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10-110
Rev. April 3, 2012
BP and the Deepwater Horizon Disaster of 2010
Christina Ingersoll, Richard M. Locke, Cate Reavis
When he woke up on Tuesday, April 20, 2010, Mike Williams already knew the standard procedure
for jumping from a 33,000 ton oil rig: “Reach your hand around your life jacket, grab your ear, take
one step off, look straight ahead, and fall.”1 This would prove to be important knowledge later that
night when an emergency announcement was issued over the rig’s PA system.
Williams was the chief electronics technician for Transocean, a U.S.-owned, Switzerland-based oil
industry support company that specialized in deep water drilling equipment. The company’s $560
million Deepwater Horizon rig was in the Gulf of Mexico working on the Macondo well. British
Petroleum (BP) held the rights to explore the well and had leased the rig, along with its crew, from
Transocean. Of the 126 people aboard the Deepwater Horizon, 79 were from Transocean, seven were
from BP, and the rest were from other firms including Anadarko, Halliburton, and M-1 Swaco, a
subsidiary of Schlumberger.
Managing electronics on the Deepwater Horizon had inured Williams to emergency alarms. Gas
levels had been running high enough to prohibit any “hot” work such as welding or wiring that could
cause sparks. Normally, the alarm system would have gone off with gas levels as high as they were.
However, the alarms had been disabled in order to prevent false alarms from waking people in the
middle of the night. But the emergency announcement that came over the PA system on the night of
April 20 was clearly no false alarm.
1
Testimony from Michael Williams, The Joint United States Coast Guard/The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, “FUSCG/BOEM Marine Board of
Investigation into the marine casualty, explosion, fire, pollution, and sinking of mobile offshore drilling unit deepwater horizon, with loss of life in the Gulf of
Mexico 21-22 April 2010,” Transcript, July 23, 2010, pp. 24-25.
This case was prepared by Christina Ingersoll (MBA Class of 2010) and Cate Reavis, Manager, MSTIR, under the supervision
of Professor Richard M. Locke. Professor Locke is Deputy Dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management, Head of the MIT
Department of Political Science, and the Class of 1922 Professor of Political Science and Management. This case was
prepared as part of the MIT Sloan Ethics, Values and Voice Module.
Copyright © 2011, Richard M. Locke. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No
Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
BP AND THE DEEPWATER HORIZON DISASTER OF 2010
Christina Ingersoll, Richard M. Locke, Cate Reavis
Moments after the announcement, Williams was jolted by a nearby thud and a hissing sound,
followed by the revving of one of the rig’s engines. Before he knew it, there were two explosions
forcing him and other crew members to abandon ship by jumping into the partially flaming ocean.2 Of
the 126 workers on board the Deepwater Horizon, 17 were injured, including Williams, and 11 were
killed. The rig burned for 36 hours, combusting the 700,000 gallons of oil that were on board, leaving
a trail of smoke over 30 miles long. The Deepwater Horizon sank on April 22, taking with it the top
pipe of the well and parts of the system that were supposed to prevent blowouts from occuring.3
As of 2010, the Deepwater Horizon disaster was the largest marine oil spill ever to occur in U.S.
waters. By the time the well was capped on July 15, 2010, nearly five million barrels of oil
(205.8 million gallons) had spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. Federal science and engineering teams
revised their estimates on the rate of oil flow several times, and in August they concluded that
between April 20 and July 15, 53,000-62,000 barrels per day spilled into the Gulf,4 an amount that
was equivalent to a spill the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez every four to five days.5 Before the
Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Exxon Valdez held the record for the largest spill in U.S. waters.
It was surprising to many analysts how such a disaster could happen, particularly involving a
company like BP, which publicly prided itself on its commitment to safety. It did seem clear that, in
an effort to close up the Macondo well, several key decisions were made, each involving multiple
stakeholders and trade-offs of time, money, safety, and risk mitigation. The public debate began
immediately on whether the result of these decisions indicated operational or management problems
on the rig, and whether these problems were endemic to the oil industry, or resided within BP
itself. To help answer these questions, several task forces were formed to investigate the root causes
of the disaster and who among the various players involved with the Macondo well bore
responsibility for the disaster and for its resolution.
British Petroleum
The company that would become BP was founded in 1909 as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company
(APOC) shortly after Englishman William Knox D’Arcy struck oil in Iran after an eight-year search.
In its early years, profitability proved elusive for APOC and, in 1914, Winston Churchill, who was
head of the British Navy and believed Britain needed a dedicated oil supply, convinced the British
government to buy a 51% stake in the nearly bankrupt company.
2
The Joint United States Coast Guard/The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, “FUSCG/BOEM Marine Board of Investigation into the marine casualty,
explosion, fire, pollution, and sinking of mobile offshore drilling unit deepwater horizon, with loss of life in the Gulf of Mexico 21-22 April 2010,” Transcript,
July 23, 2010, pp. 10-14.
3
U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce, “Chronology of Deepwater Horizon Events,” June 15, 2010.
4
Campbell Robertson and Clifford Kraus, “Gulf Spill is Largest of Its Kind, Scientists Say,” The New York Times, August 3, 2010.
5
Calculation based on a spill size of 10.8 million gallons for the Exxon Valdez. Justin Gillis and Henry Fountain, “New Estimates Double Rate of Oil Flowing
Into Gulf,” The New York Times, June 10, 2010.
Rev. April 3, 2012
2
BP AND THE DEEPWATER HORIZON DISASTER OF 2010
Christina Ingersoll, Richard M. Locke, Cate Reavis
The British government’s majority ownership of BP lasted until the late 1970s when the government,
under Prime Margaret Thatcher, a proponent of privatization, began selling off its shares in an attempt
to increase productivity in the company. When the government sold its final 31% share in 1987, BP’s
performance was floundering. The company’s performance continued to decline as a newly private
company; in 1992, BP posted a loss of $811 million. Nearing bankruptcy, the company was forced to
take dramatic cost cutting measures.
Things started to improve measurably in the mid-1990s. With a streamlined workforce and portfolio
of activities, BP’s new CEO began implementing an aggressive growth strategy, highlighted by
mergers with rivals Amoco in 1998, and ARCO (the former Atlantic Richfield) in 2000.
Along with focusing on growth, BP began repositioning itself. In 2001, the company launched the
new tagline “Beyond Petroleum” and officially changed its name to “BP.” The associated green
branding campaign indicated that BP wanted to be known as an environmentally-friendly oil
company. Over the next decade, the company launched an Alternative Energy division and was, for a
time, the world’s largest manufacturer of solar cells and Britain’s largest producer of wind energy. BP
invested $4 billion in alternative energy between 2005 and 2009.6 BP’s total company investment
over the same time period was $982 billion.7
In May 2007, Tony Hayward, who had been chief executive of Exploration and Production (BPX),
replaced John Browne as CEO. Hayward marked his appointment with a speech pledging to “focus
like a laser on safety issues, put the brakes on growth and slash production targets.”8 Hayward was
able to improve corporate performance, in part, by dramatically shrinking the Alternative Energy
division and further reducing headcount at both managerial and lower staff levels.9 Between 2006 and
2009, BP’s workforce fell from 97,000 to 80,300.10
In addition to cutting four levels of management, Hayward also spoke publicly about his desire to
transform BP’s culture to one that was less risk averse. He believed that too many people were
making too many decisions leading to extreme cautiousness. “Assurance is killing us,” he told U.S.
staff in September of 2007.11
Despite Hayward’s concern about the company’s risk averse culture, in a relatively short period of
time, BP had transitioned from a small, state-sponsored company to one of the six largest non-stateowned oil companies in the world and, in the month before the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the
largest company listed on the London Stock Exchange. The transition required numerous mergers
6
“BP Sustainability Reporting 2009: Alternative Energy,” BP Publication, April 15, 2010.
7
BP annual financial statements: 2007 and 2009.
8
Tony Hayward, “BP 2008 Strategy Presentation,” BP Publication, February 27, 2008.
9
Ibid.
10
BP.com archive information on employment, for 2006 data; “BP at a Glance” from BP.com, accessed October 10, 2010 for 2009 data.
11
Graeme Wearden, “BP to Take Axe to Management,” The Guardian, September 25, 2007.
Rev. April 3, 2012
3
BP AND THE DEEPWATER HORIZON DISASTER OF 2010
Christina Ingersoll, Richard M. Locke, Cate Reavis
and acquisitions, and strict cost cutting measures. Along the way, BP’s organizational structure was
also dramatically transformed.
Organizational Strategy
BP in the late 1980s comprised several layers of management in a matrix structure that made it
difficult for anyone to make decisions quickly. In some cases, simple proposal changes required 15
signatures. At the same time, the company was overleveraged and its overall performance was
suffering.12 Robert Horton, who was appointed CEO in 1989, started a radical turnaround program in
an effort to cut $750 million from BP’s annual expenses. He removed several layers of management
and slashed the headcount at headquarters by 80. Horton also intended to increase the speed of
managerial decision-making and, thereby, the pace of business in general. Horton transformed
hierarchically structured departments into smaller, more flexible teams charged with maintaining
open lines of communication.13
Horton transferred decision-making authority away from the corporate center to the upstream and
downstream business divisions. While deep cuts were made to capital budgets and the workforce,
employees at all levels were encouraged to take responsibility and exercise decision-making
initiative. In 1992 David Simon was appointed CEO replacing Robert Horton. Simon continued
Horton’s policy of cost cutting, especially in staffing.
The biggest changes during this period occurred in BPX, which was led by John Browne. Building
upon his predecessors’ efforts, Browne, who envisioned creating a spirit of entrepreneurship among
his staff, extended decision-making responsibilities to employees at more levels in the organization.
Under the new strategy, decision-making authority and responsibility for meeting performance targets
was no longer held by BP’s regional operating companies, but by onsite asset managers.14 Asset
managers contracted with BP to meet certain performance targets and extended this practice among
all employees working on a given site. Employee compensation was tied to asset performance and the
overall performance of the site. The model, which was known as an “asset federation,” was later
applied across the company after Browne took over as CEO in 1995.
One tradeoff with the asset federation model was that because each site manager managed their
“asset” autonomously and was compensated for its performance, there was little incentive to share
best practices on risk management among the various BP exploration sites.15 There were also
downsides to a system in which a centralized body had little oversight over the setting of performance
targets, particularly in an industry where risk management and safety were essential to the long-term
success of an oil company. And BP had had its shares of safety breaches.
12
John Roberts, “Organizing for Performance: How BP Did It,” Stanford Business, February 2005.
13
“BP After Horton,” The Economist, July 4, 1992.
14
Each physical well site was called an asset and the site managers were “asset managers.”
15
David Apgar, “Time to Break BP Up,” The Globalist, June 22, 2010.
Rev. April 3, 2012
4
BP AND THE DEEPWATER HORIZON DISASTER OF 2010
Christina Ingersoll, Richard M. Locke, Cate Reavis
Safety Issues at BP
In the mid-2000s, disaster struck BP twice within a 12-month period. The first happened on March
23, 2005 when an explosion at BP’s Texas City Refinery killed 15 people and injured another 180,
and resulted in financial losses exceeding $1.5 billion. BP commissioned James Baker, a former U.S.
secretary of state and oil industry lawyer, to write an investigative report on the Texas City tragedy.
One of the key findings highlighted in the Baker Report was that the company had cut back on
maintenance and safety measures at the plant in order to curtail costs, and that responsibility for the
explosion ultimately rested with company senior executives.16
Another concern outlined in the report was that while BP had emphasized personal safety and
achieved significant improvements, the company “has mistakenly interpreted improving personal
injury rates as an indication of acceptable process safety, creating a false sense of confidence.”17 The
report goes on to state the following:
The Panel’s refinery-level interviews, the process safety culture survey, and some BP documents
suggest that significant portions of the U.S. refinery workforce do not believe that process safety
is a core value at BP. As many of the refinery interviewees pointed out, and as some BP
documents and the process safety culture survey seem to confirm, one of the reasons for this
belief is that BP’s executive and corporate refining management have not communicated a
consistent and meaningful message about the importance of process safety and a firm conviction
that process accidents are not acceptable. The inability of many in the workforce to perceive a
consistent and meaningful corporate message about process safety is easy to understand given the
number of “values” that BP articulates:
•
•
BP’s 18 “Group values,” only one of which encompasses health and safety—the
company’s broad, aspirational goal of “no accidents, no harm to people, and no harm to
the environment.”
Four “Brand values,” which BP claims, “underpin everything we do”: being performance
driven, innovative, progressive, and green.
None of these relates to safety.
These messages to the BP workforce on so many values and priorities contribute to a dilution of
the effectiveness of any management message on process safety. This is consistent with a recent
observation from the organizational expert that BP retained under the 2005 OSHA settlement
relating to Texas City: There appears to be no one, over-arching, clearly-stated worksite policy at
Texas City, regardless of respondents’ answers. The BP stated policy on health and safety, “no
16
James Baker et al., “The Report of the BP U.S. Refineries Independent Safety Review Panel,” January 2007. pp. 82-85.
17
Ibid, p. 72.
Rev. April 3, 2012
5
BP AND THE DEEPWATER HORIZON DISASTER OF 2010
Christina Ingersoll, Richard M. Locke, Cate Reavis
accidents, no harm to people and no damage to the environment” is not widely known at Texas
City and points to a weak connection between BP Texas City and BP as a corporation. Safety
communication is viewed more as a function of particular individuals in Texas City versus a BPwide commitment.
Until BP’s management, from the Group Chief Executive down through the refinery
superintendents, consistently articulates a clear message on process safety, it will be difficult to
persuade the refining workforce that BP is truly committed on a long-term basis to process safety
excellence.18
In March 2006, as The Baker Report was being written, a second disaster struck BP, this time in
Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay, where more than 200,000 gallons of oil poured into the bay from a corroded
hole in the pipeline, making it the largest oil spill in Alaska.19 Inspectors found that several miles of
the steel pipe had corroded to dangerously thin levels. Alaskan state regulators had been warning BP
since 2001 that its management procedures were out of alignment with state regulations, and that
critical equipment needed to be better maintained.
BP took several actions in response to The Baker Report and other reports, including one that was
overseen by John Mogford, a senior group vice president of safety for BPX, on its safety. According
to Appendix F, a supplement to The Baker Report, these actions included:
•
•
•
Leadership visibility. John Browne, BP’s group chief executive, met with the company’s top
200 leaders to stress BP’s commitment to safety and communicate his expectations regarding
safety. Members of the new Safety and Operations organization visited BP’s U.S. refineries
and gave presentations regarding the importance of process safety and the importance of the
Mogford Report recommendations. Additionally, BP senior managers have attended town
hall meetings with employees to discuss safety issues. The chief executive, Refining and
Marketing, conducted meetings for all U.S. refining employees, and the president of BP
America conducted meetings and sent written communications to BP America employees
regarding safety issues.
Review of employee concerns. BP appointed retired United States District Judge Stanley
Sporkin to hear and review BP employee concerns.
Auditing. The Safety and Operations organization is creating an enhanced audit function,
including additional audit personnel and a number of external hires. BP has listed auditfinding closure as one element of a six-point plan for sustained development. The new audit
group is developing enhanced audit protocols to better assess actual operations against
applicable standards.
18
Ibid, p. 61.
19
Abrahm Lustgarten and Ryan Knutson, “Reports at BP over Years Find History of Problems,” Washington Post, June 8, 2010.
Rev. April 3, 2012
6
BP AND THE DEEPWATER HORIZON DISASTER OF 2010
Christina Ingersoll, Richard M. Locke, Cate Reavis
•
Resources for plant, equipment, and systems. BP has announced that it has earmarked $7
billion over the next four years to upgrade all aspects of safety at its U.S. refineries and to
repair and replace infield pipelines in Alaska. The company has also announced $300 million
in funding and significant external input for process safety management renewal in refining.
Though some of these changes were company-wide, many were specific either to Texas City or the
refinery operations within BP.20 Still, BP executives clearly realized that when it came to safety, there
was room for improvement.21 Between June 2007 and February 2010, 97% (829 of 851) of the willful
safety violations by an oil refinery handed down by the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration went to two BP-owned refineries in Texas and Ohio.22
The Macondo Well Project
The Macondo Prospect was located 52 miles south of the port of Venice, Louisiana in the Gulf of
Mexico. At nearly 5,000 feet below sea level, the well demonstrated great potential for extracting oil,
but was also somewhat hazardous. Natural gas levels were high in the reservoirs, which made drilling
challenging.23
Drilling in deep water and ultra-deep water24 started to become economically profitable and
technically feasible on a large scale in the mid-2000s, due to higher world prices for crude oil and
improvements in drilling technology. The number of deep water rigs in the Gulf of Mexico increased
from just three in 1992 to 36 in 2008.25 Because of the complexities of deep water operations, creating
a productive deep water oil field was extremely expensive compared to shallow water oil drilling. But
the potential payoff was enticing. A well producing in shallow water might yield a few thousand
barrels of oil a day. By contrast, deep water wells could yield more than 10,000 barrels per day.26
BP acquired the rights to the Macondo Prospect from the U.S. Minerals Management Service in
March of 2009.27 As the oil industry regulator, the MMS issued permits to oil companies wanting to
drill on U.S. land or in U.S. waters. In exchange, it received royalty revenue from oil companies. BP
was the principal developer and operator of the prospect and held a 65% financial share in the
project.28 While BP maintained operational decision-making authority, Transocean employees, who
performed the majority of the work on the rig, had some decision-making authority over operations
20
Baker Report Appendix F – BP post Texas City Measures. p. F-1.
21
The BP U.S. Refineries Independent Safety Review Panel, 2007.
22
Pierre Thomas, Lisa A. Jones, Jack Cloherty, and Jason Ryan, “BP’s Dismal Safety Record,” ABC World News, May 27, 2010.
23
http://www.deepwaterinvestigation.com/external/content/document/3043/856507/1/7-23-10.pdf p. 70.
24
“Ultra-deep water” is considered water 5000 or more feet below sea level.
25
Lesley D. Nixon et al, “Deepwater Gulf of Mexico 2009: Interim Report of 2008 Highlights,” OCS Report (New Orleans: U.S. Department of the Interior
Minerals Management Service Gulf of Mexico OCS Region), May 2009.
26
Fred H. Bartlit, Jr., Chief Counsel, National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. Macondo Gulf Oil Disaster Chief
Counsel’s Report 2011, February 17, 2011.
27
“Macondo,” SUBSEAIQ, (http://www.subseaiq.com/Data/Project.aspx?project_Id=562) accessed October 10, 2010.
28
BP’s financial partners for Macondo were Texas-based Anadarko Petroleum Corporation which owned a 25% share, and MOEX Offshore 2007, a unit of
Japan-based Mitsui, which owned a 10% share.
Rev. April 3, 2012
7
BP AND THE DEEPWATER HORIZON DISASTER OF 2010
Christina Ingersoll, Richard M. Locke, Cate Reavis
and maintenance. BP started drilling the Macondo well in October of 2009. Drilling, however, was
interrupted in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida. BP commenced drilling on February 3, 2010 leasing
Transocean’s Deepwater Horizon rig.29
Transocean charged BP approximately $500,000 per day to lease the rig, plus roughly the same
amount in contractor fees.30 BP originally estimated that drilling the Macondo well would take 51
days and cost approximately $96 million. By April 20, 2010 the rig was already on its 80th day on
location and had far exceeded its original budget. 31
The Deepwater Horizon Rig
The Deepwater Horizon rig came with a long list of maintenance issues. In September 2009, BP
conducted a safety audit on the rig, which was in use at another BP drilling site at the time. The audit
identified 390 repairs that needed immediate attention and would require more than 3,500 hours of
labor to fix.32 It was later learned that the Deepwater Horizon had not gone to dry-dock for nine years
previous to the disaster and never stopped working at any point between the September 2009 audit
and April 20, 2010.33
As Transocean’s Chief Electronics Technician Mike Williams experienced, the crew had to be adept
at developing workarounds in order to maintain the function of the rig. Williams was responsible for
maintaining the Drilling Chairs — the three oversight computers that controlled the drilling
technology. These computers, operating on a mid-1990s era Windows NT operating system, would
frequently freeze. If Chair A went down the driller would have to go to Chair B in order to maintain
control of the well. If somehow all three chairs went down at once, the drill would be completely out
of control.34 Williams frequently reported the software problems and the need to have them fixed.35
Despite the hazards of the Macondo well site, the known maintenance issues on the rig, and the
setbacks that had caused the project to be over budget, BP felt confident that it had found oil.
However, since the Deepwater Horizon was an exploratory vessel, the crew was under orders to close
the well temporarily36 and return later with another rig to extract the oil.
29
“Macondo,” SUBSEAIQ, (http://www.subseaiq.com/Data/Project.aspx?project_Id=562) accessed October 10, 2010.
30
Ben Casselman and Russell Gold, “BP Decisions Set Stage for Disaster,” Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2010.
31
BP, GOM Exploration Wells Me 252 #1 – Macondo Prospect Well information (Sept 2009) (BP-HZN-CEC008714)
(http://energycommerce.house.gov/documents/20100614).
32
Robbie Brown, “After Another Close Call, Transocean Changed the Rules,” The New York Times, August 16, 2010.
33
Ibid; Testimony from Michael Williams, The Joint United States Coast Guard/The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, “FUSCG/BOEM Marine Board of
Investigation into the marine casualty, explosion, fire, pollution, and sinking of mobile offshore drilling unit deepwater horizon, with loss of life in the Gulf of
Mexico 21-22 April 2010,” Transcript, July 23, 2010, p. 153.
34
Ibid, pp. 42-44.
35
Ibid, pp. 98-102.
36
“Temporary abandonment” is the industry term for temporarily closing but not plugging a well.
Rev. April 3, 2012
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BP AND THE DEEPWATER HORIZON DISASTER OF 2010
Christina Ingersoll, Richard M. Locke, Cate Reavis
Anatomy of a Disaster
While the process of closing a well is always complex, closing the Macondo well proved particularly
so due to competing interests of cost, time and safety, as well as the number of people and
organizations involved in the decision-making process. (See Exhibit 1.) As one example, 11
companies37 played a role in the construction of the casing38 for the Macondo well, all with different
responsibilities for various aspects of setting the well. Halliburton, for instance, was responsible for
cement-related decisions, although many of these decisions were contingent on decisions made by BP
managers on well design.
Adding to the complexities of decision making on the Deepwater Horizon was the fact that many of
BP’s decision makers for the Macondo well had only been in their positions for a short time before
disaster struck. See Figure 1.
Figure 1
Deepwater Horizon Chain of Command
Name
Title
Days/Months in Position
Patrick O’Bryan
VP, Drilling and
Completions, Gulf
of Mexico
Wells Manager
3 months
Drilling Operations
Manager
Well Site Leader
18 days
Drilling
Engineering Team
Leader
18 days (took David Sims’s
previous position)
David Rich
David Sims
Robert Kaluza
Greg Walz
6 months
4 days
Note: Exhibit 2 is a corrected version based on court testimonies that includes full names and titles.
Source: BP as presented at the hearings of the US Coast Guard and the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Management,
Regulation and Enforcement, August 26, 2010.
As the Deepwater Horizon Disaster was dissected in various public forums, questions arose as to
whether, in concert with the chaotic mix of decision makers, three key decisions on closing the
Macondo well played a role in the downing of the 33,000 ton oil rig. (U.S. Congressional
Representatives Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak called out these decisions in a letter dated June 14,
2010 to BP CEO Tony Hayward just days before his testimony before the Subcommittee on
Oversight and Investigations. See Exhibit 3.)
37
BP, Weatherford, Hydril, Allamon, Blackhawk, Halliburton, Schlumberger, Sperry, M-I SWACO, Nexen, and K&B.
38
Casing is the lining of the drilled well hole. Ensuring a sound casing is essential to preventing any oil or gas leakage and maintaining the well as a resource
for future oil production.
Rev. April 3, 2012
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BP AND THE DEEPWATER HORIZON DISASTER OF 2010
Christina Ingersoll, Richard M. Locke, Cate Reavis
Well Casing
Deep water wells are drilled in sections. The process of deep water drilling involves drilling through
rock at the bottom of the ocean, installing and cementing casing to secure the well hole, then drilling
deeper and repeating the process. On April 9, 2010, the crew of the Deepwater Horizon finished
drilling the last section of the well, which extended 18,360 feet below sea level and 1,192 feet below
the casing that had previously been inserted into the well.39
During the week of April 12, BP project managers had to decide how best to secure the well’s final
1,192-foot section. One option involved hanging a steel tube called a liner from a liner hanger on the
bottom of the casing already in the well and then inserting another steel liner tube called a “tieback”
on top of the liner hanger. The liner/tieback casing option provided four barriers of protection against
gas and oil leaks getting into the well accidentally. These barriers included the cement at the bottom
of the well, the hanger seal that attaches the liner to the existing casing in the well, the cement that
secures the tieback on top of the liner, and the seal at the wellhead.40
The other casing option, known as “long string casing,” involved running a single string of steel
casing from the seafloor all the way to the bottom of the well. (Both options are depicted in Figure
2.) Long string casing provided two barriers to the flow of gas up the annular space that surrounded
the casing: the cement at the bottom of the well and the seal at the wellhead. Compared to the liner
tie-back option, the long string casing option took fewer days to install.
Figure 2
Diagram of a Liner
Diagram of a Casing String
Note: A liner completion incorporates a short casing string,
hung off from a predetermined point in the intermediate
casing string. This provides several benefits, including
reduced material cost and greater flexibility in the selection
of completion components in the upper wellbore area.
Note: Pipe is run into the wellbore and
cemented in place to protect aquifers, to
provide pressure integrity and to ensure
isolation of producing formations.
Source: Schlumberger.
39
BP, PowerPoint Presentation, Washington Briefing, Deepwater Horizon Interim Incident Investigation, May 24, 2010.
40
Briefing by Tommy Roth, Vice President of Cementing, Halliburton, to House Committee on Energy and Commerce Staff (June 3, 2010); Halliburton,
PowerPoint Presentation, Energy and Commerce Committee Staff Briefing (June 3, 2010).
Rev. April 3, 2012
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BP AND THE DEEPWATER HORIZON DISASTER OF 2010
Christina Ingersoll, Richard M. Locke, Cate Reavis
The decision about which casing design to use changed several times during the month of April. A
BP Forward Plan Review from mid-April 2010 recommended against using long string casing
because of the inherent risks of having fewer gas barriers. But internal communications within BP
indicated the company was actually leaning towards using the long string casing option. On March
25, 2010, Brian Morel, a BP drilling engineer, emailed Allison Crane, a materials management
coordinator for BP, that choosing long string casing “saves a lot of time … at least 3 days…” On
March 30, he emailed Sarah Dobbs, the BP completions engineer, and Mark Hafle, another BP
drilling engineer, that “not running the tieback … saves a good deal of time/money.”41 On April 15,
BP estimated that using a liner instead of the long string casing “will add an additional $7 – $10
million to the completion cost.”42
A few days after BP completed the first version of its Forward Plan Review, the company released a
revised version which referred to the long string casing option as “the primary option” and the liner as
“the contingency option.”43 Like the earlier version of the Forward Plan Review, this version
acknowledged the risks of long string casing, but considered it the “best economic case and well
integrity case for future completion operations.”44
Centralizers
In closing up the well, BP was responsible for cementing in place the steel pipe that ran into the oil
reservoir. The cement would fill the space between the outside of the pipe and surrounding rock,
allowing a more uniform cement sheath to form around the pipe, while preventing any gas from
flowing up the sides. Centralizers are special brackets that are used to help keep the pipe centered.
To help inform decision-making on the well pipe centralization, BP hired Halliburton, the cementing
contractor, to run technical model simulations and cement lab tests. Jesse Marc Gagliano was the
Halliburton account representative for BP. He worked in
