The Worst Oil Disaster Ever

It's like looking at the gateway to hell, said a q80, literally from horizon to horizon you can see smoke and fires, one of the

worst

disaster

s I've

ever

seen, that's what we normally deal with, we just n

ever

have 5 or 600 in a row to work on, we just have to be careful, make sure we have the right plan when we attack the pit and we'll take them one at a time, just like we did with this pit, here now, where are you going from here? follow the path to the next in February 1991, after the failed invasion of Kuwait, the retreating Iraqi army sabotaged more than 700 oil wells, the resulting fires turned the blue of the desert sky black, turning day into night with the thick saturated smoke of the submarines that looked like streaks. of ink across the planet from space an ecological and economic

disaster

with a virtually endless supply of fuel the fires could have lasted 45 years without intervention and conditions worsened with each passing moment it is estimated that between 5 and 6 million barrels of oil was lost in the Fires raged every day at a cost per barrel of around $18.

The 8th quarter government was losing a million dollars every 13 to 16 minutes. Putting out a single oil well fire is a challenge, but the situation in Kuwait would put firefighting experts to the limit. Teams would have to navigate unexploded ordnance scattered across the war-torn deserts, and not all of the oil gushing from the ground was being burned by the gigantic 90M-high Flames. Lakes of toxic oil quickly began to form around the Flames that could ignite at any moment, making the firefighting operation even more dangerous. This was one of the most complex firefighting operations ever undertaken. Cuit is estimated to have spent $25 billion on payments to firefighters and oil and gas workers to stop the flow of its precious oil.

These fires and the payday that was at stake sparked a race between expert firefighting teams from around the world. Veteran Texas oilmen gathered at this hotel said they will need hundreds of workers and it will take at least a year to put out the billion-dollar fires, and that's before any accounting of the environmental price tag is done. However, a team of 23 Hungarians arrived with a machine like no other: a custom-made firefighting vehicle, a tank equipped with two huge jet engines, an incredible machine that played a role in extinguishing massive fires. operation in 1988 Iraq emerged from an 8 year war with Iran bruised, battered and financially crippled unable to pay its debts campaigned for OPEC to increase the price of oil a measure that would help Iraq pay off its war debts however Iraq He claimed that Kuwait had done the opposite, it exceeded its production quotas, which caused oil prices to fall and in August 1990 Iraq began its conquest of Q8;

However, after a six-month counteroffensive by the United States and its allies, Iraq's quest to claim Kuwait's oil for itself came to an end. but their mission to increase oil prices was not over, as while retreating they sabotaged Q's oil production within a few days. Iraq destroyed 85% of Kuwait's oil wells. The first damage control efforts had nothing to do with the fires half buried in the UN sand. bombs that exploded around each well there may be mines and booby traps everything will have to be cleared before work can begin putting out the fires for almost a month the 700 fires raged unattended while the fields were cleared the military began to clear the path using explosives Charged cables that cleared the paths to the wells;

However, if there was oil in the ground, these explosives could not be used and instead the mines were buried with sand to create a safe passage. By the end of the first year, more than one million mines and 600 tons of unexploded ordnance have been disposed of. Fighting fires in a desert comes with a logistical challenge: first, there is no water. We will need massive amounts of water once we have water where we can cool the area and get closer to it. You can start trying to remove the damaged wellhead or possibly even put out the fires.

You could stay there all day, as long as you have water. In the absence of water, you couldn't stay there for even a second to fight the fire. fires crews needed to pump millions of gallons of seawater using existing pipelines firefighters had access to 25 million gallons of seawater every day and the water was pumped into hundreds of artificial lagoons but they got close enough to the fires Not only spraying this water accurately but also repairing the damaged oil infrastructure was proving to be a huge challenge. Hardened carbon-rich mounds formed from cooked oil were forming volcano-like formations around the wellheads, blocking access to infrastructure that needed to be repaired or capped. stop the flow of oil with the flames too close to the mounds to safely clear the path.

Engineers and firefighters on the ground needed a solution. One solution was to lower long steel tubes with a crane to the mouth of the well, which allowed the flame to be raised. off the ground and allowed crews to get close enough to remove supports and begin extinguishing the flame with heat. Another method was to deprive fires of oxygen using explosives. Crews would fill empty oil drums with plastic explosives and slowly maneuver them over the flames where they would explode and consume so much oxygen in the surrounding air that the flames would go out, but what would you rather do, slowly approach a blazing fire surrounded by lakes of oil? with toxic oil raining from above with a kilogram of explosives or roll?

Until the fire in an armored tank with two jet engines adapted to become the most powerful water cannons in the world, a team of 23 Hungarian firefighters appeared with that nicknamed big wind, removed the turret of an old Soviet T62 tank and the replaced by two M 21 jet engines to prevent desert sand, debris, tools, birds or even firefighters from being sucked into the air intakes, large fences were placed in front of them, the driver entered the tank through a small hatch located between the two huge jet engines. It was necessary to adapt the already reduced space to place two compressed air tanks to allow the driver to survive the toxic fumes that surrounded the fires and with visibility inside the tank practically non-existent and with two jet engines less than one meter from each other. .

From their ears, communication with the driver was extremely limited, they were directed by the commander's joystick, which turned on two simple green and red lights that indicated to the driver where to point the tank, above the driver and outside the tank, sat the engine operator. On a platform that controlled the thrust of the engines, once given the go-ahead, the crew positioned the tank just 8 m from the fire, protected by a transparent heat shield, the operator started the engines, which consumed half a gallon of fuel per second and generated With 120 KES of thrust from this position, the operator could see the three water nozzles that sprayed 3,780 liters of water every minute directly into the engines exhaust.

The machine was built specifically to put out oil fires with an endless supply of fuel gushing from the ground. and the ground was so hot that it would re-ignite any fuel that touched it, extinguishing the flame alone was not enough, firefighters needed a way to cut the fuel from the flame and quickly cool the surrounding area, the extreme blast of air and water would hit the gushing column of oil with such force that it would pass through it, robbing the flame of more fuel and the immense volume of water would remove enough heat to ensure that the flame could not restart the engines thrust and also had enough power to also dislodges hardened carbon buildup around the wellhead;

However, the engines were designed to draw in frigid air in the upper atmosphere, not the hot, dense air of the desert. This limited the machine to 20-minute bursts to prevent overheating, but even with the 20-minute limit, the Hungarian team exceeded expectations in extinguishing the fire. The team only needed 12 to 40 seconds compared to the hours it took using traditional methods. Putting out the flame was only the first step in the process; however, the flow of oil into Kuwait still needed to be stopped. The wells extract oil from deposits located between 120 and 2100 M underground. These reservoirs contain not only oil but also seawater and natural gas compressed to 7,000 PSI when the well is exploited.

These gases and liquids will flow uncontrollably outward driven by that pressure. An oil well. is designed to safely transport these precious commodities to the surface, the wells are lined with steel and concrete casings to resist pressure and prevent oil from seeping into the Earth on its way up and the top of these steel pipe is topped with something nicknamed a Christmas tree containing pressure gauges and control valves, this Christmas tree is what the Iraqi army targeted and destroyed, while most of the wells they targeted were successfully destroyed, some remained intact showing us how they were destroyed, we found only one that was not following these detonating wires to a single wellhead Saddam's troops had loaded it with explosives the plastic explosive lying in sandbags below for some reason had not just exploded another Hazard that oil firefighters faced before they began their work In some lucky cases the top broke cleanly expelling the oil upwards The clean brake provided a steady flow of oil that burned effectively and steadily.

They were easier to combat as the pit head was easier to see, reach, and block; however, most of the wells did not have a clean cut. Partially destroyed trees sent oil flying in random directions and cracks in the pipes caused a spill of oil that pooled cooked and hardened around the well. Once the fires were out, crews could move in to cap the well if there was minimal destruction and the pipes were still maintained. In its general circular form, teams advance with a device called a stinger. A stinger is a conical fitting that is inserted into the well opening while the oil is still flowing, sometimes even while it was still on fire.

This attack accessory was placed on the end of a crane. and slaughter sludge was pumped to control the flow. Killing mud is made using normal drilling mud or it is something called kill weight mud made from dense substances like barite and hematite. On-site calculations based on flow rate and wellbore pressure dictated how much of this material was needed to exceed the hydrostatic pressure of the wellbore to block the flow of oil. Wells with regular openings. Larger grain mud was needed to form a seal around the Stinger. In some cases the wells were too damaged even for this and the structure had to be cut first in total it took more than 10,000 people to fight for more than 8 months to extinguish these fires the Hungarian team arrived quite late on the scene three teams of Houston Texas and one from Canada were the first to arrive.

On the scene they worked alongside the Q80 firefighters for the first few months, however the slow progress frustrated the Q8 government as they watched their entire economy rise from the ground, for which in August 1991 more teams were invited. It was then that a great wind came to the place. three Texas teams plugged a total of 357 wells between them, while the Canadian team plugged 176. The Canadians brought their own specialized firefighting truck with its own water supply designed to use 90% less dry chemical water against fires, which allowed them to move quickly. and efficiently in an environment where water was scarce, the impressive large wind machine finally arrived on site later and limited by logistics managed to plug only nine wells.

The q80 oil fires were one of the

worst

ecological disasters in the history of For comparison, the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon disaster spilled 205 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and took almost a month to control. The Q8 oil fires caused the loss of 42 billion gallons of oil in 8 months. An ecological disaster. So immense that more than a quarter of a million war veterans have been affected by its toxic effects with immeasurable effects on the world ingeneral. The story of these firefighters is just one of thousands that emerged as a result of Saddam Hussein's rule.

Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq for almost a quarter of a century and during that time he started two huge wars that resulted in the deaths of millions of people and the International Coalition that was formed to stop him was the largest since World War II. The story of how this man changed the world around him is fascinating and is the subject of this episode of the real life Loris Nebula exclusive series modern conflicts there are now 36 episodes of this series that you cannot see anywhere else if you sign up today you'll even get early access to our next crazy engineering episode about the F-117 Nighthawk that was used in the battle to recover qas or you can watch our full five-part Battle of Britain series showing you in intricate detail how Great Britain strategized its most shocking victory of World War II.

Nebula is full of exclusive content you can't get on YouTube along with our entire ad-free catalog. You can also easily download videos to watch on the go. You can get all of this while directly supporting this channel for less than the price. of a cup of coffee or if you're just sick of subscribing to another subscription service, we also offer a lifetime membership for $300, you can get lifetime access to nebula, which helps us fund exciting new originals that break the mold of what YouTube creators do. You can do like the upcoming travel competition series The Getaway from the team behind Jetlag the game This channel relies on funding from the Nebula If you have been subscribed to this channel for over 3 years you will have seen the huge increases in Production quality that nebula has facilitated the growth from simple 2D animations that Mike and I learned to make to having a full team of incredibly talented 3D artists that rival any television production.

It's expensive work and we would love to grow our team even more , something we can only do with your support as YouTube advertising revenue simply didn't cover the bills last year, in fact we made a financial loss for 3 months in a row. YouTube is simply a volatile platform. where we depend on the whims of advertisers, the nebula is our lifeboat in a volatile sea of ​​social media, this is a common theme across all YouTube creators, the goal of the nebula is to enable and enhance our entire roster of creators to eliminate the financial uncertainty that forces us to rush projects and eliminate algorithms that force us to analyze data points instead of what really matters: the audience on the other side of the screen, so if you want to see all the fascinating exclusive content of nebula, visit nebula.com L drops price from 250 per month for the whole year