Emergency operation of a subsea drilling blowout preventer

Abstract

The world-scale disaster in the Gulf of Mexico on 20 April 2011 drew the attention of the authorities and oil and gas companies to the reliability of the blowout preventer systems. The efficiency of emergency preparedness to operate such systems was also in the spotlight due to several unsuccessful attempts to operate during the accident. Generally, there are three main methods and five sub-methods, which allow controlling the blowout preventer systems when the primary control system is not available. All methods have their advantages and disadvantages in form of cost, availability and reliability. Some of them are independent; some depend either on the blowout preventer configuration and state or on other auxiliary equipment. More detailed analysis and investigation of these methods show that there is still a room for developing of new solutions technologies for emergency controls.