Jenny Mandel, E&E reporter
Greenwire: Monday, August 29, 2016
Bolts and fasteners are failing at an alarming rate on subsea oil and gas equipment in the Gulf of Mexico, and regulators today spotlighted the high stakes involved as they reached out widely for help.“We’re aware of close to a dozen cases where bolts have failed,” Brian Salerno, director of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, told federal and industry officials at a meeting on the issue in Washington, D.C., today.
To date there have been no catastrophic failures resulting in loss of life or massive hydrocarbon spills stemming from the problem, Salerno said, “but it may be a matter of time before our luck runs out.”
Known incidents of bolt failures — in which fasteners sheared off or were stripped of their threads — now date back to 2003, but BSEE only recently began collecting data on the issue beyond cases that surfaced because of resulting injuries or spills.
The growing data on “near miss” incidents have begun revealing a massive problem. (…)
