Here is a description of dropping a drill down at huge depths to reach oil:

[Are_grits_groceries]

From "Wired" magazine-2007
<snip>

Dropping a drill down through more than 1 mile of water and 4 miles of earth isn't easy either. The drill string is composed of hundreds of 90-foot sections known as joints that are dropped into the water by an automated mechanical arm and successively screwed into each other. It took more than three days to assemble all the joints in the drill string that pierced the Jack field.

Once the rotating drill bit begins its journey down through miles of sediment and pierces the seafloor, it encounters another set of problems caused by the changing terrain. The test well for the Jack field drilled through nearly a dozen geological layers — ranging from hard bedrock to sandy sediment to empty voids. These rapid shifts from one level of pressure to another can disturb the rotations of the drill, causing it to get stuck or veer off course. Pressure is good — it's what naturally forces the liquid crude up the length of the well and into the barges and pipelines that send it back to shore. (The layer of shale over the oil-bearing sands acts like a brick on top of a water balloon — the fluid wants to surge upward.) But, at the very bottom, farther below sea level than Mount Everest is above it, there's enough pressure to implode a human head — or, more pertinently, to crack iron casings.

Moreover, the closer you get to Earth's core, the higher the temperature of the rocks. At 20,000 feet below seabed, the oil is hot enough to boil an egg. At 30,000 feet, it can reach more than 400 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to cook off into natural gas and carbon dioxide. Meanwhile, the water at the bottom of the deep sea is at near-freezing temperatures — between 32 and 34 degrees — creating a dangerous interaction: When the boiling-hot oil hits the freezing-cold water, it could solidify and block the flow, rupturing the pipes. The machinery on the seafloor, therefore, has to be well insulated. Engineers on the Cajun Express have been relying on a fairly primitive method — pumping the casing and substations with antifreeze — but much more sophisticated systems are in the works.

Because so many of the challenges that engineers encounter in the ultradeep can't be anticipated — or found anywhere else — the Jack test rig was populated with so-called Serial Number 001 technologies: one-of-a-kind innovations ranging from perforation guns that are triggered at well bottom inside the casing, creating holes that let the oil gush in and flow upward, to electrohydraulic systems that seal the wells in emergencies. And yet sometimes the solution is plain old creative thinking and duct tape. For example, when a tool got stuck down the hole during one well test, someone suggested just banging a giant hammer against the casing, sending vibrations down that jarred the tool loose.
<snip>
Read More http://www.wired.com/cars/energy/magazine/15-09/mf_jackrig?currentPage=3#ixzz0mrxrEULl

And they wonder why it failed???

[Ian David]

1. They forgot about The Kraken. n/t

[BrklynLiberal]

2. THE BP CEO was just on NPR..sounding so contrite and sooo willing to do ANYTHING

to alleviate the situation. Oh yes, he says now, BP takes full responsibility and will pay all costs..and "legitimate" claims.

Let's see how this all comes out when the rubber actually hits the road...

Their lips are moving..they are lying.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. Starting salary for petroleum engineers

This is why the average starting salary for petroleum engineers is higher than that of any other engineering discipline.

Engineering employment data

As a group, engineers earn some of the highest average starting salaries among those holding bachelor's degrees. Average starting salary offers for graduates of bachelor’s degree programs in engineering, according to a July 2009 survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, were as follows:

Petroleum $83,121
Chemical 64,902
Mining and Mineral 64,404
Computer 61,738
Nuclear 61,610
Electrical/electronics and communications 60,125
Mechanical 58,766
Industrial/manufacturing 58,358
Materials 57,349
Aerospace/aeronautical/astronautical 56,311
Agricultural 54,352
Bioengineering and biomedical 54,158
Civil 52,048

Their average salary is up there too. At the same site, look at "Table 1. Earnings distribution by engineering specialty, May 2008."

[Union Yes]

4. This type of disaster will happen again. Bank on it. KNR great OP. nt

[Junkdrawer]

5. And then there's Methane hydrate.....

A publicly available Halliburton PowerPoint presentation from last November might tell us a lot about what could have caused the oil blowout, fire and massive oil gushing at the Horizon rig.

Suppose you’re that division of Halliburton that has the dangerous job of "cementing" the drilling hole and the gaps between the hole and pipe. You’ve done this lots of times in shallow water wells, but you’ve learned through previous experience in deep water there’s a particularly difficult problem having to do with the presence of gas that has seeped to the ocean floor and been captured in essentially "frozen" crystallized formations.

The problem is that when you drill into these formations, and then try to inject cement into the hole/gaps to prevent leakage, the curing process for that creates heat. That heat can, if not controlled, cause the gas to escape the frozen crystals. If a lot of gas is released all at once, as could happen during the cement/curing process, it can cause a blowout where the cementing is occurring, or force gas and/or oil up the pipeline to the drilling rig on the surface. And the heat created by the process may be just enough to ignite the gas , causing the explosion and fire.

Did this happen at the Horizon rig? And if Halliburton already knew about this problem months (years) ago, and knew the risks it might create, why are we just now learning about this?

...

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/44349

[pinto]

6. Kick.

:kick:

[bvar22]

7. There are some basic errors with this discription.

The 90' sections of drill pipe are called "stands" not "joints".
Each stand is made up of three 30' "joints" of drill pipe, screwed together and racked back to "stand" in the derrick....hence "stand".

In general, his overview is not too bad.

bvar22
spent more time tripping pipe than I care to remember