Emergency Techniques for a Simple Blowout Preventer in the Case of a Deepwater Blowout

To effectively resolve the problem of out-of-control blowouts in deepwater wells,the research was conducted on the emergency technique of a simple blowout preventer for deepwater blowouts.The preliminary hazard analysis (PHA) was used for evaluating operation risks of the simple BOP and a mechanical analysis model was built for riser pipe-simple BOP-conductor coupling system to research a method for determining combination form and configuration scheme of the simple BOP.Some oil wells in the South China Sea were taken as examples to research the effects of top tension,drilling ship deviation,ocean current and shut-in pressure on operation performance of the simple BOP.Then,the goal was to determine important factors affecting operation performance of the simple BOP based on range and variance analysis.Research results showed that the ram quantity of the simple BOP had a small effect in conductor stress and five-ram simple BOP could be selected to improve system reliability of the simple BOP.The factors affecting maximum equivalent stress of the conductor were drilling vessel deviation,shut-in pressure,ocean current velocity and top tension.The research on emergency technique of simple blowout preventer could be carried out for emergency plan preparation and site operation design to ensure the safe implementation of emergency operations for deepwater blowouts.