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James:
-We had set the bottom cement plug for the inner casing string, which was the production liner for the well, and had set what's called a seal assembly on the top of the well. At that point, the BOP stack that he was talking about, the blow out preventer was tested. I don't know the results of that test; however, it must have passed because at that point they elected to displace the risers -- the marine riser from the vessel to the sea floor. They displaced the mud out of the riser preparing to unlatch from the well two days later and they displaced it with sea water. When they concluded the BOP stack test and the inner liner, they concluded everything was good.
Mark:
-Let me slow you down, let me slow you down. So they do all these tests to make sure the infrastructure can handle what's about to happen, right?
James:
-Correct, we're testing the negative pressure and positive pressure of the well, the casing and the actual marine riser.

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James:
-Alright, after the conclusion of the test, they simply opened the BOP stack back up.
Mark:
-And the test, as best as you know, was sufficient?
James:
-It should have been, yes sir. They would have never opened it back up


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James:
-That's a very simplistic way of explaining a BOP. It's a very complicated piece of equipment.
Mark:
-Basically, it's like a plug. But go ahead.
James:
-Correct. Once they open that plug to go ahead and start cementing the top of the well (the well bore), we cement the top, and then basically we would pull off. Another rig would slide over and do the rest of the completions work. When they opened the well is when the gas well kicked, and we took a humongous gas bubble kick up through the well bore. It literally pushed the sea water all the way to the crown of the rig, which is about 240 feet in the air.
Mark:
-OK, so gas got into it and blew the top off of it.

James:
-Right.


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Mark:
-So, what may have happened here?

James:
-Well, the sheer volume and pressure of gas that hit all at once which was more than the safeties and controls we had in place could handle.

Mark:
-And that’s like a mistake on somebody's part or maybe its just Mother Nature every now and then kicks up, or what?

James:
-Mother Nature every now and then kicks up. The pressures that we're dealing with out there, drilling deeper, deeper water, deeper overall volume of the whole vessel itself, you’re dealing with 30 to 40 thousand pounds per square inch range -- serious pressures.