Are highly technical oil and gas contracts to be run as per the rules laid down in the contracts or are they to be run by lynch mobs? And lately we have been seeing and hearing a lot many lynch mobs. We have see them, heard them and read them not just on prime time but even the normally more sober print media.
Unfortunately, in this dizzying marathon battle of titans it is easy to bemoan the trees being uprooted when the whole forest itself is in danger of being trampled on and decimated. With everyone and his mother today having an opinion on complex issues of cost recovery, capital spend, and profit share; not to speak of geology and risk management it is indeed impossible to see the trees for the wood.
Ever since the great gas fight has begun, everyone and everyone’s mother seems to have an opinion as well as lots of free advice – and all on prime time. Contracts be doomed.
For that matter does an otherwise respected Member of Parliament like Gurudas Dasgupta really have the authority to hold forth on prime time on whether gas (maybe he meant onions) can be “hoarded” in oil and gas reservoirs.
But then who cares for facts or evidence when all that matters is the spectacle of a David taking on the big bad Goliath and that too on prime time.
But hold on! Having heard the debate I wonder. Has anyone ever told the otherwise wise Marxist that gas is found not in underground storage tanks but in deep geological traps?
That gas exists in these traps even today after forty million years precisely because it has been sealed off from escaping from within the pores. There it lies, waiting for millennia, compressed between thousands and thousands of tonnes of sand and rock. Also trapped in the same claustrophobic space deep in the bowels of the earth may be water and sometimes oil.
But we don’t expect to have time for all this on prime time.
Nor do we expect to be told by prime time prima donnas that our job as industry specialists is to exactly locate these traps. And how is that to be done? The only way to really do it is to drill a six inch hole that must be guided several kilometres below the surface of the earth. If these traps be off shore then there is the added complication of doing all this through a few thousand metres (some odd kilometres) of rough and ready seas. Finding a needle in a haystack would be a picnic by comparison.
At these depths biogenic and thermogenic processes through 40 million years and more, convert these sealed traps into a pressure cooker the size of Kolkata. Except that a pressure cooker - and for that matter even Kolkata, believe it or not - has a comparatively well-defined shape and dimensions. The shape and dimensions of the cooker we are talking about is best estimated by guess and good luck.
At these high temperatures and pressures, problems of permeability and porosity determine when and how much gas will flow through the six inch holes that are called gas wells. Anyone wishing to hoard gas to prevent its flow would need more than mortal skills.
Yet, we don’t expect to be told all this on prime time – and certainly not by the likes of Dasgupta.
Once production begins it is a painstaking and constant vigil by scores of highly qualified engineers armed with the most sophisticated equipment and technology. Their job is to carefully watch and monitor, every second, the composition of the fluids that flow.
Out surges from each well a barrage of not just gas and oil, but sand and water as well.
Production regimes involve watching out for signs of danger. Temperature and pressure have to be monitored and calibrated across dozens of wells. Too much sand or too much water are always clear signs that the reservoir is not behaving.
Somewhere something has gone wrong. Someone made a guess about its shape and extent, and went wrong.
Then there are the wizened and bespectacled, but retired babus , who have spent decades drilling through little else but copious paperwork. Dressed up now in Fabindia khadi they can hardly be expected to know that high temperatures and pressures mean that those men and women fretting over complex bar charts ad scrolling numbers on deep water drilling rigs are literally trying to control a potential volcano in each well. Go wrong there and nature can be very unforgiving indeed.
Safety has to be the first concern. The least mistake can be fatal. That is one area where no mistakes can ever be allowed.
These guys and girls are highly qualified technical men and women. They are professionals and they know their job. They are not godown keepers entrusted with the keys to a cold storage full of onions. They are not loaders waiting for the signal to deliver their goods into the mandi in the dark of night when the price is right.
They are certainly not hoarders.
Where do knowledge, evidence and sincerity end and motiveless malignity begin?
Must be on prime time!
Unfortunately, in this dizzying marathon battle of titans it is easy to bemoan the trees being uprooted when the whole forest itself is in danger of being trampled on and decimated. With everyone and his mother today having an opinion on complex issues of cost recovery, capital spend, and profit share; not to speak of geology and risk management it is indeed impossible to see the trees for the wood.
Ever since the great gas fight has begun, everyone and everyone’s mother seems to have an opinion as well as lots of free advice – and all on prime time. Contracts be doomed.
For that matter does an otherwise respected Member of Parliament like Gurudas Dasgupta really have the authority to hold forth on prime time on whether gas (maybe he meant onions) can be “hoarded” in oil and gas reservoirs.
But then who cares for facts or evidence when all that matters is the spectacle of a David taking on the big bad Goliath and that too on prime time.
But hold on! Having heard the debate I wonder. Has anyone ever told the otherwise wise Marxist that gas is found not in underground storage tanks but in deep geological traps?
That gas exists in these traps even today after forty million years precisely because it has been sealed off from escaping from within the pores. There it lies, waiting for millennia, compressed between thousands and thousands of tonnes of sand and rock. Also trapped in the same claustrophobic space deep in the bowels of the earth may be water and sometimes oil.
But we don’t expect to have time for all this on prime time.
Nor do we expect to be told by prime time prima donnas that our job as industry specialists is to exactly locate these traps. And how is that to be done? The only way to really do it is to drill a six inch hole that must be guided several kilometres below the surface of the earth. If these traps be off shore then there is the added complication of doing all this through a few thousand metres (some odd kilometres) of rough and ready seas. Finding a needle in a haystack would be a picnic by comparison.
At these depths biogenic and thermogenic processes through 40 million years and more, convert these sealed traps into a pressure cooker the size of Kolkata. Except that a pressure cooker - and for that matter even Kolkata, believe it or not - has a comparatively well-defined shape and dimensions. The shape and dimensions of the cooker we are talking about is best estimated by guess and good luck.
At these high temperatures and pressures, problems of permeability and porosity determine when and how much gas will flow through the six inch holes that are called gas wells. Anyone wishing to hoard gas to prevent its flow would need more than mortal skills.
Yet, we don’t expect to be told all this on prime time – and certainly not by the likes of Dasgupta.
Once production begins it is a painstaking and constant vigil by scores of highly qualified engineers armed with the most sophisticated equipment and technology. Their job is to carefully watch and monitor, every second, the composition of the fluids that flow.
Out surges from each well a barrage of not just gas and oil, but sand and water as well.
Production regimes involve watching out for signs of danger. Temperature and pressure have to be monitored and calibrated across dozens of wells. Too much sand or too much water are always clear signs that the reservoir is not behaving.
Somewhere something has gone wrong. Someone made a guess about its shape and extent, and went wrong.
Then there are the wizened and bespectacled, but retired babus , who have spent decades drilling through little else but copious paperwork. Dressed up now in Fabindia khadi they can hardly be expected to know that high temperatures and pressures mean that those men and women fretting over complex bar charts ad scrolling numbers on deep water drilling rigs are literally trying to control a potential volcano in each well. Go wrong there and nature can be very unforgiving indeed.
Safety has to be the first concern. The least mistake can be fatal. That is one area where no mistakes can ever be allowed.
These guys and girls are highly qualified technical men and women. They are professionals and they know their job. They are not godown keepers entrusted with the keys to a cold storage full of onions. They are not loaders waiting for the signal to deliver their goods into the mandi in the dark of night when the price is right.
They are certainly not hoarders.
Where do knowledge, evidence and sincerity end and motiveless malignity begin?
Must be on prime time!
2 comments:
fantastic primer...it is quite amusing and pathetic at the same time when people who have absolutely no connection with the oil and gas industry (except for the fact that they use its end products) opine as 'experts'. Sad for India when the likes of Dasgupta and co try to mislead, block and frustrate all attempts to increase domestic production. Is he on the payrolls of the import lobby/exporting nations?
I am also interested in knowing the credentials of this 'renowned international expert', Dr P Gopalakrishnan. Does he have deepwater experience? Dasguptaji seems to be quoting him all the time - who is this person and how credible is he?
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