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The images were as grimly spectacular as they were disturbing: an offshore drilling rig engulfed in a roiling fire, smoke spewing skyward, as a convoy of nearby ships sprayed blasts of water in a vain effort to douse the flames.
The consequences were immediately devastating. Eleven people died in the April 20 explosion on the Gulf of Mexico. But the tragedy didn’t end there. By independent estimates, between 12,000 and 19,000 barrels of oil have been spewing into the waters of the Gulf every day. As days turned to weeks (and threatened to turn into months) frantic BP officials searched for a solution.
A containment dome placed over the leak didn’t work. Neither did the so-called “top kill” method of pumping mud into the breach. Likewise for the “junk shot”, an attempt to gum it up with, well, junk, including golf balls, plastic tubing and similar debris. Other ideas (including nylon booms filled with human hair) were proposed to soak up spilled oil.
An increasingly-exasperated U.S. President Barack Obama first froze new offshore drilling leases, then extended that moratorium for six months. He also suspended action on 33 deepwater exploratory wells being drilled in the Gulf of Mexico, and expressed sympathy for those affected by the disaster. “Every day I see this leak continue I am angry and frustrated as well,” Obama said in late May.
The doomed rig, with the vaguely sci-fi-sounding name Deepwater Horizon, will now take its place at the head of the environmental rogues’ gallery formerly led by 1989’s Exxon Valdez.
The Gulf of Mexico, where the disaster occurred, is thousands of kilometres from the Newfoundland offshore. But the ripples of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe rapidly spread north. It resulted in political reassurances and debate in both Ottawa and St. John’s, concerns from environmentalists, and action from the regulator overseeing the east coast industry.
All of the talk boiled down to a few simple questions. Is deepwater drilling safe? Could there be a sequel to what happened in the Gulf of Mexico, this time off Newfoundland? What is being done to prevent that? And what happens if the worst-case scenario comes to pass?
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In a St. John’s conference room, Max Ruelokke is experiencing his own version of Meet The Press. Ironically enough, this is the same room that is home for an ongoing inquiry into the safety of helicopters used to shuttle workers offshore. Seventeen people died when Cougar Flight 491 plunged into the north Atlantic last year.
It’s June 2, Day 44 of the spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico. Ruelokke is here in his capacity as chairman and CEO of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board (C-NLOPB). The C-NLOPB is the joint federal-provincial agency that regulates the province’s offshore. Today is the first, and likely only, time Ruelokke will be available to speak with the media on safety issues.
Ruelokke is just back from a trip to the Orphan Basin, 427 kilometres northeast of St. John’s, where the Stena Carron is drilling the deepest offshore well in Canadian history. Lona O-55 is 2,600 metres below the surface — nearly twice as deep as the Gulf well that continues to thwart engineers’ best efforts.
In an unkind twist of fate, the Lona O-55 exploration well was scheduled to be spudded in early May. Ordinarily, the event would have gone largely unnoticed, except perhaps to industry watchers and those who read deep into the business section of the newspaper. Then the Deepwater Horizon exploded, and the Lona O-55 suddenly had a Broadway-grade spotlight thrown on it.
Safety, says Ruelokke, is the number one priority on the drilling ship. To illustrate the point, he recalls a meeting he had with workers in the Stena Carron’s drillers’ cabin just days earlier. Their counterparts on the Deepwater Horizon were killed.
The Newfoundland workers “are very confident that they are not in an unsafe position and won’t be put into one,” Ruelokke says. He notes that any worker aboard the ship is empowered to halt any piece of work, even on the basis of a gut feeling. Operations aren’t restarted until the issue is dealt with, and there are no repercussions for the worker. “I have to say the safety culture is outstanding,” Ruelokke says of the Stena Carron.