UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MARA

UITM SHAH ALAM

Faculty of Chemical Engineering

CGE653 Health,Safety and Environment

Accident Report (Deepwater Horizon)
LECTURER: Mdm Azzah
Date of Submission: 14th November 2016

MUHAMAD ADNAN

2015208916

Deepwater Horizon was an ultra-deepwater, semi-submersible offshore drilling rig

owned by Transocean in the Gulf of Mexico. The rig had 126 crew and the rig OIM is Mr.
Jimmy Harell. Deepwater Horizon suffer one of the controversial uncontrollable blowout
which caused and explosion that killed 11 crew and injured 17 others. The incident occurred
at approximately 9:45pm on 20th April 2010. The 9 years old rig had many complications and
faulty machineries, alarm system and even communication system. The BPs Mocando Well
is 43 behind schedule of completion.
The of the problems found in the case that cause the event of the blowout in
deepwater horizon is stated below:
1. BP decided to cut cost and send Schlumberger workers home which had
earlier conducted a well-logging test without conducting the cement bond test.
Jimmy Harrell however wanted to conduct a well-integrity test which is the
negative pressure test before abandoning the well.
2. The cement test was also wrongly interpreted. The 1st negative pressure test
was unsuccessful. Mr. Donald Vidrine, BPs rig supervisor however stated
that due to bladder effect at the drillpipe, they should conduct another test
on the kill line. Although the kill line negative pressure test showed 0 psi
reading, it does not tally with the 1st negative pressure test which is at the
drillpipe. A Transocean employee however agreed with Mr. Vidrine and called
Mr. Jimmy to continue with the temporary abandonment process.
3. The rising oil and gas is not being monitor. As the mud is pumped out, the
rising of water inflow and outflow is not monitor before arrival at the rig
floor. While displacing mud with seawater, mud surged out of the wellbore
through the riser pipe to the rig floor.
4. The BOP malfunction prevent the 1st and 2nd annulus to be close and could
not prevent the high flowrate kick. As the kick subsides, methane gas from the
formation were released throughout the rig and an explosion occurred in the
engine room via a spark. This showed that the gas detection system in the
engine room failed to respond. Mr. Jimmy and other rig crew rushed to the
Emergency Control Room (ECR) tried to stabilized the rig through
Emergency Disconnect System (EDS). However, the shearing rams of the
BOP shattered and the drill pipe could not be cut thus the well are not sealed.

The aftermath of the incident lead to US biggest oil spill in history with over 4.9
million barrels total discharge. Reports in early 2012 indicated that the well is till leaking. It
affected marine biology in the area including dolphins with infant dolphins are dying at six
times the normal rate and even fisherman business at Gulf of Mexico are also affected.. A
settlement however had been distributed among those who got affected. BP and Transocean
had also been sued and penalized that could range from 5$ billion to 20$ billion. Two years
and a half investigation had charged Donald Vidrine and Robert Kaluza had been charged for
the manslaughter of the 11 men who died in the explosion due to wrong judgments but later
had been dropped by the government. In September 2014, a U.S. District Court judge ruled
that BP was primarily responsible for the oil spill because of its gross negligence and reckless
conduct and on July 2015, BP agreed to pay $18.7 billion in fines, the largest corporate
settlement in U.S. history.
This event can be relate to the Swiss Cheese Model. The incident occur from a series
of event at different layers of the organizations. From the actions taken by organization to the
wrongly interpretation of the test to the failures of equipment and the act to neglect the flow
monitoring systems. Swiss Cheese Model states that when all of the holes which is the
problems line up, an accident occur. This can be strongly proved with the related wvent of the
Deepwater Horizon incident.
The major problems of this incident can be indicate to be the organization which is BP
which decided to cut cost and neglect safety issues on the rig. Transocean which is the oil rig
owner fail maintain the equipment on the rig which is also the major problems in this
incident. Lastly, the human error from the supervisor engineer from BP and Transocean
drilling engineer which wrongly interpret the test result which lead to the blowout and thus
lead to the explosion.
We can learn that although time and money is precious, safety must be our top
priority. Besides, maintenance and good working equipment or machineries are vital to keep
the workplace and environment safe. A good communication also is very important. Lastly,
we should not jump into conclusion which could be a matter of life or death.

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3) Crittenden, Guy (10 May 2010). "Understanding the initial Deepwater Horizon fire".
HazMat Management. Retrieved 20 June 2010
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23, 2011. Retrieved October 2016.