The fog was heavy at the New Orleans airport. Sitting low
and dense. Giving 5:30 am an eerie feel. We were a bit sleepy, but excited
about this once in a lifetime trip to see up close and personal an off-shore
deep-water oil and gas production rig. Back at MIT, I had taken a class on
energy where we visited a coal power plant, a nuclear plant, and a wind site.
Combined with my direct experience with helping build a solar-powered vehicle,
this trip to the oil rig was about to complete my personal experiences with the
range of how we power and run our lives in today’s world.
After attending the safety orientation, eating lunch,
donning fire-resistant suits and hard hats, and checking out our assigned
muster area and life boats (primary and backup), we were ready for a full tour
of the rig. It was impressive. Percy was our expert guide, who had been on
Magnolia since it launched ~2004, and had 25 years of off-shore experience. There
were the two (redundant) control rooms monitoring the production flows and
levels, temperatures and pressures, with multiple levels of potential warnings
to make sure things were running smoothly. Up came a mixture of oil and gas
through pipelines from six wells – and the connection to each well was
flexible, so the rig could move in the waves quite a bit and things would be
okay. The oil and gas was separated in multiple stages, water removed, and the
two streams were pressurized to start their way through two pipelines on the
sea floor, eventually making the way to land. There was the ‘pig’ launching
setup to put in cleaners for the underwater pipes. We even got to go 85 feet
underwater in the yellow supports to see the many pumps that can move massive
amounts of sea water to balance the rig, especially useful when there is a
drilling platform installed above. The mechanical engineer in me was happy.
After waiting for a few hours, letting the sun burn off the
fog, our group of ten (including two representatives from ConocoPhillips) was
ready to board the helicopter and start our hour and a half ride out to
Magnolia.
Who were we? We were a group of philanthropists and
consultants who are interested in minimizing the harmful effects of carbon
dioxide emissions and climate change. We spend our days figuring out how to pass
tighter fuel efficiency policies or support re-designed cities to be friendlier
toward biking, walking, or taking public transit. We were there to get a sense
of the immense scale of the oil industry. We were duly humbled.
The night before we had seen a map showing the huge number of
off-shore oil wells that dot the Gulf of Mexico. Around 4,000 in total. It
looked quite crowded. As we left shore, however, the sea showed its vastness.
Close to shore you could see several rigs, sometimes a few near each other, but
after ten minutes of flying you had to wait for a while before another might
come into view. You get the feeling that when on a rig, it is a bit lonely. And
it reminds you of the safety videos you watched twice before getting on the
helicopter – the one that showed you how to hold onto the window with one hand
and onto your seatbelt with the other if you were going down into the sea. You
happily wear your life vest, which reminds you of another trip across (or down)
an ocean, sailing from Newport via Bermuda to Saint Martin in a 44 foot sail boat.
But that is another story.
The 1.5 hour ride to Magnolia offered our group the chance
to pepper our ConocoPhillips hosts with all kinds of questions about the rig,
about offshore drilling, about schedules, about statistics, about money. How
far off shore is the rig? (around 165 miles) How deep is the water? (around
4,700 feet) How does the rig stay put? (with tension legs anchored to the sea
floor – it is, in fact, the deepest tension leg oil platform that exists, as of
2013) How deep do the wells go underground? (over 15,000 feet) How long do
people stay on the rig? (two weeks on, two weeks off) What is the capacity of
Magnolia? (currently producing around 5,500 barrels of oil per day, though its
capacity is much higher around 50,000 barrels of oil per day) How much did it
cost to build? (around one billion dollars and it took 10 years) [Doing the math, these statistics mean that
the rig was paid off already and earned roughly $100 million a year in profit
at the time]
When we finally arrived, the sheer size of the platform
began to sink in. The helipad was five stories above the main level, perched
above living the quarters for the 22 operating staff, dining facilities,
meeting rooms, and workout area. The stairs getting down (and all around) the
rig were skinny (you wanted to make sure and hold on to the rail) – but the
coolest part was that they were metal and open so that you could see the ocean
below – way below. Later we saw that below the gentle waves there were huge
jellyfish and shoals of even bigger barracuda that liked to swim around the rig.
After attending the safety orientation, eating lunch,
donning fire-resistant suits and hard hats, and checking out our assigned
muster area and life boats (primary and backup), we were ready for a full tour
of the rig. It was impressive. Percy was our expert guide, who had been on
Magnolia since it launched ~2004, and had 25 years of off-shore experience. There
were the two (redundant) control rooms monitoring the production flows and
levels, temperatures and pressures, with multiple levels of potential warnings
to make sure things were running smoothly. Up came a mixture of oil and gas
through pipelines from six wells – and the connection to each well was
flexible, so the rig could move in the waves quite a bit and things would be
okay. The oil and gas was separated in multiple stages, water removed, and the
two streams were pressurized to start their way through two pipelines on the
sea floor, eventually making the way to land. There was the ‘pig’ launching
setup to put in cleaners for the underwater pipes. We even got to go 85 feet
underwater in the yellow supports to see the many pumps that can move massive
amounts of sea water to balance the rig, especially useful when there is a
drilling platform installed above. The mechanical engineer in me was happy.
So why were we there? What was a group of folks who are
focused on reducing oil use globally going to learn? From my view, I saw the ingenuity
and creativity of man to meet the needs that society has. Right now that means
that if there is a demand for oil, we can be extremely creative in going to the
ends of the earth or depths of the sea to get it. The economics of it all are
extremely powerful. Though there are concerns about safety and environmental
protection from spills and blowouts, over time and through increased
regulations, many systems can be put in place to (mostly) address these
concerns. However, these rules and regulations do not stop oil production.
The good news is that this same ingenuity and creativity can
be applied to other areas, addressing the ‘newer’ concerns of carbon dioxide
emissions. We have to reduce our demand and consumption of oil. Improving
efficiency of cars, creating electric vehicles, improving cities so we don’t
have to drive as much…these are all ideas that need time to be realized, but
they are real options. As a society we can be extremely innovative and put in the
effort to make it happen. But we need to get going now.
