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Rig Survivors: BP Ordered Shortcut on Day of Blast
The morning the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, a BP executive and a Transocean official argued over how to proceed with the drilling, rig survivors told CNN's Anderson Cooper in an exclusive interview.
The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig was photographed April 22, engulfed in flames after the explosion that killed 11 workers on April 20. (AP) The
survivors' account paints perhaps the most detailed picture yet of what
happened on the deepwater rig -- and the possible causes of the April
20 explosion.
The BP official wanted workers to replace heavy mud, used to keep the well's pressure down, with lighter seawater to help speed a process that was costing an estimated $750,000 a day and was already running five weeks late, rig survivors told CNN.
BP won the argument, said Doug Brown, the rig's chief mechanic. "He basically said, 'Well, this is how it's gonna be.' "
"That's what the big argument was about," added Daniel Barron III.
Shortly after the exchange, chief driller Dewey Revette expressed concern and opposition too, the workers said, and on the drilling floor, they chatted among themselves.
"I don't ever remember doing this," they said, according to Barron.
"I think that's why Dewey was so reluctant to try to do it," Barron said, "because he didn't feel it was the right way to have things done."
Revette was among the 11 workers killed when the rig exploded that night.
In the CNN interviews, the workers described a corporate culture of cutting staff and ignoring warning signs ahead of the blast. They said BP routinely cut corners and pushed ahead despite concerns about safety.
The rig survivors also said it was always understood that you could get fired if you raised safety concerns that might delay drilling. Some co-workers had been fired for speaking out, they said.
It can cost up to $1 million a day to operate a deepwater rig, according to industry experts.
Safety was "almost used as a crutch by the company," Barron said. He said he was once scolded for standing on a bucket on the rig, yet the next day, Transocean ordered a crane to continue operating amid high winds, against its own policies. "It's like they used it against us -- the safety policies -- you know, to their advantage.
"I don't think there was ever a plan set in place, because no one ever thought this was gonna ever happen," he added.
BP spokesman Robert Wine would not comment on specific allegations, saying the company has to "wait for the investigations to be completed. We can't prejudge them."
"BP's priority is always safety," he said.
Transocean, the world's largest offshore drilling contractor, said its top priority is safety.
"There is no scenario or circumstance under which it will be compromised," the company said in a written statement. "So critical is safety at Transocean that every crew member has stop-work authority, a real-time method by which all work is halted should any employee suspect an unsafe situation or operation."
The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into the massive oil spill that has spewed as much as 798,000 gallons (19,000 barrels) of oil into the Gulf of Mexico every day.
The rig workers have filed a negligence suit against BP, Transocean, oil field services contractor Halliburton and other companies involved with the deepwater rig.
"I've seen gross negligence, and this conduct is criminal," said Steve Gordon, the lawyer representing the men. "There's a crime scene sitting 5,000 feet below the water."
Brown, the rig's mechanic, had traveled with the rig from South Korea, where it was made nearly a decade ago. He had seen the mechanical crew get downsized over the years. Yet as the rig aged, the engines began having more problems.
"It became overwhelming," he said. "We couldn't keep up with the flow of it. ... We constantly over the years kept telling them, 'Hey, we need more help back here.'
"They pretty much just said, 'Well, we'll look into it.' "
About nine months ago, Brown said, he got an additional first engineer, yet the crew was still overloaded with work.
Even more alarming, the rig survivors said, was the amount of resistance the well was giving them. "We had problems with it from the day we got on," Matthew Jacobs said.
Nearly every day, Jacobs said, "we had problems with that well."
Barron said it was like an eerie cloud hung over the well being dug 5,000 feet into the sea.
"There was always like an ominous feeling," he said. "This well did not want to be drilled. ... It just seemed like we were messing with Mother Nature."
At times, the drill got stuck. Many times, it "kicked," meaning gas was shooting back through the mud at an alarming rate.
"I've seen a lot of gas coming up from muds on different wells, and the highest I've ever seen in my 11 years was 1,500 units. And this well gave us 3,000," Brown said. "I've never been on a well with that high of gas coming out of the mud. That was kind of letting me know this well was something to be reckoned with."
It all came to a head at 9:56 p.m., when the first of three explosions rocked Deepwater Horizon, 52 miles southeast of Venice, Louisiana, with 126 people aboard. Tiles fell from the ceiling, walls collapsed, and people ran for their lives. It reminded Matt Jacobs of the movie "Titanic."
"It looked like you was looking at the face of death," he said. "You could hear it, see it, smell it."
He scrambled to the lifeboat deck. Jacobs had been trained to fight fires aboard the rig. But when he looked at the flames shooting 150 feet into the air, he knew there was nothing they could do. "There is no way we can put that fire out," he thought.
Jacobs hopped in a lifeboat. He screamed for co-workers to jump aboard. A second explosion rocked the rig. The lifeboat, still suspended in the air, went into a free fall of about 3 feet.
"Here I am on a lifeboat that's supposed to help me get off this rig," Jacobs thought. "And I'm gonna wind up dying."
He bowed his head and prayed.
Now, 50 days later, the survivors are telling their stories. It's become part of their everyday lives. They can't shake what happened that day, even when they close their eyes at night.
"It's like being in a neverending nightmare," Brown said. "You dream about it. You see it in your sleep. Then, we wake up in the morning, and we realize it's not a dream. It's real. ... It doesn't end for us."
10 Comments so far
Show AllBP Spokesman, Robert Wine: " BP's priority is always safety."
Safety of their own bahookie, no doubt.
Further silly comments; "...not to prejudge.."
Gosh, you prejudged that there would never be any problems, didn't you BP. After all, what's nature to the hubris of men?
Wouldn't it be peculiar if Oil was like Gaia's blood, and the hole you poked, BP, was her belly button, and all the oil in the world flows to this" navel," and into the sea, and is gone forever( except for polluting the entire globe.).
One can only hope that the death of oil would be the rebirth of the planet.
And Obama keeps promising (or threatening really) to continue drilling because we must GET OFF FOREIGN OIL. What about pushing conservation IMMEDIATELY, funding solar and wind power projects NOW, and start WEARING THE PANTS IN THE FAMILY by taking over control of this on-going disaster and telling BP they are going to keep busy WRITING CHECKS (which seems to be the only thing they are capable of doing and doing well).
Then our "commander in chief" can hire outside oil experts to make recommendations on what to do and use our national guard troops to head up the clean up work. BP should only be responsible for paying people to work to clean up their mess at this point and THAT IS ALL !!!
Jesus...can Obama stop licking the corporate executive boots long enough to DO SOMETHING RIGHT FOR AMERICANS???? I wonder.
A friend of ours just told us this last week. His dad is a petroleum geologist, and he said that's exactly what they did. Sounds like that's the case.
Let's not forget: BP made 230 million profit on the insurance payout of Deepwater Horizon.
In whose pocket did that money go? Executive bonuses I'll wager.
This over-insure the equipment and lie about safety tactic started happening in the 90's to a lot of Fortune 500 companies. Airlines would cancel ground school with an instructor you could ask a question to, and substitute a crappy CD in his place. Of course some shithead executive would pocket the millions saved in training costs.
I myself found myself flying in the tropics with BOTH reversers deactivated and bald tires in the middle of the monsoon season with 40 inches of rain on the runway a month (sometimes that much in a few days.) Then the company kept pushing us to fly in typhoons (hurricanes.) I landed one night after diverting to an alternate airport because of the phoon, out of gas, and the only runway available was covered in a lake of water which was invisible in the dark. On touchdown the brakes were useless, an engine flamed out from water ingestion, and I skidded all the way to the end with only the remaining engine at partial power reverse to save me.
I complained via a safety report, and my life soon became hell. To fix the reversers was seven million an engine, and there was no way middle management was going to spend that on the fleet when they could keep it themselves in a cost savings program that gave them ten percent.
Sure enough, a few months later one of our airplanes went through the freeway at the end hurting innocent people. Of course since there were no passengers that leg and it was in the third world, the whole thing was covered up and the cause was never disclosed to the public. It did make the TV, but was watered down unbelievably.
This is what I think happened at BP.
The above is just all my opinion only.
TJ
can't understand why more people aren't over here talking.
it sure looks like the smoking gun to me. on the morning of the blow up, the BP guy says ok, we will not put mud down there to put pressure on the well, we will just use seawater. Transocean engineer says don't do that- waters not heavy enough, it can't apply enough pressure down there. BP says we will do it our way so shut up.
So the well blows, the disaster strikes. eleven people get killed. One of these is the engineer from Transocean, guy named Dewey Revette.
looks like there are plenty of witnesses here.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/06/0,,5617381,00.html
I think this an important article. We focus on the Gulf and BP with much of the debate centering around lax safety standards, deregulation and BP cutting corners to access the oil.
Is it possible that in so doing we ignore the bigger picture? Might it be that NO undersea drilling is really safe?
This is about STATOIL in Norway. This is State owned and heavily regulated. While there no blowout at this well they are to this day fighting to normalize pressures on this rig to prevent such.
It seems that every such well drilled is a crap shoot. This oil is at such great depths, stored under conditions we still do not fully understand while we use technoligies that just are not up to snuff.
This well has the potential of suffering a blowout. Russia indicates it has suffered several such blowouts. How many more "near misses" or unreported incidents have there been?
If the industry regulated in the US to the much higher standards that a Norway sets, is it enough regulation?
"BP's priority is always safety,"
Transocean, the world's largest offshore drilling contractor, said its top priority is safety.
Bull Shit.
Top priority is return on investment.
Pull out of all corporate investments....
Invest in your local economy...you'll make less $$$$$$$,
but you'll be part of your community.
Your "financial and corporate industries" are going to skin you alive otherwise.
You know while the oil and gas were more or less contained it was just simple physics, weight of mud in the column must equal upper pressure of oil and gas. Both were known quantities. Had the mud been put down that hole this never would have happened. Why did they not follow safety procedures, precedent and commons sense? Because corporate arrogance knows no bounds. It even challenges laws of nature and is surprised when it looses. Too bad that the BP manager who made that decision survived. It would be appropriate to see him blown to pieces, If I were making a movie I would be sure to include the startled look in his eyes as he heard the rumbling and smelled the gas. Maybe it is good he survived, I'll bet he learned his lesson maybe he is even penitent but I doubt that lesson learned goes any higher up the corporate chain. We have to realize who we are dealing with here.
Exclusive to CNN? 60 Minutes reported this weeks ago.
"So critical is safety at Transocean that every crew member has stop-work authority, a real-time method by which all work is halted should any employee suspect an unsafe situation or operation."
Yes of course every employee has the right to do this but I guarentee his first time will be his last. I used that particular "right" at a job once.... once...
Just a way to shift blame off the managers and onto the workers. Well, you could have reported it.. blah blah blah. God I hate Fascism.