Hurricane Rita

skeptik · Post by **skeptik** » 05 Oct 2005, 17:15

biffvernon wrote: But back to Rita, here's a strange before and after pic found on

Blimey... the entire rig has toppled off its pontoon and is now, presumably, sitting on the bottom.

Bad hair day for somebody at Lloyds...

DamianB · Post by **DamianB** » 05 Oct 2005, 17:22

skeptik wrote:Blimey... the entire rig has toppled off its pontoon and is now, presumably, sitting on the bottom.

Interesting...... I had assumed it had toppled over and we were looking at the underside?

Post by **clv101** » 05 Oct 2005, 18:26

DamianB wrote:Interesting...... I had assumed it had toppled over and we were looking at the underside?

That looks more likely... not that I know much about upside down platforms.

skeptik · Post by **skeptik** » 05 Oct 2005, 18:51

DamianB wrote:
skeptik wrote:Blimey... the entire rig has toppled off its pontoon and is now, presumably, sitting on the bottom.
Interesting...... I had assumed it had toppled over and we were looking at the underside?

I dont know... but if thats the underside of the pontoon where are the anchor cables? Or their attachment points? - which I imagine must be fairly solid and hefty

Cant see any sign of them

Surely they ALL wouldnt have broken off in a totally clean fashion?

fishertrop · Post by **fishertrop** » 05 Oct 2005, 20:26

Does that pantoon provide the bouyency for the whole platform?

If so, it might sit below the water-line with the weight of the platform on it but float on the surface if the platform-body got swept away.....

skeptik · Post by **skeptik** » 05 Oct 2005, 21:23

fishertrop wrote:Does that pantoon provide the bouyency for the whole platform?

If so, it might sit below the water-line with the weight of the platform on it but float on the surface if the platform-body got swept away.....

Yes. If you look carefully at the cutaway illustration compared to the photograph you can see that the pontoon is normally under the surface and held in position by anchor cables attached to its underside, on the end of each spar. The height of the rig above the water surface is adjusted by the air/water ratio in the pontoon.

grinu · Post by **grinu** » 08 Oct 2005, 14:04

http://www.journalstar.com/articles/200 ... 780886.txt

Hurricanes' damage to oil rigs unprecedented

?You may think that 13 is not significant amount, but this is 10 percent of the contracted fleet out of service for various lengths of time or in some cases permanently,? Marsh said.

Meanwhile, 9 of 12 pipelines that move gas and oil onshore remain shut down or operate at less than 100 percent capacity, according to the latest report by the Association of Oil Pipelines.

Refineries in the hardest-hit area of Beaumont and Port Arthur, Texas, plus Lake Charles, La., still are not operating, costing about 1.7 million barrels a day of refined products, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.