Energy in Azerbaijan

[Artashes]

Re: Energy in Azerbaijan

The rules/laws of conduct in USA/England are not applied to all other countries. Hence USA/England + other international raping company's will not care as much for proper conduct in mining or harvesting any resources they are after. These large entities save huge $$$ by bypassing saftey procedures. This is happening all over the world, live and in real time.
I've been on offshore rigs in the north pacific. The control room reminded me of a NASA control room. Many computers lined up with many people monitoring them.
The way the hoses are spraying the fire is not productive for putting out fire. Maybe to try to cool area so platform doesn't start to collapse , but not fight for fire extinguish. The high pressure water has to be equal to or preferably greater than pressure of gas at exit. The pressure of water that is actually hitting fire source is so reduced from nozzle pressure, it won't blow out the flame. Either they get the hose much closer to flame source or they're wasting their time. That fire will burn as long as the gas is escaping at that pressure. They gotta stop that flow or iliminate the ignition.

[londontsi]

Re: Energy in Azerbaijan

SOCAR stops production at emergency platform

http://en.trend.az/azerbaijan/society/2467195.html

aku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 9

By Maksim Tsurkov – Trend:

SOCAR (State Oil Company of Azerbaijan) has stopped production at the emergency platform No.10 of the Azerbaijani Guneshli oil field in the Caspian Sea in order to prevent the further spread of fire, Chief Engineer of SOCAR’s Azneft Production Association Balamirza Agaragimov said at a press conference Dec.9.

As a result of a strong storm on Dec.4 at 17:40 (UTC/GMT + 4 hours), a high-pressure underwater gas pipeline was damaged which caused a fire at Guneshli field of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan.

As a result of the large-scale work, 33 people were rescued. Currently, seven oil workers were found dead, while 23 people are listed as missing.

“Communication with the emergency platform No.10 has been cut off,” Agaragimov said. “We want to fully suspend production at the platform, not to reduce the production volumes.”

He said that currently five ships continue to extinguish the fire.

“Due to the bad weather conditions, the work on connecting the water supply binding couldn’t be completed yet,” said the chief engineer.

He went on to add that the underwater search for oil workers has been currently suspended due to the strong wind, which reaches 23 meters per second with gusts up to 30 meters per second.

“Despite the bad weather, the search for the missing oil workers continues since the morning,” said Agaragimov, adding that helicopters are also involved in search operations.

“There are a lot of flyovers and platforms in this water area,” said Agaragimov. “If we get any information from them regarding the oil workers’ whereabouts, ships will be sent there.”

He also said that the experts of the Boots & Coots company prepare a plan of the necessary work. He went on to add that they don’t extinguish the fire, but work to prevent oil spill when the fire is extinguished.

Story still developing

[londontsi]

Re: Energy in Azerbaijan

They keep talking about rough seas and high winds.

From the pictures the sea is calm and the water jets fairly straight.

.

[Artashes]

Re: Energy in Azerbaijan

They keep talking about rough seas and high winds.

From the pictures the sea is calm and the water jets fairly straight.

.

They need an excuse. They need one really bad. My guess is they are letting any and all evidence be destroyed and all blame goes to "mother nature".
Complete incompetence, derilection of duty, an so on.
I've been in 100+ knot winds and 50 ft seas. I've seen "blue water" come over the bow and strike the bridge windows. The supply boats circling the burning rig are in calm water. One couldn't possibly mistake those condition with rough seas.
The whole thing reeks of incompetence and stupidity.

[Artashes]

Re: Energy in Azerbaijan

They need an excuse. They need one really bad. My guess is they are letting any and all evidence be destroyed and all blame goes to "mother nature".
Complete incompetence, derilection of duty, an so on.
I've been in 100+ knot winds and 50 ft seas. I've seen "blue water" come over the bow and strike the bridge windows. The supply boats circling the burning rig are in calm water. One couldn't possibly mistake those condition with rough seas.
The whole thing reeks of incompetence and stupidity.

Upon reexamining the video of this burning rig in the Caspian sea ... Construction of rig is much different than offshore rigs I've delt with. This azer rig is tiny. Look at the boats surrounding the rig. They look big compared to the rig. The rigs I used to take supplies to had a multistory platform sitting on top of 4 legs (stanchions). The platform was aprox 10 stories off the surface of the water. One of the legs on a north pacific rig is at least as wide as this rig in Caspian.
If that azer rig is a rough water rig, then it's made to have waves going over the top. ???? Too much force.
Don't know who designed / constructed that midget rig but I do know to what extent the ultra rich will go to save money.
My guess is ... The minimum amount necessary was spent slaping that structure together.
High tech monitoring equip costs big $$$. Installation even more. Brains to figure out how,when,where to utilize even more $$$.
Guy could buy a new sail boat & house with that savings.

[Eddo211]

Re: Energy in Azerbaijan

How about explosives to put the fire out?

It is tinny rig you right.....not worth a missile from our SU-25s I say. Just strafing run.

[Artashes]

Re: Energy in Azerbaijan

SOCAR stops production at emergency platform

http://en.trend.az/azerbaijan/society/2467195.html

aku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 9

By Maksim Tsurkov – Trend:

SOCAR (State Oil Company of Azerbaijan) has stopped production at the emergency platform No.10 of the Azerbaijani Guneshli oil field in the Caspian Sea in order to prevent the further spread of fire, Chief Engineer of SOCAR’s Azneft Production Association Balamirza Agaragimov said at a press conference Dec.9.

As a result of a strong storm on Dec.4 at 17:40 (UTC/GMT + 4 hours), a high-pressure underwater gas pipeline was damaged which caused a fire at Guneshli field of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan.

As a result of the large-scale work, 33 people were rescued. Currently, seven oil workers were found dead, while 23 people are listed as missing.

“Communication with the emergency platform No.10 has been cut off,” Agaragimov said. “We want to fully suspend production at the platform, not to reduce the production volumes.”

He said that currently five ships continue to extinguish the fire.

“Due to the bad weather conditions, the work on connecting the water supply binding couldn’t be completed yet,” said the chief engineer.

He went on to add that the underwater search for oil workers has been currently suspended due to the strong wind, which reaches 23 meters per second with gusts up to 30 meters per second.

“Despite the bad weather, the search for the missing oil workers continues since the morning,” said Agaragimov, adding that helicopters are also involved in search operations.

“There are a lot of flyovers and platforms in this water area,” said Agaragimov. “If we get any information from them regarding the oil workers’ whereabouts, ships will be sent there.”

He also said that the experts of the Boots & Coots company prepare a plan of the necessary work. He went on to add that they don’t extinguish the fire, but work to prevent oil spill when the fire is extinguished.

Story still developing

I'm getting old, missed the "boots & coots" reference. Boots & Coots shows up when nobody got a clue what to do.
When you "Jerry rig" a construction, you don't always have an accurate blueprint/schematic to refer to . Cutting corners to save (a) hundreds of thousands or (b) millions of $$$ can easily and often lead to a the difference between a 2 to 4 hour response or a two to six week respones.
Boots & Coots means those responsible threw their hands up and said --- I ain't gotta clue ---.

[londontsi]

Re: Energy in Azerbaijan

Safety Questions After Azerbaijan Oil Rig Blaze

https://iwpr.net/global-voices/safety-questions-after-azerbaijan-oil-rig

Officials slow to acknowledge casualties amid rescue efforts hampered by high waves.
By IWPR Caucasus

A fire at a Caspian Sea oil rig that claimed at least seven lives has prompted questions about accountability as well as safety standards in Azerbaijan.

Of the crew of 63 on the Guneshli rig, 33 were rescued, seven were confirmed dead, and 23 were still missing as of December 11, according to official figures quoted by the Trend news agency.

The fire on the rig broke out on December 4, after giant waves fractured a gas pipeline running from the rig. Constant wind and waves up to ten metres high prevented rescue ships from approaching the platform, according to a joint statement issued by the state oil company SOCAR, the emergencies ministry and the prosecution service.

The platform pumps both oil and natural gas from subsea deposits and is operated by SOCAR, which runs this part of the Guneshli offshore field. Another section of the field is operated by BP on behalf of an international consortium.

In a violent storm, workers on the platform got into two lifeboats to escape the blaze and lowered them to about ten metres above the water. But the height of the waves made it impossible to put the lifeboats into the sea and get them clear, the official statement said.

Late in the evening, the hook on one of the lifeboats broke and it fell into the sea. Three of its occupants were rescued by vessels standing by and the body of a fourth was recovered from the sea. The men in the second lifeboat were brought to safety the following morning.

Six more bodies were recovered from the water later, and search and rescue operations were continuing by air and sea as of December 12.

When the accident happened, SOCAR initially denied there had been any casualties. The next day, the company reported that all the crewmembers on the rig had been saved but had not yet been brought back to shore. It was only that evening that pro-government news agencies reported that there were fatalities.

By contrast, the independent news agency Turan was already reporting casualties by the evening of December 4.

For a long time, it was unclear how many people had been on the platform. Local media reports were contradictory. Figures issued by SOCAR varied and only on the night of December 6 did it issue a list of those still missing on its official website.

The authorities gave the impression that they were trying to control the flow of information. Journalists had only restricted access to the hospital where injured oilworkers were being treated.

A rescue team member used social media to report that in the course of the operation, he received a number of phone calls from “important people” who told him what he was allowed to say to journalists and what he must not say.

For some, the reticence of SOCAR and state-aligned media outlets about the scale of the casualties is symptomatic of a more general reluctance to acknowledge and address problems in Azerbaijan. Parallels were drawn with the official response after an apartment block fire in Baku in March that killed 16 people. (See Baku Fire Deaths Prompt Safety Review.)

“In our country, nothing works properly until someone dies – a building burns down, so they remember the building and fix the problem,” a company manager who gave his name as Vugar said. “A platform burns down, and it turns out it was a poor platform. It seems it’s only death that gets serious problems resolved in this country.”

Oil worker Joshgun Kerimov agreed. “In this country, it’s become the trend to think about safety only after something has happened,” he said.

Kerimov has worked on the particular oil rig that went on fire, Guneshli No. 10.

“I worked on platforms No. 8 and 10 for just four months, and I went through a lot of fear,” he said. “One time, a ´Christmas tree´ wellhead fell off in front of workers coming back from lunch. If they’d returned any earlier, the wellhead would have dragged five or ten people into the water. In short, there was always something happening there, and something that might happen.”

Ilham Shaban, head of Caspian Barrel, an oil sector research group in Baku, says that Guneshli No. 10 is likely to be refitted for use, although the machinery on the platform is probably a write-off.

“It isn’t even about the equipment; it’s about better training for the workers, since the human factor is the main element when accidents like this happen,” he said. “Foreign companies set great store by constant – sometimes weekly – safety training.”

[londontsi]

Re: Energy in Azerbaijan

Guneshli gas still burning, rescue operations amped up

http://caspianbarrel.org/?p=37282

Azerbaijan’s offshore Guneshli field’s gas wells in the Caspian Sea continue to burn, according to Balamirza Agaragimov, Senior Engineer of Azneft, a division of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan(SOCAR), who gave the status report in an interview with state-run TV channel AzTV.

The Guneshli field’s platform number 10 caught fire on 4 December following damage to an underwater gas pipeline that had been damaged by a storm. Seven casualties have been reported there, and 23 oil workers are still missing.

Azerbaijan’s Guneshli produces 14 million cubic meters of gas per day.

Azerbaijan’s Trend new agency reports that the country’s Emergency Situations Ministry has joined the search for those missing.

Meanwhile, Mr. Agaragimov told Natural Gas Europe on December 11ht that the fire on the oil wells has been extinguished. “On the first day of the accident gas pumping into the oil wells has been suspended. Later the remaining oil kept on burning. Right now fire the continues in four gas wells,” he explained.

He added that 1 million cubic meters/day of gas is extracted on the #10 platform.

Agaragimov said that SOCAR has decided to employ US specialists Boots & Coots International Well Control, adding the company is currently devising a plan

Earlier, SOCAR engaged Boots & Coots in 2013 to extinguish a bigger fire that lasted over 60 days on the Bulla Deniz gas field.

“They don’t plan on extinguishing the fire, but capping the wells to prevent any spill of hydrocarbons into the sea,” explained SOCAR representatives.

Towards that effort, special equipment is being transported to the site of the accident to be installed on the platform. Fire vessels and helicopters from the Ministry of Emergency Situations will join in the effort.

Azneft produced 5.6 billion cubic meters of gas in 10 months of 2015.

Ilham Shaban

[Eddo211]

Re: Energy in Azerbaijan

Burn baby burn.....good luck capping the gas/oil line without experts.

I say let it burn for a few months or so. Their other rigs are all accidents waiting to happen as well, idiots have designed with no real safety policy.