BP's Gulf Spill Report Shows String of Failures

eldavojohn writes "News is out of BP's report on the gulf spill that shifts some of the blame on to other companies like Transocean that worked with BP in erecting the Deepwater Horizon rig. If you were affected by the spill, you might find the video, executive summary and 193-page report an interesting read. The summary outlines six or seven major failures in safety and engineering that all built up to the deaths of eleven workers and widespread contamination of the gulf. From incorrectly using seawater instead of drilling fluid to misinterpreting pressure test results, this report is just BP's side of the story as the blowout preventer has been pulled up and is still on its way to NASA where it will be analyzed by government investigators who will be able to compile their own report."

Comments

Complex environment, complex causes

[alfredos]

It is the same with aviation accidents. Sometimes it's just an individual screwing up, but that's the exception. Usually there are multiple causes as well as contributing factors. Unfortunately that doesn't mix well with the mainstream media, which wants a three-word expanation so that they can print in big letters on page one. I have learnt that if I want to know something about a mishap in a complex environment, either I read the whole 196-page document, or it's better if I don't learn anything at all.

Re:Complex environment, complex causes

[cgenman]

Usually when you talk about complex causes, you mean that factors A, B, C, and D all interacted in unexpected ways to cause a failure, but that most of those factors on their own are basically innocuous. This can be the case in aviation, which a century out remains a tricky human endeavor.

Here, we're talking about several major failures, any one of which would be bad on their own. You can't write it off as a "complex cause" when the safety failed because it was improperly maintained, then the safety person failed because he was improperly trained, then the backup safety failed because nobody installed it, etc. The cause is very simple: cutting too many corners.

Re:Complex environment, complex causes

[thegarbz]

Every major incident has a complex cause, maintaining safety devices has nothing to do with it. In all major industrial accidents there are multiple failures that all need to align perfectly in order for something to go wrong. Yes each on it's own right has the potential to cause a problem, but not usually on the scale of hitting the world media.

For example using drilling mud instead of seawater could have prevented the issue due to better pressure control.
Operators not waiting to sound the alarm could have mitigated much of the incident and loss of life
A BOP that had a working battery and front panel meant the well could have leaked for a day not 4 months.

For a major industrial incident all the ducks need to be lined up in one often very unlucky row.

Did they list corruption?

[DoofusOfDeath]

You know, the sex and other perks that bought off the regulators?

Or the part where they pencilled in the report forms on behalf of the inspectors, who would then trace them over in pen?

I can see how that would slip their minds.

It wasn't failure

[countertrolling]

It's company policy to forgo safety for increased profits. History is full of this. They took a gamble and got beat by a pair of deuces. But they have accountants to take care of it all. The main issue hasn't changed, and we'll be speculating on the the next disaster soon enough.

Re:there's another way to say it.

[Stevecrox]

I read the BBC article on the spill, they hardly said that. Halliburton apparently installed sub standard concrete which should have failed inspection but was somehow passed. Transocean/BP made a number of procedural failures and and a pressure test showed the problem days before it happened and was missed by drilling crew and BP.

How does that translate to "everybody's doing it?".

Considering it was a rig owned by BP, operated by Transocean and installed by Haliburton, with parts made by dozens of other companies it would be pretty impressive if the cause was purely BP's fault.

I still think the US government lept on a bandwagon in order to install a US CEO, who amusingly was far more involved with the rig than the then CEO.

Re:Queue the Libertarian Rants!

[enjerth]

The libertarian principle is more like giving the least trust to those with the greatest power. It's not in support of anything except personal freedom. It just happens that you get the worst of both worlds when you introduce regulation as the government selects "qualified" individuals, such as former CEO's of industry leaders, to give regulatory power to in their given field. I wouldn't want them selecting unqualified individuals, but the qualified ones have a history of personal investment and are likely quite partial. They don't make for impartial regulators.

Such as Michael Taylor, former VP of Public Policy at Monsanto Corp. and Monsanto lobbyist, appointed to senior FDA food safety adviser. Or Roger Beachy, former president of the Danforth Plant Science Center, another branch of the Monsanto Corp., is now heading the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

You don't trust corporations, but you refuse to realize that regulation just supports more corporatism?

Your government only gives you the illusion of protection and safety. You are really on your own in this world. We'd just like to have the government acknowledge that fact.

Re:Bad link

[thegarbz]

They didn't do that. And Boom. IMHO this is not a shot across the bow of Transocean...it's an arrow aimed straight at their heart: "the crew... did not act to control the well".

This is how all these investigations work. Nearly every major incident has such a multitude of failures in defence mechanisms leading up to it that it is actually quite easily to say "It's not my responsibility because if X happened then the entire situation could have been avoided." For example:

The Texas City incident could have been avoided by operations not overfilling the column. Damn operations. Or it could have been avoided if the high level switches in the column worked. Damn maintenance. Or it could have been avoided by the blowdown stack being connected to the flare relief line (the piping ran very close so this wasn't an expensive option). Damn engineers. How about a culture of routine complacency in the workplace? Damn Management!

Could apply the same thing to Three Mile Island. Operators should have realised there was no water in the cooling system and not cut the feed. Damn Operations. The PORV should have properly autoreclosed and not jammed open. Damn Maintenance. etc etc.

Chernobyl? Operators should not have shutdown the SCRAM shutdown system, engineering should have an interlock that prevents the removal of control rods so far out of the reactor and the sudden re-insertion etc. etc. etc.

This was Transocean's fault. It was Haliburton's fault. It was definitely BP's fault too.