muddocktor
Member
My wife and I just went to see this movie this afternoon (because we are cheap and matinee pricing is less 
) Anyways, it wasn't bad for a Hollywood movie on the blowout and deaths of 11 men on the Transocean Deepwater Horizon, which happened on April 20, 2010. 2 reasons why this date sticks in my mind. First is that this happened on my birthday and the other reason is that I have worked in the offshore oil drilling industry since the mid 70's.
Slight spoiler alert!
As far as the events they show go, they did Hollywood some of the things that happened. The most egregious error is in the buildup to the blowout and even to the negative test performed before the blowout. They showed gas bubbles coming out of the seafloor around the wellhead and blow out preventers. That is total bogus Hollywood BS and never happened. If they would have had gas escaping from the seafloor like that, they would never have been able to cap the well when they did. For gas bubbles to pop up around the well like that the total wellbore would have had to been breached and they would never have been able to stop the well from flowing by installing a BOP assembly on top of the old one like they did and stop the fell from flowing. The only way they would have had to kill the well would have been by drilling the relief well into the original wellbore and then start pumping heavy kill mud and then cement until they were able to get enough hydrostatic pressure to stop the formation fluid influx. They did eventually pump into the wellbore from the relief well, but that was after they had installed the new BOP assembly on top of the old one and shut everything in and stopped well flow.
There were a few other things that struck me too, but they were fairly minor. I'm not sure, but I think they also got some of the negative test wrong too, but I'm no expert on the deepwater drilling end. My experience is primarily on shallower water rigs that use a surface BOP stack system.
As to the actions of the people on the rig, I really don't know how true they were to the real thing. But from what I've heard from people who have worked for them, the BP personnel portrayals are pretty accurate. My older brother worked on a few of their rigs back several years ago and can vouch for them being jerks and tightwads and preach safety unless it costs too much. That shows pretty clearly in the movie.
And at the end of the show, they show the names and pictures of the 11 men who lost their lives in this tragedy. This hits home to me, because 2 of the 11 that died were doing the job I do on the rigs, which is mud engineer. There was no good reason for any one of these men to die except trying to shortcut the end of a bad well to save a few bucks.
Overall, it's a decent movie to go see. They sure used a bunch of explosives and gasoline making it! Lots and lots of big bangs and explosions. So if you want to go watch a movie, this one is decent enough to see.
) Anyways, it wasn't bad for a Hollywood movie on the blowout and deaths of 11 men on the Transocean Deepwater Horizon, which happened on April 20, 2010. 2 reasons why this date sticks in my mind. First is that this happened on my birthday and the other reason is that I have worked in the offshore oil drilling industry since the mid 70's.Slight spoiler alert!
As far as the events they show go, they did Hollywood some of the things that happened. The most egregious error is in the buildup to the blowout and even to the negative test performed before the blowout. They showed gas bubbles coming out of the seafloor around the wellhead and blow out preventers. That is total bogus Hollywood BS and never happened. If they would have had gas escaping from the seafloor like that, they would never have been able to cap the well when they did. For gas bubbles to pop up around the well like that the total wellbore would have had to been breached and they would never have been able to stop the well from flowing by installing a BOP assembly on top of the old one like they did and stop the fell from flowing. The only way they would have had to kill the well would have been by drilling the relief well into the original wellbore and then start pumping heavy kill mud and then cement until they were able to get enough hydrostatic pressure to stop the formation fluid influx. They did eventually pump into the wellbore from the relief well, but that was after they had installed the new BOP assembly on top of the old one and shut everything in and stopped well flow.
There were a few other things that struck me too, but they were fairly minor. I'm not sure, but I think they also got some of the negative test wrong too, but I'm no expert on the deepwater drilling end. My experience is primarily on shallower water rigs that use a surface BOP stack system.
As to the actions of the people on the rig, I really don't know how true they were to the real thing. But from what I've heard from people who have worked for them, the BP personnel portrayals are pretty accurate. My older brother worked on a few of their rigs back several years ago and can vouch for them being jerks and tightwads and preach safety unless it costs too much. That shows pretty clearly in the movie.
And at the end of the show, they show the names and pictures of the 11 men who lost their lives in this tragedy. This hits home to me, because 2 of the 11 that died were doing the job I do on the rigs, which is mud engineer. There was no good reason for any one of these men to die except trying to shortcut the end of a bad well to save a few bucks.Overall, it's a decent movie to go see. They sure used a bunch of explosives and gasoline making it!
Lots and lots of big bangs and explosions. So if you want to go watch a movie, this one is decent enough to see.
