“Who cares, it’s done, end of story, will probably be fine…”
That’s an email sent by Brett Cocales, a BP official on April 16, regarding an insufficient number of centralizers that would be used during the cementing process of drilling.
It appears that BP officials performed a series of cost-benefit analyses and basically got them all wrong. We’ve seen a number of reports of the egregious shortcuts that led to the disaster. And now Congress has released their investigation.
It is in letter form, from Waxman and Stupack of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, addressed to BP CEO, Tony Hawyard. In it they cite five crucial decision made by BP that seem to be shortcuts to speed finishing the well. They are
- the decision to use a well design with few barriers to gas flow
- the failure to use a sufficient number of “centralizers” to prevent channeling during the cement process
(“It will take 10 hrs to install them…I do not like this,” per an April 16 email from John Guide BP’s well team leader.) - the failure to run a cement bond log to evaluate the effectiveness of the cement job
- the failure to circulate potentially gas bearing drilling mud out of the well
(This option “saves a good deal of time/money,” per a March 30 email from BP drilling engineer in Houston. It will add an additional $7-10MM to the completion cost.”) - the failure to secure the wellhead with a lockdown sleeve before allowing pressure on the seal from below
The entire letter is pretty incredible and worth a read.
