MEC&F Expert Engineers : 12/19/14

Friday, December 19, 2014

2 DEAD AND 3 INJURED IN AN EXPLOSION, FIRE AT OKLAHOMA OIL RIG ; UPDATE: SOURCE OF IGNITION STILL UNDER INVESTIGATION



2 dead and 3 injured in an explosion, fire at Oklahoma oil rig IN COALGATE; SURVIVED WORKERS RECALL EVENTS; SOURCE OF IGNITION STILL UNDER INVESTIGATION





Two Roughnecks were killed and 2 seriously burned overnight in a drilling rig explosion in Coal County Oklahoma on a location 2 miles west of Coalgate on Hwy 31 between Ada and Atoka.

The state Medical Examiner's office identified the dead as 26-year-old Gary Keenen of Ada and 27-year-old Kelsey Bellah of Tulsa.





Dan D Rig#18 Fire

According to the Coalgate Police Chief, there was some kind of an explosion and fire that happened around 11:54 PM Friday.

Sources close to the investigation are reporting the drilling rig was Dan D Rig 18 drilling for Texas based Pablo Energy

Facebook posts state that one worker, a Yukon resident and father of 4, has sustained second degree burns over 75% of his body. The condition of the other worker is unknown at this time.



OSHA, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission and the State Fire Marshal’s office are on the scene conducting the investigation.

An unconfirmed report indicates that the fire might have been caused by a space heater on the rig floor.

Please keep these families in your prayers. We will post updated information as we receive it.



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Associated Press – published Friday, December 19, 2014



COALGATE, Okla. (AP) — An explosion and fire early Friday morning killed two people and injured three, two critically, at an oil rig in southeastern Oklahoma.
The explosion occurred around 1 a.m. at the rig about 2 miles west of Coalgate in a remote area of rural Coal County about 100 miles southeast of Oklahoma City, said Sam Schafnitt, chief of operations for the state Fire Marshal's Office.
"It was a drilling rig in a rural area," Schafnitt said. He said the fire is out and the cause of the explosion is still under investigation.


Schafnitt said the explosion and fire occurred on the deck of the oil rig and that investigators from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration have arrived at the scene to help pinpoint the cause.


"We're just trying to put the puzzle pieces on the table and (are) looking at them," he said.
Matt Skinner, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Corporation Commission that regulates the oil and gas industry, said no evacuations were required in the area and there were no reports that the explosion and fire caused environmental damage that would require subsequent cleanup.


The state Medical Examiner's Office identified the dead as Gary Keenen, 26, of Ada, and Kelsey Bellah, 27, of Tulsa. Schafnitt said the two critically injured people sustained burns and were airlifted to a burn unit in Oklahoma City. The third injured worker sustained burns on his hands, he said. Schafnitt did not identify the injured workers.


The rig is owned by Pablo Energy of Amarillo, Texas, which did not immediately respond to telephone calls seeking comment. Coal County Sheriff Bryan Jump also did not immediately respond to telephone calls seeking comment.



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Oklahoma - Rig Fire Victim Recalls Explosion, Loss Of Brother


 
Safe at home Injured oil rig worker Dewayne Keenan holds his daughter Aaliyah close after returning from the hospital where doctors tended his severely burned hands he suffered while saving coworkers in an oil rig fire near Coalgate Thursday, Dec. 18


December 28th, 2014
One day. One more day of work and Gary Keenan would have been off for a week. A week in which he was looking forward to time off from his hard-work job. A week that would have been filled with holiday cheer, spending time with loved ones and celebrating life. Instead, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2014, would be Gary’s last day on earth.
The 26-year-old Arkansas native was killed in a fiery accident at his job on an oil/gas rig near Coalgate. A coworker was killed and two others critically injured. His early death has left his family and friends devastated, maybe none more so than Gary’s big brother by two years, Dewayne.

Dewayne Keenan was there that night and was injured as well. His hands were burned as he dragged coworkers engulfed in flames to safety. But his injured hands aren’t what’s hurting him right now. It’s the loss of his brother.
Dewayne doesn’t have nightmares when he sleeps. He awakens to a nightmare each day.
“The hardest times are in the morning when I wake up,” he said while holding back tears.

Dewayne and his wife Alexandrea are in the early stage of grief where they feel the loss again and again. They look through photos of good times they all had together. Alexandrea has taken dozens of pictures of fun times the family had in the last five or so months.
That’s when Gary moved to Ada to live with Dewayne and Alexandrea so he could work on the rig. Gary and Dewayne worked grueling 12-hour shifts, one week on, one week off in a job which is considered one of the hardest and most dangerous there is. When they had time off, they only wanted to have fun as a family.
There was the October trip to the Oklahoma Aquarium in Jenks. Gary, Dewayne, and Alexandrea, along with Dewayne and Alexandrea’s one-year-old daughter, Aaliyah, had a grand family outing. Dewayne and Alexandrea smile when they look at the pictures. Their eyes light up as they talk about fun-loving brother Gary and his antics. They laugh and giggle, but the happiness is fleeting as reality comes crashing down again. The smiles disappear and their eyes fill with tears as the disbelief returns. Their hearts are filled with sorrow.
• The nightmare
Dewayne is a derrick hand and he was down in the pits doing his job when the rig went up in flames. He said four other coworkers were above the platform and their job was to make connections to keep feeding pipe into the ground.

The sound of metal slamming against metal is loud and startling. Dewayne said it sometimes catches him off guard, causing him look up to make sure something hasn’t gone wrong. He said every time he heard the sound, he worried about Gary, who worked above.
“I was always real worried about him,” Dewayne said. “Anytime I’d hear that noise up there I just say a little prayer, ‘Lord, just watch them men up there.’ I’d pray throughout the night.”
But this time, it wasn’t just a loud noise.
“This time when I heard it, I turned around and looked and there was fire just rolling,” he said. “And it wasn’t a little fire, it was big. It already had the whole derrick smothered. It looked like a bon fire, a huge bon fire.”
Dewayne said what ignited was oil base. Oil base is a mud infused with diesel fuel used for lubrication during the drilling process. Dewayne believes it was a space heater that ignited the mud.

“That oil base is flammable,” Dewayne said. “For the last 72 hours they had me pumping three gallons of diesel per minute into that mud. When they broke that kelly to make a connection, that oil-based mud was flying right in their face by the hundreds of gallons with 3,000 pounds of pressure behind it.”
“It hit that oil-based mud and like a spring, the mud is coming out and the fire was coming with it,” Dewayne said. “In no time, it was a hell hole.”
When Dewayne came around and up to the platform, he saw coworker Matthew Thurman engulfed in flames.

“I grabbed him and rushed him downstairs and put him out,” Dewayne said.
Recent rains had left pools of water around the platform and that is where Dewayne pushed Thurman to douse the flames. He ran back up the stairs to find his brother and found another coworker, Mark Pittman, also engulfed in fire and screaming.
“It was like something out of a bad movie,” he said. “I had never seen anything like it in my life. It was horrible. I rushed him downstairs, rolled him around and put him out.”
Dewayne ran back upstairs and grabbed a pressure-washer hose and was fighting the fire when a coworker came along with a fire extinguisher.
“I asked him, ‘Have you seen my brother?! Have you seen my brother?!” Dewayne said. “He said, ‘Yeah, I just put him out.’ I said, ‘You just put him out? Well is he going to be all right? Is he OK? Is he going to live?’”
Dewayne said the coworker wouldn’t answer him.

Dewayne ran downstairs to where Gary’s charred body lay on the ground. He gave his brother CPR until paramedics arrived. He said he had them check his brother several times.
“I stayed there with him giving him CPR, pumping his chest until the medics got there,” Dewayne said. “They checked him, but I had them check him again and again and again. They kept telling me he was gone; it was too late.”
In shock, Dewayne got a blanket and covered his brother up. Once Gary’s body was placed in a hearse, Dewayne agreed to take an ambulance ride to a Coalgate hospital.

 

Brothers Dewayne, right, and his brother Gary stop for a photo at a local restaurant recently. Gary Keenan was killed on the rig during the fire.

• The family
Dewayne and Gary, along with sisters Melissa and Michelle, grew up in Paris, Arkansas. They were close.
“We did everything together,” he said.
When Dewayne was old enough, he set out on his own. He spent years working and eventually moved to Ada. Gary moved to Ada to live with Dewayne and Alexandrea so he could work.

“He wanted a job on the oil rigs,” Dewayne said. “He’s a hard worker. He’d go home to Arkansas on his days off and visit his friends and family. He was a real good family man: he had a lot of friends back home that he’d go check on.”
Dewayne said Gary would never slow down on the rig.
“No matter how tired he got, he would never drag his feet,” Dewayne said. “He didn’t want to disappoint me. He’d work hard for me and he’d work hard for those guys (at the rig).”
Dewayne said at the end of the day, there were no awards given and no pats on the back.
“You gotta fight for your job out there cause there is always another man willing to take it and wanting to take it. It’s never good enough out there roughnecking and so I just really appreciated his hard work,” he said.
He helped Gary get the job on the rig. Gary knew that although the work was hard, the pay was good and he wanted to make something of himself.



Gary and Alexandrea were friends before she and Dewayne met. Dewayne and Alexandrea fell in love and married, eventually having Aaliyah. Alexandrea said she and Gary were just like brother and sister and she misses him terribly.

“He was my brother too,” she said with tears in her eyes. “He was my best friend before I met my husband. We just became family. We had a good thing here.”
Dewayne said he was always tired in the mornings, but Gary was always upbeat.
“He’d yell out, ‘Good morning, bro!,’ trying to be funny morning guy,” Dewayne said. “You know, ain’t nobody trying to hear that (that early in the morning). I never thought I’d miss hearing that as much as I do.”


While growing up, the family attended Paris Christian Center Church in Arkansas. That is where Gary’s funeral services were held Friday. Dewayne lowered his brother into the ground and threw a handful of soil in as he said good-bye, for now.

• A better place
Dewayne said he and Gary had been praying for their grandfather the night of the fire.
“My grandfather, who is 92 years old, was in the hospital that night,” Dewayne said. “My brother came to me and said, ‘I think we need to say a prayer for our grandfather.’ I said, ‘Why, what’s going on?’ He said, ‘Granny just called me and told me he’s real sick and I think we need to pray for him.’ I said, ‘Well, let’s sit down and pray.’ So we said a prayer.”


Gary was still worried later on so Dewayne had another talk with him at about 10 p.m.

“We were talking about it again and I said, ‘Look, don’t stress on that,’ Dewayne said. “You know he’s 92 years old. His heart is right with God. We’re all going to be there. One day or another, we’re all going to be there. Just be glad to know he’s going to be there (Heaven). I thought I was preaching to him that night, but I honestly think God was preaching to me, knowing that I would be telling myself that in two hours.”

• What’s next
Dewayne continues to heal. He must visit a burn center every few days so doctors can monitor the burns on his hands. He has already had skin grafts. His hands are bandaged, as well as his leg where doctors took skin for the grafts.

He received breathing treatments after the fire due to heat and smoke he inhaled. Gary had a pickup he and Dewayne were going to fix up as a project vehicle. Dewayne is planning to restore the pickup as a memorial to his brother, once he recovers from his injuries.

Due to those injuries, Dewayne has been unable to work and the bills keep coming, the family said. A fund has been set up at gofundme.com to assist the family with donations (www.gofundme.com/j8h8yg).

Funds have also been setup to assist Dewayne’s injured coworkers, Matthew Thurman (www.gofundme.com/j3gn8k) and Mark Pittman (www.gofundme.com/Markpittman).
Both are recovering at Integris Baptist Burn Center in Oklahoma City. According to their fundraising pages, Mark Pittman was burned over 75 percent of his body and will spend about six months in the hospital. Matt Thurman was burned over 47 percent of his body and will spend two to three months in the hospital.

• The investigation
The investigation continues as to what ignited the fire that killed Gary Keenan as well as his coworker, 27-year-old Kelsey Bellah of Tulsa, according to Sam Schafnitt, chief of operations with the Oklahoma State Fire Marshal’s Office.
“What we’re looking at is, what was the ignition source?” Schafnitt said. “We’re still investigating. We have a couple of sources (we are looking at).”
He said they are working with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in the investigation.

Source: The Ada News



CANADA, SASK, REGINA, DECEMBER 19 2014. 57,000-GALLON OIL SPILL IN CANADA FORCES CLOSURE OF PIPELINE TO U.S.



CANADA, SASK, REGINA, DECEMBER 19 2014.   57,000-GALLON OIL SPILL IN CANADA FORCES CLOSURE OF PIPELINE TO U.S.

Canadian energy delivery company Enbridge Inc. has temporarily shut down and isolated one of its crude oil pipelines that connects to the United States after a 1,350-barrel, or 56,700-gallon oil spill, the company reported Wednesday evening. 

While the company said it’s not sure how long the cleanup will take or when the pipeline will be re-opened, it insisted that no oil was spilled out of the area within the Regina Terminal in Saskatchewan, where the incident occurred. It’s not yet clear what kind of oil was released — the 796,000 barrel-a-day Line 4 pipeline, which connects to a terminal in Wisconsin, carries heavy, medium, and light sour crude. 

“There are no impacts to the public, wildlife or waterways,” Enbridge said in a statement. “Nearby residents and businesses may detect a faint odour.” A spokesman for Enbridge told Reuters that the spill happened because of a problem with a valve within the terminal, and not because of a problem with the actual pipeline. He called it a “relatively easy fix,” but did not give a timeline for when the system would be back in action. Bloomberg News reported Thursday that Canada’s National Energy Board would meet with Enbridge officials on Friday to discuss when the line could return to service. Enbridge itself is a large player in oil pipelines, both in Canada and the United States.
It has made headlines here due to its role in the largest and most expensive inland oil spill in U.S. history, an event which saw more than 800,000-gallons of thick Canadian tar sands crude oil flow out of a ruptured Enbridge pipeline and into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River. That spill was also the costliest inland oil spill in U.S. history, with Enbridge estimating cleanup costs alone to be about $1.2 billion. 

That doesn’t include reimbursements to homeowners and nearby residents who were impacted. The reason why that spill was particularly disastrous was because of the type of oil involved: Canadian tar sands crude oil, which Enbridge frequently transports. When it spills, tar sands oil does not float on top of water like conventional crude. Instead, it gradually sinks to the bottom, making normal cleanup techniques and equipment of little use

Tar sands oil is too thick to transport in its original state, so it also needs chemicals like benzene to liquefy it for pipelines. That means that when tar sands spill, those chemicals evaporate into the air. Following the incident Wednesday evening, Enbridge said it was launching an investigation into the cause of the spill, and would take the results into serious consideration when attempting to prevent spills in the future. “We are committed to the goal of reaching zero spills and will thoroughly investigate the incident for lessons learned,” Enbridge’s statement said.
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Enbridge reports crude oil release from a Regina pipeline terminal
The Canadian Press Posted: Dec 17, 2014 9:10 PM CT Last Updated: Dec 17, 2014 10:16 PM CT 

Enbridge said it expected clean up due to a release of crude oil at its Regina Terminal to be completed on Thursday. (CBC)

The Regina Terminal for Enbridge is in the city's northeast industrial district. (CBC)
The energy company Enbridge has reported a spill of an estimated 1,350 barrels of oil from its Line 4 pipeline at the
Regina Terminal in Saskatchewan.
In a news release issued Wednesday, Enbridge said they shut down a portion of the pipeline around 11:55 p.m. CST Tuesday.
The company said the oil spill occurred entirely within a pumping station and was contained on-site in designated catchment areas.
"There are no impacts to the public, wildlife or waterways," the company said. "Nearby residents and businesses may detect a faint odour."
Enbridge said a cleanup of the oil was expected to be completed Thursday, but there was no estimate for when Line 4 would be restarted.
The company said initial estimates put the volume of the release at approximately 1,350 barrels, although that was subject to change.
It added that all regulatory, municipal and provincial officials have been informed and an investigation is underway.

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1,350 barrels of oil spill at Enbridge pumping station in Regina

Enbridge says 1,350 barrels of oil spilled from a pipeline at its Regina terminal on Tuesday.

CTV Regina
Published Thursday, December 18, 2014 8:02AM CST
Last Updated Thursday, December 18, 2014 4:31PM CST
Enbridge says crews have mopped up most of the oil that leaked from a pipeline at its Regina terminal.
“All the liquid product on the ground, as of early (Thursday) morning, has been completely cleaned up,” said Enbridge spokesperson Graham White.
“So, we’re just doing the finer points of surfaces, the pump station itself, the floors, that type of thing and we expect that to go on for several days yet.”
The energy company says an estimated 1,350 barrels of oil was released from the Line 4 pipeline at its pumping station in the city's industrial area Tuesday night.
There were no impacts to the public, wildlife or waterways, Enbridge said, and air monitoring showed concentrations were within safe limits.
White says the leak has been pinpointed to a failed valve flange, but the cause of the spill remains under investigation.


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Crude oil leak at Enbridge facility in Regina contained, company says
CBC News Posted: Dec 18, 2014 4:49 PM CT Last Updated: Dec 18, 2014 4:49 PM CT

The Enbridge facility in Regina. (CBC)
The National Energy Board and the Transportation Safety Board are investigating the spill of crude oil at a Regina facility owned by Enbridge.

Initial estimates noted that about 1,350 barrels of oil were released.
"For us that's significant," Graham White, a spokesperson for Enbridge, said Thursday. "Any leak to us is significant but certainly a volume of this size is something that we want to take very seriously and look carefully at what the causes might be so that we can ensure this particular type of scenario doesn't occur again on our system."

According to the company, the oil spill took place late on Tuesday night.
"I believe it was between eight and 11 minutes between the time the leak was reported and we were able to shut down the line and contain the source," White said.
An initial investigation by Enbridge found a valve failure likely caused the leak. The company said all the oil was contained to the site and most of the clean-up was completed Thursday morning.

The pipeline was expected to be fully operational sometime later on Thursday.
About 30 workers, including Enbridge employees and contractors, were involved in fixing the leak and cleaning up the site.