|
AOGCC proposes $2.5M fine for BP
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News Editor-in-Chief
The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission has finished its investigation of the Aug. 16, 2002, explosion and fire at Prudhoe Bay well A-22, and has concluded that BP Exploration (Alaska) “may have violated” the commission’s regulations “by failing to carry on operations and maintain the property in a safe and skillful manner in accordance with good oil field engineering practices.”
The commission sent BP a notice of proposed enforcement action Dec. 11, based on a Nov. 17report from its staff.
Specifically, the commission said, BP appears to have “failed to ensure sufficient engineering analysis as to the causes of high annular pressure occurring in wells, allowing such wells to be operated or restarted without an adequate understanding of the problem or without repair…” The commission also said BP “failed to ensure sufficient monitoring of annular pressure; and … failed to ensure that shut-in wells characterized by high annular pressure were bled down to safe pressure levels before startup.”
Those failures, the commission said, led to well A-22 being brought into production Aug. 15 and Aug. 16, 2002, “with an outer annulus pressure buildup that exceeded the burst capacity of the surface casing, causing a catastrophic failure of the well with the release and explosion of high-pressure gas.” One BP employee was seriously injured in that explosion. The proposed fine, $2,530,000, is based on $5,000 per day from March 21, 2001, when BP’s annulus pressure policy was last revised, to the date of the explosion. The commission is also proposing a penalty of $1,112 for venting of 1,053 mcf of gas in the incident. Pad operator severely injured The commission report said the pad operator was responsible for three production pads on a 12-hour shift, with more than 100 wells and associated facilities.
The operator restarted the A-22 well. He left the pad to get a high-pressure hose to bleed the well, and to attend to other wells which needed to have pressure bled on another pad.
He returned and opened the well house door just as A-22’s surface casing failed, was caught in the blast and severely injured.
The commission report said there was no specific guidance on startup, or when a well should be bled, and found that operators relied on the historical character of wells. Restarts of similar wells with pressure to be bled had indicated that thermal effects causing elevated pressures were not significant for several hours after startup. BP can request review or hearing BP has 15 days to file a written response, request an informal review or request a hearing. BP Exploration (Alaska) spokesman Daren Beaudo told Petroleum News that BP is still reviewing the AOGCC report, and noted that what the commission issued was a notice of proposed enforcement action.
“In many respects this report is consistent with our own internal investigation which was shared with the AOGCC and BP employees,” Beaudo said.
“There are some details with which we disagree, but substantially there’s nothing new in the report.”
Beaudo said “A22 was a very serious accident and we regret it deeply. We’ve taken steps to prevent a recurrence.”
| 