Discussion: Gulf Oil Spill Peers Review 2

Provide a classmate review on their discussion topic :

The gulf oil spill is considered one of the worst industrial disasters in recent history. To this day, it is the worst oil spill in history. Now that you have done your research on this disaster, pick one of the issues that you identified in your PHL and explain how it could have led to the disaster.

Classmate post that you need to post comment/ review on :

While many issues led to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the one that stuck out to me was the acceptance of a bad negative test. If more investigation into a failed test was conducted, the discovery of the well integrity issues could have occurred, thus preventing the spill. Three distinct oddities occurred during the test that should have raised red flags and required more investigation before commencing operation. First, 50 barrels of spacer passed into the BOP by the annular preventer. The result of this meant the kill line pressure readings were inhibited. Second, Bleed off volumes were higher than normal. Third, rig personnel searching for an explanation to a drill pipe pressure of 1400 psi chalked it up to a “bladder effect” without conducting any further investigation into the root cause (BP, 2010). Accepting the “bladder effect” theory without further investigation is the way operators justified bad results to meet the timeline pressures from supervisors. While poor decisions on cement were a causal factor, the negative pressure test, literally there to check well integrity as the last step safeguard, was ignored. The Deepwater Horizon spill is an incredibly tragic incident that fortunately turned an eye to rig and oil safety.