Question

Looking at a the case study, "2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill", one of the largest environmental disasters in history, scrutinize and discuss any aspect of the case, including the technical, legal, environmental, or ethical details. However, include some explicit discussion of the decision of the engineers overseeing operations on the Deepwater Horizon. To what were these decisions an engineering failure? What aspects of the engineer’s code of ethics did they violate? What might they have done different to prevent such a disaster?

Answer 1

Ans:-

The numerous technical and operational breakdowns that contributed to the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and spill from the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico suggest the lack of a suitable approach for managing the inherent risks, uncertainties, and dangers associated with deepwater drilling operations and a failure to learn from previous "near misses,".

Also Insufficient checks and balances for critical decisions impacting the schedule for "abandoning" the exploratory well -- or sealing it in transition to production -- and for considering well safety.It may not be possible to definitively establish which mechanisms caused the blowout and explosion, given the deaths of 11 witnesses on board, the loss of the oil rig and important records, and the difficulty in obtaining reliable forensics information from the Macondo well.

The numerous decisions that apparently contributed to the accident,beginning with continuing abandonment operations at the Macondo site despite several tests that indicated that the cement put in place after the installation of a long-string production casing was not an effective barrier to prevent gases from entering the well. The decision to accept the test results as satisfactory without review by adequately trained shore-based engineering or management personnel suggests a lack of discipline and clearly defined responsibilities. In addition, several clear failures in monitoring of the well appear to have contributed to its blowout; available data show hydrocarbons entered the well undetected for almost an hour before the first explosion. Timely and aggressive action to control the well was not taken, and for unknown reasons, hydrocarbons were funneled through equipment that vented them directly above the rig floor rather than overboard. These conditions made ignition "most likely," the report says. Finally, the blowout preventer did not seal the well once activated.

Of particular concern is the lack of a systems approach to integrate the multiple factors impacting well safety, to monitor the overall margins of safety, and to assess various decisions from a well integrity and safety perspective.previous loss of hydrocarbon circulation in the Macondo well more than a month before the accident presented an opportunity to take actions to mitigate future risks.

Several questionable decisions also were made about the cementing process prior to the accident, including attempting to cement across multiple hydrocarbon and brine zones in the deepest part of the well in a single operational step, making a hydraulic fracture in a low-pressure zone more likely; using a long-string production casing instead of a liner over the uncased section of the well; and deciding that only six centralizers were needed to ensure an even spacing between the formation rock and the casing, even though modeling results suggested that more centralizers would have been necessary. The type and volume of cement used to prepare for well abandonment and the time provided for the cement to cure may also have impacted the well's integrity.Data on maintenance, testing, operating procedures, and reliability of alarms and other safety systems on the Deepwater Horizon rig will also be examined; testimony at other hearings indicate that various alarms and safety systems failed to operate as intended.