Distinguished Lecturer - John Turley - Assessing and Applying PE Data From the 2010 Macondo Blowout

When:  May 18, 2016 from 12:00 PM to 02:00 PM (ET)

Abstract: 

On 20 April 2010, the Macondo blowout in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico killed eleven men, burned and sank the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, and devastated the Gulf of Mexico. Investigative authorities, teams, attorneys, and judges queried mechanical systems, operating decisions, corporate cultures, safety procedures, and testimony by numerous survivors, academics, experts, managers, and executives. Meanwhile, industry personnel need succinct, non-litigious, technical answers to fundamental questions about the cause of the blowout for application to future projects. Such answers must define the specific mechanics, actions, and decisions on the rig that collectively opened a pathway through a cased-and-cemented deep-water wellbore and allowed hydrocarbons to flow unobserved from a high-pressure oil-and-gas reservoir to eventually erupt over the derrick even after the blowout preventers were closed.

  

To unravel the minute-by-minute cause of the blowout, data during the well's final hours are assessed and defined using petroleum-engineering fundamentals, including wellbore mechanics, hydrodynamics, inflow performance, fluid properties, well-control principles, etc. The revealed chain of events includes forming an annulus-to-wellbore leak, exacerbating the leak, testing and declaring the well secure, causing the well to flow, and allowing the well to flow until too late, even for the blowout preventers.  The technical assessment leads to conclusions that define those factors that contributed to the blowout, as well as to those that caused the blowout.

 

From the presentation, SPE members and a wider audience from across the industry and beyond will see by example the necessity and importance of applying petroleum-engineering fundamentals and logic to day-to-day drilling work, in real time, both in the office and on the rig. The lessons learned on Macondo, albeit an extreme example, are applicable to deep and shallow, onshore and offshore wells around the world.

 

Biography: 

J. A. (John) Turley taught petroleum engineering at Marietta College before joining Marathon Oil Company, where he served as Gulf Coast drilling manager, U.K. operations manager, manager worldwide drilling, and vice president engineering and technology. His academics include petroleum engineering (Colorado School of Mines), ocean engineering (University of Miami), and executive education (Harvard).  Post-retirement, he independently researched the 2010 Macondo blowout and published "THE SIMPLE TRUTH"—a facts-based novel about the drilling of the Macondo well aboard the Deepwater Horizon and the cause of the blowout.  His first SPE paper (6022),  "A Risk Analysis of Transition Zone Drilling," was published in 1976.  In 2014, he published SPE-167970-MS, "An Engineering Look at the Cause of the 2010 Macondo Blowout."  Turley has served SPE in academic and conference capacities, but most enjoyed chairing the education and accreditation committee.

   


PESA members please register as guests

 

Location

99 on York
99 York Street
Sydney, 2000
Australia
Registration Price
Member $50.00
Non-member/Guest $60.00
Student $10.00
$50.00