workover rig blowout factory

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Manufacturer of pressure, rig concept, well intervention, drilling, down-hole and tubular products. Pressure products include centering shear and fixed bore pipe rams, blowout preventers, diverter systems, connectors, check and gate valves, chokes, actuators, flow heads, manifolds, catchers, packers, hydrate seals, casing heads, casing and tubing head spools, adapters, and hangers. Rig concept products include rig packages, derricks, masts, and skidding systems. Drilling products include electric and hydraulic top drives, makeup/breakout units, pipe handling units, cabins, operation stations, chairs, automatic drillers, anti-collision systems, and navigators, and draw works. Down-hole products include coiled tubing orienteers, drilling motors and jars, and survey and shock tools. Tabular products include drill pipe connections, collars, Kelly’s, subs and pup joints, and pipes.

In industry jargon, a “blowout” has in past years been called a “gusher” or “wild well” because the operator has lost control of the well and either crude oil or natural gas (or a combination of the two) is spewing out at a tremendous rate, similar to the huge and high geysers of water gushing out of Yellowstone’s Old Faithful.

However, an oil & gas blowout is far from the natural beauty of a national park geyser phenomenon. In a blowout, protocols and processes to keep control of that well and the drilling operations have failed.

Perhaps the most well-known blowout is the travesty that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico, when the oil drilling rig named “Deepwater Horizon” exploded in April 2010, killing eleven (11) workers on the rig itself and allowing 4,000,000 barrels of oil to flow into the Gulf of Mexico before the rig was capped 87 days after the explosion occurred. For details, read the Environmental Protection Agency’s case history and synopsis, including the $5.5 billion federal Clean Water Act penalty and added $8.8 billion in natural resource damages assessed against rig owner and operator BP Exploration & Production.

Anyone employed in the Oil & Gas Industry is aware that merely being around an oil or gas rig puts them at risk of an explosion or a fire simply because they are dealing with a flammable product. Static electricity, cigarettes, as well as on-site equipment like welding tools can kindle a catastrophe.

However, workers must depend upon the owner and operator of the drilling rig to preserve their safety as the product is being extracted. See, “Safety Hazards Associated with Oil and Gas Extraction Activities,” published by the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA).

When working in drilling operations, the owner and operator of the rig has a duty to control that well and prevent pressure from building up, resulting in a gusher or blowout. Well control is the legal responsibility of the owner and operator of the drilling site. This is done through (1) drilling fluid pressure monitoring and (2) Blowout Preventers.

Companies must understand the pressure dynamics that exist as oil or gas is being pulled from its origins and placed into production. The underground fuel (gas, oil) naturally exists under pressure called “formation pressure.” When the extraction occurs, drilling creates its own pressure. In industry terms, this is called “mud pressure.”

It is imperative that these two pressures are carefully monitored at all times during the drilling and extraction process. If the natural formation pressure exceeds the drilling mud pressure, then there is the risk of a blowout.

Alongside human supervision of the drilling operations to protect against blowouts is a range of equipment developed within the industry to assist in well control. Collectively, they are called “blowout preventers” (BOPs).

BOPs consist of specialized products made specifically for drilling purposes. They are a vital component of the rig’s design and should be installed and tested before drilling operations begin. Routine BOP pressure tests are required both by federal regulation (14 days) and industry standards (21 days), as well. See, e.g., “Examination of Blowout Preventer Pressure Test Frequency,” prepared by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory for the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement and published May 2019.

The BOPs and their corresponding valves are placed on top of the casing head. They work to shut off the well if need be, thereby blocking any rush of underground oil or gas and shielding against a blowout.

When a blowout happens, lives can be lost in both an initial explosion as well as in the raging fire fueled by the gushing oil or gas. Environmental harm from the escaping fuel will also have a widespread and long-lasting impact.

In these situations, both the victims of the blowout as well as their loved ones may have legal claims to assert against the owner and operator of the drilling operations and the rig itself, as well as against others involved in the process including developers, producers, sellers, and maintenance companies involved with faulty BOP equipment.

Investigations will reveal the cause of the blowout. The Deepwater Horizon blowout, for example, was later determined to have been caused by a faulty BOP. For more, read “BP Shortcuts Led to Gulf Oil Spill, Report Says,” written by John M. Broder and published in the New York Times on September 15, 2011.

WigRum is proud to represent victims seeking justice from some of the most powerful oil companies in the world in the aftermath of severe and deadly blowouts and oil rig explosions. Those who have failed in their duty of care to keep people safe and thereby cause serious injury or death can be made to pay damages to the victims and their families that include medical claims and economic harm, as well as the possibility of punitive damages.

In January 2020, an Oklahoma jury awarded $20,000,000.00 in a wrongful death lawsuit brought in the aftermath of the Patterson 219 oil rig fire near Quinton, Oklahoma, on January 22, 2018, considered to be the deadliest drilling accident since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.

On November 16, 2018, Andrew Hutchison was working as an overnight tool pusher on a drilling rig located in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. That night, a BOP failure happened when a valve failure allowed drilling mud to shoot to the ground surface along with hydrogen sulfide, a poisonous gas.

Mr. Hutchison, a husband and father of four minor children, heroically died trying to save a co-worker who had been thrown back onto the rig floor from the unanticipated pressurized release of poisonous gas and mud. He pulled his co-worker to safety. Tragically, Andrew Hutchison perished while trying to escape himself, suffering fatal exposure to the toxic gas being released in the blowout.

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April 20 was a triumphant evening for British Petroleum and the crew of Transocean"s Deepwater Horizon. Floating 52 miles off the coast of Louisiana in 5000 feet of water, the oil rig was close to completing a well 13,000 feet beneath the ocean floor—an operation so complex it"s often compared to flying to the moon. Now, after 74 days of drilling, BP was preparing to cap the Macondo Prospect well until a production rig was brought in to start harvesting oil and gas. Around 10:30 in the morning, a helicopter flew in four senior executives—two from BP and two from Transocean, to celebrate the well"s completion and the rig"s seven years without a serious accident.

What unfolded over the next few hours could almost have been written as a treatise in the science of industrial accidents. As with the Three Mile Island nuclear plant partial core meltdown in 1979, the chemical leak in Bhopal, India, in 1984, the space shuttle Challenger disintegration in 1986 and the Chernobyl nuclear plant explosions and fi re that same year, there is never one mistake or one malfunctioning piece of hardware to blame. Instead, the Horizon disaster resulted from many human and technical failings in a risk-taking corporation that operated in an industry with ineffective regulatory oversight. By the time the blowout came, it was almost inevitable. "It"s clear that the problem is not technology, but people," says Robert Bea, an engineering professor at the university of California–Berkeley. "It was a chain of important errors made by people in critical situations involving complex technological and organization systems."

The following lessons drawn from forensic engineering should spur changes in the oil industry and government agencies that will lead to better risk assessment, more useful regulatory oversight, safer operating procedures and rapid crisis response. The blowout was a punishing lesson: 11 workers were killed and 17 injured in the accident itself. The resulting oil spill damaged the economy and environment of the entire Gulf Coast. But out of this calamity can come changes that will reduce the chances of such a tragedy occurring again, not just in deepwater drilling but in other high tech, high-risk industries as well.

A simple but counterintuitive fact led to the Horizon disaster: wells, even ones drilled in deep water, had worked most of the time, just as the space shuttle and chemical and nuclear plants had functioned successfully, in some cases for decades. Although underwater drilling is complex and challenging, there are 3423 active wells in the Gulf of Mexico, 25 in water deeper than 1000 feet. Seven months before the blowout and about 250 miles southeast of Houston, the Horizon had drilled the world"s deepest well—an astounding 35,055 feet.

It"s called hubris, and it set the stage for the Deepwater disaster. "In the event of an unanticipated blowout resulting in an oil spill," read the exploration plan that BP submitted on March 10, 2009, to the u.S. Department of the Interior"s Minerals Management Service (MMS), which then managed and regulated offshore drilling, "it is unlikely to have an impact based on the industry-wide standards for using proven equipment and technology for such responses . . . "

That was nonsense. Although offshore blowouts occur frequently—there were 173 in the Gulf of Mexico alone from 1980 to 2008—there had never been one in deep water. In fact, neither BP nor any of its competitors had "proven equipment or technology" or any backup plan for a catastrophic failure at great depth. "The industry has not developed an oil spill plan for the low probability, high- consequence event when everything fails," says Greg McCormack, director of the Petroleum Extension Service at the university of Texas.

Oil and gas leases are the federal government"s second largest source of revenue, after income taxes. Before the blowout, the responsibility for leasing federal mineral rights and collecting revenue from those leases belonged to the MMS. The MMS clearly placed its mandate to promote drilling ahead of its role as a safety cop. (After the disaster, the Interior Department disbanded the service and created the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, with an investigative arm to root out misconduct and complacency.) In the MMS era, oil companies were referred to as partners, and MMS officials routinely received cash bonuses for meeting federal deadlines for offshore leasing. Although the Bureau of Land Management has a similar relationship with the oil industry, says Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, the consequences of a blowout on shore are much less severe. "The roots of the MMS," Ruch says, "were to facilitate the work of its partners and to collect revenue—and the national policy was to increase revenue."

Just 60 MMS inspectors oversaw rigs in the gulf. They examined oil spill response plans that were often boilerplate reproductions from one well to another. BP"s response plan for the gulf referenced seals and walruses , which aren"t found in that body of water, referred to a home-shopping network in Japan and listed scientists who were dead. No one noticed. The inspectors, Ruch says," just made sure the companies checked the right boxes." Since much of the drilling data necessary to complete environmental reviews was proprietary, MMS scientists were not allowed access to exploration and drilling details . when BP made repeated last- minute changes to its drilling plan in the days before the blowout, the MMS approved them all, often within minutes. "That"s what happens," Ruch says, "when the government is dependent upon industry for its expertise."

For years BP had prided itself on taking high-risk jobs in politically sensitive countries such as Angola and Azerbaijan and for pushing the limits of technology in the remotest reaches of Alaska and the deepest waters of the Gulf of Mexico—"the tough stuff that others cannot or choose not to do," according to former BP chief executive officer Tony Hayward. within the industry, the company was notorious for its cavalier approach to safety. According to the Center for Public Integrity, from June 2007 to February 2010, BP"s refineries in Texas City, Texas, and Toledo, Ohio, accounted for 829 of 851 industry-wide safety violations identified as "willful" by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). These were refineries, not oil rigs, but they demonstrate what OSHA describes as "plain indifference to . . . employee safety and health."

Oil and methane gas in deep geological formations are under tremendous pressure—insert a straw and up they shoot. The deeper the well, the higher the pressure, more than 9000 psi in wells 20,000 feet deep. During drilling, mineral- weighted mud pumped down the well lubricates the drill string and fl ushes rock chips to the surface. Most importantly, the dense mud"s hydrostatic pressure keeps the fl uids in the formation in check. Mud is, in fact, the primary line of defense against a blowout.

At the root of BP"s choices was what Bea calls the normalization of deviance. The company had long grown used to operating at the margins of safety. It regarded red flags as normal, and those red flags cropped up repeatedly on the Macondo well, with the frequency accelerating in the four days before the blowout.

A series of delays added to the pressure on managers to ignore warning signs. Though drilling had begun on Oct. 7, 2009, using a different rig, the Marianas, that rig was damaged in a November hurricane. It took three months to bring in the Horizon and resume drilling. The well was scheduled for 78 days at a cost of $96 million, but the real target was 51 days. BP urged speed. Mike williams, Transocean"s chief electronics technician, told CBS"s 60 Minutes that he heard a BP manager saying, "Let"s bump it up, let"s bump it up." But in early March that increased drilling speed fractured the well, forcing workers to backtrack 2000 feet from the then-13,000-foot hole, plug the cracked section with cement, and carve a new path to the hydrocarbon-bearing formation, or pay zone. "Operations were faster and cheaper," Bea says, "but not better—the operation records clearly show excessive economic and schedule pressures resulting in compromises in quality and reliability."

Those compromises began piling up on April 9, when the well reached its final depth of 18,360 feet below the rig —1192 feet below the last cemented steel casing. A well is drilled in sections: Roughnecks bore through rock, install casing to line the hole, pour cement into the gap between the casing and the surrounding rock, and repeat the process with ever-narrower casing. To secure that final section, BP had two options: Run a single string of casing from the wellhead to the well bottom, or hang a liner from the last section of casing already installed and cemented, and then slide in a second steel liner tube called a liner/tieback. The tieback option cost $7 million to $10 million more than the single string, but it was far less risky, providing double barriers to gas fl owing up the outside of the pipe. According to Congressional investigators, an internal BP document that appears to date from mid-April recommended against single string casing . Nevertheless, on April 15 the MMS approved BP"s request to amend its permit application, which claimed that using the single string made "the best economic case."

As casing is lowered, metal collars called centralizers position the pipe in the middle of the well bore to ensure an even cement job that contains no spaces where gas can squeeze through. On April 15, BP informed Halliburton"s account representative, Jesse Gagliano, that BP was planning to use six centralizers on the final 1192 feet of casing string. Gagliano ran a computer analysis of a number of cement-design scenarios to determine how many centralizers would be necessary: He found that 10 would result in a "moderate" gas fl ow problem; 21 would reduce the potential gas fl ow problem to "minor." Gagliano recommended that BP use 21 centralizers. Gregory walz, BP"s drilling engineering team leader, wrote to John Guide, BP"s well team leader: "we have located 15 weatherford centralizers with stop collars . . . in Houston and worked things out with the rig to be able to fly them out in the morning . . . we need to honor the modeling to be consistent with our previous decisions to go with the long string."

Guide objected: "It will take 10 hrs to install them . . . I do not like this and . . . I [am] very concerned about using them." On April 16, Brett Cocales, BP"s operations drilling engineer, e-mailed Brian Morel, another BP drilling engineer: "But, who cares, it"s done, end of story, will probably be fine and we"ll get a good cement job . . . So Guide is right on the risk/reward equation."

After a well is cemented, drillers routinely run a cement bond log, an acoustic test that measures how well the cement has bonded to the casing and surrounding formation. On April 18 a crew from oil services contractor Schlumberger flew out to the rig to perform the test. But BP told the crew it wasn"t needed and flew them off the rig on the morning of April 20. Gordon Aaker Jr., a failure analysis consultant with the firm Engineering Services, told the House committee investigating the blowout that it was "unheard of" not to perform this routine test on a single casing well. He called BP"s decision to skip the cement bond log "horribly negligent." BP did not respond to requests for comment.

The events of the week preceding the blowout point to what Allan J. McDonald, author of Truth, Lies and O-Rings: Inside the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster, calls switching the burden of proof, a reversal that leads to a kind of bureaucratic illusion. The closest analogy is the space shuttle, a system so complex and dangerous that a coldly factual analysis would show the spacecraft presented a risk almost too high to tolerate. During the Challenger accident investigation, the physicist Richard Feynman asked NASA for its failure rate. The answer: one in 100,000. Feynman was incredulous, pointing out that this meant a shuttle launch every day for 300 years with only a single mishap, when the demonstrated failure rate was between one in 25 and one in 60. "NASA"s figures were totally baseless," McDonald says, "and were just backed into as a number that was acceptable to Congress."

By the time Halliburton"s Gagliano ran his models about gas flow and centralizers for the Macondo well, everyone but the drilling engineers was operating in a haze of justification and rationalization. Gagliano showed there might be gas leaks, and gas leaks increase the risk of a blowout. But the models didn"t prove that a blowout would occur.

Deepwater wells have one final line of defense: the blowout preventer (BOP), a five-story tower of valves atop the well bore that can, in principle, lock down and shut off a runaway well. The Macondo BOP, however, was severely compromised. One of its pipe rams—horizontally opposed plates that clamp around the drill pipe to block methane and fluids rising through the BOP—had been swapped out for an inoperable test version. The conversion is common in the industry, decreasing testing and operation costs but increasing risk.

Investigators also found that one of the BOP"s control pods had a dead battery, making it unable to receive the "deadman" signal from the pod. This last-ditch control triggers a shear ram that severs the drill pipe, shutting down the well. Even with a charged battery, the shear ram may not have worked—one of its hydraulic lines was leaking. MMS regulations are clear: If there is a BOP "control station or pod [that] is not functional" the rig must "suspend further completion operations until that station or pod is operable." Eleven days before the blowout, the BP representative in charge on the rig noted the leak in a daily operation report and alerted the home office in Houston. However, BP did not shut down completion operations, initiate repairs or inform the MMS.

By April 20, with the untested cement sheath in place on the final 1192 feet of casing, workers prepared to seal the Macondo well and move on to the next drilling job. A dispute arose during a planning meeting around 11 am—11 hours before the rig exploded. Accounts vary: One Transocean worker testified that BP wanted to replace the protective column of drilling mud with lighter seawater before closing off the well; Transocean strenuously objected but eventually relented. Other witnesses say the argument was whether to conduct a negative pressure test—a procedure that reduces pressure in the well to see if gas and oil enter—even though it was not part of the drilling plan.

The argument revealed the inherent conflict on the rig. BP, which was paying Transocean $500,000 daily to lease the Horizon, wanted to move as quickly as possible. With its costs covered, Transocean could afford to focus more on safety and well control. Safety expert Arendt believes some of the problems are systemic to offshore drilling. "Onshore, you have one plant owner and, normally, one large contractor to deal with," he says. "Offshore, you have the lease holder, the platform owner, the drilling contractor and one or two critical drilling and well service contractors. This creates the potential for mixed messages and a conflict between economic versus safety priorities."

Transocean conducted two negative-pressure tests; BP"s Don Vidrine and Transocean"s Jimmy Harrell, the two companies" top officials on the rig, deemed them to be successful, and preparations began to install a cement plug to seal the well. At 7:55 pm, BP engineers decided that the plug was holding, so they told Transocean workers to open the BOP"s annular valve to pump seawater into the riser to displace the mud, which was piped to the Damon B. Bankston, a supply ship tethered to the rig. At 8:58 pm, drill-pipe pressures increased. At 9:08, with pressure continuing to build, workers stopped pumping.

At 9:31, once again the workers stopped pumping seawater; at 9:47 monitors detected "a significant pressure buildup." A few minutes later, methane coursed from the drill pipe, transforming the rig into a giant unlit blowtorch. From the decks of his supply ship, Capt. Alwin Landry saw "mud falling on the back half of my boat, kind of like a black rain." Then came a green flash and a white liquid— a frothy mix of mud, water, methane and oil—boiling out of the derrick. First Mate Paul Erickson saw "a flash of fire on top of the liquid" and then watched men jump from the rig, as a distress call came in. "Mayday, mayday, mayday! The rig"s on fire! Abandon ship!"

"The scene was very chaotic," rig worker Carlos Ramos toldThe Wall Street Journal. "People were in a state of panic . . . There was no chain of command, nobody in charge." Throughout the rig, workers struggled to reach the two usable lifeboats. Some yelled to lower them, some wanted to wait for more workers, others simply leaped into the sea 75 feet below.

On the bridge, Capt. Curt Kuchta argued with a subsea supervisor over who had the authority to hit the Emergency Disconnect System to activate the shear rams, thereby sealing the well and detaching the rig from the riser. It took 9 minutes to activate the system, not that it mattered— the BOP failed. The Horizon was never disconnected, oil and gas continued to surge up from below, feeding an inferno that soon engulfed the rig. Although the vessel had muster stations and emergency plans, crew members had never practiced safety drills without warning to simulate a real disaster.

In the end, 11 men died, the disaster cost BP billions, and the environment of the Gulf of Mexico may be irrevocably altered. President Obama"s ambitious plans to open up vast areas to offshore drilling have been shelved. But worst of all, says Ford Brett, president of Oil and Gas Consultants International, the blowout "wasn"t an accident in the traditional sense, like when someone just hits your car. It was an accident that was totally preventable."

Workers in the upstream oil and gas industry face dangers every day they’re on the job. But few are as catastrophic as an oilfield blowout and explosion.

Because of the significant hazards involved with drilling, interventions, and workovers, oil and gas operators are required to ensure that operations are properly planned, employees and contractors are thoroughly trained, and the necessary equipment is in place to protect against kicks and changes in hydrostatic pressure that, when not properly controlled, can have catastrophic (and fatal) consequences for those onsite.

Our Undefeated Oil and Gas Blowout and Explosion Lawyers have won Billions in verdicts and settlements for oilfield workers and their families in connection with the worst oilfield blowouts and disasters in history, including the #1 largest oilfield settlements in US history for workers who were severely burned and tragically killed during the January 2020 blowout in Burleson County, Texas, the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion, and the Shell Enchilada platform explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.

If you or a loved one were injured, catastrophically burned, or tragically killed during an oil field blowout or explosion, our Oilfield Accident Lawyers will

Blowouts themselves result from an uncontrolled “kick,” defined as “undesirable entry of formation fluids into casing or tubing.” Kicks occur due to formation pressures exceeding workover fluid hydrostatic pressures, which causes formation fluids (gas, oil, or condensate) to flow into the wellbore.

Subsea blowouts:involve offshore drilling rigs, where pressure control equipment –the blowout preventer – is located on the seafloor. Because they can occur at depths ranging from 10 to 8,000 feet, subsea blowouts are extremely difficult to control. This was the case when the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, tragically killing 11 offshore workers and injuring dozens of others.

Surface blowouts: occur on land and are the most common type of well blowout. In addition to oil and gas, a surface blowout can cause rocks, mud, and sand to be ejected from the well.

Operators are required to follow American Petroleum Institute (API) rules, OSHA regulations, company safety policies, and other industry standards to control kicks and prevent oil and gas well blowouts. These safety regulations mandate the proper selection and utilization of well control equipment, including mechanical and hydrostatic barriers and blowout preventers, drilling mud, mud monitoring equipment, degassers, and mud mixing systems.

Having successfully represented more than 1,000 oilfield in connection with the worst oil well blowouts and rig and platform explosions in history, we’ve learned that every one of these disasters is entirely preventable and invariably the result of an operator’s refusal to follow industry and company safety policies in an effort to speed up production.

Blowout preventers are designed to seal off the well and withstand the intense pressure that occurs after a kick or uncontrolled flow of hydrocarbons.  When functioning properly, it almost instantaneously closes off the well and prevents a blowout.

While blowout preventers substantially decrease the likelihood of a blowout, they’re only effective when they’re properly maintained and the operator has properly trained its employees and contractors on how to operate them after a kick or loss of well control.

Blowouts don’t happen without warning. At the first sign of a kick, steps should be immediately taken to shut-in the well. Shut-in procedures should also be initiated whenever there’s any doubt as to whether oil or gas is flowing from the well.

There’s no difference between a small flow and a full-flowing well. Any delay in initiating shut-in protocols can result in a massive blowout, regardless of flow strength.

While uncontrolled kicks and blowouts can quickly lead to catastrophic and fatal disasters, they’re—unfortunately—not the only hazards that oilfield workers face when drilling or performing a workover.

The constant presence of highly volatile and combustible hydrocarbons, the use of electricity and fuel to power equipment, and the need to weld and perform other types of hot work each present unique hazards that has the potential to trigger a devastating blowout and explosion.

Fires: because oil, condensate and other hydrocarbons are highly flammable, any spark, fire, or ignition source on a drilling site can lead to a massive explosion. Even static electricity can cause a blowout if proper well control procedures are not in place to prevent hydrocarbons from escaping the well.

Welding and Hot Work: the presence of flammable hydrocarbons in and around a drilling rig makes hot work, such as welding, cutting, and grinding, particularly hazardous while working on or around a land or offshore well.  Without proper well control equipment and procedures in place, a single spark from a welding torch, spark plug, or engine can lead to a catastrophic and fatal explosion.

Defective Equipment: while failure of the blowout preventer is the most common equipment-related causes of a blowout, corroded tubes, rods, and pipes, as well as any damaged or malfunctioning equipment also substantially increase the chances of a catastrophic explosion or blowout.

Electricity: oilfield workers frequently use electric tools while drilling and performing workovers . In addition to being properly maintained, these tools must be certified as “intrinsically safe” by OSHA in order to be used around oil and gas wells or any other volatile hydrocarbons.  Frayed power cords and sparks or heat from equipment that isn’t intended and certified to be used in hydrocarbon environments often serve as the ignition source needed to trigger a blowout or explosion

Our Undefeated Oilfield Blowout and Explosions Lawyers have won Billions, including the #1 Largest Oilfield Accident Settlement in US history, for oilfield workers and their families following the most catastrophic explosions and blowouts in history.

If you or a loved one were injured, catastrophically burned, or tragically killed in connection with an oil or gas blowout or explosion, we’re here to help.  Call 1-888-603-3636, use the Chat form on our website, or Click Here to send us a confidential email via our “Contact Us” form.

A fracked natural gas well in northwest Louisiana has been burning for two weeks after suffering a blowout. A state official said the fire will likely burn for the next month before the flames can be brought under control by drilling a relief well.

DeSmog obtained drone video footage shot 10 days* after the blowout, which occurred early in the morning on August 30, the day after the well was hydraulically fractured. A tower of flames reportedly shot into the air that could be seen from more than 30 miles away. While the flames are no longer as intense, the fire is still visible from a distance of more than a mile. GEP Haynesville, LLC, the well’s operator, told local ABC affiliate KPVIthat the fire started during flow-back operations, but the exact cause has not been determined yet.

“Blowouts are (unintended) large, uncontrolled pollutant sources with potentially significant health and environmental consequences,” Gunnar W. Schade, an atmospheric scientist at Texas A&M University, told me via email after viewing the drone video obtained by DeSmog. “Blowouts need to be shut down as soon as possible.”

The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) has determined that the blowout and fire present no major air quality concerns. “LDEQ responders consider this a very low-impact event,” Greg Langley, LDEQ spokesperson, said via email. “The well is clean, it’s gas and what is being released is being consumed in the fire.”

“It’s laughable that they say there are no air impacts from this event,” Wilson said. She frequently monitors oil and gas industry sites with an optical gas imaging camera that detects leaking methane and other pollutants invisible to the naked eye. Wilson’s videos have been instrumental in identifying numerous leaking wells in various shale regions across the United States, including Louisiana’s Haynesville Shale, where this blowout is burning. Wilson reports her findings to state regulatory agencies, which on occasion have fined operators for the leaks she flagged.

Wilma Subra, a technical advisor for the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, agrees that using drone would be advisable and that air canister testing should be done too. This latter approach captures air samples over a period of days and measures how much of each compound is present. Subra thinks air canister testing is the best way to know if the emissions around the blowout are a threat to human health.

The Louisiana State Police’s hazmat (hazardous materials) team and the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources (LDNR), which regulates oil and gas production, are also monitoring the blowout.

“Any time there is a loss of well control, there is a concern about environmental impacts,” Patrick Courreges, communications director for LDNR, told me. DNR’s “first concern is for the physical safety of the workers on site and for any people potentially affected in nearby homes and businesses,” but in this case the site is fairly remote and air monitoring, in place since the first day of the blowout, hasn’t indicated any potential immediate impacts of harmful gases, he explained.

“Currently, well control contractors are on site, under the supervision of the operator and State Police Incident Command to keep the impacts contained as much as possible, using water to help control the heat and potential spread of flame,” Courreges said. “While there is no good news in a blowout, the fire does actually help with lessening the impact of the escaping methane by burning much of it off, though obviously the goal is to get the flow of methane stopped and the fire out as soon as possible.”

“The longer-term solution is likely to be the drilling of wells to intercept the affected wellheads and stop the flow of gas in the damaged wellheads,” he told me. That might take a month. A design for a relief well has not been submitted yet to DNR, though one is being planned. Drilling a relief well was the same basic approach which ultimately stopped the flow of oil from BP’s Macondo well blowout deep under the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

“Full-on blowouts in hydraulically fractured Haynesville Shale wells are rare,” Courreges said. “While there have been instances of valves or piping giving way over the years that required emergency response, I don’t recall any blowouts on this scale from those type of wells.”

Wilson compared this blowout to the 2015 Aliso Canyon catastrophe in southern California and the 2018 XTO blowout in Ohio, which both gushed large amounts of methane. “This blowout is a huge deal,” Wilson said. “We are at the climate breaking point and no one can even say how much methane is blasting into the air.”

Main image: Screen shot from drone video of the fracked gas well blowout, at a well operated by GEP Haynesville, LLC, in Red River Parish, Louisiana. Credit: Phin Percy Jr., used with permission

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