Where Are The Safety Valves?

On the most recent rupture, the valve was found to be faulty. I havent heard or read whether it was tested after instalation or not. my theory is that the valve worked on the surface but didnt when placed that deep.

Where are the safety valves?

The answer is simple, my friend. They're just on the other side of the oil company's bottom line.

I have read but obviously I have no provenance for the accuracy that there were some what turned out to be unhelpful modifications to the Blow Out Preventer on the Gulf Well which meant that one of the rams was just a test ram, that the rams were under powered. There was no BOP in the Timor Sea!!!! As for Texas I think BP are in the doodoo for poor maintenance.

In general this illustrates a great truth that its often not the normal design case that is the problem but ad hoc maintenance and mods that cause the problems because they are done on the fly without full safety cases. Flixborough (one of the worst chemical industry accidents in UK) happened when the 5th reactor in a series of 6 was bypassed and the stresses on the ad hoc piping system caused a failure of the piping andrelease of high pressure high temp liquid hydrocarbons that flashed and exploded.

I am a chemical engineer currently working on the design of a platform for the Timor Sea and we spend countless hours looking at all the cases we can imagine. But in the field there is the incessant pressure to keep production going so they dont have time to do this for mods.

Clearly they should after all where is the bottom line now for not putting a BOP in the Timor Sea and taking more time or putting a better hyrdraulic system on the Transocean rig in the Gulf (BP sub'd the work to Transocean so legally are responsible but why Transocean arent getting flak and also Halliburton who were involvd in the concrreting in both the Gulf accident and Timor sea is beyond me)

nothing about halliburton is new or news. has the time come for shut off valve to be inside the flow for total control of flow. if the flow is spinning would it stop the build up along the inside of the pipe.

I heard a report from a survior of the fire that just previous to the fire, they were testing the bop when someone pulled the tool stringg up the hole a ways. someone noted large chunks of rubbber coming up in the drilling fluid, sounds like yhey created their own mess!