The Deepwater Horizon Disaster Analysis

The staff of the BP Deep Water Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore drilling Commission said in a report delivered said, BP “did not have policies and systems in place to ensure that decisions made to reduce costs and improve efficiency do not increase risks or diminish safety”. The management of this

British petroleum has experienced a series of oil spill accidents since it was established, however, the 2010 oil spill was considered the worst oil spill accident in the company’s history. The drilling rig in the Deepwater Horizon exploded and killed 11 workers and released thousands of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico (Arnold & McKay 16). The accident affected different states along the coastline including Texas, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama and Louisiana. In addition, the oil spill affected the wild life as it killed birds, fish and destroyed nearby ecosystems and economies including tourism and fishing. Several factors contributed to the oil spill accident including cost saving and failure to put in place safety

The goal of our research is to seek possible solutions to reduce the risks of offshore oil spills. To attain this goal, we gathered information from over twenty sources, including “Deepwater Horizon oil” from Wikipedia research and an article from the LA Times.

This essay will discuss the long lasting effects on the economy from the explosion on the DeepWater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The events that took place on April 20, 2010 would go down in history as the worst deep sea oil spill in history. British Petroleum would suffer its greatest lost to date when one of its drilling rigs the Deepwater Horizon would blow up in the Gulf of Mexico (Crandall, Parnell & Spillan, 2014). In the days and weeks following the explosion there were signs of a problem that were overlooked after test came back inconclusive on one of the pressure systems.

The Deepwater Horizon was a nine year old, ultra-deepwater, dynamically positioned, semi-submersible, offshore drilling rig built in South Korea. In 2008, British Petroleum (BP) leased it from Transocean to drill for oil in the Gulf Coast. In September 2009, the rig drilled the deepest oil well in history at a depth of 35,055-feet. On April 20, 2010 while drilling the rig exploded at 9:45PM (CST), killing eleven workers and injuring seventeen others. It was caused when methane gas from the well shot all the way up and out of the drill column, expanded onto the platform then ignited and exploded. The explosion then led the rig to burn, with the resulting fire unable to be extinguished 2 days later it sinked leaving

The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill occurred on April 20, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. This oil spill was the largest spill in history in front of the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989. This oil spill released about 4.9 million barrels of oil into the ocean. This spill not only wreck havoc on the marine life but also the economic players that depended on ocean such as fisherman, tourism, and offshore drilling located along the gulf coast. Along will the spill the oil rig which was named Deepwater Horizon also went up in flames. This proved that the issue went far beyond just an oil rig that blew a line. Since this oil spill had drastic impacts all along the coast, BP which was the most liable for this incident faced criminal charges based on what happened. BP which knew the risks of deep ocean drilling failed to take the necessary safety procedures to reduce the risks of such incident occurring, thus was the reasoning behind placing most of the fault on them and not the other companies. The lack of regulatory oversight led to the issues and cost-cutting procedures opened the rig up to possible malfunctions like the one that occurred. During the spill into the gulf, BP sealed the well with cement which seemed to stop a majority of the oil from escaping the well. BP also recognized that the well was “dead” which was proven wrong when scientists still could conclude was leaking minor amounts of oil into the ocean. This spill not only proved to be harmful to the environment but also

On April 20, 2010 the British Petroleum Deep Water Horizon (DWH) drilling rig exploded and subsequently sank in the waters of Gulf of Mexico. The result was the largest leakage of crude in the United States to date (Middlebrook et al.,

The rig was built by South Korean company Hyundai Heavy Industries. The rig was drilling a 35,050 feet (10,680 m) deep exploratory well in approximately 5,100 feet (1,600 m) of water. The well is situated in the Macondo Prospect in Mississippi Canyon Block 252 (MC252) of the Gulf of Mexico, whilst also maintained by Halliburton, and Transocean the rig was majority owned and operated by the British Petroleum. On April 20, 2010, high-pressure methane gas from the well expanded into the drilling riser and rose into the drilling rig, where it ignited and exploded, engulfing the platform. At the time, 126 crew members were on board: seven BP employees, 79 of Transocean and employees of various other companies. Eleven workers were presumed dead, never being found. The Deepwater Horizon sank on the morning of 22 April 2010. The efforts to contain the leak at first were unsuccessful due to miscalculations and misinterpretations of what was required. However, on September 19, 2010 the well was permanently sealed when a relief well was dug into the oil deposit and cement was poured into the oil well. The environmental impact, health consequences, economy and ultimately the death of the 11 workers were the consequent issues that arose with the tremendous release of oil into the ocean. These consequent problems were in part due to negligence as well as BP’s failure to fulfill their corporate ethical duties.

The Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico exploded on April 20th, 2010, pouring nearly 5 million barrels into the sea over a three months’ span. Endangering marine wildlife, as well as workers that were injured during the explosion. There were a 126 people on the rig, twenty-eight workers in total were hurt, leaving eleven that were fatally injured, while the other 17 were severely injured.

On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded. It was positioned over the Macondo oil well when a burst of natural gas broke through the concrete core that had been used to seal off the oil well for later use. Once released by the fractured core the gas made its way up the riser and onto the platform, where it ignited killing eleven workers and injuring seventeen others. The highest-ranking BP supervisors on board the oil rig known as “Well site leaders” observed indications that the well was not secure, but did not take appropriate actions in order to remedy the problem. If the supervisors had done something, they may have been able to save the eleven lives lost that day. A similar accident happened to the Caspian Sea at another BP oil well in September 2008. Both cores were too weak to withstand the pressure because the concrete mixture contained Nitrogen gas used to accelerate the curing process (Brennan, 2013). Two days later the rig capsized and in the process knocked over the riser they had filled with drilling mud in order to stop the flow of gas and oil. Now with nothing holding it back the oil, it began pouring out of the hole. The oil that was being released everyday peaked at around 60,000 barrels of oil in one day. The well discharged oil for eighty-seven days before their attempts to repair the hole were successful. In the end, nearly five million barrels of oil were released into the Gulf of Mexico.

The BP oil spill, at the oil rig named Deepwater horizon was a multibillion dollar error that caused not only casualties in the explosions but vast environmental effects across the US and Mexico. Whilst on Deepwater horizon there were two main management perspectives. The first perspective is Scientific management. Its focus is on improving efficient and labour productivity. Each task is scientifically studied to determine the best way to do the work. Everyone on the rig had been trained for a job specifically to be efficient. Deepwater horizon was also fitted out brand new technology for its time, this creates an efficient and standardised process which speeds up the already rushed process. There was no need for workers on the rig to have

There were a number of causes for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, most of which had more to do with the human element that with any technology itself. The four biggest ways that humans contributed to the disaster, as explained by journalist David Coburn, was the fact that British Petroleum’s (BP) past success built a sense of complacency, the shifting the burden of proof, the normalization of deviance and the fact that promoters for an industry also serve as that industry’s regulatory enforcers.

BP (British Petroleum) is one of the leading companies that are delivering energy products and services to the people around the world. In this report, we studied BP’s risk management plan for preventing oil spill. The main reason for choosing BP and its oil spill preparedness plan is that the oil companies have become increasingly vulnerable to unwillingly cause disasters and BP is one of them. An event that highlighted this vulnerability and subsequently drew attention to the need to investigate, is the BP oil spill in 2010 was one of the worst oil disasters that affected environment adversely. Issues such as these have been a serious concern for the oil companies around the world.

On April 20, the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico led to the largest accidental release of oil into marine waters in history. As a result, a huge loss of money and life was caused and affected serious environmental damage to wild animals and water pollution. BP was accused of their irresponsibility that it took 87 days before the well was closed and sealed. BP’s shares

Deepwater Horizon oil Spill: BP’s drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico had an explosion in April 2010, causing the “largest oil spill catastrophe in the petroleum industry history”. It caused the death of 11 men and injury to several others. “More than 150,000 barrels of crude oil gushed into the sea, every day, for almost 5 months and up to 68,000 square miles of the Gulf 's surface were covered” (1).