Hi Spekulatius,
"Hmm, it's still RIG's property and RIG's employees. If they are sure that what BP asks them to do is unsafe, then they should not do it."
You said a mouthful. Like all floating drilling units, the Horizon is actually a flagged vessel. The OIM (or senior toolpusher, or offshore rig manager, depending on the contractor) is in charge of his vessel and is tasked with defending the safety of all personnel on board, in exactly the way that an ocean-going captain is. The Operator, on the other hand, is responsible for creating a safe work environment, for abiding by the relevant legislation, and for abiding by their own stated company policies. Both of those systems of management failed in this case.
The confluence of these two policy sets is normally handled in a formal way prior to the commencement of work. Transocean has their own Safety Management System that governs their work (operating / maintaining a rig). BP has their own SMS that governs the way they operate their integrated O&G company. All of these management systems are the product of considerable work, and are live systems - in other words, they are a framework within which all work activities are governed. They are subject to change control each time a policy is modified, or a new policy is added. It is the responsibility of all BP's workers to understand and implement their system -likewise for Transocean employees.
So whose system take precedence when something comes up that is addressed by both SMS's? This is clearly spelled out beforehand by a Bridging Document, which simply put, spells out whose SMS is to be used for given situations, which policy or procedure takes precedence - so there is no misunderstanding when the need arises.
For example, it could specify that BP wants to use their policy of a "Hard Shut In" when there is a kick. But Transocean, since it is their rig, may want to revert to their procedures when dealing with that kick - since it's their equipment and design. So the Bridging Document may say that all Well Control equipment is to be operated only by Transocean's dedicated personnel - for example. And of course, the training / certification levels of Well Control would be spelled out for all parties, and the document would spell out exactly which Transocean personnel are qualified.
As with all SMS's, the systems are quite well thought out and pretty comprehensive - but it's all down to the people on the rig when it comes to implementation. If the Transocean people agreed to do something that they thought was not safe, then it was up to Transocean office support to defend them and stand up to BP. Within Transocean policies (BP too for that matter) anyone on the rig has the authority to "stop the job" whenever they think they see an unsafe condition.
There are always extenuating circumstances. But in this case the result was 11 deaths. That's a terrible consequence for the operations teams from both sides to carry with them, knowing that their management of the rig operation led to a poor safety culture offshore - but it's not as bad as being dead.
Aggie
<edit> - Regarding the "modified" BOP's - It sounds to me as if the bottom-most ram set was installed upside down. This is not an uncommon practice in deepwater. Installing the ram elements upside down means that they are now capable of holding pressure from above, rather than below. This means the BOPs can now be tested with drillpipe in the hole.
Normally one has to pull completely out of the hole, pick up a test tool, run back in, test the BOP's, come back out, then go back to drilling. This must be done by law every 14 days - having your rams configured this way means that you can simply pull back into the last casing (rather than be in open hole), close the bottom rams around the drillpipe, then test, then return to drilling. It's a big time saver, at least a day, and there are still sufficient BOP elements to comply with redundancy requirements.
I understand during the initial hours, the ROV's were attempting to work this ram attempting to get it to seal, not understanding that the ram elements were upside down (and therefore offering no well control value). This may be where the talk about "modified BOP's" is originating. If so, it is again a case of the press being sloppy with their fact checking and publishing something that sounds controversial.
It will be very interesting to see that stack finally come to surface, to understand why it could not work as designed.
Aggie |
