A Sea in Flames - Carl Safina [6]
Guide: “All the decisions were based on long-term well-bore integrity.”
Q: “I asked you about the cost of the project. Didn’t each of these decisions reduce the cost, to BP, of this project?”
Guide: “Cost was not a factor.”
Q: “I didn’t ask if it was a factor. I asked if it reduced the cost. It’s a fact question, sir. Did it not reduce the cost, in each case?”
Guide: “All I was concerned about was long-term well-bore integrity.”
Q: “I just want to know if doing all these decisions saved this company money.”
Guide: “No, it did not.”
Q: “All right; what didn’t save you money?”
Silence.
Q: “Which of these decisions that you made drove up the cost of the project, as opposed to saving BP money? Can you think of any?”
Guide: “I’ve already answered the question.”
Q: “What was the answer?”
Guide: “These decisions were not based on saving BP money. They were based on long-term well-bore integrity.”
Some people called the long string design the riskier of two options. Greg McCormack, director of the University of Texas at Austin’s Petroleum Extension Service, calls it “without a doubt a riskier way to go.”
But others disagree. Each of the two possible well casing designs represented certain risk trade-offs. One called for cement around casing sections at various well depths, providing barriers to any oil flowing up in the space between the rock and casing. The other called for casing sections seamlessly connected from top to bottom with no outside barriers except the considerable bottom cement. Investigators would later focus lasers on this aspect of the well design for weeks after the well blew. The cost savings led many to believe that this was a cut corner that resulted in the blowout. Months later, however, it became clear that this decision was not a direct cause of the disaster.
Final hours. In the eternal darkness of the deep sea, the well is dug, finished. All that’s needed: just seal the well and disconnect. The plan was for a different rig to come at some later date and pump the oil for sale.
At BP’s onshore Houston office, John Guide is BP’s overall project manager for this well. He has been with BP for ten years, has overseen more than two dozen wells. Mark Hafle is BP’s senior design engineer. With twenty-three years at BP, Hafle created much of the design for this well. Brian Morel, a BP design engineer involved in many of the key meetings and procedures in the final days, splits his time between Houston and the rig. Out on the drilling rig itself, BP’s supervisors, titled “well site leaders,” are often called the “company men.” They oversee the contractors. Because a drilling rig operates twenty-four hours a day, BP has two well site leaders aboard, working twelve-hour shifts: Don Vidrine and Bob Kaluza. Vidrine is in his sixties. Kaluza in his fifties. Vidrine has been with the rig for a while. Kaluza is new.
Because the Deepwater Horizon was both a drilling rig and a vessel, rig owner Transocean has two separate leadership roles. When moving, the rig is under the authority of the captain; when stationary at the well site, an offshore installation manager, or OIM, is in charge. Jimmy Harrell, OIM, managed the drilling. He’d been with Transocean since 1979 and on the Deepwater Horizon since 2003. Curt Kuchta was the Deepwater Horizon’s captain.
Managers play an important part in the decision process, but the drilling team executes the plan. At the top of the drilling personnel chart are the “tool pusher,” who oversees all parts of the drilling process, and the driller, who sits in a high-tech, glass-paneled control room called the “driller’s shack” and leads the actual work. Many people work under the direction of the tool pusher and driller.
On duty on the evening of April 20 were Transocean’s tool pusher Jason Anderson and driller Dewey Revette. Thirty-five years old, Jason had worked on the Horizon since it launched, in 2001, and was highly respected by his crewmates. At home before the explosion, Jason had been concerned about putting his affairs in order. He wrote