The New York Times has a great story today about more oversight failures that may have played a significant role in the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The article centers around whether, in the event of a blowout, the blind shear ram could slice through a drill pipe to seal a well. It's worth checking out the whole thing, but in looking at what risks the Minerals Management Service (MMS) was aware of—and what they did about it—the Times found that:
- MMS "helped pay for many of the studies that warned of [the blowout preventer's] shortcomings." Looking at MMS's website, POGO found studies from 1989, 1996, and a 2004 study that cites a lengthy bibliography of studies conducted on the subject.
- In 2003, MMS regulations required, as part of the process to get drill permits, "companies to submit test data proving that their blind shear rams could work on the specific drill pipe used on a well and under the pressures they would encounter."
- But the engineer that approved BP's permit, Frank Patton, didn't require this proof because he wasn't trained to look for it (at least not as far as he could recall).
- Patton's regional supervisor for field operations, Michael Saucier, didn't know if anyone makes sure that a blowout preventer functions properly.
- MMS seemed to be nearly deaf to concerns about the risks. When MMS produced a 219-page report on the potential risks and benefits of offshore drilling, the blind shear rams were never mentioned: "It barely mentioned blowout preventers. It did, however, assure Mr. Salazar that safety and engineering requirements were 'extensive' and that blowouts were 'very rare.'"
And now Interior is playing catch up:
After the Deepwater Horizon blowout, Mr. Obama declared a moratorium on offshore drilling and ordered Mr. Salazar to look for ways to improve safety. Within weeks, Mr. Salazar came back with a long list of changes, most of them clearly responsive to weaknesses that industry and government studies had identified years before.
Mr. Salazar recommended, for example, that all blowout preventers be equipped with two blind shear rams —
a step suggested to the Minerals Management Service in 2001. He recommended new rules to make sure rigs were equipped with the right kind of underwater robots and had emergency backup systems to activate blowout preventers — a step suggested to the Minerals Management Service in 2003. (Emphasis POGO's)
-- Mandy Smithberger
Image: Bryan Rahija