Last week, our vice president of engineering, Sara Ortwein, led a presentation on the new Marine Well Containment System at a Bureau of Ocean Energy Management hearing in New Orleans. I’m pleased that she’s agreed to be a guest blogger to share some of the information she presented at the hearing. We’ll look forward to responding to any comments you might have. – Ken

I really appreciate this opportunity to discuss what truly is an unprecedented effort by our industry to improve oil spill response capability. As we continue to work to understand the reasons behind the tragic Deepwater Horizon incident in the Gulf of Mexico, exchanges like this – where those from government, industry and the public can openly talk about next steps – are going to be important.

Ken talked about the basics of the new Marine Well Containment System in his blog post on July 21. The MWCS is a billion-dollar collaborative effort that is one aspect of our commitment to safe and responsible operations in the Gulf of Mexico. ExxonMobil is leading the design and construction of this system, along with our partners Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Shell.

Colleagues from these companies joined me last week in presenting to the BOEM, and I want to share with you the containment system design details we reviewed at the hearing.   

Let’s start with how we plan to achieve a complete seal in the event of a future blowout. We’re designing equipment for two categories of containment scenarios through (1) connection to the well or (2) connection to the sea floor.

If oil is flowing from the wellbore, we’ll have a new containment assembly that can be attached to many different types of equipment, depending on the situation. Just like your cell phone may come with various charging adapters, this piece of equipment will come with a suite of adapters and connectors to work with any well equipment in a matter of days.

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However, to contain oil flowing outside the wellbore or over a larger area, we’re designing caisson assemblies to create a seal with the seabed, and the containment assembly would then attach to it. These caissons – water-tight structures similar to those used to keep the work environment dry when building a bridge foundation, for example – could be about 50-feet in diameter. Depending on the circumstances, this could take a longer time to install and contain the oil.

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Next, in some circumstances, we may have to transport the captured oil to the surface. We’re planning to have two self-standing risers, each of which will be built to reach depths of 10,000 feet and carry up to 50,000 barrels of captured oil per day to the surface. The oil would be routed through a manifold to the risers, which allows connection to more vessels if needed and ensures that these vessels are at a safe distance.

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Finally, we’ll have to process the oil that reaches the capture vessels through the risers. We’re designing new modular process equipment that can be installed on many types of vessels in order to separate oil from natural gas and water and safely store and offload it to shuttle tankers.

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While I may have simplified the process here, I encourage you to take a look at the slides we presented at the BOEM hearing to learn more. We’ve put a lot of work into designing the system, which will be pre-engineered, constructed, tested and ready for rapid deployment in the event of an underwater blowout.

Many of you might be wondering about the advantages of this system compared to the current response. The advantages are significant. For starters, we can begin to mobilize this system within 24 hours of a spill and be fully operational within days or weeks. The system is also more flexible and adaptable, allowing it to respond to water depths, weather conditions and flow rates greater than the size and scope of the spill in the Gulf.

Our goal is to work hard on getting this system in place – but never once to use it. I believe that by applying best practices and taking safety precautions, tragic accidents like the one in the Gulf shouldn’t happen. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be prepared.