Next generation blowout preventer aims to close gap in offshore drilling safety

According to BOP Technologies, when things go wrong in an offshore oil and gas drilling project, the blowout preventer is the last line of defense to keep an accident or unexpected event from turning into a disaster.

Since the Macondo disaster, one veteran industry expert has been focused on a nagging problem. With 30 years working directly with blowout preventers or BOPs, Jay Read, the founder of BOP Technologies, knew that drillers had what he calls the Ten Percent Problem. The ram blowout preventer is designed to shear the drill pipe and seal off the well bore if a blowout is imminent. However, as the drill pipe descends through the blowout preventer and into the ground, connectors called tool joints hold each length pipe together. Tool joints are much thicker than the drill pipe, too thick to be cut by conventional blowout preventers. So, according to Read, about 10% of the time the blowout preventer is unable to shear.

"A lot of experts have made improvements in drilling since Macondo and we are all better off for it," said Read, "but the fact is that ten percent of the time BOPs can’t shear the pipe. I believed we could build on the improvements industry has made and make drilling even safer."

Another problem with the existing technology is that it may limit companies' abilities to explore in deeper water and produce oil and gas in more challenging environments.

"The deeper you drill, the more pressure you find, and that means traditional blowout preventers need to be even larger than they are today," said Read. "We are approaching the point where the equipment is too heavy to be supported by the wellhead."

Read founded BOP Technologies to address those two problems. The company's proprietary technology means that their ram BOP, called the CIRBOP™, can apply more pressure and cut through the thickest piping and equipment used in drilling. The CIRBOP™ is designed to produce five-million pounds of shearing force, more than two-and-a-half times the shearing force of any BOP available today. The design also means the size of blowout preventers can be reduced by as much as 30%, allowing oil and gas companies to drill safely in deeper waters and under higher pressure without having to use preventers that are prohibitively large.

"Ever since Macondo, the best minds in the oil and gas industry have been working to make sure that kind of accident never repeats itself. Drillers have made significant progress," added Khoa Pham, CEO of BOP Technologies. "We plan to offer the next step in that evolution. As an industry, we all know we can't just be good at preventing incidents; we need to be perfect. We think our approach solves the Ten Percent Problem.”

Edited from press release by Angharad Lock

Read the article online at: https://www.oilfieldtechnology.com/product-news/11112015/bop-technologies-next-generation-blowout-preventer-1719/