A Look at Deepwater Horizon: Were the Risks For Those On Board Reasonable? by Bill Cambell

Many commentators around the world talk about the cause of the explosion on Deepwater Horizon when they actually mean the cause of the blowout and subsequent pollution. Blowouts are thankfully rare events; some blowouts in the past have not led to explosions, making recovery efforts more likely to succeed. The fatalities and the total destruction of the installation may have been prevented if an explosion had not occurred.

Occupational Safety vs. Risk Awareness

On Deepwater Horizon at the time of the explosion there was a ceremony in the accommodation module celebrating seven years without a Lost Time Incident. The installation owned and operated by Transocean had an outstanding record of preventing lost time incidents.

Post Piper Alpha, it was recognized that having a low number of lost time incidents, or as was the case on Deepwater Horizon, zero incidents, was no assurance whatsoever that the risks to the health and safety of persons from major accident events on offshore installations were within acceptable limits.

Within the United States the oil industry in recent years was reminded of this. The technical investigation into the Texas City refinery explosion was critical in that whilst BP concentrated on occupational risks, e.g. slips, trips and falls, it paid inadequate regard to the risks of catastrophic events.

The reality was that Deepwater Horizon was a dangerous place for the persons on board regardless of its world class performance in protecting them from occupational injuries.

If the probability of an undesirable event is high, and the consequences of that undesirable event are potentially catastrophic, then the risks are dangerously high. Risk are the product of the probability and the consequence of the event happening. Whether assessed numerically, by Quantitative Risk Analysis, or by Qualitative Risk Analysis, Deepwater Horizon as it operated in the period leading up to the incident had risk levels likely to be in the intolerable range, at levels unacceptable to society, in the weeks prior to the explosion.

Foreseeable and Inevitable?

Due to well control problems a number of significant gas releases into the atmosphere occurred in the weeks prior to the disaster. Allied to this, and from examination of witness testimony, insufficient measures appear to have been in place to prevent gas being ingested into an enclosed non-hazardous area where sources of ignition are constantly present during normal operations.

So the probability that a flammable atmosphere could exist on Deepwater Horizon was high and the probability of subsequent ignition causing an explosion was high. The two combined on the 20^th April with catastrophic effect.

Contributor: Bill Cambell

Bill Cambell joined Shell in Aberdeen in 1979 after 17 years working in the UK Coal Mining Industry (installation, commissioning, and maintenance of elect equipment in Hazardous Atmospheres).

His first activities related to the onshore commissioning of AC generation and Gas Compression facilities prior to those going offshore. In 1982, as a Chartered Engineer Cambell was employed as a Topside Facilities Design Engineer supervising numerous design changes required after the installations had gone offshore. In 1984 he was made Offshore Installation Manager for the installation Brent Alpha and thereafter moved to London to provide Operations input into the design of 2nd generation installations. By 1990 Cambell was an onshore Asset Manager for the Cormorant Oil Field in the East Shetlands Basin. During this period he assisted in the development and acceptance of the first Safety Case approved by the UK regulator for the large and complex Condeep installation Cormorant Alpha.

In 1993 I became the Head of Operations and Maintenance Strategy for Shell’s North Sea operations d gas onshore plants. I this role I was charged with the development and training of over 2000 Offshore operations staff and was the custodian or technical authority for Operation and Maintenance Codes of Practice. At that time we produced the first standard adopted in the North Sea for the Management Of Major Emergencies as a result of the post Piper Alpha recommendations. I was also at the time one of a small number of Company Emergency Co-ordinators.

In 1996 Cambell moved to the central offices of Shell Intentional EP in The Hague in a similar role.

In the Hague as its principal technical expert for maintenance and production Cambell had several roles, namely Global Consultant, Part of a team sponsoring and financing revolutionary research carried out at our Research and Technical Services Laboratory being involved in projects such as expanded tubular, floating LNG, Geothermal etc.

At that time Cambell also acted as a Group Auditor carrying out HSE and Business Control audits and reviews around the world, some 42 in 17 different countries.

Cambell retired from Shell in 2002 due to ill health but provided part time constancy to them till 2006. He has also provided advice to the UK oil Regulator the HSE during this period.

hhuijsman 09/06/2010 3:55:20 AM EDT

I believe that an important factor in this story is the drive to maximize profit which is a challenged with the lower oil prices. Safety is an integral part of the business and simply comes at an expense: maintenance, inspection training of staff, inspection of equipment, ESD testing AND interventions as a result of gas releases. If there is a sick business culture where extra (safety) cost are not appreciated, you cannot expect that the crew will feel intimidated and reluctant to initiate an intervention after a gas release.
Replies (0)

billhigg 08/20/2010 2:36:44 PM EDT

As ever Bill's hindsight is 20/20. Most of the people commenting on this terrible accident have either never been in an operational environment or have been in operations but so long ago that they have forgotten how stressful the work environment really is. Too many armchair experts ! Probably all auditors who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing
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dbillings 08/18/2010 3:35:03 PM EDT

I would think that if the personnel onboard were given some of the right tools to possibly act on this leakage problem, that they would have acted differently. If there was a communications device integrated with safety systems that could have communicated this leakage as an alarm to the high level managers onboard they could have made decisions and taken actions to mitigate the risk. It is all to common for safety systems and response systems to be overlooked and disregarded, but if the right person (and I stress right) was immediately given the information needed to take action, I have to belive that this sort of event could have been avoided.
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ngnra 08/18/2010 12:21:24 AM EDT

I am shocked to know that gas leak on the platform for a few weeks went unacted upon; many fatal accidents happen this way; the people around on the field apparently do not have the skill and foresight to act on such intimations.
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raymondoscaff 08/16/2010 5:35:11 PM EDT

I must reitterate previous comments via different posts, this analysis is of profound benefit the regulatory regime in the USA allowed this culture to continue unchecked. We in the UK face potentially a worse scenerio, we have the regulatory foundation but it is rarely applied. Please visit link: http://www.hazards.org/votetodie/neutered.htm It would be fantastic to get some constructive feedback re these sensitive issues, we must remember the 11 lost loved ones, they MUST not of died in vain, in their memory, we must move forward, honesty and openly, with the utmost transparency. "There is now a vanishingly small chance of dangerous firms facing justice"
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Klibirifat@yahoo.fr 07/28/2010 5:50:02 AM EDT

Hy Bill verry good analysis,I just want to 1) Stress how ONGOING risk assessment process is important to prevent such catastrophic events on offshore installations .Day to day HSE activities have the tendencies to focus more on behavior performances less than on MAE reviews (major accident events).Significant gas releases should have been a sufficiant warning to include MAE probability in the JSA (job safety analysis) attached to the PTW (permit to work system) and to act by puting in place the adequate safeguards. 2.This also, point out the command chain process inherent to the STOP work procedure and the subsequent degree of delegated power to HSE people. We have the impression that such installations are in fact runing without an evil advocate !!
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