Deepwater Horizon - Transocean Oil Rig Fire

Offshore
5902

The following letter is not really oil related so feel free to trash it. When most people hear the mumbo jumbo corporate buzz words vision/mission/strategy/tactics etc., they get glassy eyed. Let me give a few clear examples, some of which might not be exact historical quotes.

[B]Vision[/B]: F.D. Roosevelt had a vision of “a world at peace where freedom reigned”. This is a dream. A future situation that you are trying to obtain. An end game. A long term goal to fall asleep with. It bolsters the spirit when times get tough.

[B]Strategy[/B]: “Win in Europe first.” We cannot fight two wars at once, and Germany is all we can handle right now. Japan will take the entire Pacific but that is as far as they can go right now. They cannot go any further for awhile. We can bide our time in the Pacific. Put all we have in Europe right now or we are finished and the Pacific is then an academic afterthought.

[B]Mission[/B]: A mission is an action step. Ike had a mission from FDR. “Take Berlin.” All of the soldiers and airmen and marines and sailors were all pointing toward Berlin. Not one single guy was moving to take Lisbon.

[B]Tactic[/B] - carry cereal box clickers so you can authenticate friendly forces and avoid being trapped by German impostors. Move at night so as not to be seen.

Most companies that try the mission/vision thing don’t get it at all. They will load it up like the kitchen sink. Each vision, each mission, each strategy, each tactic, every single one must be reducible to two words (plus a conjunction). A noun and a verb. If you cannot do that then you have not thought out your direction well enough. " “A World at Peace”, “Europe First” “Use clickers” “stay dry” “conserve ammo”.

I will now alert you to a poor tactic embedded in one of our military handbooks. I have an army mine laying manual. It seems that their practice is to make the pre-construction maps using meters on the distance scale on the paper map. But, then the individual mines within each mined block are laid out in paces. If I found something like that in one of the manuals used by my employees I would alert them to it and have them break up in groups of 5 and take 15 minutes to brainstorm potential problems and solutions. Then rejoin as a group to discuss and set direction. Now if you want to go out in the hall and fiddle with your Blackberry, fine, but when you get back in here, if we have moved on, and you don’t make an effort to find out what happened when you were gone, and you come in with your pants down 5 months from now because you screwed up - tough noogies. You have no ground to stand on and my upper management supports me, not you, so go blow it out the window. Often we would have core team members on teleconference. But, it is important to note that this “core team membership” is a big deal. This is because you are either “on” the core team or you are “off” the core team. Only the core team can hire and fire for their team. Of course, big bosses can assign themselves to the core team but NOT if the do not show up on time, do their homework, and bring food to the table. We have had party crashers and we have had them removed from the site. And some of them were pretty high up in the company and were spitting mad. But we never heard a peep out of them again. Now don’t forget, using my system, I already have agreement from upper management that the decision making team is determined in advance. If the big boss’s son got his tail feathers scorched because using the “meters and paces” was his idea, tough, unless they are sitting on the core team that is making the decision, then fine let them state their case just like anyone else at the table. Have at it. It would never happen that a boss would call down and reverse a call made by a core team. Never. It would be unheard of because it would be an absolute violation of the trust and agreement that we made with management when this system was set up. We would have an instant unanimous revolt. I’ve led a few. I have held a few feet to the fire, but that is the way it has to be if you want to get the most out of an organization.

I cringe when I see a mission statement at a hospital: “Our mission as valued co owners of the process is to provide the finest upstanding quality modern medical care that can be given regardless of ability to pay.” No one can remember that. Too many different things to consider all at once. Guaranteed chaos.

They have missed the whole point of the vision and the mission. It is to get singular clarity and focus in your organization. Every person is agreeing to exactly the same thing, and every “thing” they are agreeing to they can say in two words, and the entire organization has heard them say out loud: “Yes, I agree to the notion of running CBL when anomalous pressure readings exist.” This might have been the question on the table at a team building session at BP/TO held months before the blowout had they managed in such a manner.

5903

[QUOTE=alcor;42135] The point is that Leaders make decisions on the rig which may affect our normal questioning habbit. They say, do it! We, do it!
Was there a problem on the rig concerning unreasonable leadership?[/QUOTE]

Alcor, You talk about leaders on the rig, what about leaders in the office ie:management ? Which lot has autonomy over the other ? [QUOTE=KASOL;35736]The displacement procedure came from onshore organisation http://energycommerce.house.gov/documents/20100512/Internal.BP.Email.Regarding.Negative.Test.Results.pdf[/QUOTE]

When a driller notices a positive kick indication ex: pit volume increase ; flow with pumps off; increased flow with pumps on, he knows, we both know, he must immediately shut the well in. He has total responsibility and must do this without consulting with the companyman or calling the TP to the floor to double check his observations as opposed to suspicions like when pit volumes and flow out might be masked by other effects or operations on the rig. When I ask a driller this simple question on how to react on a positive kick indicator and he gives me a blank look, or an unconfident response -he’s off the rig until he completes a refresher course with well control. He has others to back him up if distracted at the point a positive kick indicator manifests itself , like mud loggers, drilling engineers, companymen, and men at the shakers and pits or even a mudman might pick it up while all others are busy wrapping things with EOWRs, clean up, stock takes and of course partying and back slapping each other on the rig, but never be dependent on them, least of all mudloggers who are paid also to monitor for primary well control and partake with secondary well control. As per context of what you said, in this case we tell drillers to do it and they know must do it, but a driller can juggle only so many tasks at one time and mudloggers can only monitor volumes when flow-out is not diverted past flow-out sensors and pits. The client can’t multi task personnel, to save time and money, throw parties on the rig (they could at least have waited for all to return to land before showing their appreciation plus chuck in a few MMS chicks) and expect them to juggle these without a a fluid-train pumping schedule and be expect at the same time keep an eye on the ball when it comes to primary well control. I give it to you Alcor, you are smoother than Kent Wells and have the knack for bending every conversation to point blame at rig floor personnel. BP might be persuasive enough to get Obama take a dip in the gulf but they will still have to pay massively for damages.

5904

[QUOTE=BLISTERS;42142]Alcor, You talk about leaders on the rig, what about leaders in the office ie:management ? Which lot has autonomy over the other ?

[B]The onshore team give us guidelines or even a program to abide by. The program is discussed on the rig and the OIM or TP verifies its ‘user-friendly’ understanding to the Driller. When the meeting is over and the program approved the TP or OIM must ensure all parts of the program are understood, meaning that he must be present during the operation, if necessary. Afterall, he has approved the program.[/B]

When a driller notices a positive kick indication ex: pit volume increase ; flow with pumps off; increased flow with pumps on, he knows, we both know, he must immediately shut the well in. He has total responsibility and must do this without consulting with the companyman or calling the TP to the floor to double check his observations as opposed to suspicions like when pit volumes and flow out might be masked by other effects or operations on the rig.

[B]100% agreed. Take the action you are trained to make.[/B]

When I ask a driller this simple question on how to react on a positive kick indicator and he gives me a blank look, or an unconfident response -he’s off the rig until he completes a refresher course with well control.

[B]I believe He’s already sitting in the Chair/‘on the brake’. Surely, we ascertain whether He’s fit for the job in advance. Naturally, there are many new Drillers and they may require the prescence of the TP at all times to advise and encourage good decision making until we’ve moulded an excellent Driller who responds according to his training and the good example set for him. BTW, we haven’t fired one person in the last 5 years.[/B]

He has others to back him up if distracted at the point a positive kick indicator manifests itself , like mud loggers, drilling engineers, companymen, and men at the shakers and pits or even a mudman might pick it up while all others are busy wrapping things with EOWRs, clean up, stock takes and of course partying and back slapping each other on the rig, but never be dependent on them, least of all mudloggers who are paid also to monitor for primary well control and partake with secondary well control.

[B]This is not correct. He makes the decision straight away on his own to close in the well. He may be advised by the Logger. But, He takes action without consulting anyone else. On the other hand, if a drilling Engineer happens to be on the floor, or The Co Man or TP, then he can immediately raise his concerns. But, action has to be taken, and that’s why the Driller is fully responsible for taking this action. He knows the response from the well better than anyone, and the Logger should know it 2nd best (We have always referred to the Logger a s the Policeman watching our every move, and reporting to the Co Man when necessary…So, We have to continuously treat the Logger as the guy who’s going to help us out in the event of a crisis in the well. We communicate all activity to him, and He always has control of volumes, same as the Driller).[/B]

As per context of what you said, in this case we tell drillers to do it and they know must do it, but a driller can juggle only so many tasks at one time and mudloggers can only monitor volumes when flow-out is not diverted past flow-out sensors and pits.

[B]The Driller has the responsibility to stop if something is not correct. He never carries on until the procedure is clear. Stop, observe the well on the TT while discussing the findings/program/objectives. The Driller must perform managable tasks as must the Logger, and this includes monitoring well volumes on every single operation, 365 days of the year without any compromise. If that means a new plan to control flow from the well to the pits then make sure it’s done. My personal experience with Displacements is that we take returns to Pit 1, then to pit 2 when 1 is full. Take pit 1 out of the Active system and backload to the boat. When 2 is full, we go back to pit 1 but only after backloading has ceased. The derrickman calls the shots on his radio and the Driller and Logger reset their active pits. If we’re pumping at 4000 lpm, the pit gain should only be 4000 lpm. [/B]
[B]Regarding pressure, we already know that the pressure will reduce at a constant rate, as we displace heavy mud from the well. Get the logger to plot a pressure chart if the driller is too busy. But, do it in advance. The Driller and Logger are ultimately responsible, but it may be that the TP and OIM never formulated a good plan with the mud engineers. BP, have no responsibility in estimating the volumes in the Kill/Choke/Booster and telling the rig how to perform this procedure. This should be a standard procedure for TO to follow. It’ll be in their procedures, but we haven’t heard of it yet.[/B]

The client can’t multi task personnel, to save time and money, throw parties on the rig (they could at least have waited for all to return to land before showing their appreciation plus chuck in a few MMS chicks) and expect them to juggle these without a a fluid-train pumping schedule and be expect at the same time keep an eye on the ball when it comes to primary well control.

[B]The client has no say in how we use our men to perform the tasks. Our TP and OIM inform them if the program can be fulfilled in the meetings prior to the action. We, the Contractor take full responsibility for approving the action in advance. In Emergency situations, the Driller has full authority to shut-in the well. There’s nothing complicated about shutting in and no damage to any of the BOP Rams will be made if the Annular is closed first to establish the position of the Tool Joint. But, Tool Joint position should always be known in advance of any operation, even with Tubulars of varying lengths. Then close a Ram on reduced closing pressure, confirm closing volumes and increase closing pressure to normal Manifold Operating pressure.[/B]
[B]As for the MMS Chicks, I’m sure they’re lovely![/B]

I give it to you Alcor, you are smoother than Kent Wells and have the knack for bending every conversation to point blame at rig floor personnel. BP might be persuasive enough to get Obama take a dip in the gulf but they will still have to pay massively for damages.[/QUOTE]

[B]BP, will pay because their contract for exploration suggests that they are ultimately responsible for all costs relating to Spill regardless of whose action demonstrated responsibility. This may change in the future, if the Contractor is found to be hugely negligent. We won’t find too many Operators happy to work the GOM knowing the costs involved should the Contractor fail in its obligations to monitor well volumes and shut in with a working and tested BOP. It’s cheaper to explore elsewhere on the Globe where the Gov’t also recognises their part in the risk venture.[/B]

[B]Blisters, You and I don’t always see eye to eye on many issues. The only way I can put this to you is this: I take responsibility for all action on my rig. Where there’s misunderstanding and we proceed, please shoot me! I am responsible. With Leadership comes responsibility and a profound requirement to recognise when you go wrong.[/B]

5905

[QUOTE=billslugg;42141]
They have missed the whole point of the vision and the mission. It is to get singular clarity and focus in your organization. Every person is agreeing to exactly the same thing, and every “thing” they are agreeing to they can say in two words, and the entire organization has heard them say out loud: “Yes, I agree to the notion of running CBL when anomalous pressure readings exist.” This might have been the question on the table at a team building session at BP/TO held months before the blowout had they managed in such a manner.[/QUOTE]

Often, we respond to what we see in the well. The group of leaders on the rig and onshore, if they were able to read and interpret the charts, are responsible for severe neglect of their duties.
But, don’t for any minute assume that the Drillers on vessels around the world will respond in the same way as those on the Horizon, when told to continue, the well integrity test is fine.
Drillers and TPs know what they see, pressure building. It can only be coming from a leak in the well. Hydrocarbons are entering the well from somewhere. Drillers are often much smarter than the TPs and Co Men on the rigs. They should be, they are continuously monitoring pressure and volumes 12 hours per day. And so are the Policemen (the loggers).
Whether TO have their men trained or not will come out in the trials.

5906

[QUOTE=billslugg;42140][i]Was there a problem on the rig concerning unreasonable leadership? - alcor[/I]

Yes, absolutely, with out a doubt. There must be but one leader, but the leader must have all subordinates pulling in the same direction. When the leader has to discount another’s opinion, then perhaps the best decision is not being made. I have led a patrol den, Scout Troop, manufacturing team, papermachine, engineering department, etc. I know when the decision has to be made and if I cannot get all of my subordinates agreeing, then yes I will pull the switch myself. It WILL happen when it has to happen, BUT I’ll be damned if I am going to run up that hill with 55 of 56 guys shooting at the enemy and ONE guy shooting at me. I take the proactive step of building each team through extended - week long - discussions. We do roles/responsibilities/mission/vision/strategy/tactics. We agree on startup criteria, abort criteria, decision trees for all foreseeable decisions, principles and values to help us make unusual unforeseen decisions. Me personally, I get 100000% agreement from each person in the organization who has a stake in each decision, and I get it in front of every other employee. I go around the room one person at a time and personally ask them if they agree with the agreement on the table. If even one guy does not agree, then we all sit back down and give him the floor as long as he wants it. Notice - we are not in the middle of a well unloading. We are sitting in a conference room at the hilton eating stale crackers and diet coke. I have done these type things with every single team I have been responsible for, due to the generous upper management where I worked. In fact, all teams do it all the time. Once a year. One week offsite. Every team. Fully paid. We shut the plant down. That is how I would run an oil company. There would be no shouting matches. Stuff would not fall through the cracks. Good stuff happens. The organization takes off like a rocket. Input from every last janitor gets into the equation and weighed on its merits. There must be an efficient system to sniff out that kind of input and integrate it into the decision making process. Some of the most valuable information can come from the most unlikely source.[/QUOTE]

Fully Agree. This culture of ‘examination of the facts’ is in place on every well I’ve been involved with. Where it’s lacking a complete overhaul of the company’s culture is required. And, this applies above all to the Transocean Team to ensure that all parties on the Rig have input and comment on the operations…what we can achieve collectively as a unit.
Still, there’s one man who can shut in if uncertainty is in place…and start again with the plan.
I thought this culture was in place 10 years ago after many fatalities on the rigs, mostly concerning ‘Riding Belt’ operations.
Define that Culture Billslug.
Thanks for your contribution.

5907

Blisters,
Did you see any issue with my posting number: 5605
Is this an example of what your Contractor defines a s a suitable displacement plan?

5908

[QUOTE=billslugg;42115]Earl
Don’t fall prey to the media types who did Svanberg a disservice. Here is the quote:

[I]“And we care about the small people. I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don’t care. But that is not the case in BP. We care about the small people.”
[/I]
Toby Odone, a spokesman for BP, told The Associated Press: [I]“What he means is that he cares about local businesses and local people. This was a slip in translation.”[/I]

Svanberg was likely looking for the English word “local” and he came out with “small”.

It would be similar to one of us using the Swedish “liten” meaning little, when we really wanted to say “plats” meaning local. And then, we found out that we had made a faux pas.

If I was Svanberg, I would be saying the exact same thing that the guys on the DDIII were saying when they got hit by lightning and caught on fire while sitting over the blown out Macondo.

“OH, so THAT’S how it could get worse!!”[/QUOTE]

With all due respect, I don’t buy it. I’ve listened to plenty of conference calls with Swedish engineers (I was on the Honeywell team that did the digital flight control system for the Saab JA37B interceptor) and I can’t conceive of any of them confusing “local” and “small.” In my opinion (and this is just an opinion) it was a pure Freudian slip, in that under the pressure of the event he blurted out what he really felt. In any case it’s irrelevant; everything you need to know you can learn from the behavior of his corporation – before the spill, not after it. Your true character is manifest by your actions when no one is looking.

Cheers,

Earl

5909

Re: alcor’s 5648: Well, you’ve made yourself clear and I hope I have too; these are issues on which there can be honest disagreement and so let’s just agree to our differences and leave it at that. I must admit I had a bit of a WTF moment at your question: “Is Obama or Bush responsible for the troops who died in Iraq? They were sent there by the President.” The short answer is “damn right.” It’s called “unity of command” and it’s a basic element of U.S. military doctrine. Someone is in charge, and that person carries both authority and responsibility. It goes to the top; in this case the Commander in Chief. He is responsible for all of it – victory, defeat, cost, casualties, collateral damage, the lot.

The notion was pounded into my head as part of my first full-time job, as a 2LT in Curtis LeMay’s Air Force. Which reminds me of my favorite quote from that tough old bird: he was once asked why, in cases of operational screwups, he would immediately fire the whole chain of command involved, without looking into the matter at all. His response: “I do not have the time to distinguish between the unfortunate and the incompetent.”

Cheers,

Earl

5910

[QUOTE=Earl Boebert;42155]With all due respect, I don’t buy it. I’ve listened to plenty of conference calls with Swedish engineers (I was on the Honeywell team that did the digital flight control system for the Saab JA37B interceptor) and I can’t conceive of any of them confusing “local” and “small.” In my opinion (and this is just an opinion) it was a pure Freudian slip, in that under the pressure of the event he blurted out what he really felt. In any case it’s irrelevant; everything you need to know you can learn from the behavior of his corporation – before the spill, not after it. Your true character is manifest by your actions when no one is looking.

Cheers,
Earl.

[B]So, based on your conference calls with Swedish Engineers, You have come to the conclusion that this man’s language was intentionally defamatory! Get a grip! Every Swede I ever met made language faults. How far have you travelled in the world? Have you ever met a live Swede in the flesh? But, apparently You’re an excellent communicator! Sometimes, I feel the educated need to go back to school, and be more tolerant of others who speak many languages.[/B]
[B]The guy probably knows how to speak effective German, English, Norwegian, Danish and a touch of Finnish. How the hell do you conclude that you’re judgement on his language is acceptable based on a couple of conference speeches. Are you an American by any chance? You need an Analyst![/B]

[/QUOTE]

I can assure you that this man’s intentions were anything but to insult anyone. You should discover what your intentions are!

5911

[QUOTE=Earl Boebert;42155]With all due respect, I don’t buy it. I’ve listened to plenty of conference calls with Swedish engineers (I was on the Honeywell team that did the digital flight control system for the Saab JA37B interceptor) and I can’t conceive of any of them confusing “local” and "small."
Cheers,
Earl[/QUOTE]

One thing I have learned is that there is a wide disparity in the understanding of English amongst Swedish engineers. The older they are the less they understand the idioms. It is also essential to determine if the Swede learned King’s English or American English.

I made 5 - two week trips to Sweden in my career as a plant contact on the papermachine design reviews. English is now mandatory in Swedish schools and they are proud of their ability to speak it. It really depends on how much time they have spent in the US and how much contact they have had with US engineers as to the idioms they understand.

5912

[QUOTE=Earl Boebert;42156]Re: alcor’s 5648: Well, you’ve made yourself clear and I hope I have too; these are issues on which there can be honest disagreement and so let’s just agree to our differences and leave it at that. I must admit I had a bit of a WTF moment at your question: “Is Obama or Bush responsible for the troops who died in Iraq? They were sent there by the President.” The short answer is “damn right.” It’s called “unity of command” and it’s a basic element of U.S. military doctrine. Someone is in charge, and that person carries both authority and responsibility. It goes to the top; in this case the Commander in Chief. He is responsible for all of it – victory, defeat, cost, casualties, collateral damage, the lot.

EARL.

[B]What I should have asked is: Are Bush or Obama responsible for the lost lives, and therefore, are they to be prosecuted for the lost lives…in the same way that the American Public is hungry for the ‘President’ of BP to be prosecuted for something beyond his control? Remember, ‘Unity of Command’ came to the conclusion that it was legal to go to war against Iraq based on Iraq’s possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction. There were no weapons. And yet, You’re trying to educate many of us on how to see the issues from a military point of view!! How shall we behave if the Swede was to use your words, ‘victory, defeat, cost, casualties, collateral damage, the lot’. I’d imagine We’d all be quite amazed, and yet, it’s your sort of language!!![/B]

[B]So that there’s no confusion over my position, I never saw any reason to go to war about any issue…until two planes flew into the Twin Towers. All my feelings changed at that point. I would fight anyone who behaved in such a way. But, Iraq was not the enemy, and nor was Saddam. Since then, my position hasn’t changed. Fight those who threaten us, but we still need to acknowledge those who lied to us, and recognise it. Perhaps, you imagine you can speak about leadership without considering all the sources of your information. It’s ok to quote great names, but we have to be able to process the information and use it wisely.
[/B]
The notion was pounded into my head as part of my first full-time job, as a 2LT in Curtis LeMay’s Air Force. Which reminds me of my favorite quote from that tough old bird: he was once asked why, in cases of operational screwups, he would immediately fire the whole chain of command involved, without looking into the matter at all. His response: “I do not have the time to distinguish between the unfortunate and the incompetent.”

I[B] believe this to be an excellent source of humour. I also believe the author is a very dangerous man to have in charge. Don’t tell me you’re quoting that Great Military Man with the phenomenal war record, Bush! Am I wrong?
[/B]
[/QUOTE]

Earl,
When the military enter the civilian arena You have to be prepared to accept challenges to your imagined superior notions of how to run a company. Civilian companies are not allowed to let anyone die. That is not a military philosophy.

5913

Earl,
When the military enter the civilian arena You have to be prepared to accept challenges to your imagined superior notions of how to run a company. Civilian companies are not allowed to let anyone die. That is not a military philosophy.

Alcor,
You need to get some rest or something. Your constant best efforts to defend BP has undoubtedly taken it’s toll as the above statement is illogical to the point of being incoherent.
By the way, civilian companies do run risks that allow people to die if they think it’s financially worth their while. Remember the BP “three little pigs” memo regarding the BP refinery in Texas City? Google it to remind yourself of BP’s safety culture and how they value life.
Tengineer

5914

[I]“the displacement procedure came from an onshore organization.” - Kasol[/I]

[B]Brian P More[/B]l, a BP Junior Drilling Engineer in Houston, wrote the displacement procedure and on 4/20 10:43 AM, sent it to.

[B]Don J Vidrine[/B], One of two BP Well Site Co-Leaders aboard the DWH, he was the more experienced and higher ranked.
[B]Robert Kaluza[/B] - Stand in Well Site Co-Leader while Ron Sepulvado (the other BP Well Site Leader) is off for BOP training, Kaluza is unfamiliar with well history and had never seen a displacement to SW.
[B]Lee Lambert[/B] - “Well Site Leader of the Future” in training on DWH - no responsibilities, there to watch only - no input to the decision
[B]Earl P Lee[/B] - Operation Services Drilling - Operation Services probably needs to know, but has no input. Cannot find a thing on Earl P Lee.

There were courtesy copies sent to Houston people:
[B]John Guide[/B] - Head Engineer - 10 years experience deep water, called a key decision maker, the one who vetoed the 21 centralizers.
[B]Mark E Hafle[/B] - BP Senior Drilling Engineer for Macondo
[B]Brett W Cocales[/B] - Junior BP Drilling Engineer - worked for John Guide.

It looks to me like you have engineering back in Houston lined up against the operations people out on the platform. What happens is you have the Engineering piece reporting up to a staff Sr VP, and the operations people reporting to a line Sr VP. Line always trumps staff. Line makes money, staff costs money. If you engineer a bad well, you lose, if you design a million wells perfectly you have just simply done your job. In Engineering you can lose big or you can break even. If you are operations and you drill wells, you make the big bucks flow in. You can lose big, break even or win big. That is why the line operations usually hold more power than engineering does. I do not know if this is the case in BP, I am extending my general observations to a specific case and this is risky.

Note that in companies where products are made, it is the sometimes Product Development who belittles manufacturing (They just sit in a corner and turn a crank.), or engineering (engineers hang on hooks on the wall with their feet moving, you lift them off and set them on the floor and they run around and design stuff, then you put them back on the hook for later.)

In Procter (the largest advertiser on the planet) Marketing reigns.

5915

[QUOTE=alcor;42157]I can assure you that this man’s intentions were anything but to insult anyone. You should discover what your intentions are![/QUOTE]

As someone whose work involves a great deal of ‘translation’ between different form of English, from Filipino and Indian English to Northern European, Scandinavian and American English I can say that you are absolutely correct, Svanerg meant local people and small businesses. There is no other interpretation. Those who don’t want to ‘buy it’ need to get a life.

5916

[QUOTE=bobcouttie;42173]As someone whose work involves a great deal of ‘translation’ between different form of English, from Filipino and Indian English to Northern European, Scandinavian and American English I can say that you are absolutely correct, Svanerg meant local people and small businesses. There is no other interpretation. Those who don’t want to ‘buy it’ need to get a life.[/QUOTE]

I stand corrected, and apologies to all, especially to the members of this forum for taking it off topic. I let my visceral revulsion to the “Hayward and Svanberg are victims too” line of reasoning get the better of me. I guess those Saab guys were unusually Americanized.

Cheers,

Earl

5917

[QUOTE=tengineer;42161]Earl,
When the military enter the civilian arena You have to be prepared to accept challenges to your imagined superior notions of how to run a company. Civilian companies are not allowed to let anyone die. That is not a military philosophy.

Alcor,
You need to get some rest or something. Your constant best efforts to defend BP has undoubtedly taken it’s toll as the above statement is illogical to the point of being incoherent.
By the way, civilian companies do run risks that allow people to die if they think it’s financially worth their while. Remember the BP “three little pigs” memo regarding the BP refinery in Texas City? Google it to remind yourself of BP’s safety culture and how they value life.
Tengineer[/QUOTE]

You’re right! I’ve made an effort to present the facts concerning responsibilities on the Drilling Rig. I’ve attempted to show how ‘instructions’ from town are only valid when the Rig’s Leaders ‘filter’, analyse, and upgrade all plans. It happens every single day offshore. It’s called, many minds working together. And, no plan is above volume and pressure control. Who is in charge of the well? The Driller.
Try to understand, the offshore industry is not a baby-sitting service where the Rig Personnel are spoon-fed by teams sitting onshore. On the contrary, these are highly skilled individuals who are trained and expected to understand when to take action. They are not concerned about memo’s or ‘outline plans’. They follow the ‘Program’, but will intervene if the vessel and crew are threatened.

The very highest priority is given to volume and pressure control. Nothing is above this. This is ‘God’ in the offshore drilling world. No Operator can influence what we do if we see ‘flow’ from the well. We shut in, and the Operators promote this as the first action to take. Obviously, we need a working BOP!
But, if flow is coming at us and we have no idea about it then someone isn’t doing their job. We’ve lost all ‘Control’. Many of you suggest this is a BP responsibility. Actually, it’s TO’s.

I hope I’ve offered some impartial view on how the oil patch works. Good Luck with all future drilling in the GOM.

I

5918

[I]alcor in italics
I’m trying to work out the difference between…a poor decision concerning pressure test results and a parent…accepting the ‘guillotine’…[/I]

I do not accept your premise that male circumcision is necessarily a poor choice. There is considerable scientific literature attesting that circumcision results in improvements in rates of STD transmission related illnesses in areas of the world with generally poor personal hygiene.[B] Rank speculation[/B] tells me this is likely the origin of the practice many thousands of years ago. Doctors probably got tired of operating on adult males with problems and started doing a little “preventive medicine” which then became codified in the Jewish tradition.

I do not know if there are studies relative to female circumcision and health benefits, however my understanding is that it is done for purposes of reducing wanton lust. As I do not believe there is a surplus of wanton lust, I am against the procedure.

The decision by Don J Vidrine to ignore the anomalous negative test results will probably never be known. He is holed up and not talking. Probably never will.

Consider for a moment how decisions are made by leaders in high stakes situations. You pull data from here and there, you get an assessment of other’s opinions, you mix in some experience and weigh it. That tells you what to do. You know there is risk involved, but you weigh it against probability and cost and downside. You make the decision and then you move on. You forget all about the process that led to the decision and put it out of your mind. In times of great stress, however, you tend to put absolutely all of out of your mind. Not always a good idea. Perhaps Don should have fed forward the anomalous test result and then paid special attention to the flows and pressures while doing the displacement. I will not second guess any drilling procedure since [B]I know nothing about drilling[/B], but I will assert that Vidrine should have known he was taking a bunch of chances (PP/FP ratio, lack of centralizers, tight design) and he should have “paid special attention” while displacing.

5919

[I]"Lemay…would immediately fire the whole chain of command involved, without looking into the matter at all. His response: “I do not have the time to distinguish between the unfortunate and the incompetent.” "[/I]Earl

This strategy will work if Lemay has a surplus of willing workers to immediately occupy the position at full speed. In a military choked with extra officers, with no time to do an investigation, it could be advantageous. I doubt that Curtis Lemay was overwhelmed by his job at any point in his career. I think poor Curtis got smooth talked into wasting too damn much time trying to figure out who did what. For him it was a convenience facilitated by an infinite supply of rising officers.

In a war situation, men are expendable. I am told that in Navy ship operating manuals, there are tables that show how many men you can send to certain death in fighting a problem, depending upon the degree of list of the vessel.

A good manager will listen to everyone one at a time, then go back and confront the discrepancies by bringing in the witnesses two at a time. The problem occurs when the list of discrepancies fails to converge to zero. Then you are screwed.

A better manager goes to the source of the disturbance, and stands there until every last person who had the least bit to do with it shows up. And then he interviews every single one in front of all the rest. Since there are so many witnesses, fewer lies get told from the git go, and convergence is reached more quickly.

The best manager spends so much time in the field that stuff like that does not happen in the first place. He has the first hand knowledge of what is showing up in the #37 trash can, or what sitting under the #2 loading dock, or what the night watchmen are noticing, or if they are awake!! When a problem shows up, he has his regular tour records, his established lines of communication, an intimate knowledge of the business on the ground level that no one can lie to him without him knowing.

I liked to upstage converters. I was a papermaker but I liked to prowl the metal dumpsters all over the plant. I found identically broken brackets showing up in a dumpster over in converting one at a time every other day or so. I finally pulled one out, walked into the shop and asked a guy what it was. “Oh that is the fold finger on the bagger. They keep breaking.” I said thanks. I copied the drawing number off the part, went to repro and had them pull the drawing. There was a weld symbol that was lacking a fillet width dimension. Some welders put enough metal in there and some did not. I corrected it and had the drawing reissued to the vendor. I then asked the converting operation for some time in their morning meeting, took in a broken bracket and asked them about the problem. They said: "Oh, yeah, we know about it, it is our #3 cause of downtime. So I explained to them what I did and they were aghast. Talk about mouths on the floor. They were happy to find that the problem was soon to go away, but in the unenviable position of having to thank a mortal enemy (a papermaker) for helping them fix their own problem!

5920

Don’t you think the heavy equipment operators on the rig haven’t thought of better downhole sensors? Because the equipment you operate is an airplane you’re SO much smarter than a Driller? The engineers in you worked with replacing the E4 autopilot with a digital system are just so much smarter than the PE’s who work in Drilling?
OK done with my rant, had to say something about Lemay and some pilots who don’t realize they are just heavy equipment operators like Drillers. Maybe some cross-fertilization can lead somewhere, just don’t talk down to us just because you fly an airplane.

5921

[QUOTE=kwCharlie;42194] And Lemay was a fool, stopped all the B52 missions over North Vietnam after the 3 were shot down Christmas day over Hanoi, Nixon had to ‘replace’ him to bomb NV again a few years later to bring them back to the peace talks. Because of him we had the disgraceful end of that war, if we had been able to continue to take them to the Stone Age the South would have been able to defend itself better even after Lemay’s liberal friends cut off the money to get even with Nixon. We knew what was going on the flight line. [/QUOTE]

I think you might be confusing LeMay with Robert McNamara. LeMay retired at the end of January 1965, Nixon was elected in 1968, and the Christmas Bombings occurred in 1972. John D. Ryan was Chief of Staff of the Air Force then.

[QUOTE=kwCharlie;42194]Don’t you think the heavy equipment operators on the rig haven’t thought of better downhole sensors? Because the equipment you operate is an airplane you’re SO much smarter than a Driller? The engineers in you worked with replacing the E4 autopilot with a digital system are just so much smarter than the PE’s who work in Drilling? [/QUOTE]

No, not in the slightest. They weren’t smarter, they were given more resources (see below).

[QUOTE=kwCharlie;42194]OK done with my rant, had to say something about Lemay and some pilots who don’t realize they are just heavy equipment operators like Drillers. Maybe some cross-fertilization can lead somewhere, just don’t talk down to us just because you fly an airplane.[/QUOTE]

The reason that pilots may be just like heavy equipment operators is that in the past 107 years an enormous amount of time, money, and intellectual effort went into making it that way. My criticism was directed to the people who run the industry/government complex, not those who work in it, for not directing a similar level of effort to achieving safety. And I apologize if you took my remarks as condescending, it certainly wasn’t intended. My sympathies have always been with those on the front lines, an attitude that has cost me more one job. Also, for the record, I only fly in the back :slight_smile:

Cheers,

Earl