run by accountants.  Our leadership…"

"Not exactly answering the question, but I saw a really interesting use of technology.  I flew with the CEO of Huisman of Holland.  He said on large floaters they built drawworks with larger than normal drums, and instead of a deadline…"

"Not a bad suggestion, but let me tell you what I wrote to BP immediately after the event.  In my opinion they didn't push the EDS while they had the chance (before the explosion).  I reached this conclusion because the subsea hand was…"

"Good points, added regulations don’t always make it safer, but oil company safety guys aren’t the only ones to blame. In my opinion, drilling contractors come up with at least as many dumb rules as the oil companies, for the same reason…"

"I might have one around from a consulting job a few years back when I was doing BOPs, but I'm in Dubai right now and headed for a world tour so you would have to remind me around 7 April (lewweingarth@yahoo.com). I suspect the US Govt is going…"

"Dave, You are right that it was mostly human error, although every event has a non-human trigger or component. It's up to the humans to save it, not ignore the data or make things worse. Certainly the office is the root cause, as you say, but…"

"I have to say one thing, you all are clued in and a pleasure to communicate with. Back on topic, has anyone but me noticed that the early evidence was the well was OK and we had a bad cmt job with LOTS of human error. Seems proven now."

"Minority government? We have never had anything else. The revolution was supported by about 1/3. Another third wanted to stay British. 1/3 really didn't care much either way. The revolutionaries took the day, barely, but were by no means a…"