Following the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig on April 20, the US House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations, Committee on Energy & Commerce, began investigating the possible causes of the disaster. The Subcommittee, by way of a letter dated June 14, invited BP’s CEO, Mr. Tony Hayward to testify. The hearings were held on June 17.
The Subcommittee’s Letter
The subcommittee’s letter was pointed and thorough. It brought up all the known possible causes, at least evident at this point as to how the disaster could have occurred. The questions were intelligent, logical, and backed by existing evidence, right down to emails within BP’s own system. Letters were provided from scientists, engineers, and workers describing distinct questions about the turn up of the “nightmare well” as described by BP’s own drilling engineer only five days before the explosion.
Right from the beginning the letter was clear in its intent saying, “As you prepare for this testimony, we want to share with you some of the results of the Committee’s investigation and advise you of issues you should be prepared to address.” I thought the objective of the hearing was logically a pointed one based on that statement. Apparently it was to Hayward as well. I imagine his thoughts were not those of the subcommittee. I imagine his were thanks for the warning.
The first issue addressed by the letter spoke of BP’s construction decisions based on economic factors stating, “In spite of the well’s difficulties, BP appears to have made multiple decisions for economic reasons that increased the danger of a catastrophic well failure. In several instances, these decisions appear to violate industry guidelines and were made despite warnings from BP’s own personnel and its contractors. In effect, it appears that BP repeatedly chose risky procedures in order to reduce costs and save time and made minimal efforts to contain the added risk.”
They went on to list the issues they felt were part of the bad decision making. The letter pointed out five specific areas and noted BP’s actions the committee believed contributed to the disaster. These actions appeared to have a foundation based on money and not safety or common sense. This consensus by the committee began with an understanding that the project was well behind schedule and cost BP about a million dollars a day. The areas were:
- The decision to use a well design with few barriers to gas flow.
- The failure to use a sufficient number of “centralizers” to prevent channeling during the cement process.
- The failure to run a cement bond log to evaluate the effectiveness of the cement job.
- The failure to circulate potentially gas-bearing drilling muds out of the well.
- The failure to secure the wellhead with a lockdown sleeve before allowing pressure on the seal from below.
Like most people I don’t exactly know what it means when they speak of a “full string of casing from the top of the wellhead” or “a liner from the lower end of the casing already in the well and install a tieback on top of the liner.” What I do understand is the committee’s statement, “the liner – tieback option would have taken extra time and was more expensive, but it would have been safer because, it provided more barriers to the flow of gas up the annular space surrounding these steel tubes.” Annular space is defined as the space between the well’s casing and the wall of the borehole.
I also understand it when the committee pointed out BP’s own plan review prepared in mid – April, just before the explosion, recommended against the full string of casing because it would create “an open annulus to the wellhead” and make the seal assembly at the wellhead the only barrier to gas flow if the cement job failed. Instead of following their own recommendations, they decided to save roughly $7 million dollars…well at that time it was seven mill.
Centralizers are tools used to center the casing in the well bore. Without them, according to the America Petroleum Institute, the casing will not be centered and the mud can’t be displaced, causing catastrophic failure of the cement job. They state it is almost impossible without them.
Additionally, Halliburton warned BP of a “SEVERE gas flow problem” if BP used only six centralizers instead or their recommended twenty-one. Instead BP looked at the time consideration.
An internal email by a BP official on April 16th stated, “it will take 10 hours to install them . .. . I do not like this.”
On top of that one of the rig officials later that day, even after seeing it would be an issue, stated, “who cares, it’s done, end of story, will probably be fine.” His apathy alone indicates an air of acceptance of unsafe practices.
Again, BP’s own plan predicted failure, this time specifically with the cement failure. In mid–April during a plan review, it was shown “Cement simulations indicate it is unlikely to be a successful cement job due to formation breakdown.” It didn’t matter to them and they refused to run industry standard cement bond log tests. These test take anywhere from nine to twelve hours and make it clear whether the cement seal is workable or not. This is a basis for deciding whether or not to go forward. BP even had a crew on site from their contractor Schlumberger to run the test and sent them home.
Common practice during operations in deep water generally include, weighted drilling mud pumped from bottom to top before starting the cementing operation. This allows the workers to test for gas fluxes, remove the gas and debris, and prevent any contamination of the cement. Seems like a common sense thing to me, however since it could have taken as much as twelve hours, further putting the operation behind, and costing more money, BP said, nah, that’s okay, we’ll pass. Admittedly, they did a half hearted try and partially circulated the mud. Obviously, half hearted attempts don’t work.
As you can see, the stupidity and apathy is piling up already. Well it didn’t stop there. They failed to put in a lockdown sleeve. The sleeve would have prevented the blowout from below, leaving only two barriers to the gas flow up the annular space. That was the cement (already bad or possibly contaminated) and the seal at the wellhead. These were the concerns Hayward would be required to address.
The Ropes that Hang Them – Internal Communications
Among the many documents sited in the letter was one that listed numerous reasons against using a single string of casing. Again, bear in mind this is internal to BP, and they still ignored their own caution and logic.
- Cement simulations indicate it is unlikely to be a successful cement job due to formation breakdown.
- Unable to fulfill MMS regulations of 500′ of cement above top HC zone. (This one irked me because of the flagrant disregard for regulations. I’ll cover that further later.)
- Open annulus to the wellhead, with one seal assembly as only barrier.”
- Potential need to verify with bond log, and perform remedial cement job(s).
In contrast, according to the document, there were four advantages to the liner option. To be fair, here are those statements.
- Less issue with landing it shallow (we can also ream it down).
- Liner hanger acts as second barrier for HC in annulus.
- Primary cement job has slightly higher chance for successful cement lift.
- Remedial cement job, if required, easier to justify to be left for later.
During this evaluation, on April 14th, Brian Morel wrote an email to his colleague, Richard Miller, stating, “this has been a nightmare well which has everyone all over the place.”
Further internal emails give a foundation for ignoring the warnings. On March 25th, Morel had already emailed Allison Crane who coordinated Materials Management for BP on the job, going against his own slightly apparent fears of the well, stating the long casing string “saves a lot of time … at least 3 days.” He followed up on March 30 in an email to Sarah Dobbs, the BP Completions Engineer, and Mark Hafle, another BP Drilling Engineer, that “not running the tieback … saves a good deal of time/money.”
That was all BP needed to decide on the single string installation. They updated their “Forward Plan Review” expressing the advantages of the single string option as the “Best economic case and well integrity case for future completion operations.”
Only five days before the explosion BP told Halliburton’s account representative, Jesse Gagliano, of their intention to us six centralizers on the final casing string. Gagliano had spent a day going through computer simulations on the cement design and he came up with twenty–one centralizers as needed for the installation. The computer reported that even with ten centralizers they could only accomplish a scenario of only a “MODERATE” gas flow problem. Six were unacceptable and twenty–one would get them to a level of “MINOR”. Modeling was given to BP, specifically Morel, showing clearly there would be “cement channeling”.
Morel emailed him back in less than half-an-hour with his decision, the one he presented to BP decision makers. “We have 6 centralizers, we can run them in a row, spread out, or any combination of the two. It ‘s a vertical hole, so hopefully the pipe stays centralized due to gravity. As far as changes, it’s too late to get any more product on the rig, our only option is to rearrange placement of these centralizers.
On April 16th however, the issue hadn’t been settled and went to review by John Guide, BP’s well team leader. Gregory Walz, BP’s Drilling Engineer Team Leader, had found fifteen Weathorford centralizers and had even set it up to get them delivered. His email showed his concern, based on his experience from the Atlantis project, saying, “We have located 15 Weatherford centralizers with stop collars … in Houston and worked things out with the rig to be able to fly them out in the morning.” The decision was made because “we need to honor the modeling to be consistent with our previous decisions to go with the long string.”
Mr. Walz explained: “I wanted to make sure that we did not have a repeat of the last Atlantis job with questionable centralizers going into the hole.” Mr. Walz added: “I do not like or want to disrupt your operations … I know the planning has been lagging behind the operations and I have to turn that around.”
Guide didn’t like it though and brought up the time, in that an additional ten hours would be required. “…I do not like this and …I [am] very concerned about using them.”
BP’s Operations Drilling Engineer, Brett Cocales, was concerned about the Guide’s decision. He fired off an email on April 16th to Morel and was passive aggressive in his thoughts, warning Morel, “Even if the hole is perfectly straight, a straight piece of pipe, even in tension will not seek the perfect center of the hole unless it has something to centralize it. But, who cares, it’s done, end of story, will probably be fine and we’ll get a good cement job. I would rather have to squeeze than get stuck …. So Guide is right on the risk/reward equation.”
Gagliano must have been reticent because on April 17, he ran yet another model, this time with seven centralizers. The equation was even more ominous finding this would likely produce the channeling issue and cement failure. The following day he issued a document and was clear in what he was trying to communicate. “The well is considered to have a SEVERE gas flow problem.”
Arrogance and Flagrant Disregard for Safety and the Law
BP not only went against their own engineers and common sense, they appear to have gone against Mineral Management Service (MMS) regulations. The regulations seem pretty clear, yet in BP’s infinite wisdom, they as they had over and over, went against the law.
According to the MMS, if there is an indication of an inadequate cement job, the company must:
- Pressure test the casing shoe.
- Run a temperature survey.
- Run a cement bond log.
- Use a combination of these techniques.
BP chose none of these options in spite of all the technical data they had generated or warnings by other organizations.
Speaking of other organizations, the committee tried to be fair with BP and, as with good investigation, they brought in other voices. One of those voices was Gordon Aaker, Jr., a professional engineer and a failure analysis consultant with Engineering Services, LLP. When asked about BP not running a cement bond log on a well using a single casing, he stated it was “unheard of” and “horribly negligent”. A second voice sung out as well in the person of John Martinez. While not so negative, he too was unambiguous about his feelings. His response? “Cement bond or cement evaluation logs should always be used on the production string.”
Circulating the mud for a full “bottom’s up” procedure is not required by the MMS, but BP had direction to complete the procedure from a number of areas. Gagliano was adamant about it and stated anything less would not show the possibility of gas erupting through the wellhead seal, causing the potentially dangerous channeling. In their arrogance they were clearly negligent and eleven men gave their lives and seventeen others were injured.
The least they could have done was install the lockdown sleeve, but with money as their motive they raced ahead in a blind drive to get the well running and producing. Apparently their check list didn’t include common sense.
Let’s see – oil – check, pipe – check, tons of pressure – check, safety – get back to me on that, common sense – what?
The casing over the wellhead is pretty heavy. Heavy enough that typically gravity will win over and hold it in place. Sometimes however, if the pressure is great enough, the casing will start to float and trouble begins. Hydrocarbons will rise up in the wellhead breaking through into the riser. The single most critical device to prevent this is the lockdown sleeve. It wasn’t installed and as such, Transocean listed the lockdown sleeve as an area of investigation. Interesting. It is amazing BP could actually make such a string of bad decisions.
Even if not one, or any combination of these issues caused this catastrophe, I would think BP should be dragged on the carpet and whipped simply because this level of stupidity should be made an example of. It is amazing they could gather together so many fools in one place. Maybe it’s just the birds of a feather syndrome.
A Corporate History of Arrogance and Flaunting the Law
In 2005, in Texas City, Texas fifteen people died and 170 were hurt at another BP facility. The refinery had been purchased from Amoco six years earlier, giving BP plenty of time to fix and/or repair, but yet in a 335-page report from the Chemical Safety Board, they had concluded, to no one’s surprise now in hindsight that, “organizational and safety deficiencies at all levels of the BP Corporation” were the cause.
It further stated that cost cutting, production pressures, and a failure to invest contributed heavily to Amoco’s previous cost cutting, leaving an open door to catastrophe. BP almost immediately ordered a 25% cut in fixed spending at the corporation’s refineries. This wasn’t enough for them.
Presenting a concerned façade, the same as Tony Hayward did in the committee hearings, BP ordered “a series of audits and studies that revealed serious safety problems at the Texas City refinery, including a lack of necessary preventative maintenance and training. These audits and studies were shared with BP executives in London, and were provided to at least one member of the executive board. BP’s response was too little and too late. Some additional investments were made, but they did not address the core problems in Texas City. In 2004, BP executives challenged their refineries to cut yet another 25% from their budgets for the following year.”
They did what? Yes they ordered further deep cuts. Amoco had already run the place into the ground and BP cut 50% of the operating costs anyway. Now I can see cuts in some areas such as waste, useless personnel positions and the like, but I find it hard to believe there was room for cutting half of the money the refinery operated with.
The CSB report has the typical industry jargon but the bottom line is, a large drum had overfilled with…believe it or not…liquid hydrocarbons, the same organic compound that caused problems on the Deepwater Horizon. The overflow had dumped onto the ground where a diesel pickup ignited the fluid and set off a domino effect of explosions and fires. Someone was asleep at the wheel.
No actually someone was comatose at the wheel. The report further states, “The CSB was able to calculate that approximately 7,600 gallons of flammable liquid hydrocarbons – nearly the equivalent of a full tanker truck of gasoline – were released from the top of the blowdown drum stack in just under two minutes. The ejected liquid rapidly vaporized due to evaporation, wind dispersion, and contact with the surface of nearby equipment. High overpressures from the resulting vapor cloud explosion totally destroyed 13 trailers and damaged 27 others. People inside trailers were injured as far as 479 feet away from the blowdown drum, and trailers nearly 1000 feet away sustained damage.”
So why was someone comatose at the wheel? First of all, there were no modern features of automatic safety cutoffs common at the time. BP relied on human observation, and in this case the tank was not observed for over three hours. This was not uncommon according to investigators. They found, “In particular…procedural deviations, abnormally high liquid levels and pressures, and dramatic swings in tower liquid level were the norm in almost all previous start-ups of the unit since 2000. Operators typically started up the unit with a high liquid level inside and left the drain valve in manual – not automatic – mode to prevent possible loss of liquid flow and resulting damage to a furnace that was connected to the tower. These procedural deviations – together with the faulty condition of valves, gauges, and instruments on the tower – made the tower susceptible to overfilling.”
“None of the previous abnormal start-ups was investigated by BP, nor were operating procedures updated to reduce the likelihood or consequences of flooding the tower. As American Petroleum Institute safety guidance notes, when operating procedures are not updated or correct, “workers will create their own unofficial procedures that may not adequately address safety issues.” At the Texas City refinery, “Procedural workarounds were accepted as normal,” Investigator MacKenzie said.
The report goes on and on about procedural failure, tired workers, cost cutting, and a litany of other faults. Did you notice though, the liquid level problems had shown issues since 2000…for almost five years. No one bothered to say anything apparently. Let’s see…common sense – again we’ll get back to you on that.
Just short of a year later, on March 23, 2006, Alaska got a big taste of BP’s negligence. Pristine Prudhoe Bay saw over 200, 000 gallons of crude dumped onto the north slope. A dime sized hole was the culprit, starting its own domino effect, but the result was an inspection of the pipeline and the discovery of miles of corrosion. As far back as 1992, once again, internal and external warnings had been given. Tests that year showed calcium in the line, but nothing was done.
The hangman’s noose had been tied all the way back in 2004 when internal emails to the company attorney from employees were forwarded to management. One of the complaints stated the corrosion monitoring team would be reduced from eight to six.
Even beyond the lack of personnel was the stopping of a corrosion prevention program where corrosion inhibitors would be directly injected into the pipeline system. It was determined to be too costly.
Carolyn Merritt, chief executive officer of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board told the committee, “that ‘virtually all’ of the root causes of the problems at Prudhoe Bay had “strong echoes” of those that led to the 2005 explosion in Houston. These had included cost cutting and a failure to invest in the plant. The committee was also told that the spillage happened at a time when BP was making huge profits.” Sounds familiar?
In Part III, the final segment of this article, I will review BP CEO Tony Hayward’s testimony before the US House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations, Committee on Energy & Commerce, on June 17.
Lee Clymer is a writer for West Orlando News Online. He can be reached at: [email protected].
