Multi-billion dollar corporation/s and they seem to be run by bean-counting, corner-cutting, can't-be-bothered-to-do-it-right, stooges who together put the better part of a trillion dollars in economic and environmental damage on the line through their caviler attitudes.

One mistake I can see. Even a couple that interlock. Accidents happen and machinery fails. But at some point the general level of incompetence just glares out at you.

http://www.sootoday.com/content/news/full_story.asp?StoryNumber=46363

Madness, fear, loathing ensue. Condemnation seems too mild. If things are this screwed up exactly what are we fighting for? America used to be about truth and doing the right thing. Or at least being effective and getting things done. Even if what we do isn't always the right thing. We were effective. We could get things done.

This is different. This isn't a best effort that went sideways. This is cutting-edge engineering operated by rejects from Project Runway. When did we turn into clowns whose core competence is limited to financial smoke and mirrors, and tooth veneers?

My instincts tell me to kill this thread right now...but then if I listened to my instincts I wouldn't have all the cool scars.

Be on notice, this thread could disappear at any second. If you have something constructive to say, say it. If you just want to rant then do it somewhere else, perhaps up in a tall tree or someplace with pretty flowers.

-Blast

Offhand I can suggest decoupage, hang gliding and possibly aquaculture.

That is a politician's speaking and should be taken as such. Still...

There are three main parties here: BP is not alone. It's not clear to me precisely who is responsible for what part. Also, most of these changes and deviations were both inspected and approved by the federal government.

From an engineer's perspective this isn't a problem at all:



You just put in two rams spaced so that one is guaranteed to have good cutting pipe. The question is if they did so.

What interests me most, and has at least a token "Preparedness" angle to appease the Sheriff, is this:



How good is this testing? Is the preventer designed to rely only on testable devices or on one-use-only mechanisms? If all of the testing is performed correctly and thoroughly with no errors, are there still known ways the device might fail? Is the gear testing merely cursory (is there a flashlight in my kit?) or functional (does the flashlight actually work?) Design-for-testability is not easy but it's not far from the design-for-repairability most engineers already know to do.

It doesn't do any good to have a complicated mechanism in your kit if you can't be sure it will work when needed.

The linked article has some interesting information, if true. Unfortunately a lot of the information presented is a statement from a Congressman, who while he may be a fine upstanding person, does not have credentials or work experience (outside of legislative committees) in this very complex and specialized field of engineering.

Much of the information presented seems to be out of context, like the 260 failure modes reference. Safety critical engineering always identifies lots of failure modes, ideally all of them, then you assign probabilities to the modes and evaluate the impact. Based on probabilities and impacts you build in redundancy, mitigations, or other means of addressing the failures until you meet the safety criteria.

Nothing is 100% failsafe. Airliners are statistically the safest way to travel and have lots of safety critical systems. These systems have a design criteria of less than one catastrophic failure (loss of airplane etc.) per 1x10^9 hours of flight. This is mandated by government regulation. I don't know what the criteria for oil field equipment is or what if any regulations exist. I suspect there are few if any and most of the current practices are the industries attempt at self regulation / best practices. It would be interesting to see what sort of safety analysis / fault trees exist for the BOP and offshore oil equipment.

oh, just FYI - not personally a fan of the oil companies or some of their practices, just trying to add to a constructive discussion.

- Eric

For a useful rundown on what a blowout is, what causes them, how they are prevented, and how a BOP is supposed to work is covered at:

Blowout at Lodgepole1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp9jMIXz1dg

There look to be at least five parts but the first one and the first half of the second cover the basics of what you need to know. The rest seems interesting but because I'm on a dial-up connection I haven't had time to download more than the first two segments.

The Lodgepole well is, of course, a well on land and so the BOP is right where you can get to it and it is a much simpler design than the type used on undersea rigs. But many of the basics are similar in design and function.

I selected the Stupak release because it brought many of the pieces together in one spot. Most of the substance in the release was testimony from people in the oil, and oil services, businesses. While Syupak is certainly a politician the piece is made up mostly of simple statements of fact that are believed to be true. The proportion of political content seems to me to be quite low.

All of these articles many of the same sources and quotes but they also add a bit. The NYT a bit more than the other two.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/us/11hearings.html?pagewanted=2&fta=y

http://www2.wsav.com/sav/ap_exchange/nat...rs-find/123166/

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/23526647/detail.html

Thanks guys, you are doing great so far. I really appreciate it.

-Blast

A rich source of engineering information from reliable sources. Written in a from that even i can understand. Lots of links to detailed information:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6428?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+theoildrum+%28The+Oil+Drum%29

DISCLAIMER: This is not a knock on one company or a political statement, its a fact of business in the 21st century. Though each reader can most likely make personal inferences to situations they have seen in the course of their professional life.

No global corporate business structure today with stock holders is immune from what the quote above. The fact is that when companies take over other companies and so on and so on, you end up with accountants and lawyers running aspects of a company that they have no (pardon the pun)business running. They figure when they look at all the corporations under their umbrella that if Company A is run by a manager that makes $X a year, then Companies B, C & D, should also be run by managers that make the same. Even if before managers in Companies B, C & D made much more based on the value of their production and the idiosyncrasies of their line of work.

What I mean is that yes, bean counting, cost cutting measure are the bottom line for businesses in 2010, but the true financial hardship on large corporations today is that their boards are looking at management as a stop gap not as innovators.

CEO's are the no longer product of "the come up from the bottom to run the company" approach. They are more akin to the free agency contracts you see in the NFL and Baseball.

I have no input on engineering, congressional wordsmithing or oil production.

An excellent series of 40 photos by way of:
http://scienceblogs.com/classm/2010/05/images_of_the_deepwater_disast.php