The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill has been making headlines since the oil well blowout occurred on April 20th 2010. There is an array of concerns surrounding this incident as to how to stop the gushing oil and the impact on aquatic and aerial ecosystems and the environment. Most disturbing of all is that a detailed truthful account of why the accident happened is still pending.
Among the finger pointing that is still happening, a somewhat reliable account that has surfaced. An interview that was conducted by Mike Williams of 60 Minutes (an American news program), the Chief Electronics Technician at Deepwater Horizon revealed the series of incidents leading up to the accident. According to Mike, the drilling pipe was taking longer to reach the oil than originally planned. In order to drill oil faster, the BP manager ordered for a faster penetration rate by the drilling pipe which caused the bottom of the well to crack and split open. Eventually that well had to be severed with ‘drilling mud’ and was abandoned. Drilling mud is a man-made drilling fluid that is injected into the well and pumped up along the sides in a continuous manner to keep the oil pressure under control.
Another well was drilled and sealed with a BOP. A BOP, blow-out preventer, is a device used to measure the pressure and integrity of the well. It is installed on the sea bed when a well is to be sealed. The BOP has a rubber gasket called an annular that is critical in preventing a blow out of oil from the well. Four weeks prior to the accident a worker on site noticed chunks of rubber in the mud being pumped out of the well. This was reported to the on-site supervisor who said it was normal. In addition, the BOP is controlled by two Control Pods, one of which is a back up. A few weeks prior to the accident one of the control pods lost its functionality. According to Dr. Rob Bea of Petroleum Engineering at University of California, Berkeley, the standard operating procedure for both, appearance of rubber with mud and failure of a control pod is such that the oil extraction should be stopped and immediate action be taken to reestablish the BOP, but unfortunately nothing was done.
When it was time to seal the well, Transocean proposed that three concrete plugs be inserted in the well while keeping the mud in the well to help reduce the pressure. On the other hand BP proposed that mud be pumped out before the last concrete plug is installed in order to proceed faster. Before the last plug was installed, pressure measurements from the BOP were checked to ensure that explosive gas was not escaping. The measurements from the BOP were inconclusive, yet the mud was removed. As a result, the gas leaked from the well and got sucked into the diesel engines which power the electric generators on-site, causing the explosion.
It was negligence to comply with safety procedures at various levels that led to the mishap. This raises the inevitable question: How many offshore drilling sites or factories in general actually follow the codes and procedures in place? And are there any in place? BP’s Atlantis PQ offshore platform in the Atlantis Oil Field is said to have 85% uninspected/unapproved engineering drawings and 95% uninspected/unapproved welding procedures. A Minerals Management Service report instructed to shut down the site until documentation was complete and verified but that never happened. Morevoer, BP and other oil industries continuously wrote letters to the Minerals Management Service objecting to a proposed Minerals Management Service rule last year that would have required stricter safety measures. Eventually it changed rules in April 2008 to exempt certain projects in the central Gulf region, allowing BP to operate in the Macondo Prospect without filing a blowout plan. According to Rebecca Noblin, the Center for Biological Diversity’s Alaska director, “If they [oil companies] are allowed to take shortcuts, of course they will. And it’s the government’s job to make sure that they’re not allowed to do that. Bottom line, governments shouldn’t let the oil companies do what they’re doing.”
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