By Daniel Gilbert
HOUSTON--In a third-floor room of an office building here, a
cluster of equipment mounted with dials, wheels and screens mimics
the controls of a deep-water oil rig so workers can practice
reacting to dangerous situations.
BP PLC set up the drilling simulator at its campus two years ago
and designed a program that not only trains workers to respond to
nightmare scenarios but also tests how they perform under stress.
During drills, BP says, a behavioral psychologist takes notes.
The company has made a special study of preventing disasters--it
controlled operations aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig when it
exploded in 2010, five years ago Monday, killing 11 and unleashing
the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. Oil companies and the
government have since overhauled their approach to offshore
drilling; regulators are still rolling out new rules, including a
proposal last week that includes new standards for equipment to
seal off oil wells. After the Deepwater Horizon's blowout preventer
failed, it took 87 days to stanch the oil flow.
But government and industry officials continue to wrestle with a
problem investigators say was at the heart of the 2010 Gulf oil
spill: human error.
The mistakes that led to the disaster began months before the
Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, investigators found, but poor
decisions by BP and its contractors sealed the rig's fate--and
their own. On the evening of April 20, 2010, crew members
misinterpreted a crucial test and realized too late that a
dangerous gas bubble was rising through the well. The gas blasted
out of the well and ignited on the rig floor, setting it
ablaze.
"The crew could have prevented the blowout--or at least
significantly reduced its impact--if they had reacted in a timely
and appropriate manner," according to the National Commission on
the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling.
BP has stepped up training with its simulator in Houston. And
government and industry have created a system that is supposed to
improve the quality of decisions made on offshore drilling
facilities. But the new regulatory system has yet to show
measurable improvements in safety practices, regulators
acknowledge.
"It's safer, but I would also say there's more work to be done,"
says Brian Salerno, director of the Bureau of Safety and
Environmental Enforcement, which was formed by the Department of
Interior after the Deepwater Horizon accident. In particular, he
says that the safety program is based on industry standards that
need updating so that, for example, they address unlikely but
potentially catastrophic accidents like the one in 2010.
The bureau's program, known as Safety and Environmental
Management Systems, adopts a range of practices in a rule written
by the American Petroleum Institute, which sets standards for the
industry and serves as its powerful lobbying arm.
Under the program, companies must ensure their contractors have
written safety protocols, train employees to inspect and maintain
equipment, and have procedures for swapping out personnel and
responding to changing conditions, among other mandates.
In 2013, offshore drillers in the U.S. were required to begin
filing audits of their safety programs. Last August, a government
review of the audits found that many consisted of checklists on
whether companies complied with the requirements, without
elaborating on how the program was being implemented. Regulators
also cited reports of companies performing multiple audits to avoid
having to disclose any failings.
"There was a lack of evidence that the effectiveness of the
various programs was routinely measured or assessed," the
government found.
Starting in June, the plans must undergo independent audits from
examiners approved by an industry group called the Center for
Offshore Safety, which is part of the American Petroleum Institute.
The government says it plans to review the center's protocols and
observe audits carried out by the teams it certifies.
By some measures, offshore drilling has become safer. Only one
worker died offshore last year, the lowest number of fatalities
since before the Deepwater Horizon explosion. There hasn't been
another major spill.
Since the lifting of a moratorium in late 2010, the pace of
offshore drilling has picked up, with regulators granting 49
permits last year for new deep-water wells.
BP remains active in the Gulf but has sold off operations
globally to pay for spill-related costs that have reached $43.5
billion. The London-based company, which pleaded guilty to criminal
charges in 2012, has initiated a series of reforms to win back the
confidence of the public, governments and industry partners. For
example, from its Houston offices it now monitors drilling in the
Gulf in real-time, a practice regulators want to require for all
offshore drillers.
And the company has also developed its own simulator course,
Applied Deepwater Well Control, from which more than 400 people
have matriculated. At least some members of every crew working for
BP in the Gulf's deep waters take this training, including
contractors.
The safety bureau, spun out of a predecessor agency in an effort
to focus its efforts on drilling risks, has nearly doubled the
number of inspectors in the Gulf of Mexico since 2010.
Still, current and former regulators worry about the potential
for complacency as the memory of Deepwater Horizon fades, along
with the impact of lower oil prices. At around $56 a barrel, U.S.
crude prices are about a third lower than in 2010.
"History teaches us that when cuts are made in any industry, the
first things to go are safety and training--always, every
industry," says Michael Bromwich, who oversaw the regulatory
overhaul after the disaster before stepping down as head of the
Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement in 2011 in 2011.
Charlie Williams, who runs the Center for Offshore Safety, says
that companies aren't going to cut corners in safety. "Instead of
doing things cheaper and faster, they just decide what they're not
going to do, " he says. "They just do less projects."
BP echoes that industry sentiment on safety. "For those who were
here during the spill, they know that the company survived a
near-death experience," says Geoff Morrell, BP's senior vice
president for communications and external affairs. "This never
escapes you."
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