Management Failure

The report's cover picture shows flames consuming the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform after the blowout of the Macondo well

Last week the President’s National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling issued chapter 4 of its report, which called the disaster a failure of management.  The report found a slippery slope of contributing factors.

• BP used a well design that is unconventional in deep water.  This should have made BP exercise added caution to ensure that the well was sealed properly so as to prevent a blowout.
• Instead of being extra cautious, BP cut corners in its part of the well sealing process and that increased the need to have a near-perfect cement job to finally seal the well.
• Halliburton, the contractor for the cement job, used a cement mixture that was probably unstable.
• BP did not adequately test the quality of the cement job and the other sealing measures.
• The safety equipment, the Blowout Preventer, that is designed to prevent a blowout if all else fails, did not work, possibly because of poor maintenance.