There you go pounding the all powerful company man. I’ve got news for you. I’ve been consulting or companymanning for 5 years,. Before that I was a service hand & rig hand for almost 25 years. I have told the company men I worked for to F>>> themselves plenty of times & refused to do a job if they thought they were gonna do something as stupid as they had planned.
I would say I’ve done this in my career about 50 times & I have had them attempt to get revenge 3 times. the other 47 or so times they thanked me or quietly realized we did the right thing not taking a short cut that would have either caused great unnecessary risk or messed up a well. The two almost always go hand in hand. The fact is they needed someone to be a cowboy because they were being blindly led to their own deaths by the blessing of someone a hell of a lot higher than a company man. How do I know, I are one.
Edit: Using stop work responsibility, I have been shut down on jobs by boat captains, crane operators, supervisors, & even roustabouts & floor hands maybe as many times & almost every time they were right & I acknowledged their thoughtfulness & thanked them publicly for looking out for OUR welfare & the good of the job.[QUOTE=alcor;33364]When a well plan is designed by an Operator it is the duty of the Authority in that country of operation to either reject, sanction or offer acceptable proposals which meet the ‘Barrier Philosospy’ required to drill without incident. All play a part in the development of the Resources. Where they don’t play a part the outcome can be somewhat alarming.
Those who reject onshore involvement in the planning and sanctioning of procedures are living in the dark ages. Modern wells, and well design, have become much more complicated over the past 15 years, particularly offshore wells.
My fear is that the ‘All Powerful’ Co Man (Cowboy), continues to use his authority on the vessel without outside consultation. We can continue down the path that’s littered with shortcuts or we get our well plan and stick to it. And, that well plan should include all possible outcomes, all scenarios before the operation begins.
Next step is to have ‘civilised’ meetings with the crews, where the common operational goals are understood by all, and anything overlooked can be presented and considered.
This culture change means that many of the ‘old’ practices will not be tolerated any longer.
In the case of the DWH, it is becoming clear to me that one or two individuals offshore are responsible for this whole debacle. Why? Because, they don’t know how to conduct Well Testing, and worse, they didn’t know how to interpret the results. And, that is unquestionable.
CBL, should have been run. Who convinced onshore to send the Schlumberger hands home? Who convinced them that the tests were successful? Not Halliburton.
I hear of heated debate occuring on the rig for 40 mins concerning the outcome of tests. We should have contacted ALL the onshore authorities, so that, one man’s test could be scrutinised onshore by independent parties. Then a good decision can be made. And, who cares if it takes an extra 6 hours to get a decision. We’re supposed to be waiting on cement.
When the time came to displace, and SW was displaced down the pipe and up the Annulus to the top of the BOP, Annular Closed. Who made this ridiculous decision? Town? Who interpreted it and carried on? The well was not secure. With the Annular closed DP pressure read 1400 psi. Wake up Co Man! Your well is already telling you you’ve taken the beginnings of a kick, and it’s now most likely above the BOP. The pressure, if you care to work it out should have read 1000 psi in the case of a dead well.
Who gave the order to open the Annular and continue circulating. Why was the Driller not presented with expected pressures with the well shut in after this initial displacement?
Someone ordered them to open the Annular, and to continue displacing the Riser to SW…while backloading to boats.
Who was it? And who didn’t stand up to him and point out that pressures were wrong.
You need people in positions of Authority to seek input/counsel from all walks of life. It’s a very sad outcome to this well and to too many others. The industry needs to change. I believe BP have that change, but I’m not sure it’s filtered through to AMOCO.
There’s a ‘Cowboy’ attitude in the industry which has to be ousted.
We need regulation, and we need counsel. We don’t need micro-management, but we do need to form good reasons for pursuing one procedure rather than another, and that often requires many minds working together.
All blowouts are preventable.[/QUOTE]