Next Generation Blowout Preventer Aims to Close Gap in Offshore Drilling Safety
November 10, 2015 | By Business Wire News
HOUSTON
When things go wrong in an offshore oil and gas drilling project, the blowout preventer is the last line of defense to keep an accident or unexpected event from turning into a disaster. It was the failure of the blowout preventer during the 2010 BP Macondo project explosion and spill, also known as the Deepwater Horizon, that killed 11 oilfield workers and created the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. Since then, the industry has taken a number of steps to prevent another Macondo from happening again. These steps have included improvements in equipment, training and inspections, as well as new technologies to get a blowout under control when does happen.
However, ever since the Macondo disaster happened, one veteran industry expert has been focused on a nagging problem. With 30 years working directly with blowout preventers or BOPs, Jay Read, the founder of BOP Technologies, knew that drillers had what he calls the Ten Percent Problem. The ram blowout preventer is designed to shear the drill pipe and seal off the well bore if a blowout is imminent. However, as the drill pipe descends through the blowout preventer and into the ground, each length pipe is held together by connectors called tool joints. Tool joints are much thicker than the drill pipe, too thick to be cut by conventional blowout preventers. So, according to Read, about ten percent of the time the blowout preventer is unable to shear.
“A lot of experts have made improvements in drilling since Macondo and we are all better off for it,” says Read, “but the fact is that ten percent of the time BOPs can’t shear the pipe. I believed we could build on the improvements industry has made and make drilling even safer.”
The other problem with the existing technology is that it may limit companies’ abilities to explore in deeper water and produce oil and gas in more challenging environments.
“The deeper you drill, the more pressure you find, and that means traditional blowout preventers need to be even larger than they are today,” says Read. “We are approaching the point where the equipment is too heavy to be supported by the wellhead.”
Read founded BOP Technologies to address those two problems. The company’s proprietary technology means that their ram BOP, called the CIRBOP™, can apply more pressure and cut through the thickest piping and equipment used in drilling. The CIRBOP™ is designed to produce five-million pounds of shearing force, more than two-and-a-half times the shearing force of any BOP available today. The design also means the size of blowout preventers can be reduced by as much as 30 percent, allowing oil and gas companies to drill safely in deeper waters and under higher pressure without having to use preventers that are prohibitively large.
“Ever since Macondo, the best minds in the oil and gas industry have been working to make sure that kind of accident never repeats itself. Drillers have made significant progress,” says Khoa Pham, CEO of BOP Technologies. “We plan to offer the next step in that evolution. As an industry, we all know we can’t just be good at preventing incidents; we need to be perfect. We think our approach solves the Ten Percent Problem.
BOP Technologies is a Houston-based company whose mission is to “Provide new generation super-shear BOP technology and subsea services that will shear, seal and control anything in a wellbore.”For additional information, contact info@boptechnologies.com or call Linda Le at (713) 417-8201.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20151110006784/en/
BOP Technologies
Linda Le, (713) 417-8201
info@boptechnologies.com