Offshore drilling operations - better understanding

Drilling offshore for the 'black gold" or oil in the deepwater is one of the greatest technological breakthroughs in recent decades, and many new techniques have been developed to profit from the abundance of oil underneath the seabed. While offshore shallow water drilling has been around for hundreds of years in one form or the another, the effective extraction of petroleum from beneath the sea floor did not surface until the last forty years and more recent deepwater areas are high on the look out.. The search for oil often turns out to be unproductive, but this practice is vital for the economic future of many nations, some countries drilled for their own domestic consumption and some for export.

In order for any drilling to take place, an offshore drilling rig, ship or semi-submersible must first be deployed. These offshore vessels or MODU ( mobile offshore drilling units ) can be situated in water up to a several hundred meters to thousand meters in water depth. But before any drilling takes place, an oil and gas "trap" must first be located in the ocean, and with the ocean floor being at such great depths, the visibility is often very poor. To locate potential traps, engineers use seismic surveying, and then analyze the data they receive to decide whether or not drilling in the area would have the chance of containing oil and/or gas. The engineers will not know whether their assumptions are true until they penetrate the trap with a drill bit. Due to the fact that the traps can sometimes be a great distance below the ocean, advanced computer technology is required to guide the drill bit to a fixed location. Installed above the drill bit is a navigation device, which sends back information to the controller, also known as logging the well,  allowing them to locate the exact location that is presumed to have the oil and to measure and monitor the trap. Inside the drill pipe, there is a steerable motor that can be controlled to adjust the drill and the direction in which it is headed.

Drilling Opn

Latest MODU designs are to make offshore drilling rigs and vessels much safer to operate in view of the recent accident and spill at the Gulf of Mexico while drilling and BP corporate image has somewhat suffered some setback. Offshore watchdogs, like USCG, etc, are now going to get tougher on violators and some redefining of offshore operation rules are looked at.

To make offshore drilling a little safer, extensive training would be mandatory for all of the worker on the rigs and platforms, which would reduce the number of spills due to human mistake or equipment faliure to operate under emergency situation. Furthermore, the technology in offshore drilling would need to be improved further, with new tools created that would eliminate the amount of pollutants released.

Marine biologists and researchers could perform a detailed study of the marine life in the surrounding area and attempt to design a rig that would be safer to the marine ecosystem and that could also be utilized by the marine life around the proposed area(s). Then they could use this new knowledge to make the existing rigs and platforms more eco-friendly.

Inspections of the rigs and platforms should continue, but the oil drilling companies should not be notified when the inspections will take place.

- The possibility of further pollution still exists

- The possibility of more offshore rigs being used is increased

- Oil companies would need to clean up their rigs and platforms to pass the inspections

- Some countries would no longer need to import oil, causing the supplying countries to lose money The right for the marine life to live a healthy and safe life still remains at risk

- Environmentalists worries would be put at ease (to an extent) knowing the rigs are safer Oil companies wouldn’t have to worry about being questioned for their actions

Rig Functions

What if someone in your workplace is BSing ?

For most of us, the fact that a statement is false might constitutes in itself a reason, however weak and easily overridden, not to make the statement. ... people are guided by their beliefs concerning the way things are when either in lying or telling the truth. It guide them as they have tendency to describe to the society correctly or to describe it untruly or half-truth. For such case, making out half-truths might not tend to unfit an individual for telling the truth in the same way that bullshitting tends to. Through extensive indulgence in the latter activity, which involves making assertions without paying attention to anything except what it suits one to say, a person's normal habit of attending to things may become attenuated or lost. Someone who give half-truths and someone who tells the full truth are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, in the same game. Each responds to the facts as he understands them, although the response of the one is guided by the authority of the truth, while the response of the other defies that authority and refuses to meet its demands. The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies or half-truth are.

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  Determine what serves the presenter’s self-interest. Whenever someone is presenting a point of view, you owe it to yourself to consider how their opinion might correlate to their own self-interest. After all, there must be some reason they have to make the argument to you in the first place. And that reason more likely correlates with their own self-interest than with yours.
• Question the info or data. We live in a world of pseudo science, skewed sample sets and anonymous experts. Don’t accept anything as an important truth without first examining the source.
• Look out for truth qualifying statements. “To tell you the truth” or “Let’s be frank” or “I have to be honest…” are all statements that beg the question – “Are we starting to be honest just now?”
• Hear for name dropping. Credibility should always be derived from the strength of the argument, known facts and/or the reputation of the person present. If absent prominent people are the backbone of an argument, you should be suspect.
• Identify confusion in response to logical counterpoints. This type of response is meant to undermine your confidence in the soundness of your counter argument without seeking to specifically or factually oppose the point itself. Watch out for confusion when there should be none.
• Be careful of the obvious. If a conversation provides you with one obvious thought after another, wait for the end of the train of thoughts as it is typically an illogical conclusion. After getting into a “yes…yes… yes…” rhythm, you may easily accept a well placed random conclusion or mistruth.

When staff in organization started to show signs of not being truthful and behaving in the opposite, it will end up costing the company due to some of the related impact due to personnel being not giving the correct reporting and trying to cover up in fear of being reprimand should their mistake is uncovered, some of the greater impact could lead to following broader senses :-

- Persistent and disruptive strategy changes without correct stakeholders information.

- Constant debate over issues with no real feedback lacking action plan.

- Plans are agreed but some groups follow them while others hide away due to cover ups.

- Product shortfalls due to inaccurate and unreliable reporting.

- Miscommunication between management levels, i.e. middle managers are constantly "BS" by incorrect information, plans, datas.

- Consistent budget misses in either direction due to inconsistent reporting

- Support organizations like planning or production cannot cope with changing demands from technical.

Ways to Know When Someone’s BSing You

1. Story or context changes. You can ask them the same thing two or three times and get different answers or replies.
2. They look or pretend dumb but they’re not. It’s disingenuous, not a good sign.
3. They put up a smart look but they’re not. Not necessarily disingenuous, but also not a good sign.
4. They try overly hard. That’s got to give you pause.
5. They look nervous when they shouldn’t be.
6. They look scared when they shouldn’t be.
7. They ask the question repeatedly. Give them time to think of an appropriate answer.
8. There’s something in it for them. Anytime somebody’s trying to sell you something, there’s a good chance you’re being BS.
9. They’re fanatical. Fanaticism, fundamentalism, call it whatever you want, it’s a one-sided view of an issue that cuts off debate. 

It is seen to be quite obvious - pundits, politicians, senior/junior executives, engineers, technicians, labourers, and even journalists - have sunk into habits of "BSing" from which many of them could be rescued. Many who claim to speak from faith have so cherrypicked their scripture sources that their announcements are nothing but bullshit. I do believe that most people whose characters haven't been metastasized by the greed of fame and publicity hold firmly to the conviction that "bsing" is no better than lying. What they are going to have to learn, if the society or organization is to be saved is that hearing what you want to hear and filtering out the rest which may be part of the BS.