So what if when we get the earthquake in the waters off the coast of California, 25-50 oil platforms

[Change Happens]

break up and sink? and the oil keeps flowing?

What kind of disaster will that be?

[conservdem]

1. Great questions.

[BeFree]

2. Wells

There is one difference at least. This was a new well.

There should be the very best and highly redundant stop valves on all oil wells.
Old ones should be retro-fitted with the best. That way a stupid mistake, or even an earthquake, would not allow the escape of oil from the pipe?

This makes me wonder what it may have been like, say a million years ago, when earthquakes opened up pockets of oil. I guess the earth assimilated all that earthly oil? Repositioning had to occur after earthquakes, right?

[Arctic Dave]

3. They have them already. SSSV (Sub Surface Safety Valves) n/t

[BeFree]

4. Oh?

And they had these on this newest of failures?
Was it the best they could do?

[Arctic Dave]

6. They are installed after the well is drilled.

It works basically like a check valve.

Unfortanetly the wells that blew were not complete yet. :(

[BeFree]

7. Read somewhere that...

..there were some valves installed.

What valves would those be called?
And what purpose did they serve?

[Arctic Dave]

9. Depends. I 'm not sure how far along they were with the well

Here is a wiki link. It give a really good description. I work onshore, things are different for offshore applications but they basically have the same purposes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_tree_(oil_well)

[BeFree]

10. heh

They sure fucked up, didn't they?

Why? The answers must make for good watercooler conversations?

[csziggy]

5. La Brea Tar Pits and other asphalt lakes are the result

Of natural leaks from oil deposits: http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-Asphalt-Lakes-44704.shtml

[TransitJohn]

8. There's no deep water exploration off of California.

So ROVs could easily and quickly repair any (unlikely) damage to downstream infrastructure.