Running Head: DEEPWATER HORIZON DISASTER

The Macondo Well Blowout - Deepwater Horizon Disaster Patrick Bolen MOS 5201

DEEPWATER HORIZON DISASTER The Macondo Well Blowout - Deepwater Horizon Disaster

Introduction This research paper focuses on the identification and understanding of the causes of the Macondo Well Blowout that took place in the Gulf of Mexico. It is considered as the Deepwater Horizon Disaster which was one of the fierce disasters in the environmental history. This research paper will be considering different aspects of the Macondo Well Blowout and furthermore at the end of this paper, some of the recommendations will also be provided both for the gas and oil industry and government authorities with the intentions of reducing the probability of occurrence and affect of any further losses of well control at the time of offshore drilling.

Time Line to Disaster The 17 April 2010 oil rig baptized with the suggestive name of Deepwater Horizon (Deepwater Horizon) in the final phase of its work, 80 kilometers off the southeastern coast of Louisiana, USA. It was a floating platform that was operated by British Petroleum; the company started its operations in February 2010. It was equipped to drill 9100 meters from depths up to 2400 meters. After the drilling, the platform would have been removed to take its place for oil extraction tower. As a well was drilled, the mud dislodged was supposed to be extracted by drilling the shot, which was lined with steel pipes and cement. Engineers from the responsible companys had discussion on the way through which they will seal the top of the well, it was expected that oil will come out with a lot of pressure. In the discussion, there was disagreement on key points. On April 20 at 9:45 pm, without having any emergency alarm or call, the workers

DEEPWATER HORIZON DISASTER on the field felt a violent shudder followed by an explosion and a fire. Of 126 people who were there, 11 were missing and 17 suffered serious burns and injuries and were taken to hospitals on the coast while the tube platform spilling thousands of barrels of oil (Maass, 2011)

The Deep Water Horizon Extracting oil from the first wells drilled in the continental in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth simple technology required because, although oil was about 500 meters deep, was such abundance, that almost just flowed. Over time, as the volume increased extracted oil arises spontaneously stopped. This raises the need to drill the seabed, first at depths up to 400 meters (distance between the surface and the seabed). Platforms were built and perfected the technology to extract at greater depths. However, the easy oil is running out. Alternative sources of renewable energy, but are on track, even with a higher cost than oil and now can not satisfy our energy needs. This, coupled with the equally insatiable financial ambitions of the companies and countries that have depositshas led to a rush to squeeze the crust and get all you can give. For that oil companies have taken to drilling in deepwater, i.e. in seabed found more than 500 meters deep, where today it is known that exorbitant amounts of oil. Extract, besides requiring expensive technology, has serious risks that were unknown to the companies they were working on called Macondo drilling area where the accident occurred on the Deepwater Horizon platform (Marine Board, 2012) The drilling depth started 1 524 meters. At depths below 400 meters operations can be monitored by divers with special equipment. However, in deep water, with pressures of 354 kilograms on every square inch, the work is done by robots monitoring and the reality of what happens down becomes quite uncertain. Due to differences in temperature between the surface

DEEPWATER HORIZON DISASTER and the seabed pumping the drilling fluid is complicated, as well as low temperatures alter the properties of the cement that is used to set the wellbore casing. Ice water depth may cause the

methane, which is a gas at room temperature, freeze, and it blocks, the flow. The strong currents shaking structures, pipes vibrate and fatigue components rig. Everything bad that could happen happened in the Macondo well and for 85 days daily spilled about 50,000 barrels of oil.

The Macondo Well The country has great oil ambitions. Exploration work conducted by Mexican Petrol for over 70 years that provides estimates of Mexico oil potential and identifies major oil basins from geological and geophysical information. It has been estimated that under Mexican deepwater in the Gulf, there are 30,000 million barrels. In the last five years, five wells have been drilled in the Gulf of Mexico at depths of between 500 and 1000 meters. None of them have been developed, so that there is no output. In March 2009, the company began drilling. However, Pemex faces challenges that have yet to resolve: train personnel in specialized technology for exploration and exploitation, as well as funding. Depending on conditions, the cost of drilling is between 70 and 150 million and income of floating platforms (there are few in the world) costs $ 530 000 per day. A drilling project takes between eight and 10 years to develop (Robertson & Robbins, 2010) Discussion Incident Investigation Findings Each of the participating companies have their hypotheses, but nothing is known for sure. What is a fact is that an essential and mandatory blowout preventer did not work. This has a number of valves that modulate the pressure of fluids emanating from the well when they are

DEEPWATER HORIZON DISASTER ejected to prevent a violent explosion. Thirty-six hours later, the platform sank into the Gulf of Mexico.

Direct Cause The main causes from several investigative reports were pointing towards the management failures which are linked with the April 20 explosion of the Macondo well that blow out and released millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The commission also concluded that the spill in the Gulf of Mexico is not an isolated incident caused by "rogue industry officials or the government." The root causes are systemic and, without significant reform in both industry practices and government policies, could happen again. The report from the U.S. investigative commission outlines major errors of BP, Halliburton, which oversaw cement tank in the Macondo well, and Transocean, owner and operator of the Deepwater Horizon. BP is responsible for not using a "cement bond log" or another diagnostic tool to test the stability of the cement tank. The report declared that the "fundamental error" of BP was not caution before pouring the cement as a barrier to the flow of oil and gas from the well (Robertson & Robbins, 2010)

DEEPWATER HORIZON DISASTER Root Causes The BP and its partners made a series of cost-cutting decisions that contributed to the occurrence of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico .The causes of the largest oil spill offshore in U.S. history, the commission declared that BP and firms linked to the damaged

Macondo well had no system to guarantee them that their actions were safe. Whether intentional or not, many of the decisions of BP, Halliburton and Transocean, which made for an increased risk of the Macondo explosion, companies clearly saved much time (and money).

Contributory Factors It is noteworthy, however, that the media have not put the accent-and front-derived or prime time news the essential fact of this catastrophe. That the oil industry that is involved in the exploration and exploitation in deep water, or responds to respond to high-technology complex and poorly understood by the common people. A committee appointed by the National Academy of Engineering of the United States conducted a study of the procedures and actions taken before and during the spill to understand their causes (SHR, 2010). The results show that there was human error: test data in the drilling pressure were wrongly interpreted by the staff of the platform. On three occasions, the data from instruments that monitor the well in real time indicated that the increased pressure when there should have been decreased. The report reveals that it took into account factors such as fatigue of workers working excessive hours. They also mentioned also a poor safety culture. The rest is history

DEEPWATER HORIZON DISASTER Conclusion Today our planet faces two huge problems that require urgent solution: the need for energy sources and global warming. Therefore, it can be concluded that the interest of the oil companies in the world is to extract huge amounts of oil. The combustion will produce an amount of carbon dioxide that will trigger an irreversible heating of the planet. Only major policy efforts and a global awareness of over-consumption of energy could divert resources to extract oil to the research and development of clean energy sources and renewable.

Summary With the nightmare of the Macondo spill, there has been thoughts that the deepwater exploration would be suspended until the companies have been mastered the technology to prevent accidents like this, but still it has not happened. Exhausted reserves in onshore fields and shallow water (less than 400 meters deep) are the only recourse-and also economically very productive for the economies of the countries that can afford to do is scan- in deep water, however, along with the risks. According to the Management Service U.S. Minerals in the Gulf of Mexico drilling currently 31 are active, while in 1992 there were only three. The clean energy alternatives are many, but they are still far from supplying the world. The more advanced the development of a country, the greater its power consumption: more industries and more people with cars and appliances that require energy.

Recommendations Following are some of the recommendations for the oil and gas companies in order to avoid any further disaster of the same kind:

DEEPWATER HORIZON DISASTER Adequate level of coordination among several contractors is required to be reinforced in an anticipation of maintaining a shared focus on overall strategy. The companies which are involved in operating deepwater should maintain and develop adequate level of oversight on the contractors work. Industry must take into consideration attempts to expand significantly the formal education and training of industry personnel engaged in offshore drilling to support proper implementation of system safety.

DEEPWATER HORIZON DISASTER References

Final Report on the Investigation of the Macondo Well Blowout, (2011), Data Retrieved From: http://ccrm.berkeley.edu/36D145DD-2DD4-4B2E-9734923DFD14E140/FinalDownload/DownloadId45169E2504328A2F1D44CC431797ECFF/36D145DD-2DD4-4B2E-9734923DFD14E140/pdfs_papers/bea_pdfs/dhsgfinalreport-march2011-tag.pdf Maass, Peter (2011), "What Happened at the Macondo Well?". The New York Review of Books LVIII (14): 3841 Macondo Well-Deepwater Horizon Blowout, (2011), Data Retrieved From: http://media.al.com/live/other/Oil%20spill%20report.pdf Marine Board, (2012), Macondo Well-Deepwater Horizon Blow out, Data Retrieved From: http://www.wellintegrity.net/36D145DD-2DD4-4B2E-9734923DFD14E140/FinalDownload/DownloadIdA1939FAFA85CE7D2E462C1D91BEC2EA3/36D145DD-2DD4-4B2E-9734923DFD14E140/Documents/Macondo%20Well%20Deepwater%20Horizon%20Blowout %20Lessons%20for%20Offshore%20Drilling%20Safety.pdf Robertson, Cambell; Robbins, Liz (2010), "Oil Rig Sinks in the Gulf of Mexico", The New York Times. SHR, (2010), The BP Deepwater Horizon, Macondo Well Blowout and what we are facing in the Gulf, Data Retrieved From: http://projectavalon.net/The_BP_Deepwater_Horizon_Macondo_Well_Blowout_and_wh at_we_are_facing_in_the_Gulf.pdf