Deepwater Horizon’s Final Hours

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

It has been eight months since the Macondo well erupted below the Deepwater Horizon, creating one of the worst environmental catastrophes in United States history. With government inquiries under way and billions of dollars in environmental fines at stake, most of the attention has focused on what caused the blowout. Investigators have dissected BP’s well design and Halliburton’s cementing work, uncovering problem after problem.

But this was a disaster with two distinct parts — first a blowout, then the destruction of the Horizon. The second part, which killed 11 people and injured dozens, has escaped intense scrutiny, as if it were an inevitable casualty of the blowout.

It was not.

Nearly 400 feet long, the Horizon had formidable and redundant defenses against even the worst blowout. It was equipped to divert surging oil and gas safely away from the rig. It had devices to quickly seal off a well blowout or to break free from it. It had systems to prevent gas from exploding and sophisticated alarms that would quickly warn the crew at the slightest trace of gas. The crew itself routinely practiced responding to alarms, fires and blowouts, and it was blessed with experienced leaders who clearly cared about safety.

On paper, experts and investigators agree, the Deepwater Horizon should have weathered this blowout.

This is the story of how and why it didn’t.

It is based on interviews with 21 Horizon crew members and on sworn testimony and written statements from nearly all of the other 94 people who escaped the rig. Their accounts, along with thousands of documents obtained by The New York Times describing the rig’s maintenance and operations, make it possible to finally piece together the Horizon’s last hours.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/us/26spill.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

---

This excerpt is actually several paragraphs into this in-depth Sunday frontpage article.

[Cleita]

1. K&R!

[intheflow]

2. Kicking for greater exposure.

:kick:

[TheMadMonk]

3. Notice the thread running right through the article?

Minimal response to emergency situations.

Routine operations (from the few brief sentences on the subject) seem to be close to what I might consider close industry best practice. Or at least are carefully crafted to give that illusion to everyone INCLUDING those tasked with adhering to those practices.

Emergency procedures on the other hand appear to have been crafted in such a way that at best, the situation forces a the minimum response deemed necessary to contain a given emergency. Every procedural impediment seems to have been put in place to ensure that responses to an emergency situations do not exceed the minimum necessary to deal with the ANTICIPATED emergency.

Emergencies are expensive. Lost time, lost revenue, cost of replacing and recertifying expended equipment, incidental injuries associated with overreaction, and all the other costs associated with picking up the pieces and resuming normal operations.

The failure of the EDS system is more than likely down to a catastrophic failure cascade that came about due to the above hesitation. However, it would not particularly surprise me for it to be discovered that the EDS had been modified so that it had to be tripped in two of the three control rooms. After all: If it were ever truly needed it would be hit in all three control rooms within a very short timeframe anyway and by making it a "vote", an unnecessary disconnect is avoided.

Caveat: I have absolutely no reason to believe anything like that was done, just freely associating how I might put in place systems and procedures to prevent or discourage unnecessary activation of last ditch systems without obviously compromising safety.

[Scruffy1]

4. A very astute observation

In my mind its a lot like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. The human element involved simply didn't recognize that the worst case scenario could be happening and instead wasted a lot of time in order to not have to lose the well.
This I don't mean as a criticism of the crew. It's a given in all disasters that things rarely go according to the planning for the emergency and it seems that their was no clear cut lines of command for instant decision making.

The decision to use the gas separator instead of sending the whole mess to sea is a dead give away to the psychology
involved. The only reason for this seems to be to minimize the exposure of the company to environmental concerns.
While I am sure that the person making the decision wasn't thinking of that, but simply following the protocol of minimum response first.

I truly believe that a complex situation like this disaster is best handled by automated system that don't rely on human judgment, especially when the shit hits the fan and information overload occurs. The Netherlands has done this with their flood control and no human is allowed to over ride the computer decision to close the floodgates.

Thanks for the post.

[localroger]

5. Humans are going to worry about the money

Even if your job description specifically calls for you to pull that trigger, it's always going to be in the back of your mind that if you're wrong you might find yourself standing in front of your boss's desk trying to explain why you did something that cost millions of dollars when it did not, in fact, turn out to be necessary. And especially if you have BP's corporate culture which apparently made it plain the money was more important than the best possible safety.

[social_critic]

6. Very good article and observations

Indeed, it seems the human factor failed big time all over the place. Top down, within BP and within Transocean. The MMS seems to have failed to recognize the potential for a catastrophe. But the emergency response could have worked if they had focused on a) KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID, and b) WHEN IN DOUBT, CLOSE THE ANNULAR AND RAMS. I guess this isn't the type of website one can be too technical, but it should have been evident to any person familiar with deep water drilling that a well blowing liquid out of the drill pipe needs to be closed immediately, period. Regarding my comment about keep it simple stupid, the orders to transfer mud out of the vessel at the same time they were taking returns was incredibly stupid. Whoever gave that order was a first class moron, and should be put on the dock.

[pitohui]

7. this is something i've said over and over -- there didn't need to be the loss of life

the disconnected alarms, the lack of respect for the workers' lives...accidents will prob. always happen on rigs, you're dealing w. a dangerous product in a dangerous conditions and we are human...but the fact that the alarm was disconnected that would have given those 11 men time to evacuate...this angers me

[BeFree]

8. Aw c'mon

It was the tree-huggers fault this happened. If we had just let them drill in Alaska none of this would have ever happened.

La-de-da-da-da. I likes me some fox snews.

[UpInArms]

9. that was perhaps the most frightening piece of writing I have read in quite

some time.

The failure to sound the alarm... it was a miracle more did not perish.

[WillyT]

10. K & R !!!

:kick: