Causes Of The BP Explosion And Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Missteps and negligence

There are a number of failures which led to the BP explosion these include mechanical, practical human as well as legal flaws. Accordingly, the primary failures include the negligence shown by the oil industry management, inefficient internal safety culture, and inconsistency exercised by the regulatory agency. Indeed, the Macondo blowout is as a result of a range of personal oversight and mistakes by BP, Transocean and Halliburton where the government regulators were unable to anticipate as well as avert from happening due to lack of authority, technical expertise and lack of necessary resources (Kwok et al., 2017, p. 570). Accordingly, the explosion was influenced by the following aspects:

Missteps and negligence: Really, indifference was the key to the failure which happened on the rig. In accordance with research, these three components could have ensured a better control of pressure which could have prevented the blowout as well as the follow-up explosion and spill from taking place. These elements include the cement at the bottom of the well the blowout preventer (BOP) and the mud contained in the well and the riser. However, these safety devices had been compromised. Some days before the blowout, BOP had been accused by the United States congressional committee of disregarding cautions, violating its safety regulations as well as opting for risky procedures with the objective to save on tie and minimise costs (Lauritsen et al., 2017, p. 84). Accordingly, negligence is the core issue regarding the mechanical and technical aspects which could have surely disallowed the automatic safety mechanism from becoming successful. In accordance with the United States congressional committee BP made various lethal decisions which are a show that the company placed its profit desire before safety. Therefore, some of the reasons in support of this accusation include:

BP Company utilised cheap materials in designing the well by going for a single casing instead of a much more sophisticated design recommended by its team of engineering analysis (Lee et al., 2016, p. 537).

The failure to perform the acoustic test which was designed to assess the efficiency of the cementing in the well to blog off gas flow by BP’s decision due to the fear to spend since the process could have cost approximately $128,000 and taken twelve extra hours.

BP only made use of six centralizers even after being advised to use twenty-one by its contractor Halliburton.

BP decided not to install a primordial piece of equipment that is the “lockdown sleeve” whose function is to lock the wellhead and the casing at the sea level. Thus, the absence of this device can explain the blowout (Shultz et al., 2015, p. 58).

BP’s safety culture

Indeed, these accusations are a clear indication of BP’s carelessness and self-satisfaction.

BP’s safety culture: While BP has always stressed on the significance of safety its operations, the safety culture does not look to be an essential component for the company regardless of the appearance (Reader, and O’Connor, 2014, p. 405). The safety shortcomings of BP have been prolonged with the company provoking some unfortunate incidents which show its lack of seriousness and concern for personal safety. Indeed, the complexity in this scenario is poor management as well as operations since even after being advised by the contractor to use the sophisticated design casing recommended by the analysis undertaken by the engineers the management overlooks it and go ahead to use a single housing.                            

Based on my understanding the type of varieties that lead to the BP explosion include greed by shown by the company management. For instance, the company’s primary intent was to save on costs as well as time. According to the Congress report it indicates that BP instead of installing a modern piece of equipment it installs a primitive equipment which does not have the lockdown sleeve. Indeed, such activities illustrate that BP was more concerned with the profit associated accrued from the project and not the safety of its crew. On the same note, there was no teamwork. Following the 2011 National Oil Spill Commission (NOSC) it points out several occasions of poor communication as well as leadership in between the rig and crew members. For instance, the NOSC report indicates that formal discussions between the rig and the onshore support team were hardly held for major operational decisions.

Similarly, the entire communication regarding the management was poor such that the justification underlying decision making was never shared through clear documentation (Pranesh et al., p. 85). Also, risks were not formally evaluated by the members of the crew. There was also increased modifications in the decisions that were frequently being could have been a contribution since the site leaders for BP well as well as rig crew might have had less time of becoming familiar with the recurrent changes because of poor communications.

Nonetheless, there are several undertakings which could have been done to absorb the cavities such as taking heed of Halliburton contractor’s recommendation about the number of centralizers used to keep the cement even (Moura et al., 2016, p. 37). Also, instead of BP Company focussing on saving costs and time, it would have concentrated on the safety and success of the project by using the best piece of equipment and investing in the design of the project. Lastly, but not least, BP could have work to ensure that there is effective communication between its well site leaders and the onshore crew members in that they were all on the same page to help unmask any risk early enough (Ring et al., 2016, p. 364).            

The eternal verities only account for a legible fraction towards the blowout such as the blind as well as instant approval by the United States interior department of the BP’s request to makes changes to the sound design with some happening within minutes. The action that could have taken is the assessment of the well before approving the application made by BP.   

Kwok, R.K., Engel, L.S., Miller, A.K., Blair, A., Curry, M.D., Jackson, W.B., Stewart, P.A., Stenzel, M.R., Birnbaum, L.S., Sandler, D.P. and GuLF STUDY Research Team, 2017. The GuLF STUDY: a prospective study of persons involved in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill response and clean-up. Environmental health perspectives, 125(4), pp.570-578.

Lauritsen, A.M., Dixon, P.M., Cacela, D., Brost, B., Hardy, R., MacPherson, S.L., Meylan, A., Wallace, B.P. and Witherington, B., 2017. Impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on loggerhead turtle Caretta caretta nest densities in northwest Florida. Endangered Species Research, 33, pp.83-93.

Lee, J., Rehner, T., Choi, H., Bougere, A. and Osowski, T., 2016. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill and factors associated with depressive symptoms among residents of the Mississippi Gulf Coast: A path analysis. Disaster Prevention and Management, 25(4), pp.534-549.

Moura, R., Beer, M., Patelli, E., Lewis, J. and Knoll, F., 2016. Learning from major accidents to improve system design. Safety science, 84, pp.37-45.

Pranesh, V., Palanichamy, K., Saidat, O. and Peter, N., 2017. Lack of dynamic leadership skills and human failure contribution analysis to manage risk in deep water horizon oil platform. Safety science, 92, pp.85-93.

Reader, T.W. and O’Connor, P., 2014. The Deepwater Horizon explosion: non-technical skills, safety culture, and system complexity. Journal of Risk Research, 17(3), pp.405-424.

Shultz, J.M., Walsh, L., Garfin, D.R., Wilson, F.E. and Neria, Y., 2015. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill: the trauma signature of an ecological disaster. The journal of behavioral health services & research, 42(1), pp.58-76.

Ring, P.J., Bryce, C., McKinney, R. and Webb, R., 2016. Taking notice of risk culture–the regulator’s approach. Journal of Risk Research, 19(3), pp.364-387.