Thunder Horse hobbled by failures

BP has announced that it plans to retrieve and rebuild all the sea-bed production equipment from its Thunder Horse field in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. A series of tests carried out over the past four months revealed metallurgical failure in components of the subsea system.

BP said the problem became evident when it conducted pre-commissioning tests by pumping water through the system to establish system integrity. The equipment passed all the normal industry standard tests and regulatory requirements. However, when the company carried out more prolonged and rigorous testing, as an additional safety precaution, a failure occurred on a subsea weld.