The First Volume of the Deepwater Horizon Explosion and Oil Spill Investigation Shows that Corner-Cutting and Lack of Adequate Regulatory Supervision Led to the Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit Disaster

© 2011 Peter Free

 

25 April 2011

 

 

Findings after these kinds of disasters are usually the same — “We knew what to do, but did not do it”

 

Here’s what the Coast Guard had to say:

 

Although the events leading to the sinking of DEEPWATER HORIZON were set into motion by the failure to prevent a well blowout, the investigation revealed numerous systems deficiencies, and acts and omissions by Transocean and its DEEPWATER HORIZON crew that had an adverse impact on the ability to prevent or limit the magnitude of the disaster.

 

These included poor maintenance of electrical equipment that may have ignited the explosion, bypassing of gas alarms and automatic shutdown systems that could prevent an explosion, and lack of training of personnel on when and how to shutdown engines and disconnect the MODU from the well to avoid a gas explosion and mitigate the damage from an explosion and fire.

 

These deficiencies indicate that Transocean’s failure to have an effective safety management system and instill a culture that emphasizes and ensures safety contributed to this disaster.

 

This investigation also revealed that the oversight and regulation of DEEPWATER HORIZON by its flag state, the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), was ineffective in preventing this casualty. By delegating all of its inspection activities to “recognized organizations,” without itself conducting on board oversight surveys, the RMI effectively abdicated its vessel inspection responsibilities.

 

In turn, this failure illustrates the need to strengthen the system of U.S. Coast Guard oversight of foreign-flagged MODUs, which as currently constructed is too limited to effectively ensure the safety of such vessels.

 

© 2011 United States Coast Guard, Report of Investigation into the Circumstances Surrounding the Explosion, Fire, Sinking and Loss of Eleven Crew Members Aboard the Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico April 20 – 22, 2010, Volume I, ix (22 April 2011) (paragraphs split)

 

The Report’s executive summary is short and efficiently details a lengthy list of errors made.

 

 

Lax safety built on a series of conscious choices

 

In most disasters of the human-caused environmental kind — Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi radiation-spewing being a recent example — complacency, corner-cutting, and failure to supervise are conscious choices.

 

The motive is usually enhanced profit.  What’s a few dead people and a damaged environment compared to a few more dollars in the bank?

 

One of the most blatant evils of capitalism is its externalization of costs, so as not to account for them.