Les Cole, P.G.

Lessons In Risk Tolerance on the 14th Anniversary of Deepwater Horizon Fourteen years ago today, the Deepwater Horizon lost control of the Macondo well. 11 people lost their lives. 17 others were injured. For 87 days, the well leaked hydrocarbon into the Gulf of Mexico. Eventually, the well was plugged. You likely know this story well. The story you likely don't know is that of 'Blackbeard.' Blackbeard was a deepwater exploration well. It was located near the Macondo well. In September 2006, Exxon drilled the well to over 30,000 feet. The seismic data suggested an enormous hydrocarbon reserve, likely 1 billion barrels! Geologists identified that conditions were "hellish." This meant extreme pressure and heat. The well already had what is known as a 'kick.' Meaning there was a gush of gas in the well. This was similar to the kick that caused the demise of BP's Macondo well. According to the New York Times, "(Blackbeard's) Engineers worried that high-pressure gas might burst out of the well and exceed what the blowout preventer” could handle. This is the last line of defense against a hydrocarbon release. Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson was quoted as saying, “There was a pretty extensive discussion between the geoscientists, who wanted to keep going. They were near their objectives and the drillers, who were saying, ‘We are just really not comfortable.’ The decision to abandon the well went up the chain of command. Ultimately, Mr. Tillerson made the decision to kill the well. No disaster. No billion barrels of oil, either. It was the right decision for Exxon. Some lessons we can learn from how Exxon managed Blackbeard: - Pay attention to the experts; when they are uncomfortable, they are sending a clear message. - Understand your risk tolerance; when you exceed operational limits, stop. - Have a clear process for escalating risk. The Blackbeard decision went all the way to the CEO. - Recognize the weak (or strong) signals of risk. In this case, it was the formation conditions and the kick. - Encourage people to voice their concerns and listen to them! - Recognize 'behavioral traps.' Is there overconfidence? Confirmation bias? Normalization of deviation? Reliance on overly optimistic projections? Let's remember and honor the lives lost on the Deepwater Horizon. Let's also learn from a well named Blackbeard! If your organization would like to design a process safety leadership workshop using our "Reflective Safety Learning" approach, schedule a call on our website https://www.safetyand.org/ Deepwater Horizon Memorial bp ExxonMobil SafetyAnd Consulting Associates, Inc. #safety #processsafety #safetyleadership #safetyculture

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With the election looming, the Biden administration is getting reckless. Biden’s EPA has sunk to a new low with an exhaustive list of draconian environmental regulations openly designed to kill coal. Biden’s anti-fossil fuel crusade won’t result in cleaner air or a cooler climate. But it will destroy an important and necessary source of affordable American energy, and one we need even more as inflation continues to dog our economy, foisting even more financial suffering on those least able to afford it. Ironically, this crusade will also render Biden’s electric vehicle goals hopelessly unattainable. The Biden administration justifies its anti-coal crusade with a conveniently timed and scientifically questionable report from the American Lung Association, claiming our air is dangerously dirty. Contrary to the clickbait headlines, America leads the world in clean air. The U.S. has slashed air pollution by an unprecedented 78 percent over the last five decades — all while our population, economy, energy consumption, and vehicle use have soared. There are few developed countries that can rival America’s air quality. The air quality issue is hamstrung by the mistaken belief that pollution must be reduced to zero at all costs. Instead, policymakers should make verifiable health and safety their top priority — in which case, America has already won. https://lnkd.in/dFz2vtv4

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I got to admit - memories shouldn't be so short - one small error in the Gulf and you'll be a shadow of your former self. It's very unforgiving. I'd argue better risk adjusted dollars can be spent onshore, with repeatable, scalable, and low-risk (both dry-hole and environmental) unconventional resources. #TraditionalEnergy #OilAndGas #Shale #Energy

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90% of Houston area residents what to lead the energy transition Getting 90% of people to agree to a statement like this is easy. The hard part is HOW? How will Houston transition? Will they: a) close all the refineries in the Houston area? b) Build nuclear, carbon capture, wind, solar, or what sort of generation? c) Make it mandatory for buildings (old and new) to meet the current energy conservation code? d) Ban gasoline and diesel back up generators e) Reduce all buildings to two stories of occupancy so rooftop solar will provide enough energy? f) Build new transmission lines into the downtown core to bring in energy g) Ban ICE vehicles? h) Make people live within a mile of their jobs and walk/bike to work? i) Ban the eating of meats of any sort? j) Make all BBQ's electric? Some of these questions are just plain silly until you realize that to get to zero carbon (or close) they are all details that need to be worked out. Be careful with broad general statements and surveys, because when it come to implementation the details matter.

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PRIORITIES "OUR OWN WATER SUPPLY " "TEXAS LIQUIFIED NATURAL GAS AND OTHER TEXAS PETROLEUM PRODUCTS FROM TEXAS SOIL" TECHNOLOGY PROTECTION FROM EMP ATTACKS AND SOLAR FLARES ON OUT TECHNOLOGY " If you have read my LINKEDIN Activity Section Posts on Factual ways to Immediately Solve our Texas Water Resource Problems Immediately, then you have also seen my many posts on utilizing our Precious TEXAS HUMAN CAPITAL to bring CLEAN, SAFE and ABUNDANT TEXAS LIQUIFIED NATURAL GAS THOUGHT SEALED PIPELINES utilizing our existing Texas Right of Ways to our current Power Plants, New Proposed Power Facilities, Manufacturing Facilities and the Public at Large. In order to Maintain our current economy and any Future Projected growth,and Quality of Life we need a Unlimited Clean Water supply throughout Texas that can be achieved by Strategically placed DESALINATION Plants on our Texas Gulf Coast with sealed water 💧 pipelines on our existing Texas Right of Ways bringing precious clean Desalinated water 💧 to ever sector of our current and projected Economic Growth. In addition to Monitored R.O.GROUND WATER Facilities.  Water 💧 Resources control by Texas and not a Hostile Foreign Government. Our own TEXAS WATER SUPPLY 💧 and a continuous supply of Clean Safe LIQUIFIED NATURAL GAS. We can do this Commander and Chief Governor Greg Abbott. Texans will support you. Under the Multiple Attacks in a Multitude of Issues on our Southern Border, our American and Texas Constitution will also support you Commander and Chief Governor Greg Abbott. PRIORITY IS WATER AND LIQUIFIED NATURAL GAS and BUILDING UP OUR TEXAS OIL AND GAS RESERVES TO 110% for our TEXAS NATIONAL GUARD, TEXAS LAW ENFORCEMENT, FIGHTER FIGHTERS, FIRST RESPONDED, ALL EMERGENCY SERVICES AND OUR TEXAS AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRY AND OUR TEXAS ECONOMIC. SEMICONDUCTOR CHIPS WITH EMP TECHNOLOGY TO PROTECT ALL OUR NEW TECHNOLOGY FROM EMP TERRORIST ATTACKS OR SOLAR FLARES  IS ALSO A PRIORITY. 

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PRIORITIES "OUR OWN WATER SUPPLY " "TEXAS LIQUIFIED NATURAL GAS AND OTHER TEXAS PETROLEUM PRODUCTS FROM TEXAS SOIL" TECHNOLOGY PROTECTION FROM EMP ATTACKS AND SOLAR FLARES ON OUT TECHNOLOGY " If you have read my LINKEDIN Activity Section Posts on Factual ways to Immediately Solve our Texas Water Resource Problems Immediately, then you have also seen my many posts on utilizing our Precious TEXAS HUMAN CAPITAL to bring CLEAN, SAFE and ABUNDANT TEXAS LIQUIFIED NATURAL GAS THOUGHT SEALED PIPELINES utilizing our existing Texas Right of Ways to our current Power Plants, New Proposed Power Facilities, Manufacturing Facilities and the Public at Large. In order to Maintain our current economy and any Future Projected growth,and Quality of Life we need a Unlimited Clean Water supply throughout Texas that can be achieved by Strategically placed DESALINATION Plants on our Texas Gulf Coast with sealed water 💧 pipelines on our existing Texas Right of Ways bringing precious clean Desalinated water 💧 to ever sector of our current and projected Economic Growth. In addition to Monitored R.O.GROUND WATER Facilities.  Water 💧 Resources control by Texas and not a Hostile Foreign Government. Our own TEXAS WATER SUPPLY 💧 and a continuous supply of Clean Safe LIQUIFIED NATURAL GAS. We can do this Commander and Chief Governor Greg Abbott. Texans will support you. Under the Multiple Attacks in a Multitude of Issues on our Southern Border, our American and Texas Constitution will also support you Commander and Chief Governor Greg Abbott. PRIORITY IS WATER AND LIQUIFIED NATURAL GAS and BUILDING UP OUR TEXAS OIL AND GAS RESERVES TO 110% for our TEXAS NATIONAL GUARD, TEXAS LAW ENFORCEMENT, FIGHTER FIGHTERS, FIRST RESPONDED, ALL EMERGENCY SERVICES AND OUR TEXAS AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRY AND OUR TEXAS ECONOMIC. SEMICONDUCTOR CHIPS WITH EMP TECHNOLOGY TO PROTECT ALL OUR NEW TECHNOLOGY FROM EMP TERRORIST ATTACKS OR SOLAR FLARES  IS ALSO A PRIORITY. 

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Day 202/366 Now this is interesting 👇👇 I've read this shared post before and reading it again today thought it was definatly worth a share ... The TLDR version is 👇 💭If you always do what you have always done you will get what you always have got .. 🤔 New thinking and an outside perspective is critical to forward development. Listening to colleagues who have worked elsewhere and have a different perspective is so important for businesses not to stagnant. Raising the bar should be the objective. The aggregation of small improvements constantly can produce spectacular results. Have a great weekend all🫡 #ndt #inspection #change #growth #ideas

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The EPA has introduced new regulations that will ban most uses of dichloromethane over the next two years. ❗ > Also known as methylene chloride, the chemical has been linked to the deaths of at least 88 people in the US since 1980 – most of whom were either stripping paint or refinishing bathtubs. > The EPA’s new rules also establish protections – such as training, exposure limits, and monitoring requirements - for workers in industries where the chemical is still permitted. > Supervised use of dichloromethane will still be allowed in laboratory and defence settings, and in making more climate-friendly refrigerant chemicals, and parts for electric vehicles. 🔬 LGC Standards supplies over 400 reference materials and research chemicals for dichloromethane, as well as PT samples. Explore now: https://okt.to/G0Vf5W #EnvironmentalAnalysis #ScienceForASaferWorld

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THOUGHTS ON "WORLD-RECORDS"... QUESTION 1 - is the gravitational pull of Earth - on the objects on the Earth - ABSOLUTELY constant? ...see underlined statement in text below QUESTION 2 - if there are any variances at any point in time during orbit, and the orbit of the moon and/or any other affecting heavenly bodies... could that variance make the ABSOLUTE nature of World Records in speed and heights jumped, etc. ( performed at those times of variances)... inaccurate? ...just a before-bed thought.

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The WSJ writes—and as EnergyPoint Research further discusses in a separate post on its account—satellite and other data reveal the impact of oil and gas drilling on the Permian Basin’s landscape. What operators and researchers are most concerned about are forces pushing the ground up. A growing concern for residents and scientists is that wastewater from disposal wells could migrate into the aging, unplugged wells that litter the Permian by the thousands and contaminate drinking-water supplies or shoot to the surface, where the fluids could damage ranchland. As background, alongside crude, oil-and-gas companies are extracting gargantuan amounts of subterranean water—in the Delaware Basin, between five and six barrels of water are produced, on average, for every barrel of oil. To dispose of it, they inject billions of barrels of wastewater into underground disposal wells. Operators inject most of the water down wells that reach about a mile under the surface, which is convenient and relatively cheap. Drilling clusters of injection wells means companies don’t have to build expensive pipelines to link disposal sites together. Oil execs say the issue of water disposal is having an impact on their bottom line, driving up the costs for new wells. One reason is that concentrated volumes of water increase pressure underground, which then makes it more difficult for companies to drill down through those levels to shale rocks. Operators also fear that, if left unmanaged, these developments could dent local support for their activities. “Produced water management is probably one of the, if not the biggest, challenge in the Permian,” said Cody Comiskey, an earth-science adviser at Chevron. With shrinking options to discard wastewater, crude producers have to get creative. Some are looking for lower-risk formations to inject water into and ways to treat water so it can be reused for agriculture. Whether these efforts will pass regulatory muster or how much they will cost remains unclear. “There’s just no silver bullet,” Comiskey said. The volume of briny, polluted water that companies have to handle has skyrocketed. In 2013, companies discarded about 382 MM barrels of water. Last year, they injected about 3.4 B barrels of water down disposal wells. The Earth is noticing. The number of earthquakes in the Permian with magnitudes greater than 2.5 jumped from 42 in 2017 to 671 in 2022, per B3 Insight. In late 2022, a 5.4-magnitude earthquake in Reeves County. Texas regulators have imposed restrictions on injection volumes in the region, and the number of magnitude-3.5 earthquakes and higher has come down. In a related note, there's an emerging issue—and growing sense of urgency—around the need to improve methods used by the industry to estimate bottom-hole pressures of disposal wells. In the comments of this post, we've posted a link to an video on the issue from EnergyMakers Advisory Group. We recommend watching it. 🛢️💦 👀 #shale #water #permian

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One of the few industries with the potential to have a true water positive impact on the planet is oil and gas. Produced water can be treated to brackish or better quality and returned to the hydrologic cycle for the first time in millions of years. While this article touches on some of the research in this space there are still some issues with the reporting. Professor Hardberger's comment about what the Clean Water Act contemplated is contradicted by the earlier paragraph about EPA rules around the 98 Meridian. The leftover fracturing chemicals discussion shows a lack of effort to understand the technical aspects about what is actually being proposed by beneficial reuse treatment. The "leftover chemicals" are typically only present is very early flowback period of a well's life. The water from this part of the well life is very rarely captured for reuse in operations let alone for treatment for beneficial reuse, because of additional cost and effort to treat. Instead, this would be part of the volume of water that remains targeted for injection disposal. I understand as a technical expert it is difficult to summarize complex process in short articles, but the fear mongering that is present in this article is poor research. Zacariah Hildenbrand Ph.D. Mike Hightower https://lnkd.in/e2FyyVKh

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UPDATE: Hawkins "Hawk" Dunlap was on site and estimated the flow rate at the moment is 200-250 gpm and it's mostly toxic brine water (some oil) with high levels of H2S gas. Oil spill in the Texas Permian Basin happening now. Flowing about 10 barrels a minute. There are abandoned wells everywhere that are spilling oil, belching up toxic produced water and leaking methane and VOCs. The Railroad Commission is not fit for purpose and should stop permitting new wells. They obviously can't keep up with what's already in place. There are private ranches all over Texas where wells from back as far as the 1920s are abandoned and unplugged leaving taxpayers to clean it up. There is a major catastrophe in Texas. An intervention is required. #oilandgas #oilfield #oilspill #Texas #Permian

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The Facts prove, stop hauling your waste to landfills. SAVE you TIME & MONEY

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Endless scolding of businesses that sell cheap fossil fuels to a public that wants to buy them is not working. Something positive is needed. Sam Norton. We know nothing is going to really change unless the general public decides to change their lifestyles or pay a higher price, and that will require amazing leadership. All it might take to start a grassroots movement are leaders who are willing to publically change their own lifestyles. To start: It's 2024, so stop flying and start video conferencing into Davos, the G7 meetings, the UN, China, etc. No traveling on weekends to Delaware, Camp David, etc. Vacation in place. Work on your vegetable gardens. Insist on knowledge workers working from home instead of commuting. Have zero international travel be the default and discourage domestic travel. Implement these policies across the Federal Government immediately. Change the rules to let Congress meet and vote online while they live in their district and stay local. Remove tariffs on less expensive EVs, battery storage, and solar panels so millions more Americans can't afford *not* to buy them. Instead of scolding, leaders could positively influence the public by living net zero lives in small, minimalist houses. Like Jimmy Carter did, they could run their own HVAC at less-than-comfortable temperatures. They could buy everything as locally as possible. No buying suits, ties, dresses, or shoes from elsewhere. They would consume nothing unnecessary—there would be no room in their small houses anyway. Recycling and repurposing their current possessions. Their vacation houses could be turned into natural areas, donated for tax breaks, and conserved in perpetuity. They could publish their monthly GHG emissions and compete to see who can have the lowest. If successful, this would spread from Senators to celebrities, news anchors, CEOs, and social media influencers. Maybe even to the leadership of other countries. Maybe then, with stories and videos of our leadership's happy, simple lives, they could convince the general public to live as they do--or else pay high carbon taxes or at least high fossil fuel taxes. Would the public still vote for them? If it worked well, and if the public followed along, GHG emissions would drop like a rock. A big drop in US consumption in a short time would collapse the US economy. A decade or two of (very painful) negative growth would mean even lower GHG emissions. Thus, we would have a cooler planet. Bonus: The public's high savings rates (with nothing to spend money on) and extra fossil fuel tax revenues might just allow us to pay off the debt and fund Medicare and Social Security. I doubt voters would support the leaders who asked them to sacrifice, but people do like their leaders to stick to their principles even if they disagree with them. So, maybe? Leaders, stop the scolding and show us how it is done.

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