Performance alone will determine the adequacy of US responses to tragedy 5 years ago in the Gulf of Mexico. Only the absence of mishap can validate the many safety improvements made since Apr. 20, 2010, when the BP Macondo well blew out, destroyed the Transocean Deepwater Horizon semisubmersible drilling rig, and killed 11 workers, not to be brought under control until it had released oil continuously in 4,992 ft of water for 84 days.
Especially impressive are exertions by the oil and gas producing industry and its regulators to redress a lapse made painfully evident by the Macondo catastrophe. Dynamism of offshore capability had overwhelmed static regulation then in place. Demonstration of the problem took many forms after the blowout. Most striking was the standard assurance companies routinely provided in environmental documents that they could contain a spill in deep water. Apparently "deep" meant considerably less than a mile when the boilerplate was written. For the Macondo leak, BP had to invent a remedy.
Innovations since 2010
The industry can contain deepwater problems now. It supports two rapid-response systems able to cap uncontrolled wells in as much as 10,000 ft of water and to process 100,000 b/d of liquids and 200 MMcfd of gas. The Marine Well Containment Co. and HWCG systems are especially visible innovations. Many others have emerged since 2010.
Among them, the American Petroleum Institute has published more than 100 new and revised standards for well design, blowout prevention equipment, worker safety, and other elements of exploration and production, reported API Pres. and Chief Executive Officer Jack Gerard at a press briefing last month. He noted work by joint industry task forces on operating procedures, offshore equipment, subsea well control and containment, and oil-spill preparedness and response.
At the same briefing, International Association of Drilling Contractors Pres. and Chief Executive Officer Stephen Colville cited development since 2010 of automated kick-detection systems, emergency containment and production infrastructure, pore-pressure prediction during planning and subsalt drilling, and well-control and response modeling for reliability-based well design. IADC has created an industry oversight body called the Well Control Institute and a training program targeting every employee with well-control responsibilities, WellSharp. It also has completely revised its Well Control Guidelines and Drilling Manual.
Also at the press briefing, Gerard and Randall Luthi, president of the National Ocean Industries Association, discussed a program aimed at keeping safety procedures abreast of challenges as operations migrate into ever more-challenging environments. Managed by the new Center for Offshore Safety and integrated with regulation, the program focuses on safety and environmental management systems (SEMS) implemented by offshore operators.
At an Apr. 22 hearing of the House Committee on Natural Resources, Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement Director Brian Salerno described SEMS as "a necessary counterpart to our more-traditional regulatory oversight activities." The goal, he said, is "to encourage the offshore oil and gas industry to look beyond baseline compliance with regulations and move towards a safety culture that promotes continuous improvement in safety and environmental performance."
The BSEE itself is a product of a post-Macondo reorganization of the Minerals Management Service into three Department of the Interior agencies. Since the accident, regulators have required new standards for well design, casing and cementing, and third-party certification of designs. And they've proposed measures addressing systems to prevent hydrocarbon releases and to protect personnel on production platforms, Arctic drilling, and well control. BSEE has enlarged its inspection staff, funded start-up of the Ocean Energy Safety Institute, and created the Engineering Technology Assessment Center to help it keep up with industry developments.
Will it work?
Activities reported here are highlights. Much other work is under way to help offshore operators prevent and respond to well-control accidents. Similar improvements have been made elsewhere. But will the effort work?
To some immeasurable degree, success depends on unflagging awareness by everyone in the industry of a deadly irony: The longer preparedness makes response unnecessary, the harder complacency works to sabotage it.
