A Thorough Analysis of the Engineering Solutions Deployed to Stop the Oil Spill Following the Deepwater Horizon Disaster

International audienceThe Deepwater Horizon drilling accident that occurred on 20 April 2010 was a two-fold catastrophe. The initial total loss of the drilling rig was followed by one of the worst environmental disasters in recent history. The four million barrels of oil that were released into the Gulf of Mexico continue to impact human activities in the area. The Macondo well incident (Mississippi Canyon 252-1, leased by BP as the primary operator) was the first deep subsea blowout in the history of the oil and gas industry, and both the United States’ government and the private sector were unprepared to deal with it. All of the safety system’s lines of defense failed and the response required multiple courses of actions to be taken to address an unprecedented situation. It was imperative to deliver the best engineering solutions under intense and ongoing pressure in a very harsh and highly stressful operational environment. In this paper we review the engineering solutions considered by the response teams. The first part of the paper gives a brief presentation of our approach to the case study. The second reviews post-blowout events, the initial organizational response and the discovery of leaks. The final part presents how the statement of the problem was developed by the organization and how the response was structured. We then analyse the engineering solutions and finally, show how the organization implemented these solutions to control the source of the spill, recover the effluent and seal the well. In conclusion, we provide an overview of the engineering work that was carried out and preview our forthcoming work. We assume that the response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was efficient from an operational point of view. Therefore, our findings will be used to develop a new approach to the analysis of major accidents and ultimately shape the design of a new set of disaster management guidelines

Small Community Oil Spill Preparedness Research Project

A Project Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE in Project ManagementAs transportation through the Arctic becomes more prevalent with tourism and oil exploration, small communities within the Arctic are susceptible to oil spills from fuel barges, passing ships, tank farms, and oily discharges. Oil spills threaten both humans and animals that co-habitat these Arctic regions. Little has been done to prepare these small communities in preparation for an oil spill and as a result they are not well protected. As the notion of globalization is incorporated into the Arctic it will be imperative to protect these small communities. To better understand this topic, the researcher took an analytical approach to identify and benchmark best practices, define the elements of preparedness, and then build the foundation for the overall project. An integral component of this research project was to build and deploy a self-assessing questionnaire to provide small communities the ability to self-assess their oil spill preparedness level. The results of the questionnaire will be used to derive a preparedness index value. The preparedness index value will be overlaid an interactive map to provide Arctic governments a better view of the level of preparedness of their small communities.Title Page / Table of Contents / List of Exhibits / List of Appendices / Small Community Oil Spill Preparedness Project / Abstract / Introduction / Research Methodology / Literature Review Results / Recommendations for Further Research / Reference

BP’s use of posture to respond to the deepwater horizon crisis

This paper focuses on the posture the oil company BP adopted when faced with a legitimacy crisis during one of the worst environmental disasters in history. Against a backdrop of a discussion of the rhetorical aspects of image repair discourse and organisational legitimacy, Hearit’s strategy of corporate apologia was employed to determine the posture BP adopted in relation to the crisis. This paper adds to the literature on image repair strategies by heeding a call by Hearit for the context within which corporate apologia takes place to be taken account of, an approach that warrants a distinct line of research. The literature was further extended by complementing Hearit's strategy with semiotics and analysing its use in both the annual and sustainability reports. The additional focus on the sustainability reports is important, due to the high premium placed on sustainability in the changing business environment. On a practical level this paper contributes to an understanding of how organisations use sustainability reports to respond to legitimacy challenges

Rethinking Security Incident Response: The Integration of Agile Principles

In today's globally networked environment, information security incidents can inflict staggering financial losses on organizations. Industry reports indicate that fundamental problems exist with the application of current linear plan-driven security incident response approaches being applied in many organizations. Researchers argue that traditional approaches value containment and eradication over incident learning. While previous security incident response research focused on best practice development, linear plan-driven approaches and the technical aspects of security incident response, very little research investigates the integration of agile principles and practices into the security incident response process. This paper proposes that the integration of disciplined agile principles and practices into the security incident response process is a practical solution to strengthening an organization's security incident response posture.Comment: Paper presented at the 20th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS 2014), Savannah, Georgi

A novel tool for organisational learning and its impact on safety culture in a hospital dispensary

Incident reporting as a key mechanism for organisational learning and the establishment of a stronger safety culture are pillars of the current patient safety movement. Studies have suggested that incident reporting in healthcare does not achieve its full potential due to serious barriers to reporting and that sometimes staff may feel alienated by the process. The aim of the work reported in this paper was to prototype a novel approach to organisational learning that allows an organisation to assess and to monitor the status of processes that often give rise to latent failure conditions in the work environment, and to assess whether and through which mechanisms participation in this approach affects local safety culture. The approach was prototyped in a hospital dispensary using Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles, and the effect on safety culture was described qualitatively through semi-structured interviews. The results suggest that the approach has had a positive effect on the safety culture within the dispensary, and that staff perceive the approach to be useful and usable

Regulating the Arctic Gold Rush: Recommended Regulatory Reforms to Protect Alaska’s Arctic Environment From Offshore Oil Drilling Pollution

Since 2008, major oil and gas operators have invested billions attempting to drill Arctic Alaska\u27s Outer Continental Shelf. However, offshore drilling in the extreme Arctic is fraught with infrastructural, technological and environmental challenges that could result in enormous damages if an accident ever occurred. While offshore drilling operations would significantly benefit both the state of Alaska and the United States, it is imperative that the United States\u27 offshore regulatory regime adequately protects the Arctic Alaskan environment and innocent third parties. This Note examines the shortcomings of the United States\u27 current offshore drilling regulatory regime and proposes a four-part scheme that properly incentivizes operators to drill safely and adequately compensates damaged parties. The United States should revise its regulatory regime by: (1) significantly increasing the liability cap; (2) increasing an operator\u27s financial responsibility requirement in the form of mandatory third-party insurance; (3) establishing a risk-based premium fund; and (4) creating a supplementary fund from firms that extract hydrocarbons in excess of a specific threshold level

Planning for Excellence: Insights from an International Review of Regulators’ Strategic Plans

What constitutes regulatory excellence? Answering this question is an indispensable first step for any public regulatory agency that is measuring, striving towards, and, ultimately, achieving excellence. One useful way to answer this question would be to draw on the broader literature on regulatory design, enforcement, and management. But, perhaps a more authentic way would be to look at how regulators themselves define excellence. However, we actually know remarkably little about how the regulatory officials who are immersed in the task of regulation conceive of their own success. In this Article, we investigate regulators’ definitions of regulatory excellence by drawing on a unique source of data that provides an important window on regulators’ own aspirations: their strategic plans. Strategic plans have been required or voluntarily undertaken for the past decade or longer by regulators around the globe. In these plans, regulators offer mission statements, strategic goals, and measurable and achievable outcomes, all of which indicate what regulators value and are striving to become. Occasionally, they even state explicitly where they have fallen short of “best-in-class” status and how they intend to improve. To date, a voluminous literature exists examining agency practices in strategic planning, but we are aware of no study that tries to glean from the substance of a sizeable number of plans how regulators themselves construe regulatory excellence. The main task of this Article is undertaking this effort. This Article draws on twenty plans from different regulators in nine countries. We found most generally that excellent regulators describe themselves (though not necessarily using exactly these words) as institutions that are more (1) efficient, (2) educative, (3) multiplicative, (4) proportional, (5) vital, (6) just, and (7) honest. In addition to these seven shared attribute categories, our reading of the plans also revealed five other “unusual” attributes that only one or two agencies mentioned. Beyond merely cataloguing the attributes identified by agencies, this Article also discusses commonalities (and differences) between plan structures, emphases, and framings. We found that the plans differed widely in features such as the specificity of their mission statements, the extent to which they emphasized actions over outcomes (or vice versa), and the extent to which commitments were organized along organizational fiefdoms or cut across bureaucratic lines. We urge future scholarship to explore alternative methods of text mining, and to study strategic plans over time within agencies, in order to track how agencies’ notions of regulatory excellence respond to changes in the regulatory context and the larger circumstances within which agencies operate. Looking longitudinally will also shed light on how agencies handle strategic goals that are either met or that prove to be unattainable

Indo-Pacific offshore oil and gas safety and security: managing regional risks

Key Points: Indo-Pacific offshore oil and gas exploration and exploitation activity is expanding massively in economically and strategically important, environmentally sensitive areas. The risks of offshore oil and gas safety and security incidents that could have regional economic, environmental, human, food, and energy consequences are rising.In addition to man-­‐induced incidents, the often crowded waters of the Indo-­‐Pacific are particularly prone to natural hazards like extreme weather events and seismic activity. The possibility of armed conflict at sea, law and order issues, increasing maritime user intensity, decommissioned installations, and jurisdictional uncertainty add to concerns. Measures to deal with large scale offshore oil and gas safety and security events are often not well developed. Vulnerabilities arise from the lack of capacity and the lack of regional coordination regimes to prevent, respond to and recover from incidents. Some regional states are not parties to relevant international regimes; collective and cooperative maritime safety and security arrangements are lacking. Collaboration between states and other actors: regional entities and industry, is necessary and presents mutually beneficial opportunities; progress should be a high priority. Realistic and uncomfortable expectations must be faced. Sovereignty issues combined with greed for energy resources and commercial benefit may well continue to dominate. The likelihood of offshore oil and gas safety and security disasters in the Indo-Pacific, with major regional consequences, will continue to rise

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