Why did macondo happen

This information can be used for training in accident prevention and continually improving standards. Industry, BSEE, and other regulators should foster an effective safety culture through consistent training, adherence to principles of human factors, system safety, and continued measurement through leading indicators.

On the basis of the available evidence, the committee has identified the principal causes of the incident, as summarized above and described in the report in greater detail. Certain factors, such as the complete hydrocarbon flow path, may never be definitively identified, since the requisite forensic evidence lies more than 2 miles beneath the seabed.

Similarly, many questions concerning the Deepwater Horizon rig will remain unanswerable so long as it lies on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, with its equipment unavailable for inspection and data recorders unreadable. Furthermore, the loss of several of the workers involved in the pivotal decisions on the Deepwater Horizon limits inquiry into the causes and rationale involved in those decisions. Even so, the committee believes that it was able to identify and assess the principal direct and root causes of the incident and develop a series of recommendations that would provide suitable and cost-effective corrective actions, materially reducing the likelihood of a similar event in the future.

The blowout of the Macondo well on April 20, , led to enormous consequences for the individuals involved in the drilling operations, and for their families. Eleven workers on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig lost their lives and 16 others were seriously injured.

There were also enormous consequences for the companies involved in the drilling operations, to the Gulf of Mexico environment, and to the economy of the region and beyond. The flow continued for nearly 3 months before the well could be completely killed, during which time, nearly 5 million barrels of oil spilled into the gulf.

Macondo Well-Deepwater Horizon Blowout examines the causes of the blowout and provides a series of recommendations, for both the oil and gas industry and government regulators, intended to reduce the likelihood and impact of any future losses of well control during offshore drilling.

According to this report, companies involved in offshore drilling should take a "system safety" approach to anticipating and managing possible dangers at every level of operation -- from ensuring the integrity of wells to designing blowout preventers that function under all foreseeable conditions-- in order to reduce the risk of another accident as catastrophic as the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill.

In addition, an enhanced regulatory approach should combine strong industry safety goals with mandatory oversight at critical points during drilling operations. Macondo Well-Deepwater Horizon Blowout discusses ultimate responsibility and accountability for well integrity and safety of offshore equipment, formal system safety education and training of personnel engaged in offshore drilling, and guidelines that should be established so that well designs incorporate protection against the various credible risks associated with the drilling and abandonment process.

This book will be of interest to professionals in the oil and gas industry, government decision makers, environmental advocacy groups, and others who seek an understanding of the processes involved in order to ensure safety in undertakings of this nature.

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Get This Book. Visit NAP. Looking for other ways to read this? No thanks. Suggested Citation: "Summary. Summary This report examines the causes of the blowout of the Macondo well that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, , and provides a series of recommendations, for both the oil and gas industry and government regulators, intended to reduce the likelihood and impact of any future losses of well control during offshore drilling.

Page 4 Share Cite. Page 5 Share Cite. Page 6 Share Cite. Page 7 Share Cite. Too much attention is devoted to BP—not because the company deserves a break but because the piling on has fed a perception that BP was a rogue. The rest of the industry has been glad to condemn BP so that our anger focuses on the supposed exception rather than the industry as a whole. This strategy was used in the financial world too, with industry leaders trying to persuade the government and public that misbehavior was limited to egregious lenders like Countrywide Financial, or to reckless traders within otherwise law-abiding firms.

The truth is that BP, while not the best as the Texas City disaster showed , was not the worst and was not the only company that put profits ahead of safety.

The multibillion-dollar Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, built in a South Korean shipyard and launched in , was an engineering marvel. Rather than being an inert drilling platform towed to a well site and anchored to the bottom of the sea, it had a propulsion system that enabled it to move on its own power across the ocean.

Once it reached a drilling site, its dynamic positioning system allowed its engines to adjust for the winds, waves, and currents, so the rig remained stationary over the wellhead on the seabed thousands of feet below. When a well was completed, the rig and its crew of would motor off slowly—top speed was 4. There is a hitch, however. If a rig is unable to drill because of equipment malfunction or maintenance work at port, it earns nothing. The upshot is that just as BP had an incentive to push Transocean to drill as fast as possible, Transocean wanted to keep its rig going even if equipment was aging or breaking down.

It was beginning to fall apart. For instance, the drill shack, which is where the drilling pipe is controlled, had an outdated computer that regularly froze. In a blowout emergency, the BOP can cut through the drilling pipe and seal off the well, so that oil and gas cannot leak out.

But the BOP failed to shut down the rupturing Macondo well. Postmortems have shown that the BOP had faulty batteries and faulty valves that may have contributed to its failure. And the BOP, used on other wells previously drilled by the rig, had not been fully inspected since , even though such inspections were supposed to occur every three to five years.

The rig was scheduled to undergo long-delayed maintenance after it completed the well, so Transocean wanted a thorough inventory of what needed to be fixed. The report, which Konrad cites without crediting The New York Times , which uncovered it, included interviews with crew members who warned of trouble.

After disasters like the BP spill and the financial meltdown, two outcomes seem possible: real reform and a better system, or superficial change and danger-as-usual. The banks remain too big to fail and could well fail again. The BP spill is following the same unfortunate path. When oil was still gushing from the damaged well, President Obama did what presidents often do at moments of calamity—he appointed a committee from which little was expected.

Deep Water: The Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling has more detail and prescriptions than most of the anniversary books, and its criticism is sharp. We have been warned, but will there be real reform? Will the revolving door between industry and regulators be shut? This is not an era in which lots of government jobs are being created to increase the regulation of an industry that, though unpopular with environmentalists, counts a large number of Americans as employees and shareholders.

Yet the peril posed by drilling is rising, because a new frontier beckons to the industry. Expert Report. Bourgoyne, A. Flemings, P. Athy, L. Density, porosity, and compaction of sedimentary rocks. AAPG Bulletin 14 , 1—24 CAS Google Scholar. Rubey, W. Role of fluid pressure in mechanics of overthrust faulting II. Overthrust belt in geosynclinal area of western Wyoming in light of fluid-pressure hypothesis. Geological Society of America Bulletin 70 , — Combellas-Bigott, R.

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Clays and Clay Minerals 41 , — Download references. We thank Dr. John W. Once communication and hydraulics were lost, the deadman system should have activated the BSR, but apparently it did not. The BSR operated by two control pods. Investigation revealed a low batter charge in one control pod and incorrectly wired solenoid valve in the other, which may have caused the failure.

January , p. Whenever we talk about the Macondo accident, most of people I have known pointed that the failure of BOP is the direct cause of it. In fact, it is not the true. In general, mechanical failures, engineering design, operational implementation and poor team communication are the four major responsibilities.

Mechanical failures such as BOP is the most obivious cause. The explosion and fire damaged the control cables of BOP Emergency mode. Meanwhile, the Automatic Mode Function did not complete due to bad mantaince. Secondly, the potential design weakness in BOP resulted in the accident. Thirdly, the bad safety management implementation made the accident become the truth. According to US offshore oil and gas regulation, regular safety check of offshore operation should be conducted every month.

But the fact is the government officers had never been to the offshore platform in three years before the accident. They did the safety check in hotels everytime. Finally, poor team communication also caused this accident. In order to save money and short the schedule, the drilling manager from BP, the operator, chose unsafe operation in spite of the suggestions from contractors. Negative pressure test was accepted although well integrity had not been established.

To sum up, many mistakes led to the accident, which gave BP disastes in financial and reputation. Until now, BP has not recovered from it. Thanks Siwei Kang, for the topic. I think it is a valid one but my post actually meant the primary cause of the Macondo incident. There are bound to be management failures that led to the extent of damage, loss of life and environmental pollution.

But that does not change the fact that the BOP was still the primary cause. In any drilling operation, there are bound to be problems due to the lack concise information about the reservoir being drilling.

Over-pressured or under-pressured formations may be encountered unexpectedly which could potentially lead to blow outs, issues with drilling fluids not adequately balancing the pressure experienced during drilling and other factors which may arise. That is why we need to the BOP to work as our primary source of protection. Hi, Uchenna Onyia. From my point of view, it is hard to say which one caused this accident more.

BOP is only the last barrier for wells.