Wetenschap

Facing a Total BP 2.0?

Gas has been leaking from Total’s North Sea Elgin platform for more than a week. “I would have expected more information on the situation by now,” says Professor Jan Dirk Jansen, Chair of Reservoir Systems and Control.


The information given out by Total is very limited. They say only that a gas leak occurred, the Elgin field was shut down, 238 workers were evacuated and two solutions are being considered, either to inject heavy fluids or to construct a relief well. Professor Jan Dirk Jansen questions the situation: “Is it that Total has no clue about what happened or is it that they are keeping it confidential? In any case, basic information, such as the source of the leakage, is missing, and this makes it difficult to assess the gravity of the situation and the feasibility of specific solutions.”


According to Professor Pacelli Zitha, Chair of Oil and Gas Production Engineering, the first solution proposed by Total, which was to kill the well from above with heavy fluids, is only possible if the well and other equipment are undamaged. Prof. Jansen adds: “BP also tried a top kill; however, it failed because the pipes were blocked. But here, since there was no explosion, there are more chances that the pipes are still usable. Moreover, in contrast to the case of BP, the wellhead is above the sea, which makes it easier to work.”


Prof. Jansen warns however that a top kill of the well implies working in an environment where gas is leaking, and gas ignites much more easily than oil: “Now that the flare is out, the immediate risks of explosion are gone. However, a spark can happen very easily; hammering a piece of steel can create a spark. So, despite the extinguishment of the flare, it can still go wrong.”


Injecting heavy fluids would be the preferred option if possible, because, according to Prof. Zitha, the problem could then likely be solved in several weeks, whereas a relief well would take several months and is much more costly and time consuming.

In terms of damages, Prof. Zitha stresses that “of course any leakage is a very serious issue, because basically hydrocarbons are spurring into the environment. However, compared to the BP oil spill in 2010, the scale of damages is clearly lower.” He explains that for the marine environment, it makes a big difference that it is a surface gas leak rather than a deep-water oil spill, like in the Gulf of Mexico. He continues: “The surface gas sheen will simply eventually disperse in the atmosphere. Same goes for the few liquid condensates leaking, because they are extremely volatile.”


The big question of why the well started to leak remains. Prof. Jansen: “All wells have a leak control system of multiple barriers, so in order for a well to leak, there must have been multiple things that went wrong.” Prof. Zitha points out that “issues in the past with well equipment in Elgin have been reported in the technical literature”. Both professors agree that at this point it is difficult to assess whether the incident was due to malfunctioning equipment, poor risk management or unpredictable conditions. “It’s a risky business, like driving a car,” Prof Jansen concludes. “Of course you do not want to have an accident; however, the probability of having one will never be absent.” Which leaves us wondering: what is an acceptable risk for energy production?

Even in the midst of recovering from a heroin addiction, Amy Winehouse worried about putting off writing lyrics to do her hair or get cigarettes, as she describes in her aptly titled song, ‘Procrastination’. Everyone in the world is affected by procrastination. While writing this column I too was procrastinating by surfing the net about what people generally think of procrastination, and here’s what I found: 1. Procrastination is humanity’s single worst habit; 2. There are numerous shrinks, life-coaches, hypnotists, power-point ladies willing to help you kick this habit; and 3. People tend to overuse procrastination jokes. I was actually searching for articles presenting procrastination in a positive light, but even those ended in irony and terrible jokes, like ‘get more free time by losing your job!’ or ‘reduce your workload by lowering expectations of yourself’. 

From an early age I’d established that procrastination is bad. My grandfather lived by the principle: ‘never leave for tomorrow what you can do today’. Or at least that’s what my mama told me. Actually, my childhood memories are of large gutted TVs, radio sets and all sorts of electronic and mechanical doo-hickeys studding the apartment, picking up dust in hallways and bedrooms, getting fresh air on the balcony…. My grandpa was an engineer; he took things apart with the intention of putting them back together – eventually. He was a creative procrastinator, and that didn’t make him any less awesome.

I’m a different kind of creative procrastinator. Procrastinating until the last moment means lots of pressure, and pressure makes diamonds. The adrenalin kicks in and suddenly it’s a lot easier to be creative. I tend to come up with the best discoveries during exam period, when I should be studying. My mind’s already a broiler and starts producing ideas overtime, which I tend to set aside to think about later, but they mysteriously vanish when the pressure is gone. 

Anti-procrastinating advice videos tell you to stop making cups of tea or taking breaks, which is ridiculous! If during an exam I can’t solve a problem, the easiest way to find the solution is to take a bathroom break. When Archimedes yelled “Eureka”, it wasn’t because the water in his bathtub overflowed, but because the answer came to him while he was procrastinating solving the damn buoyancy problem by taking a bath, just like Newton thought of his famous equation while  strolling through an orchard in an attempt to avoid thinking about gravity.  

Instead of shunning procrastination, I try to embrace it and use it to my advantage by making to-do lists and focusing on doing the largest task on the list. If you feel like a break, use the smaller tasks on your list as a form of procrastination; that way they won’t feel like tasks but fun activities you do to avoid working. Then, when you feel like procrastinating even more, do so by returning to the original task. Before you know it, you’ve accomplished everything on your to-do list by procrastinating all day.

Olga Motsyk, from Ukraine, is a BSc aerospace engineering student

Redacteur Redactie

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