This is just little pessimistic me thats talking, but I think we should be braced for more disasters like this. As the world slowly turns to new areas of oil and gas exploration, this means that we either have to go into the extreme weather zones (upup north) or into deep water. Both areas are very high risk... With exteme weather, you also get greater unpredicability in loads imposed on structures there, and to be honest, engineers used to design in relatively warm weather will not remember to think of everything. (Another ting is that "regular" steel isn't up to the job. It gets very brittle around -20 deg C.) The same goes in a lesser extent also on deep water exploration. The Capos field which this rig was on has a average water depth of 1100 m. This gives for increased loads on equipment, and therefore higher risk during both construction and operation. (The probability for failure with "professional" operators is the same during deepwater and shallow water fields, but the consequence of failure increases with waterdepth). As a side note, I'm really suprised that the oil in the rig hasn't leaked yet. Sure enough, the oil in the reservoar is safe (unless the rig landed on the wellhead....), but the oil inside the rig would be quite at risk during impact with the seabed.
This is just little pessimistic me thats talking, but I think we should be braced for more disasters like this. As the world slowly turns to new areas of oil and gas exploration, this means that we either have to go into the extreme weather zones (upup north) or into deep water. Both areas are very high risk... With exteme weather, you also get greater unpredicability in loads imposed on structures there, and to be honest, engineers used to design in relatively warm weather will not remember to think of everything. (Another ting is that "regular" steel isn't up to the job. It gets very brittle around -20 deg C.) The same goes in a lesser extent also on deep water exploration. The Capos field which this rig was on has a average water depth of 1100 m. This gives for increased loads on equipment, and therefore higher risk during both construction and operation. (The probability for failure with "professional" operators is the same during deepwater and shallow water fields, but the consequence of failure increases with waterdepth). As a side note, I'm really suprised that the oil in the rig hasn't leaked yet. Sure enough, the oil in the reservoar is safe (unless the rig landed on the wellhead....), but the oil inside the rig would be quite at risk during impact with the seabed.
Cheers,
Fery.