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MMS Completes Gulf deep rig inspection. Finds almost nothing. (.pdf)
(.pdf) News you won't find out about from the MSM
At the direction of Secretary Salazar, on Monday, April 26, 2010, all Minerals Management Service (MMS) inspectors in the Gulf of Mexico were ordered to direct their efforts toward inspecting the twenty-nine deepwater drilling rigs with subsea blowout preventer (BOP) stacks. Inspections on those rigs began on Tuesday, April 27, 2010 and were completed on May 4, 2010.

Inspection Results
All deepwater rig inspections have been completed, except for one rig that was evacuated due to the oil spill and has not resumed operations. The MMS inspected a total of
twenty-nine rigs.

The following Incidents of Non-Compliance (INC) were issued:

The Transocean Development Driller II (DD II) working for BP, received one INC because it had not alternated between control stations for BOP testing. MMS regulations require that the regular 14-day BOP tests alternate between the BOP station on the rig floor and the remote station located at another site on the rig. On the DD II they conducted the BOP pressure testing only from the drillers control station for the last two tests. They did perform function testing on the remote station, but the pressure testing was only performed using the drillers station. MMS has ordered the rig to alternate control stations in the future.

The Transocean Nautilus working for Shell, received three Incidents of Non- Compliance:
o A warning INC for having some flammable material in the scrap metal bin of the safe welding area. (Reportedly a paper coffee cup)
Corrective Action Taken: the material was removed at the time of the inspection.
o A warning INC for having a 6-inch x 12-inch hole by the mud pump suction pipe.
Corrective Action Taken: additional grating was place over the hole.
o A warning INC for having expired eye wash bottles.
Corrective Action Taken: the eye wash bottles were replaced.

No other violations were found on the rigs operating in deep water.
These had to be the most intense inspections possible. And they could only come up with 4 nicks on two of 29 rigs? And one for expired eyewash at that! This tells me things are done well on these rigs as its hard to clean up for this type of inspection if you've made a practice of slacking. Hats off to the folks on the rigs.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2010-05-23
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=297400