Associated Press

7 May 8, 2010 Blowout Preventers Oil rig blowout KNOWN preventers have long history of breaking down at TO FAIL other wells. AP Photo/Deepwater Horizon Response Unified Command By JEFF DONN AND SETH BORENSTEIN • Associated Press HOUSTON (AP) UTOFF VALVES LIKE the one that are focusing on the blowout preventer on the failed to stop the Gulf of Mexico oil Deepwater Horizon rig operated by BP PLC as one disaster have repeatedly broken down likely contributor. Cat other wells in the years since federal To hear some industry officials talk, these regulators weakened testing requirements, according devices are virtually foolproof. to an Associated Press investigation. But a detailed AP review shows that reliability These steel monsters known as blowout questions have long shadowed blowout preventers: preventers or BOPs — sometimes as big as a • Accident reports from the U.S. Minerals double-decker bus and weighing up to 640,000 Management Service, a branch of the Interior pounds — guard the mouth of wells. They act as Department, show that the devices have failed or the last defense to choke off unintended releases, otherwise played a role in at least 14 accidents, slamming a gushing pipe with up to 1 million mostly since 2005. pounds of force. • Government and industry reports have While the precise causes of the April 20 raised questions about the reliability of blowout explosion and spill remain unknown, investigators preventers for more than a decade. A 2003 report Gulf Oil Spill | 23 | PULITZER PRIZE ENTRY : NATIONAL AFFAIRS Blowout Preventers by Transocean, the owner of the destroyed rig, next week on the spill, said he’s certain that lessons said: “Floating drilling rig downtime due to poor learned from this accident will lead to Congress BOP reliability is a common and very costly issue overhauling the laws that govern safety standards. confronting all offshore drilling contractors.” After the accident, BP CEO Tony Hayward • Lawsuits have fingered these valves as a factor said of blowout preventers in general: “It’s in previous blowouts. unprecedented for it to fail.” It is unclear why the blowout valves on the Yet the AP review turned up instances where Deepwater Horizon didn’t stop the April 20 blast preventer seals have failed outright, obstructions that killed 11 workers and has sent millions of have blocked them, or valves simply weren’t gallons of oil spewing into Gulf. Interviews with designed for the task. Sometimes there were rig workers conducted as part of BP’s internal blowouts. investigation into the explosion indicate that a The control systems also have proved goof- methane gas bubble escaped from the well and prone. When a worker accidentally disconnected expanded quickly as it shot up the drill column, a blowout preventer at one rig in 2000, federal a series of events that included the failure of the regulators recommended changes in the control blowout preventer and explosion of the rig. panels. Later that year, a worker at a rig off the Since then, the minerals agency has been Louisiana coast was making those very changes inspecting offshore rigs and platforms to verify when he accidentally pushed the wrong button testing of these valves and — and unlatched the valves; the ensuing blowout “This grim check emergency exercises. released 8,400 gallons of crude. On Friday, a senior agency The government has long known of such snapshot official told the AP that problems, according to a historical review conducted illustrates the lack regulators had been by the AP. In the late 1990s, the industry appealed comfortable that the valves for fewer required pressure tests on these valves. of preparedness were reliable — until the The federal minerals service did two studies, each in the industry blowout. finding that failures were more common than the “Based on the record, industry said. to shear and we have felt that these were But the agency, known as MMS, then did its performing the job they turnaround and required tests half as often. It seal a well...” were supposed to perform,” estimated that the rule would yield an annual savings Deputy Director Walter of up to $340,000 per rig. An industry executive Cruickshank said. “This incident is going to make us praised the “flexibility” of regulators, long plagued re-examine that assumption.” with accusations that it has been too cozy with the He said new procedures and rules may be industry it supervises. needed, including certifying blowout preventers Laurence Power, of Robert Gordon University by an independent group of experts. He also in Aberdeen, Scotland, an engineering teacher who said the agency may revise its peeled-back testing has studied these valves in offshore oil wells, said he requirement of 1998, when it replaced a weekly has “not been able to see their logic” for reducing regimen with biweekly pressure tests. the frequency of testing. A string of congressional hearings are planned In 1999, right after that rule change, an MMS- to consider the reliability of BOPs. “The safety commissioned report by a research group identified valve is not so safe,” said U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, 117 blowout preventer failures at deepwater rigs D-Wash. She said industry officials knew this kind within the previous year. These breakdowns created of part sometimes fails but acted as if it couldn’t. 3,638 hours of lost time — a 4 percent chunk of The House Natural Resources Committee has drilling time. formally asked the Interior Department to produce In 2004, an engineering study for federal various records related to blowout preventers. regulators said only 3 of 14 new devices could Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., told the AP the shear pipe, as sometimes required to check leaks, announcement by MMS officials to re-examine the at maximum rated depths. Only half of operators reliability of blowout preventers may not be enough. accepting a newly built device tested this function “There is a history of failure with the blowout during commissioning or acceptance, according to prevents that obviously was not heeded,” he said. the report. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said he feared the “This grim snapshot illustrates the lack of highest possible safety standards were not applied in preparedness in the industry to shear and seal a well an attempt to save money. with the last line of defense against a blowout,” the Markey, chairman of a select committee on report warned. global warming and a member of the House Energy Two years later, a trade journal’s article still noted and Commerce Committee that will hold hearings that shearing preventers “may also have difficulty Gulf Oil Spill | 24 | PULITZER PRIZE ENTRY : NATIONAL AFFAIRS Blowout Preventers Eric Gay • AP Shrimp boats are used to collect oil with booms in the waters of Chandeleur Sound, La. cutting today’s high-strength, high toughness drill that these lumbering emergency stoppers need lots pipe” at deep wells. of upkeep. “You have to maintain it,” CEO Jack The special cutting preventers were blamed in Moore told investors last year. “You have to replace 1979 for the biggest peacetime well spill in history, the mechanical and rubber elements.” when about 140 million gallons of oil poured from a Cameron International did not respond to AP Mexican well in the Gulf. questions about reliability. But it has had to face Questions about reliability hung heavily but were such questions in court. mostly unspoken Thursday at a Houston conference A 2008 federal lawsuit claims its faulty blowout on offshore oil rig technology. Shown a spreadsheet preventers contributed to a well blowout. The suit of problems with blowout preventers, Transocean makes the same claim about other valves installed at technology manager John Kozicz said, “We know the rig but made by Hydril. that — but they don’t happen frequently.” A Hydril Pressure Control representative said Even Transocean’s Earl Shanks, lead author of he couldn’t be quoted by name under company the 2003 study reporting “poor BOP reliability,” now policy, but he defended the safety of his company’s views blowout preventers as “very reliable.” But he preventers. Asked about the lawsuit, he said, “It did acknowledge problems in the complex electronic is a matter of litigation, and we have denied the and hydraulic tangle that activates and controls the allegation and strongly believe in the merits of our devices. At Deepwater Horizon, he said, “Something case.” went wrong — and we don’t know what.” Cameron International, which made the Associated Press Writer H. Josef Hebert contributed to this Deepwater Horizon preventers, has acknowledged story from Washington. Donn reported from Boston. Gulf Oil Spill | 25 | PULITZER PRIZE ENTRY : NATIONAL AFFAIRS.

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