Posted on 06/14/2010 5:23:23 PM PDT by Rational Thought
NEW YORK (CBS NEWS) -- BP hoped to drill the well in 51 days for $96 million. But things ran way behind schedule and over budget, reports CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson.
Leasing the Deepwater Horizon cost BP a million dollars every two days. The day of the explosion, the rig was already 43 days late for its next job.
Investigators say that may be why BP took so many risks. Like choosing a cheaper well casing over a safer option that would have cost $7 to $10 million more.
One BP colleague emailed another: "This has been [a] nightmare well which has everyone all over the place."
On going the cheaper route, internal BP emails read: "saves a lot of time … saves a good deal of time/money."
BP also rejected advice from Halliburton, the contractor hired to finish out the well. Halliburton recommended using 21 so-called "centralizers" to keep the well casing centered.
A BP official, John Guide, worried that would "take 10 hours ... I do not like this."
Instead of 21, BP decided to use just six. Halliburton warned that would mean a well with "a severe gas flow problem."
Of the risk, one BP Engineer, Brett Cocales, wrote: "who cares, it's done, end of story, will probably be fine."
That is true but the job market conditions play a part as well. 20 years ago if those home office types had come up with crap like this the company man on the rig - never mind the drilling contractor personnel - would have told them that if they wanted that done they had better get on a chopper and get their asses out there so the could do it themselves cause we ain't doing it like that!
there are over 4,000 rigs out there, saftey rules should be obeyed even if there is no one watching. we should not need to hire inspectors for each rig.
if you kill 11 people you have made a mistake, shit like that does not just happen
Under OPA-90, there is already unlimited liability if negligence can be proved.
I asked to be put on a blacklist with one company and refused to work for them because their operation was such a mess--not that that was necessarily dangerous, but it was not going to make a well.
I'd rather spend my time and energy bringing a well in.
If they just want to piss their AFE away, throw me a wad and go to Vegas...but don't get me on a location where the chain of command is run by someone 1500 miles away who wants to micromanage a fast moving and changing situation but consistently can't be bothered to get out a decision in 12 hours.
I can't think of a better way to get a lateral out of zone (or never get it in) than be drilling across the top of a small structure and have some person elsewhere insist on calling the shots on secondhand hours old data.
Any more, if you are two hours behind the bit, you might as well be drilling on another planet.
I’m not about to argue with a word of that!
I’m also betting I can tell you which company you asked to put you on the blacklist.
You might be able to, but please, no speculation in open forum. Management might have changed in the 15 or so years since and they might be run better now. I will say it wan’t BP (never did work for them so I can’t say how they are run).
Yep, and some companies are self-policing. Which is why they have far fewer problems.
A couple of decades back many land drilling contractors saw the wisdom in preventing accidents and started really proactive safety programs. That blossomed into full blown education programs for drillers and toolpushers (rig managers, for you ginsels out there) covering well control and other more advanced topics.
The results are fewer accidents and fewer trainwrecks, and lower expenses as a result. This is where humanitarian, environmental, and economic reasons all come together to motivate people to get it right.
Good linked article. Thanks!
There was also an internal report in March outlining the problems with this well. Around the same time that BP CEO sold 1/3 of his BP stock.
I have not heard much (actually - nothing) of the 11 men that were killed. I wonder if the driller and tool pusher that were arguing with the company man were among the dead?
Leaving it to the blow out preventer (BOP) is like the following to me. The driver of the car (the driller) is driving slow and safe. His passenger (the company man) says “drive faster!”.
The driver says “We’re on a mountain road, it is icy, they didn’t put studs on my worn-out tires, the brakes are bad, and the seat belts are trashed. I’m taking it easy.”
And the company man says “I’m the boss - step on it. Anyway - that’s what the airbags are for!”
If you are relying on your BOP (or your airbags) - you are an idiot.
I worked for my “uncle” (second cousin actually - I think!?) for a couple of summers on an oil rig during college. One summer in Wyoming, the next in Oklahoma. He was the boss on the rig. Even the company men knew it, and would agree with whatever he deemed the thing to do, and then helped him do it.
He ended up as a driller on some “super rig” in Oklahoma before he retired. I can’t remember now the name of the drilling company he was with when I was with him. (Although I think I still have my 30 year-old windbreaker around here somewhere with my “Safety First” patch on it for not hurting myself that first summer!)
I sure hope the driller and tool pusher on the BP rig survived.
For all those who want to nuke the thing - If mud is cracking the rock, imagine what a nuke would do
My bet is the argument to be made is that if there were sufficient union stewards aboard, none of this would’ve happened.
Anybody can see this is a ploy for card check.
It could be a movement for the envir-wacko lobby.
The difficulty is determining which one it is beause it can’t be both; one or the other aren’t manipulative; both organizations have the best interests of either their constituents or workers at heart.
It does boil down to what you’d have done as a worker on the rig to stop the disaster.
See, since you couldn’t stop it because of various different things, government needs to step in to ensure that this doesn’t just happen ever again in the petroleum industry, but imagine the horror if a nuke plant went poof?
See?
Not only are unions absolutely needed, they’re a socially moral and ethical necxessity.
Prove to me that you could single handedly get the rig shut down because there was a problem with the bore hole (or some environmental issue).
So I guess Obama is going to give back all the BP money he took. With interest.
ha.
Fragments of info are worth less than crap without the complete picture.
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