In the ecological calamity threatening the US Gulf Coast, image and reality, inevitably, diverge. The reality is unimaginably bad. It begins with the loss of 11 lives in a rig explosion and fire on a deepwater semisubmersible off Louisiana and continues with a menacing oil spill. Image, however, is even worse. It is with image that the oil and gas industry forever must contend.
Reality, insofar it is known at this writing, is that the Transocean Deepwater Horizon exploded and caught fire at about 10 p.m. CDT on Apr. 20 after the well it had finished drilling in 5,000 ft of water blew out. Of 156 workers aboard, 145 were rescued. On Apr. 22, the rig sank. By Apr. 24, leaks had become apparent.
Other realities are that BP and the government mounted an unprecedented spill response, fighting the oil with booms, controlled burns, and dispersants. Weather hampered the efforts and at first blew the spreading oil toward shore. As past spills have shown, however, nature provides its own cures. The hope in this disaster must be that nature helps more than hurts overall. Much time will pass before the full extent of real environmental damage is known. The initial mess is widespread and horrible.
Two thrusts
Image is simpler than reality. It has two main thrusts. One is that the offshore oil industry had an accident in deep water for which it was unprepared. The other is that an environmental disaster already has occurred. Image, not reality, will influence the oil industry's relationship with the public, and therefore the political climate of its work, for many years.
It's understandable that a shocked and characteristically reticent industry had its communications guard down when the tragedy occurred. Public statements by the principals, Transocean while the main event was a rig explosion, BP when attention turned to spill response, will be studied forever. Judgments will vary according to who's doing the judging. Judgment isn't the intention here.
What needs immediate attention is a question that, had it been answered promptly, might have made an inevitably punishing image somewhat less painful: What is there about this accident that so thoroughly overwhelmed industry preparedness? At this writing, there isn't even an authoritative description of what happened.
Understandably, companies involved don't want to incite speculation—or weaken their legal defenses—by disclosing what they can be certain about. And it's too early to expect to know the tragedy's cause. But it's not too early to describe what happened in more than the sketchiest possible detail. The image is that, 2 weeks on, no one in an official capacity even knows what happened. The industry will pay for this void.
Without context, moreover, the response looks indecisive. BP has assaulted the leak on several fronts. It tried to close the blowout preventer with remotely operated vehicles. It made rapid preparations to drill a relief well. It expedited the construction and delivery of a vessel with which to capture oil above the wellhead and funnel it to the surface. It tested subsea dispersion.
The operational efforts have been heroic and commendable. They accommodate hard realities of deepwater blowouts: that the unpredictability of extreme operating conditions preclude standard responses and that the best response is the one, among all tried, that works.
The image, though, is that the only plan available for dealing with a deepwater blowout was experimentation with options invented more or less on the spot. The picture darkened when the federal government, understandably wanting to show decisiveness of its own, dispatched "SWAT teams" to inspect other deepwater rigs.
First steps
Image should be the least of BP's worries. Image should be the priority of industry in general. Trade associations, especially, should be straining to steer image closer to reality.
Valuable first steps would be an authoritative description, in simple language, of what happened, updated as more becomes known; an explanation about why preparedness failed; and assurance that a multifaceted response yields the quickest solution to complex and dynamic problems and does not represent evidence of a lack of forethought.
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