BP Deepwater Horizon Accident Investigation Report

[rcy]

http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet...tion_Report.pdf

Too late now..but I think I should have posted in General and Off Topic...

Mods...can you move this?

 

[Kestas]

The link doesn't open for me.

 

[rcy]

Originally Posted By: Kestas
The link doesn't open for me.


It opens a fairly large .pdf file.
Maybe try a different browser, or make sure you have a current version of Adobe Reader...?

Interesting reading, actually - I always thought drilling for oil was as easy as shoving a pipe down a hole (well not that easy, but I had no idea that it's way, way more complicated.)

 

[Nyquist]

It's a 14.5 MB file, so it will take a bit to download on nearly any type of connection. It opened up just fine in IE 8.

 

[Kestas]

Got it, it took a while.

Very detailed report, well illustrated. I wish I knew what they were talking about. I'll have to wait until the dumbed-down version comes out. Plus, I'd like to hear what a third party has to say about this.

 

[rcy]

I'd like to thank the mod who has now moved this thread twice, since I was too daft to post it to the right forum - two times...lol.

The BP report came out before the recovery of the BOP valve. Once the valve inspection is done, there may be more info on why it failed.

 

[Kestas]

I thought this WAS about the BOP valve. I'm more interested in that report. I have a feeling it'll be a while until they get useful information from it.

 

[rcy]

If you read the whole thing (I was at work, what else was I going to do?), it's broken into sections. The section on the BOP valve is their best 'guess' for lack of a better word, based on all sorts of factors, without actually having the BOP valve up on the surface to inspect.

As with most accidents, there wasn't one glaring cause, but rather a series of causes that together lead to the disaster.

 

[Kestas]

You are correct. In many of the historical failure investigations I've read, many of the horrible accidents were not the result of one single thing gone wrong, but rather a culmination of a number of unlikely events that came together. Three Mile Island is one example; Chernobyl is another. I skimmed through the report and see they found a number of "unlikely" events occurred that shouldn't have happened. It's almost as though the Three Stooges were running the show.

 

[unDummy]

The three stooges ARE running the show in many companies.

I'd be honest with you, I've worked for several 'big' companies and the employee incompetence in multiple departments is incredibly unbelievable and downright scary.

So, there are schmucks making decisions at oil companies. No kidding!

 

[Gary Allan]

Originally Posted By: unDummy

The three stooges ARE running the show in many companies.

I'd be honest with you, I've worked for several 'big' companies and the employee incompetence in multiple departments is incredibly unbelievable and downright scary.

So, there are schmucks making decisions at oil companies. No kidding!


I've often said that most companies make money by shear presence in the market. I've watched suits who were totally devoid of any first hand orientation hand down edicts that funneled down to two or three grunts in the basement. They were the essential small gears that kept the machinery running.