Macondo - Deepwater Horizon, The Movie

[BigInch]

It's here, almost... in theaters September 30

"This is a definite must see for anyone in the oil & gas industry, or otherwise – quite possibly the action film of the year. The film does not get into the long years of court battles and settlement agreements, but that’s OK, you can read all about it on PennEnergy.com."

Technical review by one of Penn Energy staff.

http://www.pennenergy.com/articles/...zon-a-gritty-story-with-hollywood-polish.html

 

[Sparweb]

I don't think the movie will add much to the factual knowwledge about events on the rig or the response of its owners, or critical thinking to the veiwers. It will only animate some (probably exaggerated) personalities involved. Like the movie "Sully" for the same reasons, worth seeing for the drama, but not an education.

STF

 

[SnTMan]

Anybody watching movies these days for education is barking up the wrong tree

Regards,

Mike

The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand

 

[Sparweb]

I meant to ask Big Inch, what do YOU think? You didn't pose a question, either.

STF

 

[Lou Scannon]

Anybody watching movies these days for education is barking up the wrong tree

TV FTW!

"Schiefgehen wird, was schiefgehen kann" - das Murphygesetz

 

[BigInch]

I liked "There Will be Blood", but it didn't replace "Hellfighters" (John Wayne - 1968)

as my all time favorite oil/gas movie. I learned something from that. How you could put out a fire with nitro, or dynamite whatever it was.. I forget. I'll have to see it again. Maybe I'll look for it this afternoon. I wasn't so impressed with "Syriana", even if they did do some filming near where I lived in Spain, portraying that as Morocco or somewhere. I didn't like the Bond film, "The World is Not Enough", even though I worked on the BTC project in Ankara and Erzincan, Turkey for 2 years. Maybe that's why I didn't like it; not very realistic.

If "Deepwater Horizon" presents an accurate technical portrayal, and how it deals with the responsibility issues, it will be easier for me to enjoy the rest. Hopefully the FX will be on the mark, or better will use at least some actual footage. I still have doubts concerning WARP DRIVE.

I'm just looking forward to seeing this film only for its entertainment value for now. Whether it will replace Hellfighters, probably not... John Wayne and all. I'll let you know what I think about that after I see the movie.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Speaking of putting out a fire using explosives, I visited a gas well fire the night before they did exactly that in Northern Michigan many years ago, which I discussed, with photos, in the below thread (scroll-down about half way):

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=408099

Here's an additional photo showing part of the rig that was going to used to place the explosive package into/near the burning well head. Note the reflective shielding for the machine operator:

Ektachrome slide taken in July 1976 using a Minolta SRT-101

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[itsmoked]

Nice! Has that classic fireball lighting too.

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[JohnRBaker]

Yes, that photo was shot about midnight with the only light coming from the burning gas well, which can be seen by going to the link I provided.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[BigInch]

I did watch Hellfighters. It was a bit slow moving against today's standards. It brought back some unexpected memories. The Tenneco building, Bank of the Southwest, HLP and City Hall and I think the Gulf Oil Building were the only buildings that stood out in the first scene. Houston was still a small town back then (Katy Freeway ended at Gessner Road and Memorial City). Later the Humble Oil building and that charcoal textured high rise show up... along with the old airport. Love that Lockheed Jetstar.

Relatively authentic except for the bar fight with the Aussies (they were too sober to be real Aussies) and the Venezuelan oil field, which looked more like Bakersfield or maybe somewhere near their Jackson Hole, Wyoming airport scene. I don't think that Venezuela has any oil field in low mountains that have snow on them like that. Looks like the cargo plane landed in Newfoundland or somewhere. I also don't think that any Venezuelan revolutionary forces ever had airplanes, or were active at that time, nor that the VEN Army ever used dune buggys. The fiesta notification on the office wall was authentic, lots of beer, dancing and food... come early. No safety or environmental guys anywhere to be seen.

Deepwater probably can top it, at least by today's standards.

 

[LittleInch]

Went to see it last night and agree with most of the penn energy review.

It appeared pretty authentic, the set was good and the people and roles believable.

It showed up very well the real tensions and pressures that people like the OIM and the company reps are / were under and the issues between the client who is paying for it all and the service provider and the inevitable conflicts, compromises, judgments and issues relating to that. The big company people probably won't like it very much, but I guess it takes a lot of background information from the various reports in the public domain.

Not too much technical stuff about the cement or the "negative pressure test", but enough for a movie audience to understand, not that there were too many in the audience I was at and that only a few days after release.

Once the big bang goes off then it's a bit more standard disaster movie stuff. Difficult to work out where the bangs and shrapnel and flying metal are coming from. The unsung heroes are the guys in the rescue boat getting the life rafts and jumpers out of the water - I think they could have got a bit more air time. Don't know in reality whether a drill rig would normally have had a supply boat on station or not but clearly pretty good for the survivors that it was there.

Don't know if the scene with the derrick was "real" or whether someone / anyone actually tried to start the emergency generators, but it's overall probably a set of scenes best seen in a cinema rather than at home.

Still not sure how this will play to a "general" audience or will actually make any money for the producers. Probably filling out the cinemas in oil towns like Houston, Aberdeen etc, but everywhere else??

So I would say go see it before it rapidly disappears from your local cinema / theater - it's a lot lot better than many oil movies, though like BI I have seen Hell Fighters many times and you can't beat a good John Wayne movie.

Also reminds me why I never really fancied going offshore.....

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[BigInch]

Not in my local theater yet.

I spent one particularly bad, sleepless night on an offshore production platform because I would wake each time in a panic from alarms going off every 15 minutes. I was just visiting, waiting for a boat to come pick me up the next day, so I really wasn't clued in as to what was going on, which only made it that much worse. Fortunately it was just a faulty alarm. At least that's what they told me in the morning. What a miserable night.

 

[LittleInch]

I did a bit of re-reading of the final report today and apparently the main alarms (general alarms) were "inhibited", i.e. they had to be manually set off and not automatic based on a number of gas alarms going off. Hence the main alarm didn't activate for several minutes after the first gas alarm started going off.

Just goes to show how all those safeguards we allow for in a HAZOP or similar assessment can be defeated by a few key strokes or turn of a few keys.

It's been seen many times before that when all hell is going on that operators can't cope with it all and usually the only thing that shuts down properly is the system which hasn't been "inhibited" or locked off or requires someone to press something. Not that it made much difference in the end, but the scene where they wouldn't press the button to activate the shear rams because they "didn't have the authority" rings fairly true and is unfortunately reminiscent of Piper Alpha when the neighbouring platforms kept pumping gas and Oil despite seeing the flames and not being able to get hold of the control room because they didn't have approval of "the beach".

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[BigInch]

I'm sticking with "Hell Fighters".

Lack of sufficent character development and the director's almost total use of "unsteady" cams made me feel like I was watching somebody else's video game while riding a camel. Go see it on Nov 8th.

 

[ScottyUK]

I watched it with my wife a few nights ago. I thought it was a reasonable movie. She gained an insight into the oil industry and some of the risks. I don't think she fancies the idea of me working offshore now.


For anyone who hasn't seen it, the documentary 'Fire In The Night' about the Piper Alpha disaster is well worth a watch and a sobering reminder of how easily things can go wrong. It's on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PcDNRSsM24

 

[BigInch]

Anything that will help keep you from going offshore has value in that circumstance. It is not necessarily a good thing to go offshore, when you have continuous responsibilities elsewhere. One story I always remembered: When I was taking the PADI recreational scuba instructor class in California, a commercial diver showed up from Houston and everyone else in the class was wondering why he wanted to be a PADI instructor. I kind of knew already. He said, well... Three things you always seem to lose when you go offshore. I lost my pickup truck. Then I lost my wife. Then I quit. They said, "Hey, that's only two things. He said, "Yes, I know. I still have my thumb. That's a diver's perspective, but you can see where it goes. 3wks on/off isn't compatible for much of anything except working offshore.

 

[JNieman]

Yea, but visiting is nice

 

[LittleInch]

A bit off topic, but it was told to me and I've seen it in practice at some sh1thole in Africa (but could have been any oil field), It's the three D's. If you don't have one of these when you come out here you sure will,

Debt
Divorce
Drink (this is onshore remember)

3weeks on/off is for offshore pussies
Try 13/3....

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[BigInch]

The 3 stand for 3 wives, right?

 

[ScottyUK]

Three wives? One is bad enough!