NOTE THIS PARAGRAPH :
Brown, an Army veteran who suffered a broken leg and other injuries, told lawmakers the crew was often weeks or months behind on preventative maintenance because Transocean had cut the engine-room staff in half from the initial number or six workers in 2002.
“Three people were left to do six people’s jobs,” he said. Workers complained but didn’t get anywhere, he said. “They just kept telling us they would see what they could do,” said Brown, who says he witnessed a dispute among managers on the day of the explosion.
3 workers to do 6 people’s jobs ? That’s supposed to boost American productivity. No wonder our productivity is so high. Where else is BP-style corner cutting occuring in our econpmy ?
Is that what their lawyers told them to say ?
Let me guess. Union workers. 3 can’t work unless 3 are standing around watching them work.
Seems to me, the government was cutting corners as well by not doing the various checks and environmental preparedness. No wonder people on the rig at the time said no one seemed to know what to do. What do you think is the purpose of emergency drills?
It's starts with the government's culture of corruption, cutting corners, bypassing regulation steps, it all adds up and makes for a miserable ending. Why do you think they designed the regulations and proceedures in the first place?
Who thinks the waivers MMS gave to BP were not payback, tied to the campaign donations BP gave to Obama in 2008? Anyone?
Keep the focus on what really went wrong here, government oversight and regulations were not enforced. Who can blame BP when the government signed off on their corner cutting. And didn't they just fire the one who signed off on the waivers? Minerals Management Service Director Liz Birnbaum — Strange, they must know something.
Sounds like a perfect inquiry for Congress to get to the bottom of it.
Low level people may not know the real story ...
And then KABOOMMM ...
1) Then you were a damn fool to stay on that rig.
2)What did he do on this rig? "Laborer" doesn't tell us much. A roustabout bitching is nothing odd and about like a private telling us how the generals should be conducting operations.
This happens in corporations everywhere. Do more with less but still meet that schedule.
In my business, there’s a saying I’m fond of - “Cost, schedule, quality, pick two”.
This reminds me of the Thiokol engineers telling company officials about a flawed o-ring design on the shuttle and were ignored
Or the nuclear reactor cooling tower that poured concrete too soon, killing men on the platform.
This is an industrial accident and we will find out the root causes eventually...including the cascade of human error.
Why did the blowout preventer not close ? That's its function and purpose - to prevent blowouts from traveling past the wellhead. No explanation has been given for that. The rumor was that a rig hand said BP knew it wasn't working and continued anyway.
How come the cementing job blew out ? Was it sufficiently cured ? I've heard comments that they did not allow sufficient time for a full cure. Also that it was the wrong cement. What's the truth ?
Why did they use seawater to balance the well ? A critical factor in drilling is controlling the pressure in the wellbore. A major factor in that is what fluid is being used. Typically the "mud" used is really a highly engineered concoction, with sufficient density to restrain the oil and gas from travelling up the wellbore, yet light enough to keep it from flowing into the producing strata. But seawater is much less dense than the typical drilling mud. Were they trying to save a few bucks ? Or was seawater actually expected to balance the well pressures ? For sure it didn't work.
The ultimate boss on any drilling rig is "the company man", in this case a BP employee. He or she makes the decisions. In this case it seems three poor ones were made:
1)going ahead with a malfunctioning blowout preventer;
2)an improper cementing job either insufficiently cured or wrong design;
3)using seawater to balance the well.
Setting himself up to be the scapegoat? Or did he defer critical correction of safety and maintenance to make himself look good in the eyes of his bosses?