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And we do much the same in the oil industry (study past failures of many kinds for lessons learned and apply them).

The article is correct in some areas such as Normalization of Deviance and BP’s cowboy culture.

It is dead wrong about the integrity of the industry or the regulators or the generalization that nobody knew how to handle a deepwater blowout... I assure you, many did and do know how to handle a deep water blowout. Plans had been submitted to MMS, BP, state and federal governments within a week of the blowout to cap the well in almost the same way it was capped 60 days later. They were ignored. The whole event became a political and media spectacle.

Those who have been in this industry for decades sweat bullets and are a continuous thorn in the side of anyone who wants to take shortcuts. Some have taken the responsibility in the industry as keepers of the license to operate and the CEOs of just about any company worth their salt knows what this means... loss of access to resources, death of the company and maybe even the industry. We were around to see the nuclear industry die and some of us even saw the Santa Barbara Channel spill and what that did.

It is also dead wrong in statements such as, “... The same offshore techniques and equipment that worked in shallow hydrocarbon formations seemed to function fine at ever greater depths...” This is pure crap. The author demonstrates his ignorance since the fact is that we have learned that almost nothing works in deepwater the same as it did in lesser depths. Dramatic changes have been required and have been made... they are above the ability of some to manage. They are dang sure above the ability of a trainee to supervise.

The famous Dr. Bea from Stanford knows less about deepwater drilling than I do about brain surgery. He has set himself up as a self proclaimed expert and is a pitiful grand stander. He is a former Shell Oil facilities engineer. The article quotes a few civil engineering professors. Civil Engineers are fine fellows for building structures and such but are rendering opinions outside their area of practice when it comes to deepwater or any other kind of drilling... in most states this is something the state board of registration for engineers finds worthy of prosecution.

The number of “blowouts” is over-stated since the criteria in the Podio and the MMS Studies included many minor instances and production leaks. The author paints a picture of reckless operations, this is wrong.

Anything done wrong will go wrong. Nothing is idiot proof... ever but this disaster was preventable. A good investigative reporter would be able to say why. BP violated at least 18 separate accepted oil field standards of practice. It was a sloppy operation that was poorly engineered and even more poorly led.

The BP report is a whitewash designed to sway public opinion in preparation for a civil jury trial. Where they could, BP has placed blame on others directly or shared blame but never taken full responsibility for anything. BP will sue Halliburton and Transocean in an attempt to stack the deck against criminal proceedings by DOJ that will attempt to pin gross negligence on BP. The best defense is a good offense and BP have started theirs. If BP are found guilty of gross negligence, and in my view they should be, it should mark the end of the company.

BP can say anything but at the end of the day there is only one name on the permit to drill and only one party held accountable for all the actions on the well... BP.

I agree but would amend the cowboy culture comment to Exploration side of the house which still has a wildcater’a attitude about bringing in a well, and compensation schemes encourages such. Once the well is turned over to production it’s a bit different. Initial drilling of a well is a relatively short duration compared to years of production so a few days makes more impact on an E&P early phases than succeeding projects. People need to understand the hand offs in this industry to have any clue as to what the mind set is when decisions are made. Each phase is a project unto itself, and treated kind of like a Profit Center. Maximizing a subsystem or in this case a sub project, in terms of followup projects coming along, can submaximize (screw up) the rest of the projects coming along, in this case all the way to the corporate level. My guess is the company made these decisions based on years of experience in cutting corners and felt it worth the risk.

Thank you for a well written and knowledgeable comment. I am retired, used to work for Transocean offshore. We hadn't begun to drill in such deep water then, but our men were conscientious and expert. But this article does not consult any Transocean drilling engineers, it just quotes those accademic professors. You are right, this is written in preparation for a law suit and is disgustingly verbose.

Our guys were great guys, really courageous and diligent. I am heart broken they lost their lives. They got overuled by BP to save money. We didn't have MMS or any other regulatory agency watching us in those days but we were careful.