Macondo-deepwater horizon accident

Some of these lessons were re-leamed after the Macondo-Deepwater Horizon accident (see Chapter 14). 

MMS was one of the first organizational casualties of the accident. Regulation of offshore oil exploration in the US at the time of the Macondo-Deepwater Horizon accident had largely developed in response to the Santa Barbara oilspill in 1968, which occurred at Platform Alpha operated by the Union Oil Company of California (later Unocal, which was taken over by Chevron). The Santa Barbara oilspill caused a public outcry because of environmental damage, and this led ultimately to the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1971. However, offshore exploration was regulated by MMS, whose remit was wider than safety, and which perhaps led to conflicts of interest. 

The Macondo-Deepwater Horizon accident is the most complex of accidents. It was a combination of Complicated and highly specialized technical issues about how to seal a difficult well far below the seabed in deepwater the design, manufacturing and testing of a blowout preventer that was supposed to operate extremely reliably almost 5000 feet (1500 m) below sea level poor decision making and unclear contractual divisions of responsibilities between the main parties. 

The final BOEMRE report gave the central cause of the Macondo-Deepwater Horizon accident as failure of the cement barrier in the production casing string . 

The Texas City refinery accident and the Macondo-Deepwater Horizon accident are completely dissimilar - it is very difficult to identily any similarities between the... 

Few technical subjects are so prone to misrepresentation as the health effects of low-level nuclear radiation. Journalists can seemingly always find a knowledgeable-sounding, self-appointed expert who is prepared to make unreasonable assertions about the consequences of nuclear accidents. The subject of health effects of radiation was controversial, and remains so, perhaps to a lesser extent, to this day. Also, in the months following the accident there were new daily revelations from inside the Soviet Union, which had hitherto been mostly terra incognita. The combined effect was to put the news media into a feeding frenzy about an industrial accident, in a way that was probably not matched until the Macondo-Deepwater Horizon accident in 2010. 

A final thought Just suppose there really were no common cause factors causing the accidents which affected the two BP facilities within five years. Macondo-Deepwater Horizon was one of the most expensive accidents of any sort ever, and Texas City was one of the most expensive refinery accidents ever. So, if there really were no common cause factors, that would mean BP was just plain unlucky to have these two huge accidents so close together. Is that credible ... 

Partial blame for several accidents desalbed in this book have afterward been ascribed to a safety regulator that was not sufficiently engaged or independent, or where the safety regulator has had a conflict of interest - typically, promoting an industry while also regulating its safety. Such major accidents include Macondo-Deepwater Horizon, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. In those three accidents, three different countries had each to learn, the hard way, the same lesson about why safety regulators have to be strong and independent. 

But the impact of Deepwater Horizon/Macondo went beyond the United States the accident caused oil companies all over the world to think through the effectiveness of their safety management programs. Moreover, events such as the Montara blowout in Australian waters in the year 2009 showed that these events are not confined to one place. The contents of this book therefore go beyond the United States regulatory environment. The book describes some of the major offshore incidents that have occurred over the last 40 years or so, some of which occurred onshore, that led to the development of modem safety management systems and regulations. So, for example, it contains a thorough discussion of the Safety Case approach—a system that was first used in the North Sea but that has now spread to many international locations. 

BP had hired the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, owned by Transocean Ltd, based in Vernier, Switzerland, to carry out exploratory drilling at Macondo. Trans-ocean is listed on both the New York Stock Exchange and the Swiss Stock Exchange. It is a very large company in its own right in 2010 (the year of the accident), it had 18000 employees, its market capitalization was about 21 billion, revenues almost 10 billion, and it declared a profit of 961 million. 

The lease of Deepwater Horizon from Transocean cost BP about 1 million per day. On the day of the accident, April 20, 2010, BP and the Macondo prospect were almost six weeks behind schedule and more than 58 million over budget. 

On the day of the accident, April 20, 2010, the intention was to seal temporarily the Macondo well so that Deepwater Horizon could move away - temporary abandonment . The plan was that, at some later point, another completion rig would be put into place to install hydrocarbon production equipment. This rig would in turn be replaced by a production facility that would connect to the subsea wellhead, left by the completion rig, so that production could be started. 

It is tempting to try to draw the conclusion that a penny-pinching attitude was at least a factor in both accidents. For Texas City, maintenance cuts were evident, and the operating budget had been reduced by 25% after BP took over Amoco. For Deepwater Horizon, Macondo was a high-profile prestige project, and the cost and program overruns for Macondo development will have received corporate-level attention. 

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