NATION & WORLD
Engineering experts hit safety culture in BP spill
By SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — BP and the oil industry drilling in the Gulf of Mexico lacked the proper safety attitude to handle the large risks of deep-water drilling, leading to the many bad deci- sions behind the nation’s worst offshore spill, a panel of expert engineers said Dec. 14. Despite better safety practices, the
complexities of the deep-water opera- tions, and industry oversight to approve and monitor well plans and operational practices and personnel competency and training.” That’s a problem because the report
that industry offi cials need to make intelligent deci- sions comparing risk and business decisions,
called drilling in the Gulf’s deep waters “some of the most complex and most risky ventures conducted by commercial enterprises.” Experts said a defi cient safety culture
experts worried that the improvements could fade without new steps. They pointed to NASA and how lessons the agency learned after the 1986 Challenger disaster eventually dimmed, leading to the 2003 Columbia disaster. The report’s release coincided with
led BP to rely on blowout preventers — a 57-foot-tall, 400-ton system of well control devices — as equipment that just couldn’t fail. The trouble is that even before the
the government’s announcement of the results of the fi rst auction of offshore oil leases off the Gulf of Mexico since the April 2010 spill. They drew $337.7 mil- lion in winning bids for 191 tracts in the western Gulf off the coast of Texas. BP had the fourth most successful bids, 11 totaling $27.5 million, far behind Cono- coPhillips’ 75 winning bids. The National Academy of Engineer-
had an unrealistic attitude that their actions never added risks. Like other studies of the
they
ing, which advises the federal govern- ment, cited errors that combined to make the well platform explode and oil spill, but noted a problem with the safety culture underlying last year’s 172 million gallon spill at BP’s Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico. “The industrial management involved
with drilling the Macondo well had not adequately understood and coped with the system safety challenges presented by offshore drilling operations,” the 136-page report said. “This raises ques- tions about the industry’s overall safety preparedness, the ability to handle the
do not work all the time,” said panel chairman Donald Winter, a former Navy secretary and engineering professor at the University of Michigan. BP and all the industry had “a misplaced confi - dence that the blowout preventer could provide a guarantee if you will, an insur- ance policy, against a blowout.” Panel member Roger McCarthy, a
well blowout, “there were numerous warnings to both industry and regula- tors about potential failures of existing” blowout preventers, the report said. The report pointed to studies in 2001, 2002, 2004, and a 1999 well blowout and fi re off the Louisiana coast. “One needs to understand that they
BP spill, the report high- lighted several technical failures behind the disas- ter, with no lone cause. But Winter said the bad deci- sion that was uppermost to him was the decision to abandon the well tem- porarily, which is normal, even though the cement poured in the well failed important pressure tests. “Once they made the decision to basically dis- regard the tests,” it set the chain-of-events for all that followed, Winter said. In a statement, BP said
Thursday, December 22, 2011 ■ Page 13
Associated Press
This August/September 2010 photo provided by Dr. Samantha Joye with the University of Georgia Department of Marine Sciences, shows a layer of oil on a sediment core from the Gulf of Mexico seafl oor, months after the rig explosion that led to the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
it “has acknowledged its role in the accident and has taken concrete steps to further enhance safety and risk management throughout its global operations.” The experts do say drilling safety has
private engineering consultant who has investigated past oil spills, said blowout preventers are treated like drilling’s cir- cuit-breakers, but there’s no safety group certifying them in the same that Under- writers Laboratories approves key elec- trical safety devices in homes. Winter said the safety culture issue was apparent in the industry’s attitude toward risks involved in drilling: Instead of acknowledging that there are risks and
improved in the Gulf of Mexico. “We think it is indeed in fact a rea- sonable process to continue drilling at this point in time,” Winter said at news conference. “But further improvements in safety can in fact be made and should be made.”
Academy of Engineering means the re- port is likely to carry more weight in Congress than some of other investi- gations. Republican lawmakers have
The independence of the National
criticized prior reports by a presidential commission saying that the panel was biased.
inherent confl icts of interest because the committee was comprised of those who regulate the offshore drilling industry. Since the disaster, the Obama admin-
A joint federal investigation also has
istration has reorganized the offshore drilling agency and boosted safety regu- lations. But Congress has yet to pass a single piece of legislation to address safe- ty gaps highlighted by the disaster. House Republicans, meanwhile, have
bills to jump start offshore drilling. Associated Press writer Dina Cappiello contributed to this report.
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