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35 comments on Update on US GOM from MMS, EIA and Scout Data
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35 comments on Update on US GOM from MMS, EIA and Scout Data
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A minimal Cat 5 hurricane has a windspeed of over 135 kts which is about twice the speed of a Cat 1 and has aproximately 8 times the destructive force because the power of the wind increases as the cube of the wind speed. Since I live in South Florida less than two miles from the beach I've hunkered down through Cat 2s and 3s. I know first hand the results, it ain't pretty. To suggest that a rig can take a direct hit from a Cat 5 and come through unscathed is what I would call being unduly optimistic...
BTW I've read some where on NOAA's website that there was some talk of upping the ante by adding a Cat 6 to the Saffir-Simpson Scale due to the possibility of more intense hurricanes in the future.
Hopefully the rigs of the future will be designed to handle 30 ft waves and 200 kt winds. As for the ones out there now, good luck with them.
Hello FMagyar,
Thxs for your reply. Yep, perhaps I was unduly optimistic--I can still recall the photo of the Thunderhorse platform badly hammered and listing heavily...A platform able to withstand a CAT 6 might be impossible to engineer.
Maybe not. Though the EROEI for the oil recovered by such a rig would probably be more negative than the actual impact of a Cat 6 ;-)
After hurricane Dennis, Thunderhorse was listing due to a fault in the construction causing some of the ballast tanks to overfill when evacuation procedures were followed; this was not a direct consequence of hurricane winds or waves.
Shell's Auger platform logged sustained 125 mph (Cat 3) winds before the anemometer blew out when the eye of Ike passed by. It was back online within weeks. These platforms are designed for cat 5 survival. "Typoon, a small spar, and many older shelf platforms, however didn't make it through 2005.