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This article doesn't provide enough technical information to tell whether the authors really have a point. Maybe we don't even have enough data on Deepwater Horizon to know whether the authors have a point.

From some reports, the Deepwater Horizon incident seemed to start with some kind of "water hammer" from a slug of vapor going up the string. If that is true, the slug traveled along 5000 feet of pipe. Controlling a slug along 5000 feet of pipe may be a very different proposition from controlling a slug along 150 feet of pipe. The longer pipe would give a rising gas more distance to gain momentum. As a result, the pressure wave would hit the top much harder. If I'm misreading the reports, then the issues involved could be very similar.

Either way, we'll need a thorough causal analysis of this incident before knowing whether the lessons of the Ixtoc incident would have been relevant.

Yeah, I’m sure when all is said and done, there will probably be a lot of important differences between the two disasters- the point you made, the issues 21twelve raised, and the fact that, despite the problems encountered so far, the technology and information available is probably vastly improved from 30 years ago.

This article at one point talks about having easy access to the Ixtoc well because it was so shallow. In another part it says the fire burned for months though. Another article I read said the Ixtoc rig collapsed right on the wellhead making it difficult to get to. So, it might have been a shallow water well but it doesn't sound like it was necessarily easy to work on.

In any case there were three major differences from the Deepwater Horizon situation. Shallow water, the rig collapsed on the wellhead and months of fire.