FEATURES

DEEPWATER HORIZON

Deepwater Horizon - What Have we Done to Deserve This
Deepwater Horizon - After the BP Report
Deepwater Horizon - The Investigation
The Deepwater Horizon and the Late MMS.
The Deepwater Horizon - PR and Politics
The Deepwater Horizon - Forces at Work
The Deepwater Horizon - Where Are We Now?
ROVs, Risers and Mud
The Deepwater Horizon - Later
Something about the Deepwater Horizon Accident
Channelling the Oil Leak
Preventing Fires and Explosions on Offshore Installations

OTHER ACCIDENTS
The Costa Concordia Grounding
The Loss of the Normand Rough
The Bourbon Dolphin Accident
The Loss of the Stevns Power
Another Marine Disaster
Something About the P36
The Cormorant Alpha Accident
The Loss of the Ocean Express

OPERATIONS
The Life of the Oil Mariner
Offshore Technology and the Kursk
The Sovereign Explorer and the Black Marlin

SAFETY
Safety Case Development
The ALARP Demonstration
PFEER and the Dacon Scoop
Human Error and Heavy Weather Damage
Lifeboats & Offshore Installations
More about PFEER
The Offshore Safety Regime - Fit for the Next Decade
The Safety Case and its Future
Jigsaw
Collision Risk Management
Shuttle Tanker Collisions
A Good Prospect of Recovery

TECHNICAL
The History of the UT 704
The Peterhead Connection
Goodbye Kiss
Uses for New Ships
Supporting Deepwater Drilling
Jack-up Moving - An Overview
Seismic Surveying
Breaking the Ice
Tank Cleaning and the Environment
More about Mud Tank Cleaning
Datatrac
Tank Cleaning in 2004
Glossary of Terms

CREATIVE WRITING
An Unusual Investigation
Gaia and Oil Pollution
The True Price of Oil
Icebergs and Anchor-Handlers
Atlantic SOS
The Greatest Influence
How It Used to Be
Homemade Pizza
Goodbye Far Turbot
The Ship Manager
Running Aground
A Cook's Tale
Navigating the Channel
The Captain's Letter

GENERAL INTEREST
The Sealaunch Project
Ghost Ships of Hartlepool
Beam Him Up Scotty
Q790
The Bilbao OSV Conference

DEEPWATER HORIZON - AFTER THE BP REPORT

At 1200 BST on 8th September BP released their report of their investigation into the loss of the Deepwater Horizon, together with an executive summary and 27 appendices. The other main protagonists, Transocean the owners of the rig, and Halliburton the contractor who had carried out the cement job were extremely critical of it, dismissing it as “self serving”. Appendix I of the related documents is the “event tree” process which was used by the BP investigators to drill down for the reasons for the accident, and I started off by having a look through the various items in the tree which were considered and dismissed and considered and retained. Those retained were written up in the report.

 My eye was caught by a box which contained the information that the team on board the rig might have been distracted by preparations for the next well. And of course this raises a question. Why were they preparing for the next well at a time when it seems to those of us looking at the operation in hindsight, all their attention should have been focused on the events in hand? Who then, had given instructions that preparations be made for the next job, when the current one was still demanding everyone’s attention. There was an indication that there would be words contained in the report, and these were as follows:

From 13:28 hours to 17:17 hours, mud was offloaded to the supply vessel M/V Damon Bankston. Some of the mud pits and the trip tank were being cleaned and emptied, causing pit levels to change. These pit level changes complicated the ability to use pit volumes to monitor whether the well was flowing. Pit levels indicate the volume of the fluids at the surface. If the volume pumped into the well equals the volume returned from the well, pit levels remain constant, indicating no flow from the reservoir into the well.

Other simultaneous operations, such as preparing for the next operation (setting a cement plug in the casing) and bleeding off the riser tensioners, were occurring and may have distracted the rig crew and mudloggers from monitoring the well.

Who had given the instruction that the pits be cleaned, at a time when they should, or possibly should, have still been monitoring the mud or seawater returns? And here we go again into the technicalities of drilling holes in the ground in the search for hydrocarbons. Anyone who did not know how dangerous a blowout might be, knows now, and one of the ways of finding out whether the well is under control or not is whether precisely the same amount of liquid which is being pumped down the well is being returned. If less than the precise amount is being returned then some is being lost to the formation, or if more is being returned then the well is flowing. Both situations are dangerous.

However, having got nothing from the BP report on who had given the instructions to prepare for the next well, even though current well was not, so to speak, in the bag, I started to go through the USCG/MMS investigation transcripts, which is no small task. I focused on the evidence of the drilling people because it would be their job to talk to the BP reps and for them to carry out the various instructions they might be given. Although I began to identify the moments on April 20th when BP and Transocean had discussed things and possibly disagreed on what should be done and in what way, my attention was taken by the testimony of Senior Toolpusher Miles Ezell. It stopped me in my tracks and made me realise that now, in the aftermath of the disaster, if we are not careful the only memorial to the eleven men who lost their lives will be endless arguments between lawyers.

It is important that lessons be learnt so that the chances of this happening again are minimised, and in order to focus, just for a few minutes on what happened out there I attach some of the testimony of Mr Ezell. It has not been changed except for paragraphing. He is being questioned by Mr Mathews of the MMS. We take up the story after he had attended the numerous morning meetings.

Mathews. . And what time was that? Right after the 8:30 meeting? 

Ezell. That would have been when I was out on deck it could have been somewhere around 10:15 to 10:45 or something like that. And then of course we had lunch. I talked to Jimmy Harrell, the OIM, pretty extensively. We were going over our 2010 rig goals and making sure that we were updated on that. We had a VIP group that came out from BP and Transocean. We were going to have a general tour of the rig with those individuals and several of the department heads. And we did conduct that tour. We went to several different areas on the rig. One of the last areas that we went to was the rig floor where they were already conducting the negative test. And -- 

Mathews. The first or the second? The first negative test?

Ezell. The first negative test. And the tour group left and left Jimmy Harrell and myself there because they were having a little bit of a problem.

 Mathews. Who?

 Ezell. The drill crew conducting that test.

 Mathews. Okay.

 Ezell. And we observed that they had lost some mud in the riser. And I witnessed Jimmy tell the subsea engineer, the senior subsea engineer, to increase the pressure on the annular. And, when he did increase that pressure, it became static. They, of course, filled the riser up. We monitored and made sure everything was 100 percent and it was, like I say, static. The other toolpusher that was coming on at 5:30, Jason Anderson, had came on at that time. And he and his relief Wyman Wheeler were discussing, you know, the events of the day. Wyman was briefing him on what was going on. And, of course, the BP company men, Bob Kaluza and Don Vidrine were there. And they were doing the same thing. They were relieving and handing over so to speak. I went outside of the rig floor and I talked to the assistant driller, Steve Curtis, for a few minutes. I was going to let them go ahead and have their discussion. You know have their formal handover. And, when they did that, I came back in and after talking to Jason Anderson, the toolpusher, it was my expectation that they was going to stop the job at that point. They was going to have a meeting. That would have been Don Vidrine and it would have been Jason, the subsea engineer, it would have been the mud engineer, Gordon Jones. And they would discuss about, you know, what had gone wrong and what they was going to do on their second negative test. Well, at this time, it had got to where it was a little after 1800 hours. Our meeting was at 1900. Jason told me, he said, "Why don't you go eat?" And I said "Well, I can go eat and come back." And he said "Man, you ain't got to do that. I've got this. Don't worry about it. If I have any problem at all with this test I'll give you a call." And I knew Jason well. I've worked with him for all those 10 years, eight or nine years. And I know y'all know that when you know somebody that well you can even tell by their body language if something's wrong. He was just like a brother. So, I had no doubt that if he had any indication of any problem or had any difficulty at all he would have called me.

 Well, I went ahead and ate. I did attend the meeting with the dignitaries. That lasted till shortly after 9:00 or right around 9:00. From there I went to the galley and got something to drink. And I spoke to someone. I can't even remember who it was in the galley now, but I made my way back down to my office and, when I got to the office, I looked at my watch. Of course everybody has different times pieces, but it was 9:20 by my watch. I called the rig floor and I talked to Jason Anderson. And I said "Well, how did your negative test go?" And he said "It went good." He said "We bled it off. We watched it for 30 minutes and we had no flow." And I said "What about your displacement? How's it going?" He said "It's going fine." He said "It won't be much longer and we ought to have our spacer back." I said "Okay." I said "Do you need any help from me?" And he told me "No, man." Just like he told me before he said "I've got this." He said "Go to bed. I've got it." He was that confident that everything was fine. I said "Okay."  

So, I went to my cabin, which is a short distance, probably five feet, away from the toolpusher's office. I went in there and closed the door and prepared for bed and I think I -- yeah, I called my wife and talked to her for a few minutes. And -- it wasn't long, fifteen or twenty minutes, and I had laid there and I turned my overhead light off in the bunk and I was still watching a little TV. And my room phone rang. Well, I hit my little alarm clock light and, according to that alarm clock, it was ten minutes till 10:00. And the person at the other end of the line there was the assistant driller, Steve Curtis. Steve opened up by saying "We have a situation." He said "The well is blown out." He said "We have mud going to the crown." And I said "Well --" I was just horrified. I said "Do y'all have it shut in?" He said "Jason is shutting it in now." And he said "Randy, we need your help." And I'll never forget that. And I said "Steve, I'll be -- I'll be right there."  

So, it took only minutes for me to put my coveralls on, they were hanging on the hook. I put my socks on. My boots and my hard hat were right across that hall I was telling  you in the toolpusher's office. So, I opened  my door and I remember a couple of people standing in the hallway, but I kind of had  tunnel vision. I looked straight ahead and I don't -- I didn't even remember who those people were. And about the time I -- I made it to the doorway of the toolpusher's office was when a tremendous explosion occurred. It blew me probably twenty feet against a bulkhead, against the wall in that office. And I remember then that the lights went out, power went out. I could hear everything deathly calm. My next recollection was that I had a lot of debris on top of me. I tried two different times to get up, but whatever it was it was a substantial weight. The third time it was something like adrenalin had kicked in and I told my self 'Either you get up or you're going to lay here and die.' So, my right leg was hung on something, I don't know what still. But I pulled it as hard as I could and it came free. I attempted to stand up. That was the wrong thing to do because I immediately stuck my head into smoke. And with the training that we've all had on the rig I knew to stay low. So, I felt -- I dropped back down. I got on my hands and knees and for a few moments I was totally disoriented. I mean I had lost orientation on which way the doorway was. And I remember just sitting there and just trying to think 'Which way is it?' 

Then I felt something and it felt like air. And I said to myself 'Well, that's got to be the hallway. So, that's the direction I need to go. That leads out.' So, I had to crawl very slowly because that end of the living quarters was pretty well demolished. Debris everywhere. But I made it to the doorway and what I thought was air was actually methane and I could actually feel like droplets. It was moist on the side of my face. I continued to -- to crawl down the hallway slowly and I put my hand on a body and it was Wyman Wheeler. I mean I didn't -- I didn't know it at the time because there was no light, I couldn't see. The next thing I recollect is I saw like a beam of light like a flashlight bouncing. And I guess it was because this individual was coming down the hallway and it had all the debris hanging from different places, so the light was going up and down as he ducked and went through different things. He came around the corner there and I saw that to be our electrical supervisor, Stan Carden. Along about that time Jimmy Harrell, the OIM, came out of his room. He had managed to find a pair of coveralls and put those on. He told me he was in the shower when the explosion happened.  And he was gritting his eyes real hard and he said he couldn't hardly see. And he said "I think I've got something in my eyes." And I looked down and he didn't have any shoes either. And I said "Jimmy, I've got Wyman down right here." And he said "Yeah, okay. I got to see if I can find me some shoes."  

So, Stan and I were in the process of trying to remove some of the debris off of Wyman. And at that time or along about that time another flashlight entered and that was Chad Murray.  And as soon as he got to where we could see him we asked him to go to the bow and get a stretcher. So, we continued to remove this debris off of Wyman. I helped him up and I was -- in my mind I was going to try to help walk him out thinking that that might be quicker to walk him out. Well, he made a couple of steps with his arm around my shoulder and he was in pain and he said "Set me down. Set me down." So, we set him back down and he said "Y'all go on. Save yourself." And I said "No, we're not going to leave you. We're not going to leave you in here." And along about that time I heard another voice saying "God help me. Somebody please help me." And I looked to where our maintenance office had been and all I could see was feet, a pair of feet sticking out from underneath a bunch of wreckage and debris. We -- we worked to get that off of this individual. We didn't know exactly who it was, but, when we got the debris off of this person, we saw that it was Buddy Trahan, who was one of the visiting Transocean dignitaries that came out for that trip. Looking at him we saw that the extent of his injuries were greater than that of Wyman's. So, naturally he got the first stretcher. So, we loaded him on the stretcher and it took three of us because we had to remove debris. It was hanging from the ceiling and the walls was jutted out, the floor was jutted up. I mean it was just total chaos in that area of the living quarters. But when we got him loaded on the stretcher Stan and Chad conveyed him all the way out of the front of the rig, the bow of the rig to the lifeboat station.  

I stayed right there with Wyman Wheeler because I told him I wasn't going to leave him and I didn't. And it seemed like an eternity, but it was only a couple of minutes they came back with the second stretcher. We were able to get Wyman on that stretcher and we took him to the bow of the rig. When we got outside of the living quarters the first thing I observed is both of the main lifeboats had already been deployed and they left. I also looked to my left and I saw Captain Kurt and a few of his marine crew starting to deploy a life raft. And we continued down the walkway till we got to that life raft and we set the stretcher down. And after several minutes we had everything deployed and the chief mate, David Young, and myself got in the life raft and we were able to catch the head part of the stretcher and assist getting Wyman into the life raft, which I don't know if any of y'all ever been in a life raft, but it's hard to keep your balance and especially if you've got any type of weight. And I think we actually fell trying to, you know, get him into the life raft. But the main thing is Wyman was there. You know, he didn't get left behind.  

From that point we were lowered down and I believe that was by Captain Kurt, to the best of my recollection. We made it to the water. I remember intense heat. I remember fuel or oil or some type of hydrocarbon burning on the water extremely close to where our life raft was. And the painter was still attached to the rig. Well, we didn't have a whole lot of light. We were looking through the provisions trying to find a knife. I was pulling tension on the painter thinking by chance maybe it might part. When it did part. Okay, unbeknown to me at that exact moment it didn't part. It was cut. The captain of our rig was able to get a knife and cut the painter. And from that point I remember being thrown a rope. I think it was from the fast rescue craft from the DAMON BANKSTON. And from there they were able to tow us to the BANKSTON and safely away from the rig. 

Both Jason Anderson and Steve Curtis died in the disaster. So one of the many lessons to be learnt may be that you have to get the drill crew off the drill floor once there’s nothing more they can do there. There are, after all, other BOP control panels.

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