Accidents

Lake Peigneur Drilling Accident

Whilst drilling a test well, a rig crew inadvertently caused a flood in a nearby salt mine. The previously freshwater lake became a salt water lake and the flow of a river was reversed.

Lake Peigneur is located in Louisiana, United States of America. It was a ten-foot deep freshwater lake  popular with sportsmen. On 20th November 1980, an exploration rig drilling for oil in the lakebed was  evacuated as it began to sink; this was perceived by the crew as a structural collapse. Meanwhile, the  nearby Jefferson Island salt mine was being evacuated due to the sudden onset of flooding.

The rig crew had been drilling a test well into deposits alongside a salt dome under Lake Peigneur. By some  miscalculation, the assembly drilled into the third level of the nearby salt mine. Fresh water from the lake  soon began trickling into the mine. Over the course of the morning, the fresh lake water began dissolving  the salt and enlarging the hole until water was literally flooding into the mine.

The whirlpool created as the lake drained into the mine sucked in the drilling platform, eleven barges, trees  and soil. The Delcambre Canal, which usually drains from the lake into a bay on the Gulf of Mexico, had its  flow reversed. This resulted in Lake Peigneur becoming a salt water lake. Fortunately, no injuries or loss of  human life were reported.

Federal experts from the Mine Safety and Health Administration were not able to determine the cause of  the accident due to confusion over whether the rig was drilling in the wrong place or whether the mine’s  maps were inaccurate.

This incident highlights the importance of the verifiability Data Property, specifically with regards to the  location of the rig. Note that this property was relevant both when the rig started to drill and also during  the post-incident investigation.

Links 

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Peigneur
  (accessed 29 November 2017).