Articles by Derek Park

With the conclusion of phase 1 of the oil and gas industry's spotlight trial, there will be no further court testimony until phase 2, now scheduled for September 16 th . Phase two will look at the events after the blowout, largely the attempts to cap the well and the pollution and clean-up operations. The judge has given all parties until June 21 st to submit their conclusions from phase 1...Full Article »

BP Rests Its Case. Week 8 of the trial saw BP complete its case. Witnesses included the onshore Well Team Leader (WTL) and their Gulf of Mexico Vice President, Wells and Completions, at the time of the disaster. Expert witnesses covered the blowout preventer (BOP) and the International Maritime Code (ISM) regulations. Drilling and Well Construction BP’s WTL was responsible for operations...Full Article »

BP On the Stand. Week 7 saw BP field a string of witnesses;  outside experts as well as its own people. We visited many if the topics from previous week and saw BP having to defend its corporate management practices, despite its attempts to confine the trial scope to the operational activities around the well.   Drilling and Well Construction BP’s first witness was a...Full Article »

Halliburton Case Concludes. Case Against Cameron Dismissed. The trial in New Orleans is really moving on. Halliburton completed and rested their case this week. The Judge dismissed the case against Cameron, having decided that there no issues with the BOP manufacture and that the problems stemmed from selection, operation and maintenance over which Cameron had no control. We heard from three...Full Article »

Transocean Rest Their Case Week 5 saw Transocean completing their case and Halliburton starting on theirs. Some issues which have previously been raised were flogged even harder and some new ones emerged. Transocean fielded two further witnesses, a current MODU Captain who was Chief Officer on the night of the disaster and their Maintenance and Technical Support Director, who also led their...Full Article »

Transocean’s Turn in New Orleans. The trial reached its first milestone this week when the plaintiffs rested their case after three and a half weeks of testimony. No doubt to their great relief, MI Swaco, who supplied the drilling fluids for the well, were able to establish that no case had been made against them and were released by the judge. The spotlight has shifted to Transocean and...Full Article »

The trial really got into the technical details this week. Witnesses testified in four key areas: BOP, cementation, mud logging and the condition and organisation of the ‘Deepwater Horizon’ itself. Read the BP Trial Week 2 overview BOP The plaintiffs called a second expert witness in a week regarding the BOP. This time the court heard about the operation of the equipment and the...Full Article »

As I followed the second week of the trial last week I was struck more by what was agreed rather than by what was in dispute. As the court examined the facts of the case from well design to the blow out, there was surprisingly little dispute about what happened and perhaps even about who knew what was happening. This trial will hinge on who was responsible for the various shortcomings and more...Full Article »

Someone once told me ‘if you think safety is expensive, you should try having an accident’.  Boy was I reminded of this as I watched the opening salvoes in the ‘Deepwater Horizon’ trial last week! When what has become known as the ‘BP trial’ opened in New Orleans I counted 67 lawyers listed in the official papers. It was reported last year that BP...Full Article »

As a true Brit I have been gripped for the last fortnight as Team GB won gold after Olympic gold. The top moments for me; Mo Farah kicking off the last bend and on to victory in the 10,000m and 5,000m races, and Andy Murray serving a clean ace to win the singles gold. But perhaps most impressive has been the performance of the British cyclists. Is there something our industry can learn from...Full Article »

What does it mean to be a leader? Could it not be argued that management is just a case of knowing more than everyone else and using staff as a tool to apply and exploit that superior knowledge? History has often admired and applauded the autocratic style of management but have there been that many successful autocrats? A search for a list turned up Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Napoleon...Full Article »