The Department of Energy has selected 13 projects to enhance the environmental safety of deepwater drilling projects, particularly by improving the cement casing process that investigators cited as a cause of BP's Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.
DOE will spend $35.4 million to fund the projects, with an addiitonal $21.2 million provided by its research partners.
"All of the projects aim to develop and validate new technologies to enhance safety and environmental sustainability," according to Jenny Hakun, spokesman for DOE's Office of Fossil Energy.
DOE's research partners will include the University of Houston, the Univeristy of Oklahoma, the Colorado School of Mines, and a number of private companies including GE Global Research and a litany of smaller Houston-based companies.
"Research needs addressed by the projects include (1) new and better ways to monitor displacement during casing cementing using intelligent casing and smart materials, and (2)assessing corrosion, stress cracking, and scale at extreme temperature and pressure. All of the projects aim to develop and validate new technologies to enhance safety and environmental sustainability," according to a DOE press release.
The initial cause of the Deepwater Horizon disaster was “failure of a cement barrier in the production casing string," according to the final investigative report by the U.S. Coast Guard and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
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