Dramatic Footage Of Underwater Fires From Offshore Gas Leak
Mexico’s state-owned oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), said Friday an underwater pipeline connecting an offshore platform at the Ku Maloob Zaap oil development experienced a fracture, shooting flames out of the water.
The video of the incident is absolutely stunning and resembles almost a lava pit, but that’s just flames boiling to the surface in the Gulf waters.
Pemex dispatched multiple support vessels that were able to pump water over the flames. It took about five hours for the oil company to contain the gas leak, reportedly 150 meters from the drilling platform.
Ku-Maloob-Zaap is the most productive oil field in Mexico, accounting for 40 percent of its 1.68 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude production. Sources told Reuters, the development was producing 726,000 bpd at the time of the incident.
The source also shared an incident report of what may have caused the fire:
“The turbomachinery of Ku Maloob Zaap’s active production facilities were affected by an electrical storm and heavy rains,” the report said.
While the support vessels were spraying water on the roiling balls of flame erupting underwater, nitrogen was ultimately used to contain the pipeline leak.
See more here: zerohedge.com
Header image: ABC7 San Francisco
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Mark Tapley
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This is very unusual. We are not told how deep the pipeline is but normally as the gas flowed to the surface it would be defused by the water. Probably a large distillate leak from a ruptured pipeline. the question then is how did it catch on fire. In any case they should have just had to shut the valve from the storage tank on the platform. Most likely some crew boat dropped an anchor where they were not supposed to and snagged the line.
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Tom O
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5 hours to contain the leak. I guess this is proof that you can burn water. How else is the leak getting its oxygen supply? How did the flame start from a “gas leak” under water? Is there someone that can explain the chemical reaction causing this flame for me please? I haven’t a clue.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Tom,
I don’t think hat you’re seeing is gas burning (Methane and propane have a blue flame) but oil.Since this is a production well it would produce both gas and oil which would be pumped ashore for processing. When the pipe ruptured both the gas and oil come to the surface and burn. The yellow flame is the oil while the gas would burn blue. Notice the fireboats that seems to be not pumping water on the flame but on the water around it During WWII when tankers were torpedoed the oil floating on the surface would burn.
Herb.
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Mark Tapley
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As I mentioned it is probably distillate (high gravity oil). Gas will normally diffuse as it rises in the water. The question is how it was ignited and why they did not just shut the valve from the storage tank. It could be that the valve was stuck open due to being open for a long period and a very dry liquid (light ends) running through it. Most wells produce some gas and liquid but some produce only gas. a large amount of wells produce mostly water that has to be scrubbed. They evidently finally got the valve closed, then pigged the line to displace the oil.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Mark,
I don’t think they do any distillation on the platforms but crude oil would contain all the different fractions that come from oil. I would guess that the gas that was coming up from the rupture would be ignited by the burning oil but because of the blue flame, it would not be visible. Why else would the fireboats be so far from the flame and apparently pumping water onto the water’s surface? When land based wells are burning they use explosives to blow the flame out while the water cools the well head to prevent re-ignition.
Perhaps they were slow to close the valve because they had to throttle back the production from the well slowly to prevent the blowout valve at the well head from malfunctioning.
Herb
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Mark Tapley
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Hello Heb:
By distillate I am referring to light API gravity oil called distillate. Not a distillation process. Distillate similar to gasoline will ignite on water only if there is an ignition source. All wells now are supposed to have subsurface safety valves that are held open by pressure. When the pressure is released they close immediately. The well is then sealed off. The emir of Kuwait had no subsurface safety valves so the pressure in the well just kept feeding the fire. If there had been valves down in the well they would have shut and that would have been it. The operators on the platform can shut valves with a few turns of the manual valve on the wellhead. This is done all the time to work on vessels, wire line the wells or change chokes. I think the spraying water on the ignited oil was just a PR stunt. Oil companies now are practically paranoid about any product release and must appear to do everything possible to contain a drop of oil. The oil was burning as soon as it got oxygen and being a very clean, dry distillate there was no residue. When platforms are operating they don’t shut down unless they have to for maintenance because then you have to open all the wells and get all the vessels from the water scrubbers to the vapor recovery unit going again on start up. Sometimes this is a lot of trouble and once every thing is running they like to let it run. Oil companies also want production every minute of every day. Down time is lost revenue.As I mentioned, many well make lots of water and when they are shut down they often start up making more water. Valves on tank bottoms often stick open if not closed periodically like the one in question,. Especially with very dry high gravity distillate which penetrates the seals of ball valves and makes them stick. On this type application they would use ball valves because they are fast (when they work) and cheap.