Dew, Everyone is accusing the other parties of being at fault with the Horizon blowout. They are all correct.
BP, risky well design and execution.Because others do it that way doesnt make it safe.
Halliburton, bad cement job/jobs, but in fairness, BP supplies the cement and chemicals, designates how big the plug, how long they will wait etc. If the cement didnt go far enough up the sides of the casing when they cemented it in place, that was BPs decision. Normally there is a BP rep overseeing the cement jobs.
Cameron, if any control measures were activated and didnt function
Transocean, Batteries flat on emergency acoustic control system.
Transocean, They failed to notice increased returns in time to shut the well in. It takes less than one minute to shut the well in. And less than one second to press the two buttons required to actuate it.
Transocean, failed to close diverter. Takes less than 30 seconds if the pressure on the operator is correct.
Transocean, ROV intervention would not close the rams. Now this is a shocker for me. The ROV supplies high pressure fluid to the back side of the shear ram operating cylinders. The cylinders push two big steel blocks from opposite sides of the wellbore, inside the BOP. Both blocks have slightly v shaped blades on the front. One has a big solid blade mounted on the top leading edge and the other block has a similar blade mounted on the bottom leading edge. They press against the drill pipe, which is forced to the center of the blades by the v shape, till enough pressure builds up to snip off the pipe then the blades travel a little more past each other to seal off the well. It is a very simple process with little chance of failure as long as everything has been tested, is rated to the the correct pressure and not trying to cut a tooljoint. This is the function you know you will never use, but gives everyone that warm fuzzy feeling that no matter what happens you will be able to close it in. Sometimes crews neglect to perform this test if time is tight. I guess that will change. The last would not have saved hose crew members, but would have saved the problem they are having now.
