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Posted on 09/08/2010 5:39:00 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
BP deflected much of the blame for a rig blast that led to the United States' worst-ever oil spill, releasing an internal report on Wednesday which said that drilling contractor Transocean had missed danger signs.BP defended its much-criticized well design and said failures on the rig, operated by Transocean [RIG 53.05 --- UNCH (0) ]
"Over a 40-minute period, the Transocean rig crew failed to recognize and act on the influx of hydrocarbons into the well," BP said in a statement.
BP also criticized the cementing of the well, conducted by Halliburton [HAL
29.84 --- UNCH (0) ], and repeated previous criticism of the blowout preventer — a key piece of equipment operated by Transocean.
BP accepted that its representatives, in conjunction with Transocean, had incorrectly interpreted a safety test which should have flagged up risks of a blowout.
"To put it simply, there was a bad cement job," Chief Executive Tony Hayward said in a statement.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
fyi
And in other news, it was discovered the Pope is Catholic
Yep,...Mistakes were made....Tony said it.
BP also produced an animation....which CNBC has...and CNBC also has a team going over the 150 page report they said.
The spill was like a big car crash for BP and the industry. It'll result in more safety measures....just like seat belts, air bags etc....but things will still happen....just like car crashes.
The moratorium is a "nasty" by Obama....because "He won". What a b........
Miraculously the spill turned out to be no big deal. Let’s drill.
Pray for America
I would say instead this: the spill, which was the biggest deal and just about the worst possible thing anybody could imagine happening to a drilling operation, in the end turned out to be something we COULD handle, and something that we apparently can recover from without too great a cost.
Which, as you said, means “let’s drill”. We can handle the consequences. And we know what to watch for now.
“To put it simply, there was a bad cement job,” Chief Executive Tony Hayward said in a statement.
Oh gee, guess Tony forgot to mention that Halliburton strongly recommended AGAINST the type of cement job BP wanted. Halliburton also recommended to circulate bottoms up, which BP DID NOT DO. BP threw all of Halliburton’s recommendations in the trash can and did what they wanted to do even though they were warned, not only by Halliburton, but also by Schlumberger that the well was likely to blow.
Guess Tony also forgot to mention that it was BP’s decision to displace the heavy (14+lbs),expensive, oil based mud to another ship and replace it with 8.5 lbs seawater. That made it difficult to monitor the well flow as the level in the various pits could not be used to determine accurately the return flow, which made it difficult to detect the well flowing.
BP reminds of of Obama - blame anybody and everybody else, but never take any responsibility for your own actions.
This is horseshit to say it was a bad cement job. I scanned the report this morning and will read it in more detail.
The report said it was NOT a bad well design because the blowout did not come through the annulus but instead came through the shoe and up the production casing.
What this means, dear reader, is that the floats didn’t hold and the rumor that circulated about a wet shoe and surging the floats up to nine times in an attempt to get them to hold is most plausible. PILOT ERROR AND FAILURE TO RESPOND TO THE FAILED FLOAT IS AT THE ROOT OF THIS.
THE bad well design may not have caused the problem but it was and is a bad well design.
I pity the fellows who wrote this report because they gave up a lot of their integrity. They were in a no win position. It should have been done by a third party instead of chaired internally.
BP have remained true to form... committee based, unwilling to take responsibility, blame everybody but yourself, unethical.
Time to go to the Oil Drum...bet they have some good commentary also.
BP's Deepwater Oil Spill - What will the Relief Well Find? - and Open Thread
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syncro on September 8, 2010 - 11:05am
The BP whitewash. That's all this report is. PR Whitewash and blaming the crew for BP's outrageous corner-cutting.
I guess in today's america, where there is no accountability if you're powerful and rich, we let the criminals investigate their own crimes and we accept their blame-shifting conclusions at face value. Of course it was the dead crew's fault. Did anyone ever expect a different conclusion from BP?
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lotus on September 8, 2010 - 11:42am
MSNBC:
Transocean: BP probe 'self-serving' and misleading
NEW ORLEANS — Transocean Ltd., the owner of the doomed Deepwater Horizon rig leased by oil giant BP, said Wednesday that BP's internal investigation into the explosion and massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill had covered up the critical factor leading to the incident: the design of the well.
"This is a self-serving report that attempts to conceal the critical factor that set the stage for the Macondo incident: BP's fatally flawed well design," Transocean said in a statement released shortly after BP released its internal review. "In both its design and construction, BP made a series of cost-saving decisions that increased risk — in some cases, severely." ...
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[-] syncro on September 8, 2010 - 12:05pm
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One last thing before I run out. Check out the caveats in the intro. These caveats render the report incomplete and its conclusions suspect right from the beginning:
In preparing this report, the investigation team did not evaluate evidence against legal standards, including but not limited to standards regarding causation, liability, intent and the admissibility of evidence in court or other proceedings.
This report is based on the information available to the investigation team during the investigation; availability of additional information might have led to other conclusions or altered the team’s findings and conclusions.
At times, the evidence available to the investigation team was contradictory, unclear or uncorroborated. The investigation team did not seek to make credibility determinations in such cases.
ROCKMAN on September 8, 2010 - 10:24am
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Here's what I saw as critical aspects of the executive summary from the BP report.
"Indications of influx with an increase in drill pipe pressure are discernable in real-time data from approximately 40 minutes before the rig crew took action to control the well. The rig crew’s first apparent well control actions occurred after hydrocarbons were rapidly flowing to the surface. The rig crew did not recognize the influx and did not act to control the well until hydrocarbons had passed through the BOP and into the riser."
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".
"Well control response actions failed to regain control of the well. If fluids had been diverted overboard, rather than to the MGS, there may have been more time to respond, and the consequences of the accident may have been reduced."
And a viable excuse offered: "The explosions and fire very likely disabled the emergency disconnect sequence, the primary emergency method available to the rig personnel, which was designed to seal the wellbore and disconnect the marine riser from the well.
Given a number of highly questionable decisions, BP appears to volunteer to take a few arrows themselves: "The team did not identify any single action or inaction that caused this accident. Rather, a complex and interlinked series of mechanical failures, human judgments, engineering design, operational implementation and team interfaces came together to allow the initiation and escalation of the accident. Multiple companies, work teams and circumstances were involved over time."
So BP may claim a collective blame but I go back to their lead off position: ""the crew... did not act to control the well". If you followed the debate between syn and I you can see how I take BP's report: yes...BP and others made mistakes. BUT the TO drill crew "did not act to control the well". And that lack of action allowed the kick to turn into a blow out that killed 11 hands and wrecked the GOM.
Opinions will vary, of course. And in the end there will be legal judgment rendered. But each person, including the surviving participants, will come to their own conlusions.
Update ping.
I just downloaded the BP report. Shall read it before going into to many posts so that I can get a handle on how much BP defers blame to it’s sub contractors. Things are going to get really cute by all indications.
I haven’t read the report but from the posts here I don’t see anything to change my opinion the root cause was a series of risky choices made by BP to cut time and cost that materially and unacceptably increased the risk of a failure.
Think I will take advantage of a day off. Got my grocery shopping and hair cut out of the way. Only have to cut the grass. My brain is tired. Time to throw the switch on my bedroom air conditioner on and take a snooze before reading your posts and other things in more detail later.
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