Deepwater Horizon A Disaster Of Monstrous Proportions Essay

Deepwater Horizon: A Disaster of Monstrous Proportions On April 20, 2010 British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig located forty miles off the coast of Louisiana exploded due to high pressure of methane gas seeping into the drilling riser and expanding. The explosion killed 11 men working on the rig, injured 17 other, and causing millions of gallons of crude oil to begin spilling into the ocean. This tragic accident has left many question like why did this happen? What could have been done to prevent it? and can we assure a disaster like this never happens again? In this essay we will look to answer these questions in painstaking detail. Let’s begin with the why did this happen? The answer to this question is quite simple†¦..money. In order to save on their bottom line British Petroleum did everything they could to build the Deepwater Horizon rig fast and cost efficient, and in doing so they made some very poor management decisions. For instance the ce menting of the rig was inadequate for a rig of its size, valves that were designed to too stop cement backflow did not close, pressure test were wrongly interpreted, and lastly a fail-safe seat bed on the wellhead failed to close after the explosion. All of this is a domino effect caused by poor management decisions looking out for their bottom line and not for adequately built and maintained oil rig that could have prevented this tragedy from happening. The reaction after the explosion and the oil spill wasShow MoreRelatedStephen P. Robbins Timothy A. Judge (2011) Organizational Behaviour 15th Edition New Jersey: Prentice Hall393164 Words   |  1573 PagesReview on failures, experts argued that learning from mistakes relies on several strategies, which include: 1. Heed pressure. High pressure often provokes faulty thinking. BP faced enormous pressure from cost overruns—roughly $1 million a day—in its deepwater oil explorations. This led its managers to miss warning signs that led to the catastrophic explosion in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Similar time and cost pressures precipitated the ill-fated Challenger and Columbia space shuttle launches. In highpressure