Deep Water: the Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling Page: 28
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National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling
Accident rates for mobile drilling vessels remained unacceptably high, especially for jack-
ups. Blowouts, helicopter crashes, diving accidents, and routine injuries on platforms
were all too common. Facilities engineering on production platforms was a novel concept.
Platforms often had equipment squeezed or slapped together on the deck with little concern
or foresight for worker safety. Crew quarters, for example, could sometimes be found
dangerously close to a compressor building.22
Federal oversight followed the philosophy of "minimum regulation, maximum
cooperation."23 Between 1958 and 1960, the U.S. Geological Survey Conservation Division,
the regulatory agency then overseeing offshore drilling, issued outer continental shelf
Orders 2 through 5, requiring procedures for drilling, plugging, and abandoning wells;
determining well productivity; and the installation of subsurface safety devices, or "storm
chokes." But the Offshore Operators Committee (representing leaseholders) persuaded
regulators to dilute Order 5 to permit waivers on requirements for storm chokes.
Significantly, the orders neither specified design criteria or detailed technical standards,
nor did they impose any test requirements. Companies had to have certain equipment,
but they did not have to test it to see if it worked.24 In general, as a 1973 National
Science Foundation study concluded, "the closeness of government and industry and the
commonality of their objectives have worked against development of a system of strict
accountability."25
Lax enforcement contributed to the lack of accountability. The U.S. Geological Survey
freely granted waivers from complying with orders and did not inspect installations
regularly. Federal and state regulatory bodies were underfunded and understaffed. In 1969,
the Gulf region's lease management office had only 12 people overseeing more than 1,500
platforms. Even those trained inspectors and supervisors often lacked experience in the oil
business and a grasp of its changing technological capabilities. "Each oil well has its own
personality, is completely different than the next, and has its own problems," observed one
consultant in 1970. "It takes good experienced personnel to understand the situation and
to cope with it." Too often on drilling structures, he complained, one found inexperienced
supervisors; employees who overlooked rules and regulations (the purpose of which
they did not understand); and, perhaps most troubling, even orders from bosses to cut
corners-all of which created conditions for an "explosive situation."26
Explosive Situations
On January 28, 1969, a blowout on Union Oil Company Platform A-21 in the Santa
Barbara Channel released an 800-square-mile slick of oil that blackened an estimated 30
miles of California beaches and lethally soaked sea birds in the gooey mess. Although the
well's blowout preventer worked, an inadequate well design allowed the hydrocarbons
to escape through near-surface ruptures beneath the seafloor. Union Oil had received a
waiver from the U.S. Geological Survey to set casing at a shallower depth than required
by Order 2, highlighting the lack of accountability that had come to characterize offshore
operations.27 The 11-day blowout spilled an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 barrels of oil28-
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National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling (U.S.). Deep Water: the Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling, book, January 2011; Washington, D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc123527/m1/44/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.