US to arbitrarily rape Canada to the tune of $250 million

[KrazyHorse]

The problem is that Dan doesn't know who to unquestioningly believe in that case. Oil companies or the US military?

[Flubber]

I still wonder where the heck the 250 million number comes from . Average daily production of Hibernia and Terra Nova combined is around 300,000 barrels daily so at say 50 bucks a berrel thats 15 million day so a 15 day shutdowm of everything is 225 million and thats ridiculously long.

( Note that in that scenario, the 225 million is not lost really -- in theory it is deferred to the end of the productive lives of the respective fields in that any shutdown will mean it will take a little longer to get to the end)

[DanS]

The problem is that Dan doesn't know who to unquestioningly believe in that case.

You haven't even given your assumptions as to why you worry about a 90 m^2 object striking another modestly-sized object in a many km^2 drop box, let alone outside it. Show me that the risk is many orders of magnitude larger than what the Air Force says it is.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by DanS


You haven't even given your assumptions as to why you worry about a 90 m^2 object in a many km^2 drop box, let alone outside it.

A two metre square object would be a huge problem if it hit production lines. The size of the object is not the issue since any object moving at a high speed could cause the loss of a platform

It comes down to whether there is a realistic danger of contact. I've hear the one in a trillion quote and I have heard that the oil companies are seriously concerned. These are companies that routinely assess risk and do business in the North Atlantic, north sea and some not so stable African countries. They are not unreasonably cautious in the normal case. Offshore oil and gas development is, after all, an inherently risky business.

Oh and premier Williams can say what he wants since I don't believe he has any actual power to do anything ( that rests with the Board ).

[DanS]

I still wonder where the heck the 250 million number comes from.

Who knows? Maybe it needs to be a big number because the launch is costing the Air Force half a billion dollars and the payload is probably worth several billion dollars.

[Flubber]

NOte that different platforms run by different companies are taking different approaches to evacuation. No story has indicated that there is any government or Board directive on this yet

Conflicting reports emerge over U.S. rocket launch
Last Updated Fri, 08 Apr 2005 21:44:40 EDT
CBC News
ST. JOHN'S, NFLD. - U.S. officials are making conflicting statements on plans to launch a rocket from Florida over Newfoundland next week, while at least one oil platform on the Grand Banks resumed evacuation plans.

Edgar Vasquez, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, said the Titan IVB rocket launch will be launched Wednesday from Cape Canaveral, two days later than planned.

However, Capt. Joe Macri, of the Air Force Space Command in Colorado, said Friday that no date has yet been set.

"We're looking at other launch windows right now," Macri told the CBC. "I believe we could launch again next week, but there's no scheduled date."

The scheduled launch prompted a diplomatic flurry on Thursday, with federal and provincial officials calling for a delay.

Canadian oil companies are concerned that a 10,000-kilogram spent rocket could fall within 25 kilometres of the Hibernia oil platform and others over the Grand Banks.

There are also fears that a direct hit on one of the platforms could cause an ecological disaster. Hibernia, for example, contains a million barrels of oil in reserve at a time.

Risk of collision 1 in a trillion: U.S. official

Early statements said the booster from the rocket would crash in the Atlantic Ocean within 25 kilometres of the Hibernia platform – but Macri offered a different figure.

He calculated debris from the rocket would fall two kilometres outside that area.

Macri estimated the risk of a collision to be remote – one in a trillion.

Evacuation order resumes


Those odds didn't seem to reassure the oil companies, as at least one of them – Petro-Canada – said it will remove staff from the floating Terra Nova oil platform on the weekend.

Officials at Hibernia Management and Development wouldn't comment Friday on evacuation plans.

About 245 people work at a time at Hibernia, which is located about 315 kilometres east of St. John's. Another 80 people work at the Terra Nova platform.

Thursday's aborted evacuation plans included moving the drill rig GSF Grand Banks, at the White Rose field.

Williams complains about lack of information


Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams said Friday afternoon that he had been having trouble receiving information from U.S. and federal government officials.

Williams said he still doesn't know when the rocket might be launched, where the booster might land or what the risks are.

"Information seems to be inconsistent, seems to be all over the place, and it's causing me some concern," Williams told reporters.

A spokesperson for Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan said senior Canadian and American officials are currently assessing the risks and engineers from Newfoundland, Ottawa and the U.S. will speak Saturday.

Titan on intelligence mission


The Titan IVB mission is to be directed by the Pentagon's National Reconnaissance Office, a branch of the U.S. intelligence network.

The rocket is to be used to launch a satellite.

The U.S. Air Force said the mission was delayed because of a fuel-loading problem.

[Flubber]

Something is not being communicated correctly if all 3 fields are evacuated. They are relatively close together in one sense but they are about 30-50 km from each other. I've seen stories that say Hibernia is just outside the drop box but where is this drop box?? In teh middle of all 3 fields ??

[DanS]

That's an old article. They have a new article after the Air Force briefed your guys on the risk analysis. This joker wants a 100% guarantee, which he knows the US could never deliver, even if it moved the trajectory.

April 10, 2005 - 18:36

Nfld. premier unhappy with lack of information on U.S. rocket launch

ST. JOHN'S, Nfld. (CP) - Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams continued to blast away at officials in Canada and the United States on Sunday, accusing them of withholding information about a rocket launch that could drop space junk on North Atlantic oil platforms.

The outspoken premier said a weekend meeting in Dartmouth, N.S., that brought together oil industry executives, military officials and federal bureaucrats from both countries left him with more questions than answers.

"I don't like what I see and I'm not happy," Williams told a news conference in St. John's, Nfld.

Even though the U.S. military announced it would delay the launch until next Sunday - the second such delay in as many days - the premier said evacuation of the platforms would start Thursday unless the trajectory of the rocket was changed.

Williams said the meeting failed to ease his concerns because oil executives and the province's risk analyst, Fasil Khan of Memorial University in St. John's, were shut out of part of the meeting.

"When they have the information and don't provide it and exclude half of the people invited for the primary meeting, I have some very serious concerns," he said.

"We have to turn up the heat quite simply to get answers."

The U.S. military's original plan was to have the Titan IV rocket - carrying a satellite for the Pentagon - blast off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Monday.

But the launch date was pushed back to Wednesday after Williams went public with his concerns.

Following the Dartmouth meeting, Alex Swann, a spokesman for federal Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan, said U.S. officials had decided to delay the launch for unspecified "technical reasons."

Indeed, the U.S. Air Force Space Command has insisted that the delays were both the result of technical problems, not Canadian political pressure.

Williams has said he's worried for the safety of those on three offshore projects because U.S. officials have confirmed that one of the rocket's two, 10,000-kilogram booster engines could fall within 25 kilometres of the Hibernia platform.

However, officials at Space Command have insisted the chances of a direct hit are about one in a trillion.

The premier has said he wants a 100 per cent guarantee that nothing will hit the massive platform, 315 kilometres southeast of St. John's.

That's why plans will go ahead to evacuate the fixed Hibernia oil platform, the floating Terra Nova oil platform and an offshore drill rig, Williams said.

Roughly 414 offshore workers will be moved if the evacuation goes ahead. Getting the three projects up and running again could cost the industry about $250 million.

Swann said the Americans had been very forthcoming with information about the rocket, but Canadian officials are still trying to persuade the Americans to change the rocket's flight path.

So far there have been no indications from the Americans that they are about to change their mind.

Williams said he would outline his concerns Monday in a letter to McLellan.

"We will be putting in writing to her a list of questions that we want to have answered."

Williams said he would also meet Monday with oil industry officials to see how they want to proceed.

[DanS]

And here's another from CTV, although still incredibly biased reporting.

U.S. rocket plan has Nfld.'s Williams fuming

CTV.ca News Staff

Over fears of falling debris from a U.S. booster rocket, Newfoundland and Labrador's premier is advising oil industry workers to evacuate the Hibernia platform beginning Thursday.

Citing unspecified "technical reasons," the U.S. Air Force has delayed the launch of a surveillance satellite over the north Atlantic until April 17.

It's now scheduled to blast off next Sunday. But the delay has done nothing to allay the anger of Premier Danny Williams.

After a meeting between Canadian and U.S. officials in Halifax on Saturday, Williams told reporters today that he has more questions than answers.

"The Americans walked away from the meeting thinking that's it, Newfoundland and Labrador are going to be satisfied -- that we have enough information and they can go ahead. They're dead wrong," said Williams.

The office of Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan, meanwhile, called it "a good discussion.''

"The Americans have been very forthcoming and Canadian officials will consider the information,'' said spokesperson Alex Swann.

The Pentagon intends to launch a surveillance satellite into orbit, and its 10,000-kilogram booster rocket -- called the Titan IV -- is expected to fall near the Hibernia oil platform in waters off Newfoundland.

Canadian officials are concerned that falling space junk from the booster might land on the platform or other nearby oil rigs.

"We don't have any idea of what the consequences of that size of an object dropping in the ocean are," Williams said. "We have not been told what the effect would be on the wave action or the ocean floor. We haven't been given the full ecological impact, so at this point we're not getting answers to the question that I want answered."

American officials insist there is very little danger posed by the launch and have no plans to change the rocket's trajectory.

Extensive risk calculations have been done and the Hibernia platform is one mile outside of the expected impact zone, said a U.S. air force spokesman Friday.

The Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board had already begun preparations to evacuate Hibernia and the nearby Terra Nova oil platforms.

Production at both locations would have to temporarily stop and over 400 offshore workers would have to be moved to safety.

The economic impact of the stoppage in production could cost $250 million.

With files from The Canadian Press

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by DanS


You haven't even given your assumptions as to why you worry about a 90 m^2 object striking another modestly-sized object in a many km^2 drop box, let alone outside it. Show me that the risk is many orders of magnitude larger than what the Air Force says it is.

Modestly sized my ass. Probably something like 100m on a side.

That means 1 in 100 divided by number of square kilometres of target zone assuming a flat distribution.

Unless you think that the target zone is 10 billion square kilometres the one in a trillion is stupid.

This is elementary arithmetic, dear boy.

[KrazyHorse]

Biased reporting?

[KrazyHorse]

Uh, Dan, what were those articles supposed to tell us? We already knew that our government was getting involved. But they made no plans to force an evacuation of the platforms. So do you mind telling me why the oil companies are willing to take a huge hit on finances?

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


Modestly sized my ass. Probably something like 100m on a side.

That means 1 in 100 divided by number of square kilometres of target zone assuming a flat distribution.

Unless you think that the target zone is 10 billion square kilometres the one in a trillion is stupid.

This is elementary arithmetic, dear boy.

10 billion square kilometres is a square 100 000 kilometres on a side, by the way. Another way to look at it is about 20 times the surface area of the entire earth.

[KrazyHorse]

Or about 2% of the area of a circle with radius the same as the earth moon distance

[The Mad Monk]

*golf clap*

That's wonderful.

Now, given that the first article says

within something like 25 kilometers of Newfoundland oil platforms

...and that Hibernia is about one mile from the expected drop zone, what is the chance of an impact if it's completely random?