Business Ethics Case Study: BP Oil Spill
The mineral rights to drill for oil at the Macondo well, were purchased by BP at the Minerals Management Service's (MMS) Lease Sale No. 206, held in New Orleans.
June 22 – Mark E. Hafle, a senior drilling engineer from BP, warns that the metal casing for the blowout preventer might collapse under high pressure
Deepwater Horizon drilling rig company, owned by Transocean, begins drilling on the Macondo Prospect. The planned well was to be drilled to 18,000 feet below sea level, and was to be plugged and suspended for subsequent completion as a subsea producer.
Target date for the completion of the well which had been budgeted to cost $96 million
An accident damages a gasket on the blowout preventer on the rig.
Halliburton employee Marvin Volek warns that BP's use of cement "was against our best practices." …show more content…
Brett Cocales, BP's Operations Drilling Engineer, emails drilling engineer Brian Morel confirming the 6 centralizer approach, saying six should be adequate to obtain a proper cement seal in the well. “Who cares, it’s done, end of story, will probably be fine and we’ll get a good cement job,” he wrote, according to a copy of the e-mail cited in court papers.
Deepwater Horizon completes its drilling and the well is being prepared to be cemented so that another rig will retrieve the oil. The blowout preventer is tested and found to be "functional." Gagliano now reports that using only 6 centralizers "would likely produce channeling and a failure of the cement job."
Gagliano's report says "well is considered to have a severe gas flow problem." Schlumberger flies a crew to conduct a cement bond log to determine whether the cement has bonded to the casing and surrounding formations. It is required in rules.
Halliburton completes cementing of the final production casing
June 22 – Mark E. Hafle, a senior drilling engineer from BP, warns that the metal casing for the blowout preventer might collapse under high pressure
Deepwater Horizon drilling rig company, owned by Transocean, begins drilling on the Macondo Prospect. The planned well was to be drilled to 18,000 feet below sea level, and was to be plugged and suspended for subsequent completion as a subsea producer.
Target date for the completion of the well which had been budgeted to cost $96 million
An accident damages a gasket on the blowout preventer on the rig.
Halliburton employee Marvin Volek warns that BP's use of cement "was against our best practices." …show more content…
Brett Cocales, BP's Operations Drilling Engineer, emails drilling engineer Brian Morel confirming the 6 centralizer approach, saying six should be adequate to obtain a proper cement seal in the well. “Who cares, it’s done, end of story, will probably be fine and we’ll get a good cement job,” he wrote, according to a copy of the e-mail cited in court papers.
Deepwater Horizon completes its drilling and the well is being prepared to be cemented so that another rig will retrieve the oil. The blowout preventer is tested and found to be "functional." Gagliano now reports that using only 6 centralizers "would likely produce channeling and a failure of the cement job."
Gagliano's report says "well is considered to have a severe gas flow problem." Schlumberger flies a crew to conduct a cement bond log to determine whether the cement has bonded to the casing and surrounding formations. It is required in rules.
Halliburton completes cementing of the final production casing