[QUOTE=alcor;37719]I don’t agree with this perspective. If all of these employees can work elsewhere then they’re not guilty today.
When we go to war, our leaders make decisions of engagement knowing that losses will occur. Meaning that “Some of you are going to die today”. Yet, we all accept this for whatever reason! The oil industry is a tremendously challenging environment where we are all trained to combat pressure. That pressure has the same capability of killing our men if management is unsound. I have never heard an oil industry Operator speak of ‘acceptable losses’ because zero loss is the goal. Somewhere in the midst of ‘operations’ we all have to accept that costs must be managed, some refer to it as minimizing.
I hope everyone on this thread believes BP never intentionally killed the DWH 11. That suggestion is unacceptable to sane thought.[/QUOTE]
Wow. I don’t even know how to respond to you on this.
Sure, The Deciders didn’t get together and say, “Let’s blowout the Macondo well and burn down the DWH and see how many rigworkers we can take out.” But I can guarantee you that they said something to the effect of “Hurry up, goddammit! You are overdue and overbudget and my department is so in the red that none of us will bonus this year if you don’t get your ass out there and stop the hemmorahge every which way you can. This goes for you guys in engineering, as well as you guys in operations. I want plans on my desk by close of business tomorrow on how you can get this well back on budget. If you can’t or won’t do it, I will find somebody who can. You guys come up with the specifics, and I will make sure we get it stamped by the regulators.” And they did just that. And what concerns me is that that kind of thought process doesn’t just start with one overbudget well. They made decisions that they were comfortable with. In other words, they thought they could employ the same technology and practices that they have gotten away with in other wells. And that scares the crap out of me. Are there ticking time bombs out there waiting for workover rigs? Only time will tell. But I bet that whoever contracts out THAT work will command a pretty penny for the priviledge. BP couldn’t pay me enough to work on their stuff.
Going off to war is totally a different risk choice that entrusting that your employer fully understands and respects the risks and ramifications of their operations. In fact, it is the nature of the trust relationship that we have confidence in our superiors, since not only are they “higher up the food chain” than those of us who are the frontline troops in the field, but because they usually have more experience, knowledge, skillsets, and greater information than what is allowed to flow down to the lower levels. In this case, I think that the well engineers were switching stuff up so fast, trying to deal with this particular reservoir and its challenges, that each contractor was only given just enough info, “just in time,” to make their plans and procedures match the well plan for the day. Not to mention that even when Hallliburton told BP that there was a high risk of failure in the cement job unless they used all, what, 16 or 21 centralizers, they were overruled anyhow. In BP’s case, if they didn’t like the answer they were given, or didn’t like the test results, or the approver who denied them the change, then they just forced their way on the MMS staff, the Contractors, the TOI crew, and anybody who didn’t give them carte’ blanche to their inferior choices. Everybody capitulated to BP. Everybody but one, the Macondo Beast. Now BP is dancing to the music that the well is playing, and it’s a dance macabre.
“I don’t agree with this perspective. If all of these employees can work elsewhere then they’re not guilty today.”
You are going to have to elaborate on this, because at face value, I can make absolutely no sense of what you are saying.