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Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed this video and would like to watch more videos from this channel without any ads, consider joining our Patreon. The link is in the description. You can join for free or select a membership with benefits ranging from ad free videos through to early access and live q and a calls. I look forward to meeting you there. www.patreon.com/WaterlineStories
Honestly I think this vid was one of your more rushed ones. You seem to be unaware of the BOP cutoff device and the circumstances of it's failure
Yes I think you’re right.
These men were killed by the BP rig manager not sticking to protocols. It is a shame. It is criminal negligence. 11 families, even more were affected. The drill pipe did not kill these men. I would like to see the root cause analysis.
Drill pipe can not think or act on its own just like weapons there is a person responsible.
Something is very wrong if employees are afraid to sound the alarm and press emergency buttons though everything around them is on fire and exploding.
The captain of the rig had to ask the Transocean rep for permission to push the emergency disconnect.That says alot right there.
Not true pay attention to the details. Some of the emergency measures would make things worse at the moment, if it wasnt known how bad the ultimate result would be. Like it was stated one measure would have left the vessel drifting without power yet still attached to the main drill line. And it wasnt known that the emergency generators wouldnt start or that most of the firefighting team was unable to respond. Some real mistakes here to be sure but much of this is just monday morning quarterbacking on our parts. The vast majority of these people were professionals reacting the best they could. They didnt forsee the worst could even happen.
@@atsiv12that right there is a good point. Ask the bean counter if we should throw away the beans. Not a good plan.
@@batvette so that's why corporate always has finance and MBA people make those decisions??
@@batvette we can't really criticize the crew from reacting poorly under panic, but we can absolutely criticize the systems and protocols which lead to such a critical situation. Swiss cheese theory.
I’m an offshore worker, currently on a transocean rig watching this. These types of documentaries are equally fascinating as they are a valuable learning tool. 👏
Worked land based in Northern AB/BC🍁 in my younger years, always wanted to get out onto that Ocean. Life took me different ways. Keep safe bud. DRINK FIGHT TRIP PIPE
Lesson learned, always risk profits over lives. You'll lose your job, but you won't die. Your captain will scream at you for it.
I am on Transocean Endurance, which are you on? 😁
@@Galerare I was on the Barents, just got home last night. Safe trip 👍
@@JenkemSuperfan said NO EXECUTIVE NOR CEO EVER.
"your pay depends on you doing this quickly" "we don't pressure our employees to cut corners"
Maybe they shouldn't allow bonuses, or significant bonuses, in situations where there's so much danger. Just pay them the full amount regardless, so their natural priority will be safety. In a job that's so dangerous anyway, people need to be worrying about safety first. And if that bothers bean-counters, point out that it's millions of dollars in equipment and fines when things go wrong, it's in their interest not to just cross their fingers. Things will go wrong, it's a statistical thing. So that needs to be accounted for in Plan A, not just hope that it won't happen.
It's alright, the BP guy said he was "sorry!"
If you actually put safety first, nothing would ever get done in this world.. it’s more like safety 3rd
no, you cannot do that for your employees, contractors on the other hand, are motivated to do a job quickly so they can move onto the next job, the company has nothing to do with doing it quickly, contractor might be penalized if it takes longer than what the law dictates it should take. i guess blame the blue collar worker instead of the corporation
@@goinhot9133 your logic is so backwards I wouldn't be surprised if you're an actual CEO that has never stepped on anything _remotely_ dangerous ever...
Their exemplary “safety” record was more a record of LUCK than safety looking at the gross neglect of major safety systems and training!
They must have also been pencil whipping quite a few things for as much of their safety protocols and equipment to fail at just the wrong time. You can of course be #1 in safety when you're lying about everything.
and yet no one went to prison for that.
Safety records on massive complex systems like this are incredibly difficult to evaluate. It's because of the false sense of security that happens as a result of each successful well being dug. You don't really know how close you got to catastrophic failure, when you don't catastrophically fail. The "acceptable failure" rate rises until catastrophic failure is imminent. It's just like the Challenger disaster. Everyone knows a faulty O ring caused the explosion, and that it was a result of cold weather. But what most aren't aware of is that those o rings had previously failed during successful launches. So they viewed some potential of leaking as a danger that doesn't have catastrophic consequences. Until it does.
Thats usually the case.
Executives should never be allowed to make decisions because they are driven by monetary values rather than life issues.
Their entire job description of an executive is to make the decisions, look up the definition of executive
What are you talking about? That's the basis of our entire economic system.
@@Peyote1312 If you really think that you have a small brain that contains no common sense. Paying a person millions to run some company is ignorance and kills the companies profits.
I have no idea why, but this specific disaster fascinates me. It’s such a perfect storm of errors that showcases the breakdown of a complex system.
So true
shows greed and not enough balls to act when needed in an emergency. this is what happens when you fire the ones who speak up and populate your crew with yes men. an all to popular decision in todays offshore and onshore work culture today.
This and the Piper Alpha disaster.
I feel like cases like this there are some actions which while not malicious can't be called an error. If you're greedy enough to ignore safety issues then it's not an error you simply valued the lives of people less than money.
@@purplefood1 I think the word you are looking for is either "reckless" or "negligent."
"We can't let staff unilaterally activate alarms or shutoffs because we might lose a few hundred thousand dollars in lost drilling time; we prefer to mandate captain / manager approval, virtually _guaranteeing_ loss of life and an eventual pricetag of billions..." - BP, probably
Yeah. There has to be a better way.
Yeah, if you watch the documentaries and hearing recordings BP at that time basically had an extroverted bean counter for a CEO, he'd rapidly built BP into a major power in the energy sector by going on a buying spree of a lot of smaller oil companies. That depleted the coffers and BP's Board liked that they were now a major power in the game, but wanted to see the rapid massive returns far sooner than reasonable. So how does a cooperation up the profit immediately without upping production? You cut costs. And where is the easiest place to cut costs when your a cooperation where employees are statistics? Safety. Sure something bad MAY happen, but the likely hood is low. And IF something bad does happen...oh well. We have an insurance write off, we may get a slap on the wrist, we'll probably need to do some reparations. But it won't come close to the amount of money we made while doing it. BUT, if nothing happens, we make high profits, our backers are happy, and business continues on a usual. There is no real lose situation. There's a point there a company is big enough that it is too big to die. It'll tank hit after hit, straighten up and fly right for a little bit then be right back cutting the same corners. Wash rinse repeat.
Not giving the drillers a true cut off switch is mind blowing and cost them their lives Plus people paid a lot to make tuff decisions passing the buck
Check put my comment dude
That is so true, if it costs hundreds of thousands to correct, that's still less than 24 hours operating expenses. If they loose a day once a year, what's the big deal?
Those blind rams are a deadman solution for when everything else fails. Theres literally a valve on the BOP that opens and closes like a tap like you suggested. The BOP in the case of the DWH disaster was a story unto itself. The well casing buckled inside the bore of the BOP and caused all kinds of problems and on top of that It wasnt put together right, and it WAS designed to kill the well on its own if it lost communication with the rig. The system was powered by onboard batteries, one bank per ram. Iirc, on one bank the batteries were faulty and had no charge, and on the other ram they had the switch wired backwards. You'd expect a little tighter QC on a $45,000,000 piece of equipment but hey thats the times we live in.
I heard about the casing issue and I understand the material used has been changed since. In addition, when a major piece of equipment is installed such as the BOP don't they do any testing and commisioning before putting it into service to verify its operation?
I was wondering why this wasn’t highlighted in the video. It’s a big part of the story. Thanks for sharing
@@JK-mo2ov because it's not a very good video, tbh. I knew about the additional safeties in the blowout preventer beforehand, as would anyone who's done a reasonable job researching the subject before they make a video for _educating others..._ Instead he chose to spend quite a bit of time lambasting something that didn't deserve it, and instead had far more interesting bits to it (as the OP commenter here said). I suspect they just wanted to create more drama and sound "clever" and "insightful" when there was plenty of drama to be found already. That part where he started talking psychology was a load of BS, too. There's no such thing as recognised stages of grief since everybody acts differently; denial is not guaranteed to appear, and if it does, not necessarily first. And why did he even attribute _grief_ as the prevailing emotion? No, it's "utter shock", that's what. I don't think the presenter has any idea what he's talking about.
@@johnking9942 Yes. There is a full FAT done, and it would have had to pass before being used. The thing is, that during a FAT, you're testing outcomes, and the redundancies in the design may have covered up any of these issues. It's just as likely that something happened during maintenance or overhaul that caused the problems. At any rate, even if the BOP was correctly working, the buckled pipe the above comment mentions would've prevented the BOP from shearing the pipe. They've changed the designs of the shears to prevent this from happening.
@@mnxsgreat critique of the video. In the midst of all the professionals commenting on the technical details, its good to see someone pointing out the philosophical flaws in this presentation. It puts the technical aspects in proper context.
This is like a caricature of corporate greed causing death and destruction. Unreal.
I worked for this company and quit shortly before this happened. I’d had enough of seeing close calls because of cutting corners.
This whole thing stems from a bad test that no one is willing to call bad cause they would be replaced. Then the corner cutting and lack of training in an emergency situation compounded the severity, it’s a miracle that about 92% of the people made it off that rig with their lives
This whole thing stems from the BOP's that were tagged as NOT SERVICEABLE and INOPERABLE were put back into service. If you READ the synopsis of the whole accident from a guy who took all the nuggets out of the original 1000+ page report, the BOP's were NFG and didnt work. THAT is the stem of the problem. The bad cement job was just the last straw that broke the camels back and killed 11 men and destroyed the rig and polluted the gulf. Transocean and BP should have been put out of business for this disaster
@@ssnerd583 That's important. While a lot of things can be blamed at the end of the day you rely on your fail safes, which is Ultimately the BOP.
No, the whole thing stems from idiots in the C suite doing everything possible to save nickels and dimes by removing adequate, automated safety margins that exist for a reason and instead operating on a razor-thin, constantly shifting, human-based margin of error. Why the hell would we develop such safety technology just to deem it unnecessary? Corporations are gonna corporate, and morons are gonna moron - aka business as usual. This kind of shit is exactly why totally free markets will always fail and why governments actually are necessary - because when everyone just wants to act like greedy little children at the cost of human lives, someone in the room has to stand up and actually be the damn adult 🤷🏼♂️
I would rather be replaced than make a decision that would cost others their lives. If a million dollars have to be spent to save one life, it is worth it
@@ssnerd583they're similar to banks. "Too big to fail".... they will prop them up with coke cans and toothpicks before they admit failure. Sickening
The men who took action as they should, the drilling crew, paid the price for all those in clean coveralls that took no action.
I only worked on this rig for a short period filling in for someone. I spent over 30 years in the oil field and was shocked at this tragedy. The search for scapegoats was enormous and costly. Lots of training resulted and many changes. I have never had a chance to read any official results of investigations or what needed changing. So many errors caused and missed by Transocean and BP. I have retired now, so I hope things have drastically improved.
About 12 years ago I did work for BP at one of their refineries. We had to take a week of safety training. During that week they had a question and answer session. No subject was taboo - except for this accident and the refinery they blew up. They cut all mention of those two incidents off the second they came up.
@@Ryarios Unfortunately most safety training is pushed by those trying to move up or those fearing losing their job. It should be just for saving life and limb only. I called them the bean counters.
The CSB released an official report on how things unfolded, it’s posted on KZhead a great video around 15 minutes long. There are a few things this video missed.
@@Ryarios There were likely still ongoing litigation about them so they couldn't comment to anyone.
@@krashd then just say that. "We can’t discuss those two incidents because of ongoing litigation." They wouldn’t even let the question be asked before shutting down the discussion.
I've seen the Movie Deep Water Horizon and I've learned more about how the Disaster happened in the last 22:30 than I ever did watching the Movie. Top Job ☝🏻
Thanks. I like to understand the mechanics of these accidents.
It's a movie... Aside from very rare exceptions, most movies are just balnd entertainment, nothing of value can be learned from them. Some exceptions: The Martian (most realistic depiction of sience and astronaut's attitude I've ever seen), All quiet on the Western Front (1971 version, NOT THE NEW ONE) and Das Boot (two of the most realistic war movies I know), Man From Earth (one of the most thought provoking and educating movies I had the honour to watch)
It's reality
To give the movie credit, they do visualize the mechanics during the catastrophe and for the most part stays in line to the real life sequence of events. It's still a classic American Hero Mark Wahlberg action thriller, but it's not as bad as others.
That's cause the movie is Hollywood. I worked on rigs for 10 years, you don't get a dinosaur claw over the shakers, no man on a rig goes up to the drill floor with his bag and no PPE just to chat, this is a BIG no no, you would be run off. What they did get right was the effects of the blow out, it's a fear we live with when we work and they did show the horror of what can happen when corners are cut for money and people are too afraid of losing their jobs to speak out or act
I think my blood pressure elevated while watching this story. I hate management.
I hate capitalism.
This is a massive case of “not my job, someone else can do it” .. everyone was to scared to take action for fear of reprisal if they’re wrong .. instead of looking at it like “if I don’t do this and the rig blows up, it’ll destroy 1000 square miles of ocean and habitats and cost billions of dollars of environmental damage” they looked at it like “if I do this and I’m wrong, it’ll cost the company 10’s of millions of dollars and I’ll loose my job”
Yep, it's all about the cheddar, "look at all that cheddar ha ha"
You forgot the human lifes
@@runlaxx4396 and the cost of the whole damn rig
Yes but thats material, human life is not replaceable
@@runlaxx4396 yes I agree the lives are more important, I meant 'in addition' the whole rig
I like the oil rig stories, as tragic as they can be.
Yeah they tend to be large complex stories. Interesting
Nobody wanted to make the shut off call and have in their hr file
Wow this still drives me nuts every time I hear this story. And I remember living through it thinking they will never be able to catch this well and we're going to live with this oil spill for the next 30 years just continuously pouring oil into our ocean. And everything that BP got away with, it's mind-blowing. And the fact that they are afraid to hit the cap off after multiple explosions back to back to back they still want someone higher than them to hit the cap off. If I was on a thing like that and there was multiple explosions non-stop and there was no way to stop it because the oil pressure was massively too high I would have made the executive decision to push the cap off immediately. And if I lost my job due to it I could live with myself because I've saved probably countless lives doing that. If these peons would have just thought for themselves and push the cap off everyone would probably be alive
Also didn’t BP own a sister company that cleaned oil spills? And cleaning a oil spill is more lucrative then actully drilling? Or was that just a rumour?
the subsea bop failed to function. look at the court hearings.
No you wouldn’t 😂 all talk online, 100% would be shitting bricks in that moment.
@@lonewolftech Yeah I would be! That's for sure... but if the place is literally seconds from blowing up, I'm pushing that button! Screw trying to wake up someone just to get approval to not die.... But the shutoff valve failed as well all know now anyways....
Your 20/20 hindsight is amazing, bring your crystal ball with you to the job interview.
Your editing and content is superb. You're a one-man production crew who ought to have a syndicated show
Thanks. I get some great help along the way.
nah, too much stock footage that has nothing to do with the actual event. reminds me of those gigantic cookie cutter generic channels
Fair enough. Not easy to get original footage. Not that this is stock footage. I do try and find images that at least give the best idea of what we’re talking about. Short of filming original footage, which would cost a fortune, it’s the best i can do.
@@waterlinestories you do a pretty good job mate, good voice, tone, speed and atmosphere. just takes away a bit when the images arent actually the event or they are a little to "stocky". i notice the images arent up for long either. personally some of the images you show are very impressive but they are not up for long enough. impressive images held up for longer so we can absorb them while we listen to your story telling rather than lots of images cycled quickly would be a better vibe i think. just my two cents. congrats on the channel so far. PS im a comm diver also. its good to have all these legendary stories in one place, narrated by an industry experienced person rather than those mega commercialised channels who say stupid things that dont make sense becasue they dont understand our industry. good to have these stroys here to reference for friends and familys when they ask about these incidents we all know so well.
@@waterlinestories your style reminds me of channels like dark docs, popomedic and plainly difficult. all great channels who have this vibe down pat.
I remember seeing somewhere else that the blind-shear ram of the BOP was wired incorrectly. One of the electrical solenoids that activated one ram had its polarity wrong, that caused the EDS batteries located in the BOP to drain. So only one side of the shear activated, merely kinking the pipe in the annular space.
My understanding is that BOPs do have "on/off" options as well. There's one for sealing the well when there's no string down hole and there's one for closing the annular space between the string and casing. When there is drill string down hole like in this scenario the annular space is closed and that valve the floorhand would have been trying to attach is attached in the open position so you can attach it during a kick or blowout and then the valve is closed after. I'm fairly new to oil and gas work though so take what I've said with a grain of salt 😅 great video as usual
Oh yeah and then there's the shear rams which are a last resort and they just cut whatever's in the hole and seal it. I think in deepwater Horizon there was a malfunction with the shear rams and they weren't able to completely cut the drill string and seal the well
They believe that the drill pip was at such an extreme angle from rig drifting that it buckled and was unable to cut it.
Yeah I did hear that. Doesn't really make sense to me as I wouldn't have thought the rams would have an area that's out of reach to them?
@@davidcrosthwaite A report at the time said that to achieve this depth they were using a harder than usual steel for the string, which had not been tested with the shear, which then proved insufficient to sever it.
@@calebsanders4353 It was due to a phenomenon called effective compression. What happened to the pipe was an unknown problem and not something they could've planned for. New BOPs have shears designed to deal with this.
I really like this guy with his almost unlimited knowledge of what he is talking about. He has a wonderful South African accent and is so articulate in his delivery. Others on similar subjects on You tube are not quite in the same league as this great man who really knows how to put together a professional video. One might say good enough for television. One hopes he continues with these documentaries in the future. They are far more superior than the American versions. Peter Starr London UK
Thanks. I will make more of them. 👍🏻
I was on a church beach trip to Panama City in junior high right after this happened. We were swimming around one of the mornings when a large fridge sized box was floating to shore and so we were swimming out around it to see what it was. It was leaking a bunch of fluid so we watched for a while and then the beach staff started getting people out of the water and getting people back. Soon after the hazmat crew showed up and told us it was leaking crude oil and we could see it had a logo from BP or deepwater horizon on it. It was a wild day but my buddies sister got on the local news for it for an interview lol. Cool to see the story broken down so well like this. Awesome video
Thanks and amazing you were so close to it
My dad has worked offshore my whole life, at this time he was a BOP Inspector currently working on the Horizons sister rig, Nautilus. That was a scary time. Butt it’s so shitty to hear, essentially, big corpo ignoring the voices of safety personnel and ending up costing lives all in the effort to save some profit. My dad was also on the team to investigate the BOP after this, in his words he said that there wasn’t much left to inspect.
I remember looking up the engines that tore themselves apart from their runaway... The level of violence associated with the rods and crank flying out of the block would be almost unfathomable... And the depiction of it in the movie Deep Water Horizon is worth seeing, make sure you crank your stereo up for the full effect.
I worked land rigs in Wyoming 20 yrs ago, this movie is absolutely terrifying,I'm on edge every time I see it
@@lorenshetler6395 Back in like 2011 I got to visit the Dyno test room when a CAT 3524 was being tested at full throttle. Working in the machine shop we seldom got to see our finished products, but this job was special because we got them so infrequently. On our little field trip to the rebuild shop I examined at the 5 inch safety glass and steel frame protection of the test operator enclosure. And I remember musing to the control guy, I don't think this little box will save us if that thing were to really come apart. Then someone else in the room said "Doesn't matter what you think, only matters what the state thinks." Which I didn't find very comforting at all... You can just hope the kill switch guy is also a gamer... Quick button reflexes, you know what I mean.
I don't understand how this is even possible. Wouldn't an extremely lean mixture inevitably generate less power? Combustion engines require a very particular fuel to air ratio to operate most efficiently
@@vejet It's a diesel engine... and there are only a couple ways to get an over rev to turn into a run away, disabling the governor, intaking combustible fumes through the air intake (which bypasses the injectors), burning oil as a fuel source, or incorrectly assembling the engine... I know diesels can be boosted by adding natural gas and propane to the intake air... but it is regulated and like you say, there is an optimal mix for max horsepower. Testing various supplies or a combustible gas near the intake of a big running diesel engine is not an experiment I would want to perform, its more like steampunk terrorism. Because if a diesel engine likes the mix in the intake air, off it goes and when it stops nobody knows... Needless to say, the unrefined mix getting added to the combustion chambers of the engines on the Deep Water Horizon was good enough for a run away. And burning of gas is really dry and between the rpms and heat, it will cease up and catastrophically fail like it did. The shop I used to work in had some guys who were occasionally called as expert witnesses for insurance investigations involving engines. One time they did an analysis on a CAT 3508 where some clowns disabled the governor, which led to a run away. The aftermath photos showed the crank had blasted out of the engine block when it failed completely destroying everything in the immediate area. Nobody got hurt in that incident, but seeing the top of an engine sitting on the ground next to the bottom of the engine with cast iron all over, somebody should get fired for that...
@@vejet ...the gas acted as extra fuel and caused a runaway...diesel engines can 'run away' under certain circumstances
Wow the negligence !! Would never work for these companies
My ex boyfriend worked for Transocean on the Deepwater Horizon when this happened. He was on his rotation home so he was lucky. It affected him deeply as many of the guys that died were friends of his. He was a drill operator in the drill shack (I can't remember if that's the exact name). And then my husband (now ex) helped in the oil spill clean up.
Oh wow. Sounds like you were very close to it.
Remember, the company was not meaningfully punished. They blamed dead heroes and recorded high profits anyway.
Was Occidental "meaningfully punished" when Piper Alpha exploded killing 167 Brits?
A tragic and complex disaster. Very thoroughly explained, thank you. 👌
None of those people were qualified to be there ! Especially the contractors!!
Transoceanic didn’t want an automatic shutdown system, not because it’s less safe than manual, but because a false alarm can be very expensive - especially if the guillotine is triggered. I guess they didn’t consider the cost of losing the whole rig.
3rd time I've watched this story and again I still believe that ALL the safety precautions must not be made by humans!!! They seem to get confused and then nothing is done. Greatly awaiting for your next video 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
😄 thanks.
alarms disabled, first error, as well as no function test and up to date tests on the subsea bop.... critical failure. did not have a firm test result in the pressure test, well flowed error 2, did not have crew and safety stabbing valve ready, crew rigging out while well is still operating error 3, did not sound alarm immediately at drill foor, error 4, did not immediately shut in surface valves put in stabbing valve and circulate kill fluid back into well error 4, subsea bop failed to function error 5, even after rig was on fire and exploding alarms still were not sounded.. wow.. failure after failure of equipment and skilled action. this is an event that rocked the world. meanwhile in brazil they are drilling in water twice as deep. for a corrupt govt buracracy... this is going to be an interesting future for sure. chernoble much?
@@kevinjaegli6751 Wow thank you for the response to my questions. Obviously I don't know much about what your talking about but it definitely puts in perspective that there where a ton of errors. Need to take the human out of the equation.
Thank you for this excellent video. Tragedies like this need to be studied by everyone. No matter where you live or where you work, there is always a chance of finding yourself in the middle of disaster. In times like that it is up to each and every one of us do what we can to be part of the solution, because if you cant keep your head about you then you are only adding to the crisis.
Instant on/off isn’t practical at this scale. The bigger the pipe and the faster the flow, the slower a valve needs to move to prevent pressure hammer.
The part missed was just before when the "company man" insisted that HE WAS BOSS, DO WHAT I SAY and the contractors did just that (safety? We dont need no pesky stop work authority)
Step 1: Ignore any possible measure to prevent disaster Step 2: Cry Pretty much the summary of the state of humanity.
The tap idea is neat. I know people that make bops. I'll ask.
This event and Chernobyl share rather a lot of similarities. As far as what leads to the accident and how it was handled
Waterline, I didn't think your videos could get any better but the research and reporting in this video takes the cake. Congrats. I can't wait to see what else this channel's future has in store for us.
lots of the photos are of other accidents and jack up rigs. pretty phoney video, good facts false images.
@@kevinjaegli6751to be fair deepwater horizon was destroyed and cannot now be photographed.
there would be a lot to say about the "quality" of the "content". The problem is the same as most : not much clue of what they are talking about, no actual expertise in the field, haven't done their homework. no proper researches, and some BS to top it all. The goal is probably less to educate of be accurate than "creating content".
In the process of doing a risk analysis our contractor introduced the phrase "brain-dead operator". The idea was to design so that an error from a human would compromise safety. At the same time the question was raised how many levels of safety are needed. Do you design for a single human error (Level 1)? Do you add in a sensor failure (Level 2)? What happens when you push a button and nothing happens (Level 3)? And so on, and so on? I was shown a design where there were up to five levels of redundancy along with all sorts of interlocking controls by a different contractor. The design belonged to another company. When asked what I thought, my response is the system was so complex that if it could be made to work, failure was inevitable. My next comment was that bypasses and work-arounds were inevitable. When you back up a sensor with a second, if one shows one number the second a different number, which one is right? Voting logic helps choose an answer. But, what if it is wrong? I was asked to give a presentation to senior management of a number of companies on the results of the risk analysis that was now complete and the progression of design work that was being done. In my presentation I related the story about the "brain-dead operator" and the designs that were being done. I then told the audience that it was not only risk of "brain-dead operators" and "brain-dead designers" that posed a risk. But, the greatest risk may come from "brain-dead management" that wasn't overseeing the projects that were being designed, built, and placed into operation. In the case of the Deepwater Horizon it was a combination of "brain-dead operations", "brain-dead supervision", and "brain-dead management" that resulted in disaster.
The task of drilling "The deepest" well seems like unknown territory. I dont know a lot about drilling but the background on the play had a reputation of being dynamic. That coupled with the deep location of the well head should have deserved a greater look at risk. I dont agree with bashing companys. I believe companys are generally made up of people trying to do a good job. Still I cant come up with an arrgument sighting "Brain dead" operations, supervision and managment as not deserved with this one. My background is heavy industrial engeering in steel and hydrocarbon production. It seems to me that a suitable risk assessment needs to be done up front before any final engineering and design takes place. That is the engineers job. If they are not supported in this task then resign in writing.
@john king Before the accident there were a lot of rumors of shortcuts and failure to follow industry standards-based processes. One of the rumors was that the blow-out (BOP) stack was pulled out of the testing before the testing was finished. I read one report that batteries in the controllers of the BOP hadn't been changed before being set in place. The bottom line, this accident was not caused by a single failure or even two failures. It was caused by a failure of the entire system.
In my line of work, we have the concept of "walk-away safe". Human action is not required to bring the process to a safe state and all accident sequences are self-limiting without human intervention, because the safety systems are designed to operate without relying on someone to decide if they have the authority to push the big red button. The fact that operators on DWH had to get management authority to cut the drill pipe was particularly concerning because it's this exact same issue that contributed to the severity of the fire onboard Piper Alpha 35 years ago. Two other rigs continued to pump oil and gas to PA, fuelling the fire, because they did not feel like they had the authority to shut down production. It seems that lessons hard earned through tragedy are easily forgotten by those who prioritise profits over safety.
Their exemplary safety record was just pure blind luck and everything was based on saving money not lives but that is typical of big business
Another perfectly presented documentary. I always look forward to your postings. There always interesting and clearly explained. Thanks mate. 👍👍
Thanks for saying so. I appreciate that.
High functioning autistic people would not be frozen in fear during an emergency like this. I recommend hiring them to their Damage Control teams.
This was fantastic, but you could have went into further detail on the mechanical failure of the blowout preventer. It had multiple fail safes and backup systems for redundancy and all of them ended up failing or jamming.
Outstanding outstanding video
Thanks
Nice to see your channel growing. Great work.
Thanks
I absolutely love watching these video's. They are traumatic and exciting at the same time. My take away, it seems like humans need to be taken out of the sequence, to many decisions NOT made. Can't wait for the next story. I watch this one again and again.
Thanks. And welcome back. I appreciate your support as always.
@@waterlinestories and I appreciate you awesome video's!!!
Great video mate 👌🏻Thanks for sharing this story
Riveting. Tragic. For such a matter of fact presentation, I've never felt so invested, even knowing the resolution. Great video.
Thanks for the in depth review of the sequence of events. I, like many, feel this incident perfectly shows that automation in safety is a must. There is so much money involved that, even with this incident in mind, any employee will feel very hesitant to make the call and probably leave it too late. If you were to make the call too soon and shut down systems necessary for production, you'll be fired and never work in oil and gas again. I know that it will increase cost, automation will by definition shut down too soon every now and then, but I think we should consider that the cost of doing business. Incidents like this should simply be considered unacceptable, the cost to human life and the environment is just too high. Even if no alternative to these permanent blowout preventers is found, drilling a new hole is cheaper than this.
Trained to take the least costly option as a first resort. That's such a good point. This is one of the key issues in a lot of these vids.
As for your question about BOPs, no. You can't effectively shut a valve that has drillpipe strung up through it -- that's what the shears are for. The feature you're looking for *IS* the Disconnect, not something added to it.
You can shut pipe rams id imagine there's a way to shut the pipe rams and pump through casing valves? That's how it's done on land, I don't see why there wouldn't be the same thing to be able to pump down the well with the pipe rams shut. It doesn't make any sense the shear rams would be the only means of combating a kick. Because you'd have to run back in the well to fish the sheared pipe which means you'd have to open the shear rams up.. its not like a well will just die off from cutting the pipe. Theres 10000% a way to pump below the sheer rams, the pipe rams, and the blind rams. And if you can pump down it it can flow back as well, in a controlled manner. I've never worked off shore but I've worked on land rigs for a very long time and have taken well control school and there's nothing in there about cutting the pipe off and abandoning the well.... even with a column of heavy mud sitting on top of the shear rams it still isn't likely that they'd kick open the blind rams/ shear rams and see if they got enough hydrostatic pressure to fish the pipe out they cut off... If the well was blowing that hard they'd snub pipe in while the well free flows to fish what they cut off... it doesn't make sense the only option they'd have is to snub the pipe in and out even then you be able to bleed off/ equalize between rams. It litterally makes no sense to have no way to pump/bleed off below the bop.. Basically there is a way to close the pipe rams and below the bop there's valves that can be opened/closed to pump through to pump down the well in case of a kick while you have the pipe rams closed...
I used to work drilling on land I hate when the suits rush the work and pennypinch
As you say, they didn't activate the BOP until a blowout had already occured meaning they have 5,000ft of oil and gas coming upon them. Let's say the pipe is only 9" in diameter, that's 62,000Litres or 16,000US Gals of oil and gas that's getting to the rig regardless of any on/off solution they have for the BOP The real tragedy here is that no-one had ever thought about or trained these guys to know that if a blowout occurs you ARE going to blow up your rig unless you divert the oil & gas directly overboard and immediately shut off all power to the rig, but no company would ever willingly have dump over board as a solution because it would ruin their reputation and destroy the environment, despite the irony of how much worse the environment was damaged because of the failure. Awesome video, presented way more facts about the situation then i've been able to find on other videos, cheers.
Nonsense, BOP is a safety device which must function. Your screwed USAmerican safety standards are simply the lowest possible. That's the reason why these catastrophes happens. Technology is long available and works flawlessly, but you are too greedy using it accordingly! BOP were defect because it wasn't build and controlled correctly!
I’m also not an engineer, but I wonder why a remotely actuated ball valve can’t be used to close a well? I know it’s a lot of pressure, but a big ball valve can hold back thousands of psi, and be opened again.
Great video that presents this straightforward and easily understood.
I find it astonishing how people can survive being blown 20' off their feet, or being hit in the head by a bulkhead door.
I guess the his skull was strong enough to cause him to be pushed away before it got caved in.
Putting aside the immense human and ecological tragedy of this event for a moment, it occurs to me that the whole business of deep sea drilling is truly one of humanity's greatest achievements. Just thinking of immense complexities involved at every stage of the process blows my mind, the sheer number of people who need to think and work in concert, the materials science, the geological science, the construction work - there isn't one single person on the planet who could explain it all from beginning to end, or even comprehend 1% of it, and yet somehow it all works and we do something seemingly impossible, and in doing so we drive the engine of civilisation. Amazing.
Yep. Fascinating.
That's a gross overestimation of the complexity. Give me two weeks, and I could have at least the construction figured out.
@@nercksrule No, you couldn't.
And we still don't truly know how the earth makes oil. I remember them freaking out because that well was in a zone that makes oil to the point that they could never stop it from coming up if the well stayed open
@@BcFuTw9jt Not sure who "they" are but humans have known how oil is made since at least the 60's.
This video was very informative on what really happened… Thanks for sharing…
Another great video, I wasn't really familiar with the whole story, but when I heard the delay, deadlines, bonuses, I immediately thought human error
The thing with those shear rams is that they are designed to have as close to zero mechanical failure points as possible once closed. Something you could close and open like a tap would introduce failure potentials that especially severe kicks (like Deepwater Horizons one) could overwhelm. The shear rams slice through the pipe then the two blades and their ram bases completely cover the pipe and annulus space (the area outside the pipe but inside the well casing) below the Riser column, meaning the well would need to blow them physically out of the BlowOut Preventer (BOP, the massive equipment stack between the casing and the riser) to overwhelm them. This is why the Shear Rams are the last resort option. You only use them when its shear or burn. There are a number of mechanical options which can be closed and reopened in the "tap"like fashion, and they are used whenever any driller has a doubt about the possibility of a kick taking place. Drill crews are trained to monitor for and immediately report any sign of a potential Kick event. These include Losing Mud (pumping in more than is flowing back out) to the well formation which left unchecked depletes your mud column and its associated Hydrostatic Pressure value (how much force the mud exerts onto the well formation when the pumps are turned off) and allows oil and gas to flow/Kick into the wellbore, Gaining mud (getting more mud flowing back than youre pumping in, meaning the well is already overwhelming your hydrostatic pressure value and oil and gas are flowing/Kicking into the wellbore), Cavings (specifically shaped shards of rock) coming back out of the well during drilling which is a sign that the rock youre drilling into is pushing in much harder than your mud is pushing out. Basically, the ENTIRE drilling crew on shift is watching for their own individual potential warning signs depending on which area of the operation they are working in. As soon as those signs are reported the Driller should have the authority to shut in the well via the Taplike options without the need for ANY higher blessing, and in dire circumstances they ABSOLUTELY should have the authority to function those Shear rams. People die when the people onsite have to ask permission to do their jobs.
Thanks that’s useful to understand
This seems similar to what happened on Piper Alpha, when 167 men lost their lives while oil and gas were allowed to flow to the rig from neighbouring rigs because nobody had the balls to shut the flow down, even though the other rigs could clearly see Piper Alpha burning. Why is it that 'following procedures' and working according to the rule book is more important than saving lives, especially on US-operated rigs? I worked four years in the southern North Sea, and there was a world of difference between working on a small UK-run gas platform and a US-run drilling rig: on the gas platform all of us base crew knew how to blow down and shut down all the wells, even the cook and steward, and we all knew how to lower and man the lifeboats and life rafts; on the drilling rig nothing could happen without the OIM's approval, and if he wasn't available then nothing would happen. I was glad to stop working on the rig: that workplace ethos is a disaster just waiting to happen.
I saw the movie about this. Felt like I was watching it again. I remember when this was first in the news. When I was driving home from work one day I passed a BP gas station and just shuddered about the loss of live and the terrible damage to the environment. I wonder if those folks learned anything from this disaster. Very well told.
Been binge watching and so cool to see you cover this! Despite it being relatively infamous and well known, I was still hooked. It always seems a great frustration that the entire system incentives are against safety and it's always up to a select few of underpaid maintenance people to try and fight against those incentives to fix the situation. And of course those in the C suite designing the system never face the consequences
Anyone else remember that the oil companies promised us gulf states that this would never happen in the gulf if thay were allowed to drill
They said the same about Alaska before the Exxon Valdez fucked up half of that state's coastline.
Nice well done video. I actually suggested a way to seal off the well which BP responded to me and went on to use a very similar idea, by attaching a valve to the existing Blow Out Preventer; I suggested a manual turned valve to close the well, and BP would go on to use a powered one. So yes, if they can do that, then they could seal off a well without killing it. Another option is to freeze the well which would take some time, but could work too.
A manual valve that can sheer pipe ? Come on ,
Brilliantly narrated. Well done.
Thanks
@@waterlinestories 🤗
Ones agian amazing video, love your videos, keep it up
everything that happened this day was caught on video but bp has done everything they can to bury the footage
So many parallels between this and Fukushima. Great video, informative rather than dramatic like the movie about the disaster.
I'm a vereran of the Ekofisk oil field. On 2/4Bravo they actually installed the BOP upside down! Nobody actually knew which end was up and which was down! This sort of mistake was rife in the North Sea. Another time a paint crew Phillips Pet. hired constructed a scaffolding structure under the lifeboats so that none could be launched. Then during a major Riser Platform overhaul they needed to get nitrogen to the hydrocarbon piping so it could be flushed out before being cut open safely. What piping goes everywhere on the platform? The compressed air platform! So they disconnected the compressed air and filled the system with nitrogen. Warning signs out the bazoo! So here comes a painter over the side to sandblast. He jacks his hood and blaster into the compressed air system, climbs over the side and goes to work. About a minute later, "MAN OVERBOARD!" A safety engineer jumps from the 20 meter deck into the ocean and supports the man until pickedup by a large supply boat, and brought to the Hotel Platform where the medics were. Norwegian Government Safety held a big hearing. (I had to appear) Upshot (Worker) Did you read the warning signs? Answer: What signs? Heck, you couldn't even use the restrooms without staring at a sign! They were friggin' everywhere, The amazing thing to me was that there weren't MORE accidents than happened. Lets not forget the Alexander Kieland, the quarters platform that broke apart, turned turtle and sank. I missed that by less than 24hrs. 123 of my friends and coworkers died. That was another management mistake. Requiscat In Pace. 😢
It’s absolutely tragic to know there was this much loss off life that could have likely been easily prevented if these oil companies weren’t such cheap bastards and did the inspections as they were recommended and kept one of the most important safety measure automatic instead of relying on human input because no one wants to be the person to push the button that’s gonna cost millions of dollars on even the slightest chance there is another way, these companies regard safety as the lowest priority and now we have so many family that will never see there loved ones again because of it
I don’t always agree that it’s because the company are cheap bastards. They may be, and it can be a problem. It’s an over used expression to say the buck stops at the top ,,but it does. The person in charge, needs to have competent people running the operation that they are responsible for. There needs to be a single, competent person, over seeing the operation. If they’ve hired a bunch of worker bee’s and have no Captains then it always Leeds to this situation.
The amount of oil spills, pollution, co2 being pumped in the air from factories/trucks/boats/planes/rockets, nuke tests etc. makes me sick. This poor planet 😢
Great breakdown, nice job.
Thank. I Appreciate it!
$496,800 PER DAY! and BP have the gall to claim they need to put prices up while their profit margins are constantly growing....
The Deepwater Horizon disaster showcases many faults in the system, and much of it came down to complacency and greed. For the main decision of using the final failsafe, one is looking at millions of dollars in loss and there's the knowledge that the company will not take such a choice lightly, especially if there is *any* way that they can claim it wasn't warranted. There's an astronomical amount of pressure. Instead of having a handbook that says in *these* instances one should consider using the failsafe, they leave it to human interpretation and clearly that led to problems. The Deepwater Horizon was heralded as top of its class concerning safety and protocol, however it had been systematically cutting corners both in inspections and maintenance. The reason the backup generators didn't start was because the batteries for them were dead, something that should have been caught in an inspection. Many safety features had been disabled, and of course you touched on how BP and Transocean opted for human driven safety rather than automated under the guise of being better for crew, but I'd much rather be woken at 3am by a false fire alarm, than die because the alarm didn't sound. There was a breakdown in communications, no one knew who to report to, what to report, or even what to do because the chain of command was muddy. People became so engrossed in trying to fix what they could *see* that they didn't radio or communicate the gravity of the situation. And of course, the explosions occurred within 10-15 minutes after the blowback. That's a very short amount of time, and had the information been relayed at the very start those in the engine and control rooms could have shut things down preventing the explosion. This all doesn't even touch on the fact that the companies in charge were pushing HARD to maintain their schedule despite geologic difficulties and dangers. Instead of proceeding cautiously and doing things right, they prioritized money and speed which ultimately cost billions. Of course, for these companies that's just a sting and not really consequential. People lost their lives, ecosystems were devastated, and petroleum that could have been collected safely had they done things properly was lost. Personally I couldn't care less about their loss of revenue, I'm just pissed that they caused a disaster of that gravity and had to be uncomfortable for... What? A few years? And then they're making 60 BILLION in profits again like it never happened. Of course they'll promise to do better next time, but another Deepwater Horizon is inevitable so long as they prioritize unrealistic schedules, cost cutting, and safety shortcuts.
in terms of the valve thing it might be possible but would most likely involve a ridiculous amount of power to operate (either a large motor operated/solenoid valve with something to divert flow into sea)
The other question is how to create a tap inside a pipe that keeps getting drilled deeper. Must be a way, I goes the question is at what expense.
we got a hoodie and a shirt from you, and we get asked all the time where we got 'em! Love the channel!
Oh awesome. Thanks. Yeah they’re based on old patents.
They're awesome! I love the patent design for Harry Houdini's dive suit. I have to pick that shirt up.
Great presentation!
Events like this happen because of corporate decisions in an office that has no idea how dangerous rigs are.
"Use what we got and get me some results" So many parallels with Avatar
Asking the question if it is possible to shut it off is about the same as giving the answer. I’m not an oil driller, I just happen to look at a lot of air crash investigations. Don’t be undecided, if you have to push that button, Push it!
The Transocean bridge crews jobs were on the line if they hit the button and all of the bp drillers were dead. The system is supposed to have a 3rd signal from the rescue ship but it was an extra couple of million and it got budgeted out. The bop was known to be unable to cut the drill string if a coupler was in it but better ones were considered as too expensive.
@@jackdbur what a waste of life
@@paulbrouyere1735 But budgets need to be kept so management gets their bonuses & they only rarely visit the rigs and sit in the safety of corporate headquarters.
@@jackdbur Of course, that’s why I quit chemical industry in the 90’s and started a business in working with bio-ecological materials and practices. Whole other culture there!
Greed is almost always at the epicenter of all man made accidents.
21:58 to give you some context on the power of gas and oil wells. The soviets had instances where they used nuclear bombs in the ground to seal out of control gas wells (they did it more than once and there is documented evidence). There is just so much pressure.
I’ve worked in the oil field since I graduated high school. I’m 42 years old now and something like this still makes me wonder what if. We do so much training to help us in these difficult situations but I still wonder, is it really enough?
Yeah. The problem is the training is for scenarios that are predictable.
British Petroleum the ABSOLUTE Unquestioned world's record holder of the Most environmental disasters!!! 🧐🇬🇧
Not even close.
love your vids man
Thanks
This is one of the best tales I’ve seen on this. Not an expert, but I love the matter of fact, drama free take. Very little judgement insinuated which leaves it up to the viewer 🥂
Thanks. I think accidents can happen quickly and easily if the circumstances line up. Could be anyone. I really appreciate your comment
I work in the oil refinery for five years I was on several jobs were heavy equipment was being moved around. If you saw some thing that was wrong you got on the radio right then and there and you told your supervisor and you took the appropriate measures to make the situation safe. My crew were well trained, and very confident of their abilities The fact that they didn’t know who had the authority to stop this shows you a lack of training and a lack of leadership I do not blame this on the crew. I blame this on the executives at transocean and BP. On a sidenote, the last thing anybody really wanted to do is push that button because they knew if they pushed it and they were wrong they would lose their job their livelihood, and God knows what else I hate to say this, but I’ve worked in this industry for so many years at the end of the day. It really is about money. You cut corner as you do whatever the hell it is you have to do you have a quota deadline in the budget do you have to meet the refinery or just as easy kick you out and hire a new company if you do not meet their budget and their deadline See your safety is good to think about when it’s convenient but when money comes in to play, safety always takes a backseat And it’s not going to change you could have 14 different oil spills just like this in this industry will continue to operate the same exact way And this is the only industry there’s a lot of industrial Cecherz, other than operate in that same exact rhetoric Appear to be safe at all times but one putting foot the ass safety takes a backseat we have to get this done I was holding a Hammer wrench on boiler bolts in the pouring rain. My finger got smashed by a 17 pound sledgehammer. I did not go to the hospital I force the bone back through my finger taped it with some medical gauze took a paint stick, broken, half splitting it with that, cut the finger of my glove off, and then put my glove on and went back to work If the refinery would’ve found out about that incident. They will stop the whole job. We would have a safety violation an OSHA inspection would’ve gotten done and we probably would’ve lost the contract along with millions of dollars and I probably would’ve lost my job.
Thats why STOP work authority is pushed so hard now.
@@BcFuTw9jt on the surface but behind the scenes it’s still all dollars and cents On a sidenote, I’m not saying you should over regulate every job, so it makes it hard to meet that quota and budget but there’s got to be some kind of happy medium
You have to take the human equation out to preventing accidents like this. Nobody wants to take the ultimate responsibility and it all goes back to job security and greed. A friend of mine lost her husband and her kid's father. I knew him, he was a REALLY COOL guy.
Once, in the Army, me and 3 other guys were standing next to an APC that needed some simple maintenance done beneath it. No one wanted to do the job because their uniform would most likely get stained by dirt & oil, and their shoe shine would get scuffed up. Finally, one guy got so sick of the selfish argument that he dove under the APC and did the job, swearing the whole time. This was the "human equation" at work when the adverse consequences of making a tough call were fairly low, and it hints at the much stronger inhibitions that might come into play when decisively doing what's scary and right might cost someone their livelihood or lose a company millions of dollars. So yeah, if a computer or impartial indicator can make a critical decision and take the heat off everyone during a time of great stress, sometimes it's the very best way to reduce disastrous delays and the chance of catastrophe.
Great vid on this 🙏
The BOP can actually be closed like a tap in most instances. The cutting of the drill pipe and riser by the "blind sheer rams" are actually only one aspect of most (not all) BOPs. The other options are annulus plugs and and pipe rams. Annulus plugs come in lots of different names and shapes, but these close around the drill pipe, and seal the annulus space. As far as I know in this instance, the accident report suggests that drill pipe had deformed within the BOP meaning that the closing of the plugs and the pipe rams failed to seal the blow out. That coupled with the fact that I think only one of the blind sheer rams fired due to a battery issue. Either way, a normal modern BOP has multipl rams and plugs that close in different ways, along with redundant hydraulics in the form of accumulators and back up battery banks.
Another top drawer production. Thanks again for your hard work.
This wasn't about disbelief or being unable to comprehend the situation or even being punished. It was all about the bonuses and making the timetable... That was THE cause of this disaster...
to this day I refuse to go to a bp station because of this. Their presence in the states around the gulf decreased massively and hasn't really recovered. unfortunately as a megacompany, this has virtually no effect on their finances overall
Who are bp shareholders Americans
I bet you also started calling French fries "freedom fries" when France refused to join the Iraq War? When Piper Alpha blew up killing 167 Brits we didn't boycott the American owners of the oil rig because as adults we had learned to put away childish things.
@@krashd what are you going on about the French? This oil spill was rightfully tied to negligence by BP and absolutely ravaged the coasts of mostly Texas and Louisiana, but also Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. To this day, 13 years later, certain marine life shows signs of developmental defects and abnormal death rates tied to the spill. It took years and tens of billions of dollars to clean up, cost tens of thousands of jobs, and caused over $30 billion in lost revenue in the following years. It's widely regarded as the worst ecological disaster ever, I don't give a shit about 11 dead guys. What the fuck is childish about that.
I can’t imagine the big brains on the people who were able to design and construct this thing. Seems a lot more complex than any space tech. $496,000 per day just to rent the rig and a total of approx $1m per day. Insane.
A 9 volt batterys incorrect wiring was one of the many failure points that prevented the blow out preventer from functioning.
They have that “tap” it’s called a stabbing valve, which is what the floor hand was trying to install by himself, I’m not sure if it would be possible to have multiple stabbing valves attached to each pipe as they’re sent downhole, but from what I’ve seen they’re only kept in reserve on the floor and installed when needed
Issue is that when they go in the hole, you are not able to close them anymore. There is an alternative type called a grey valve, which is essentially a non return valve. This can be run down. Depending on where you work, it's mandatory by law to install a solid floatvalve in the bottom of the string which does about the same thing. Don't think this is mandatory in Gulf of Mexico. The other thing is that in other parts of the world you would never be allowed to displace to seawater with just a cemented casing acting as barrier, you would need to install a secondary plug as well. Had this been in place none of this would have happened.
I absolutely love how you explain all the little details. Even if some of us dont understand any of it it helps to put the events of what happened together. Ive been binging your videos for the past two days. Very informative and entertaining. Thank you.
👍🏻 Thanks. I often think the story hinges on the details. My wife hates when I over explain so this is my outlet. 🤣