Problem Definition
1.Confusion of organization management
2.Overlook of project process change
3.Overlook of conflict
4.Cultural diversity
Root Cause Analysis
1.Cause of organization confusion
2.Cause of change overlook
3.Cause of conflict overlook
4.Cause of culture
Possible Solutions
1.Solution for organization management (
rig crew management ，senior management)
2.Solution for change management
3.Solution for conflict management
4.Solution for cultural diversity
Executive Summary
This paper aims to identify project problems, and analyze the root reasons of disaster occurring as well as come up with its possible solutions, lastly, we will put forward feasible proposal and project plan.
Introduction
The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion on April 20, 2010, as one of the worst environmental disasters in the history of the petroleum industry, killed 11 inhabitants on the rig and injured 17 people on the day of disaster. Due to the subsequent oil spill after explosion, polluting more the 88,000 square miles of local beaches and estuaries, and its incalculable damage had affected local tourism and fishing industries as well as many kinds of birds and marine animals’ survival and reproduction in and around the Gulf of Mexico (Lehner and Deans, 2010). Also, the cost of oil spill has been reached more than $40 billion, including the victim compensation fund of $20 billion (Fountain and Matthrew, 2010).
After the explosion, a joint team composed of Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (“BOEMRE”) and the United States Coast Guard started to investigate this explosion, which aimed to identify the causes of the Macondo blowout. At the same time, BP, an international technology company manufacturing and servicing rig-based products, as the designated operator of this project, had the foundational responsibility for this Macondo blowout. Transocean, the proprietor of the Deepwater Horizon, had the responsibility to conduct safe operations and ensure personnel safety. Halliburton, as a contractor to BP, also had the responsibility to monitor the good progress of this project.
In January 2011, through the subsequent investigation by the joint team, they put forward that there are many problems exist in this project, such as the confusion of organization management, lack of effective communication, technical flaws, overlook of project process change and conflict, which caused the occurrence of this environmental disaster to large degree.
Problems definition
According to the investigation of the joint team. they found that BP had their own complete, company-wide methods to manage the project named the Operating Management System (“OMS”), addressing a series of potential problems occurring, such as, organization management problems, conflicts problems, procedure change, communication problems, lack of motivation, technical problems like drilling operations. However, this system did not play its due role, I think the main problems were as follows.
1. Confusion of organization management
There are many problems in managing its staff, especially the management of cig crew, and the training for staff of each department was very confused. According to the BOEMRE report (2011, p.128), the training programs that the BP and the Transocean provide to their staffs all lacked enough well controlling issues to cope with the emergency situations. Moreover, some staffs did not have sufficient relevant experience about this field and they lacked the professional knowledge, especially did not have experienced enough crew, the BP did not emphases this factor. In addition, the investigation of joint team put forward that this project lacked the specified, documented procedure and feedback for the negative test in the BP or Transocean documents, also, it lacked the interpretation of guidance in the industry regulations (BOEMRE report 2011, P.204). Lastly, we think that the most point is the recording data is not very accurate, it lacked the reference value.
2. Failure to follow the management of change (MOC) processes
Change management, as part of risk management, in order to better cope with it, BP developed an integrated management of change (MOC) process, which documented, evaluate, communicate and coped with changes (BOEMRE report 2011, P.179 and 192). The MOC process as part of risk management, the BP failed to follow this process, which did not take reasonable mitigation plan before the change happened as well as take reasonable contingency plan when the change or accidents happened.
3. Overlook of project conflict
According to the BOEMRE report (2011, p. 189), they found that the first conflict is the Transocean personnel’s rewarding system, staffs have different opinions about this rewarding system. The second conflict is the choice of productivity and safety, it seems that BP paid more attention to the production rather than safety.
Root cause analysis
1. Cause of organization confusion
In the part of problem definition, we found that the first problem is the lack of training programs in organization management, this part lead to the occurrence of this explosion later to large degree. Many staffs, especially the rig crew, did not have the regular operation process and safety awareness because company lacked these factors of cultivation and training in their daily time. For example, according to BOEMRE report (2011, p. 128), they found that the flammable gas would dispersed beyond the hazardous areas, at the same time, the rig crew did not well classify some equipment, therefore, this unclassified equipment had a fair chance of sparking an explosion. In addition, the BP did not document the process in details and did not consider to develop a standardized procedure with specific interpretation guidance. If the BP develop this interpretation guidance and then provided to the rig crew, some problems would be selected and detected, and the blowout would be averted. Furthermore, the BP did not consider a regulation in regard to uncontrolled factors, only paid more attention to the controlled factors (BOEMRE report 2011, P.204). If some uncontrollable incidents occurred, they cannot offer any visible solutions. In addition, according to the investigation, they found that the data from the rig were not the real-time data because there was no continuous monitoring of those stored data, which caused that they did not realize the occurrence of the failure and took appropriate control actions.
2. Cause of change overlook
In part of problem definition, we had known that BP developed an integrated management of change (MOC) process in this project. however, they did not use MOC to manage some important changes in continuously changeable drilling operations. For example, BP made some casing design changes, while the following operation did not follow this design changes. Other changes like rig procedure changes, they did not consider these changes, and they made some important decisions without consideration of MOC process. In addition, the other change is personal changes, according to investigation, they found that BP had little consideration to change the project leader, their current leader Sepulvado had limited ability in controlling process.
Reference
Fountain H, Wald Matthew L. BP says leak may be closer to a solution. on-line. New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/ 13/us/13spill.html; 2010.
Lehner P, Deans B. In: Deep water: the anatomy of a disaster, the fate of the gulf, and ending our oil addiction. Experiment Publishing; 2010.
Report regarding the causes of the April 20, 2010 Macondo well blowout. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement. September 14
BP report (2010) Deepwater Horizon accident investigation report. British Petroleum
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