Voices from the Flats – Credibility of Oil Spill Commission Seriously in Doubt
BP didn’t cut safety corners to save money in Gulf – Say what?
By Rick Steiner, professor, marine consultant
With the ludicrous assertion this week by the presidential Oil Spill Commission that BP did not cut corners on safety to save money on their failed Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, the credibility of the Commission is seriously in doubt. The counsel for the Commission, Fred Bartlit, stated that: “We see no instance where a decision-making person or group of people sat there aware of safety risks, aware of costs, and opted to give up safety for costs.” He went on to say that: “We studied the hell out of this. We welcome anybody who gives us something we missed.” Well Mr. Bartlit, here are some things that you apparently missed.
First, the Horizon was over 43 days behind schedule, at a cost of at least $1 million / day. The rig that began drilling the well in October 2009 – the Marianas – had to suspend operations and return to port due to hurricane damage. When the Horizon resumed drilling the Macondo well in February, BP was already in a rush to complete the job to access the billions of dollars of oil and gas in the reservoir.
Although they encountered many serious problems while drilling, they refused to stop and reassess their well design and procedure. Time is money, after all. Workers reported a hydraulic leak on the Blowout preventer (BOP) and chunks of the annular seal coming up in drilling muds, but the company chose to not stop to repair the BOP, as required by federal regulation. When their drill bit became stuck, they had to back out of the hole and drill a new one, losing even more time. They had several serious ‘well control events’ that should have signaled an imminent problem and triggered a thorough reevaluation of the drilling plan. Rig workers, who had dubbed Macondo “the well from hell” and “the nightmare well,” spoke of problems to their superiors and to their families ashore. But the rush to the reservoir continued.
BP opted to run a long string production casing, with no bottom casing liner, as is the industry standard, saving some 3 days and $10 million. They did not install a wellhead lockdown sleeve, and used only 6 of the 21 centralizers on the bottom section of the well, knowing this put the well at greater risk. They opted not to take the time to circulate drilling muds to ensure a better cement job, or to take the time to run a Cement Bond Log to verify the integrity of the cement, all the while knowing the bottom cement plug was the only barrier to a blowout.
When the drill crew detected anomalies in the pressure testing the day of the blowout, they didn’t stop to sort that out. They knew they had fluids in the riser, but still didn’t stop to reassess. They had inhibited several alarm systems that could have warned of impending disaster, as they didn’t wish to be interrupted by such nuisances. And so it went in the rush to disaster.
The spill commission apparently fails to realize that managers in the oil industry wake up in the morning thinking of ways to cut costs while getting to reservoirs quicker. It’s part of their DNA, it’s part of their corporate culture, and virtually every decision they make (including their annual bonus) centers on this objective.
If BP did not knowingly cut corners on safety for financial reasons, the only other explanation for the disaster is that they are incompetent buffoons who should not be allowed to drill another offshore well ever again. Take your pick.
That the spill commission apparently missed all of this is more than disappointing.
Beyond the insult to the American people, this must be a profound insult to the families of the men who died that night in BP’s rush to finish the well.
Bottom line: BP and their contractors rushed the Macondo well in order to get to its expected riches as soon as possible, they made dozens of serious mistakes along the way, and thus caused one of the worst offshore oil disasters in history.
Early in the spill President Obama’s rhetoric got mighty strong. There was a meeting with BP officials, the rhetoric calmed down considerably. In fact he has been pretty much a pussycat ever since on all fronts. I am not surprised. We no longer own America. If this was our America BP would be forced to sell and go. They are a serial industrial killer and disaster maker. Already a convicted felon in the Texas City disaster.
they did not cut any corners there weren’t any corners left to cut .
There is just no way the facts can be repeated too any times, as it is now abundantly obvious the Obama Admin is in o a coverup and after the Jan 1 it will get even harder to get the Gov to acknowledge the truth.
The public needs to be kept aware of the truth and the conspiracy of lies. The dead and injured still wait their days in court, the wider swath of victims along the Coast will suffer more and longer if the public if the Government and the oil industry can white wash themselves and BP.
The BP disaster is a fat lady who must never be allowed to sing.
Just a note: How are they addressing this on the North Slope? BP is sending a bunch of technical writers over here from England and every thing that the folks on the slope do will have to have a policy and procedure written for it. Every worker will have to follow this policy/procedure verbatim or else! My question: How can there possibly be a policy/procedure written verbatim for every contingency? Is this a way to shift the blame from the higher ups to the little guy on the ground? Apparently, if the procedure is not being followed verbatim the worker is expected to shut the job down. Hmmmmmm. There is a lot of suspicion about this on the part of the workers.
You make a very cogent point here LMD that has arisen elsewhere but never been aired much. The basic claim is that any hand on a drilling rig has the so called “option” to shut the rig down if they see a dangerous situation developing. Can anyone see the catch-22 in this? If the hand is right and shutting down the rig prevents a disaster, there is no way of knowing with certainty that a disaster was actually prevented. Conversely if the hand says nothing and a disaster ensues, there is a good chance the hands will catch all the blame for it, in particular if they happen to be dead.
Everyone working on a drilling rig knows that if they shut the rig down it is going to cost the company a lot of money. They also know that the next day there will be people around questioning whether the shutdown was justified. They might superficially conclude that it was, but then over time, a few weeks or a few months, the hand who was responsible starts to feel pressure. Eventually they may get pushed out. Then they may find it much harder to find a new job, maybe someone will wise them up a bit and tell them in so many words, ya know mate, I’d hire you in a minute, but the brass says you’re unreliable, trigger happy, you shut that rig down that time and nothing happened.
On one hand you could say, if there was no particular responsibility to act on the part of the crew per se, that having a good understanding of what ISP is would be productive for all concerned. But I am a little reluctant to impute such noble motives to a company like BP. The reason being, to put it as plainly as I can, that in BP’s own preliminary analysis of the disaster, they essentially claimed that the blowout, fire and loss of the platform and the subsequent spill was most immediately the fault of the crew – they were not paying enough attention. They didn’t realize the well was kicking until drilling mud and gas began spewing out of of the well head. Secondarily the crew was blamed for taking the wrong corrective action, instead of diverting flow from the well into the sea, the diverted onto surpressive devices on the rig. But all of those conclusions conveniently overlook the fact that the crew had no way of knowing exactly what was happening or the scope of what was happening because their only source of information in that respect, the mud returns, was precluded from their knowledge by off loading directly to a barge.
I hate to say it, but judging by the ultimate outcome of the Exxon Valdez, I am not at all optimistic that anything of substance will come of this event in terms of improving the safety of deep water drilling. The problem here is almost exactly analogous in managerial terms to the commission charged with investigating the causes of the Shuttle Challenger explosion. A complex and highly technical situation being evaluated by a collection of people with no particular ability let alone dedication and integrity. The Challenger accident was revealed to be what it was, a case of wishful thinking superceeding direct evidence of high risk, by Richard Feynman. The only reason he could see through all the posturing and smoke and mirrors was that he was a supremely developed critical thinker and he went to extraordinary lengths to understand the entire situation.
There are simply not enough Feynmans out there to crew all the drilling rigs in the world. But there could be if we put the emphasis in the right place in educating people. The world, nature, is not a standardized test. It is a never ending game of chance. The record of recent civilization shows that the only thing that can cope with chance is critical thinking.
I don’t know how things work in the oil patch but if my experience in hard rock mining is at all similar there is a cap to the level to which any hand can rise, and over that cap is a society of educated (that is to say degreed) personnel who may have no practical experience at all who still make critical decisions.
I have thought about this quite a bit in the last day or so because it is close to home. I work in mining and exploration for minerals. So it is important to me, both ethically and personally to “get it right”. I have come to the conclusion that the problem we have is that there is no clear distinction between adequacy and gluttony. I think most of us would be quite satisfied and quite effective if whatever job we did was simply an adequate living. But the system in which we all must struggle is grotesquely skewed to reward gluttony.
I don’t pretend to know what the solution to this problem is. But I think I know that we should look for that solution in the realms of reason and the realities of nature. That approach is the only one I know of that has worked in prior situations that were similar.
There have been other comments in this thread concerning drilling in the arctic and that problem is even more complex so I would like to defer that for the moment, since my comment is already so long winded, until another opportunity to address it arises.
Two antlers up, Dr. Steiner. Thanks for pointing out the obvious. $$$$ is a big blinder.
Don’t believe it just because it appears in the Huff Post. They jumped the shark on the tax cut reports. Remember the President is not even in the US. He will have his first meeting with some of the new Congress on the 16th. That report on the tax cut is based on a short discussion with Axlrod and it is all just speculation at this point. The final decisions have yet to be made.
As for the Oil Commission, I say pox on all their heads.
How about a barrel of oil sludge from the Gulf instead?
How about a nice big glass of water to wash down the oil sludge? Oh…never mind.
The way I understood the comments from the spill commish was ” on the day of the explosion ” – which I consider 100% BS — cost cutting decisions made weeks in advance contributed to the disaster that unfolded “on the day of”
BP has consistantly, by previous fines, operated in an unsafe & negligent manner. Just because some Corp. butt didn’t say ” blow this well” doesn’t mean they are not responsible by their actions & past behavior.
Look at it differently – if someone dies of a stroke while a bank is being robbed…. the robber can be charged with “murder” since the death occurred while a crime was being committed. Even if the robber didn’t INTEND on either robbing the bank (even tho it was cased out several weeks before) “that day” nor having a person in the bank stroke-out.
So, if BP is technically a non-resident person (so deemed by the US Supreme Court) while operating within US boundaries in an unsafe & reckless manner – thereby causing the deaths of 11 employees in addition to massive ecological damage to the Gulf of Mexico & US Coastal Waters.
Their past history of “accidents”, spills, safety compliance issues, and corp. fines indicates a long term abuse of cutting corners & policies relating to employee safety & environmental concerns.
On a related note:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/nov/11/arctic-oil-spill-plans
“Getting to the scene of a spill would be a challenge. The nearest major port, Dutch Harbor, is 1,300 nautical miles away from the drilling areas in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, and what few air landing strips exist are not connected to any road system. There are no coast guard vessels in either sea, and the nearest coast guard station is 950 miles by air away in Kodiak Alaska.
Response teams would confront gale-force winds, massive blocks of ice and turbulent seas, total darkness for six weeks of the year, and extreme cold. Cranes would freeze and chemical dispersants, such as those used to break up the BP spill, might not work.
Then there is the ice. Left undetected, a pipeline leak could spread oil beneath the surface of sea ice. Ice floes could carry oil hundreds of miles away from the source. At freeze-up, oil can become trapped within ice within the space of four hours, remaining there until spring. If it becomes trapped within multi-year ice, oil could stay in the environment for years, or even a decade, the report said.”
As I recall from AKM’s boots on the ground report, oil from the Exxon Valdez spill still persists in the environment TWO decades after the spill. I just signed a petition asking President Obama to designate ANWR a wildlife refuge, but what about Beaufort and Chukchi? Do the oil companies always win in AK?
The coral are dying as a result of the spill. When the coral go…….
And Lease-A Murkowski took the side of the oil company. She’s going to side with Pebble Mine proponents.
If I recall from some months ago during discussions at the oil drum on these factors, another thing, not mentioned here was that at the critical step of displacing the riser with seawater, the mud returns, instead of being monitored onboard as usual and ISP were directly off-loaded to a transport barge. This was effectively the same as dropping the last line of defense against a blowout as the drilling crew had no way of knowing if the returns were abnormal in volume or contained hydrocarbons.
Admittedly I haven’t taken the time to read this preliminary report so I won’t attempt to comment on its thoroughness or integrity.
It does strike me as bizzare, however, to rail against the administration (in comments not the OP) when it is evident that there is a long history of regulatory laxity and coziness with industry that made a large contribution to this disaster. What does anyone here think the response would have been if this occurred in April of 2008?
One last observation. There is at least some evidence that a systemic corruption of legitimate oversight exists. Congressmen openly apologizing to BP anyone? A judge or two giving industry injunctive relief over the drilling moratorium in spite of the fact that said judge/s have financial interests in the whole industry? The list is much longer than that.
The solution is not to restore the “corrupt bastards” to a status of power.
thank you Nyankoye.
Exactly – the devil is in the details — or should I say the devils are in the lower echelons of power where they have more direct control over the outcomes. We blame the administration when so many in the lower tiers of the power structure actually have more sway on the outcomes. We have to stay focused on who has the most direct impact. We need to ferret them out and hold those people to account.
BTW, I always enjoy your comments here and hope to see them more often. I join bubbles in thanking you for your perceptive insights.
Thank you both bubbles and KS. I try not to stray beyond my area/s of expertise usually but in certain cases things are either just too provocative or as here I have made some extra effort to become informed.
There is a great deal of culpability in the regulatory side of things in this case almost all of it within the purview of what used to be called the Minerals Management Service. More than four years ago (I think) there were scandals involving MMS personnel and the oil companies they were responsible for regulating and evidently nothing was done about the lack of discipline.
There are too many parallels to even start a list but it is worth pointing out that about 8 years ago a large number of FBI personnel were taken off domestic fraud investigations to pursue the elusive traces of terrorist financing… there were no new hires and one consequence was that mortgage fraud became endemic. That contributed greatly to our current economic woes. There are similar problems with commercial real estate and with municiple bond markets. Government run amok? Hardly, more like unfettered greed.
Sigh.
Not granting the commission subpeona power already points to Congress goofing off at the gate here…
IF they get to keep goofing off through the lame duck session the final report will be held up or be a joke. I’m voting for a joke. As long as these folks cannot compel testimony , they are held to a purely horsepunky setup where the “players” can decide if and when and what they want to share…
Sound familiar?
Like Cheney and his we-don’t-have-to-tell-you energy policy thingy?
Like Bush waving his hands around and saying the Enron mess was regrettable but california’s problem?
Blaming the administration at this point misses the point that Congress is asleep at the switch again or back to sniffing fumes off the oil can. and punting a political football
..
This would have been much worse a few years ago and let’s not forget it.
*Off-topic alert!*
Does anyone have ANY idea how Miller is going to pay back the loan he floated himself from his campaign? Or does this mean he’s going to declare bankruptcy? In Alaska, would his primary home NOT be subjected to sale in the event of a bankruptcy (a la Texas)? Or would he have to sell all of his assets and plead his case of financial insolvency to a judge–who could still order him to pay his creditors?
Of course they cut corners on safety — the photo proves that.
So what are we going to do, or what CAN we do about this? Anything?
hope (beige)
If only we could have known that this would happen. Who knew what the results of us missing all these warning signs would be.We operate with SAFETY as our first concern…………….(amendment to that last statement-safety is our concern after all duly recorded and reported profits are distributed to our shareholders at their behest). You may rest assured we will take all these findings under advisement(way under) and continue to drill with impunity.
http://www.oilspillcommission.gov/document/preliminary-conclusions
What is most telling to me at this time is that this investigator’s framing of this, he has been a trial attorney for large corporations for years, with ” No evidence at this time to suggest that there was a concious decision to sacrifice safety concerns to save money ” is that we are left with a narrow framework to proceed from.
While he is apparently insisting this preliminary finding will not affect BP et als’ liability it has every appearance of setting the stage to do just that as well as restrict a type of accounting of corporate culture that we are in dire need of having spilled out into the light of day.
This is the very same mindset which manages to spin purposeful activities of outfits like BP into petty infractions of this and that while denying that an internal culture of profits above all ( or similar gobbeldygook) is the overarching framework which allows all the infractions/disasters to grow.
I’m wondering why this commission hired this guy… anyone know?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/21/gulf-oil-spill-commission_n_618968.html
“It’s not really a technical commission,” Marburger said. “It’s a commission that’s more oriented to understanding the regulatory and organizational framework, which clearly has a major bearing on the incident.”
I am interested in this investigative counsel -Mr Bartlit
since this presentastion of his is in direct contrast to what so many have found…
http://www.bartlit-beck.com/lawyers-FredBartlitJr.html
Also- does anyone know why this commission was denied subpeona powers?
presentastion=presentation which is a disaster in itself
Touche’!
If memory serves, Senate Republicans successfully blocked the commission having subpoena powers. I’m having internet problems today, try this:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/07/to_subpoena_or_not_to_subpoena.html
http://www.aolnews.com/gulf-oil-spill/article/senate-gridlock-hampers-bp-oil-spill-investigation/19652484
At least it opened up for me.
Thank you. I had missed this.
It seems particularly silly to have this happen.
Waiting for folks to voluntarily answer the commission …?
While I don’t have all the facts the commission had, I certainly cannot come to the same conclusion.
If there was just a single bad decision or shortcut taken by drilling team that led to the incident the commissions conclusion might be justified, but in this case there seems to be a pattern of bad decisions and shortcuts. Additionally with BP there seems to be a nationwide pattern of cost-cutting and disastrous results.
Incompetency and/or greed covering for incompetency and/or greed. I really expected better from this administration.
i with you on this administration….i’m done….i’m assuming they didn’t want my support or vote in 2012….and now i’m hearing and reading that they are going to extend the bush tax cuts for the top 2%…???….WTF…? if the democrats can’t make a case for NOT extending the cuts for the wealthy, they DON’T deserve to be in office….simple as that….they need to grow some b@lls and actually use them…..
So are you planning to just sit back & hand the entire country over to the Republicans? I’m disappointed too with some of the decisions being made, but so much good HAS been accomplished and will be accomplished if we stand strong. You talk about the Dems growing their balls and using them (I agree) so where are yours? Quitting on the administration? Doesn’t sound like a courageous stand to me.
I want this administration and Dummocrats to give me a reason to continue to vote for them. They cave in to Rethugs at every opportunity and it makes me sick to my stomach. Being the lesser of two evils isn’t enough. Dums need to grow a spine and a pair and standup and fight for me,not corporate America.
I sent off an email expressing my disappointment and outrage of caving into Republican demands to extend the tax cuts to wealthy first thing this morning when I read the headlines. I do not know if the messages on whitehouse.gov really get read or not, but it seems as effective an outlet as most and it certainly allowed me to vent in a constructive way.
I am also emailing the DNC (what a worthless organization that has devolved into since Dean has left it) saying the same things.
What I do not understand is how the administration caves in before a public fight. At least President Obama should go through the motions of showing he is fighting the Republicans and their wealthy backers. Goodness.
However, I am with Kat and others. I do not give up. I will not give in, nor will I lose faith in those who have made so much good happen. Sure, it is not as much as I had hoped and much still remains to be addressed such as DADT, but really, I am willing to fight the power brokers in the Democratic Party to make them keep their promises. They owe us, the people, for where they are. They do not get off this easy. We cannot allow ourselves to stop caring, to stop fighting for what we believe and what they promised. Life isn’t like that. It is a process — and we can indeed make things better because we have already in many, many ways. We just have to stop letting ourselves down by sitting on our own behinds when there is noise to make and things to do.
It is rare for a politician to actually keep campaign promises when things get tough unless those who voted for him or her keep reminding them we have their backs, we expect them to toe the line, we expect them to be our voices and our votes when issues come up for passage. They are our creations and we have to monitor, nudge and support them in order for them to know what we want and remind them of the consequences if they don’t do what they said they would.
Even the extreme TP candidates such as Rand Paul are already wavering on their campaign promises. Why would we think that moderates would not do the same unless we are there to cheer them on or back them when they need us?
I apologize if I am ranting, but as angry as I get when I see politicians recanting or ignoring the things we elected them to do, I am even angrier at us, the voters, who think the job is done once we cast our ballot. It is never, ever over. Constant vigilance is necessary if we are to accomplish great things or fight off things we deem inappropriate.
I think you may be mistaken on one small point: science has EVER been subject to politicians…
So I vote for greed (politicians) covering for greed forcing incompetence upon the employees.
The science, the hands-on knowledge AND the laws point to it.
I want to hear a huge outcry from within the administration and/or whistleblowers. I expect this level of greed and corruption from others.
So predictable. This is how the world works today: everyone is smart and honorable provided they only validate your worldview. But if they tell you something you don’t want to hear , then rather than accept that the world is a much more complex place than your personal worldview or that maybe you don’t know everything, you decide whoever is challenging your view is a corrupt liar. Doesn’t matter how educated they are, doesnt matter how many years of experience or time spent working on the project, reach a conclusion that doess’t tickle someone’s self-righteous gland and you must be a rotten evil person–or in this case, an entire commission of rotten evil persons.
I think the employees who worked on that rig and were (rightly) frightened for their safety, were right. BP cut corners, broke laws and to say otherwise flies in the face of the oily evidence.
Politicians exert influence upon commissions.
Methinks some people rely to much on Experts and convoluted language when common-sense will take you so much further.
“I think you may be mistaken on one small point: science has EVER been subject to politicians…”
I do not disagree with you on that point. I just hoped we’d get more science and less politics with the Obama administration.
As far as the statement from Mr.Bartlit: “We see no instance where a decision-making person or group of people sat there aware of safety risks, aware of costs, and opted to give up safety for costs” — that is probably true, and it is also slimy lawyeresque speak. Did the CEOs and boards of BP, Haliburton and Transocean have meetings and say, “Jeez, look at all these problems we’re having. Maybe we ought to rethink our corporate philosophies. Maybe we ought to stop this well before things get out of hand.” Probably not. But they should have.
After all, these are the same companies that submitted environmental protection plans for the Gulf that included species found in the arctic. These are the same companies that promised there were no problems that they couldn’t handle then went through weeks of top hats and hat tricks and whatever else that didn’t work, getting pissy because they were being held accountable.
At least we got this much out of the commission:
http://www.newsinferno.com/category/oil-spills/
BP Oil Spill Panel Commissioners Fault Lack of Safety Culture
Date Published: Wednesday, November 10th, 2010
“The White House BP oil spill commission has faulted the oil company and its partners on the doomed Deepwater Horizon oil rig over a complacent safety culture. The commission also said that BP, Transocean and Halliburton personnel made serious mistakes prior to the April 20 explosion aboard Deepwater Horizon that led to the worst offshore oil disaster in US history.
Bill Reilly, the commission’s Republican co-chair, said in his opening statements yesterday that each company was “responsible for one or more egregiously bad decision,” called them “safety laggards,” and said the firms were “in need of top-to-bottom reform.” Reilly, former Environmental Protection Agency chief under during the George H.W. Bush administration, also singled out BP for having “been notoriously challenged on matters of process safety.”
Let’s see if we get more oversight, or just more whistling past the graveyard.
Thank you, Rick, for speaking truth to power.
How else can we respond to this dystopian world of Corporate Citizens United?
We keep our little lights shining and hope our truths become sand in the gears of The Machine, slowing it down for closer inspection… if not bringing the Machine to a grinding halt.
Here’s to better ways and better days…
“Repent, Harlequin! Said the TicktockMan”, by Harlan Ellison. Great story.
Thatcrowwoman – you said it all very, very well.
. . . and indeed . . . to better ways and better days!
Great post Professor Steiner.
Coming soon to an ocean near you. Chukchi Sea?