BP´s Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill of 2010

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Recommended: Ethical issues in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill

Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to examine one of the largest offshore oil spills in U.S. history, BP’s Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2010. This paper seeks to investigate closely the system and the reasons of failure, to answer the questions behind numerous studies on this accident, Is Deepwater Horizon explosion inevitable? and What can we do to avoid such accidents?
Within the scope of Perrow’s normal accident theory, this paper aims to draw conclusions to the above questions and set forth recommendations to be considered in other similar oil drilling systems.
Case background
On April 20, 2010, BP-operated Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, claiming the lives of eleven people and injuring 17 others. The fire continued for 36 hours until the rig sank. Following the sinking, a sea-floor oil gusher flowed for 87 days, causing a spill of national significance (BP, 2010).
Numerous investigations explored the causes of the explosion and record-setting spill. Reports, including that from the U.S. government, pointed to defective cement on the well, faulting mostly BP, but also rig operator Transocean and contractor Halliburton (BP, 2010; Hogue, 2010). In 2011, a White House commission blamed BP and its partners for a series of cost-cutting decisions and an insufficient safety system, but also concluded that the spill resulted from “systemic” root causes and failure to create and apply in both industry practices and government policies (Broder, 2011).
Until now, BP is still struggling with the repercussions. Legal proceedings regarding this case are ongoing, with settlements and payments have cost BP more than 40 billion dollars (Fontevecchia, 2013).
Literature review
BP’s accident will be examined under Perrow (1984)’...

... middle of paper ...

...cy; thus accidents can be controlled better.
Conclusion
By evaluating BP’s attributes before the accident, the paper shows that the system controlling Deepwater Horizon was a normal accident. Many factors signal that the complexity and tight coupling found in BP’s system can be widespread in other systems, which heightened the probability to have an accident escalate at not only Deepwater Horizon but also in the future.
The paper recommends that in order to prevent such accident to happen, every party needs to get involved. Designers, developers, operators, and most importantly, regulators must know and understand the potential risks are real and how to conduct accordingly.
Conclusively, since accidents in oil drilling industry are most likely inevitable, there should be regulations to keep all parties together, together working on a failure-free operation goal.

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