BP Deepwater Horizon: A Case Study in Project Management Complexity

This case study examines the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, focusing on how project management principles, particularly control and fast response, could have mitigated the crisis. It discusses the importance of preoccupation with failure, highlighting BP's awareness of structural weaknesses in the Deepwater Horizon rig, such as the faulty cement seal, and their decision to proceed despite these known risks. The case study also emphasizes the role of mindfulness, noting the crew's misinterpretation of pressure tests and their failure to detect the methane gas leak before the explosion. Ultimately, the analysis suggests that a more proactive and attentive approach to risk management and operational awareness could have prevented the disaster and its far-reaching environmental and economic consequences. The study references Terry Cooke-Davies’ book Aspects of Complexity and underscores the need for organizations to prioritize safety and thoroughness over speed and cost-cutting measures.

BP DEEPWATER HORIZON
BP Deepwater Horizon
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction:...................................................................................................................2
Discussion:.....................................................................................................................2
1.1 Preoccupation with failure:..................................................................................3
1.2 Mindfulness:.........................................................................................................3
Conclusion:....................................................................................................................4
References:.....................................................................................................................5

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Introduction:
Deepwater Horizon oil spill is the massive industrial disaster which began on the 20
April 2010 and the location of the disaster was the Gulf of Mexico near the Mississippi River
delta on the BP operated Macondo prospect (Michel et al., 2013). This disaster considered as
the largest oil spill of marine till the date. The petroleum industry got heavily affected by the
disaster as this oil spill was 8% to 31% more than the last largest oil spill in the world. After
several failed attempts the oil well declared seal on 19 September 2010 (Michel et al., 2013).
At the time of the oil spill, the BP was drilling the well 5,000 feet below from the sea
level. The disaster happened at 9:45 P.M. CDT when the final phase of the drilling was going
on. The main cause of the oil spill was the methane gas. At the time of the digging, high
pressurized methane gas released from the well, and then it ignited for an unknown reason
and exploded. When the explosion happened, total 126 members were on the board out of
seven were the employees of the BP. The Deepwater Horizon burned for a total 36 hours and
then it sank into the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven peoples were killed by the explosion and total
4.9 million of barrels of crude oil leaked into the Gulf of Mexico (Valentine et al., 2014).
Discussion:
The BP Deepwater Horizon is one of the massive disasters in the history of the
petroleum industry. The oil extracted from the disaster flowed about 87 days, and the loss
amount for the BP was near about 62 billion of US dollars which were half of the valuation of
the organization (Montagna et al., 2013). This losses from the disaster could have been
reduced if right steps were taken at that time. These steps are explained in a very good
manner in the Terry Cooke-Davies’ book Aspects of Complexity. According to Loch and
Payne control and fast response is the one of the features which can be used in this type of
disaster management system. The authors stated that the control and the fast response is a

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typical type of approach which follows a different type of mindset rather than established
project management. The control and fast response describe the high reliability of this type of
large organization. These organisations like the BP must ensure that every critical function
must remain operative in a very complex system. In the following section, some features of
the control and fast response will be discussed which could have been used in BP Deepwater
Horizon case study.
1.1 Preoccupation with failure:
According to the Loch and Payne in the aspect of control and fast response the
preoccupation with failure describes the high reliability of the organization, which draws the
attention to the anomalies continuously that could be a massive problem for the organization
in the near future. The BP Deepwater Horizon disaster may not happen in the past if this
preoccupation with failure is followed properly. In the case of BP they were aware of that
there is an internal weakness in the structure of the Deepwater Horizon as the cement of the
pipe which was used to extract the crude oil was never dried perfectly (Mason et al., 2014).
For which the cement in the bottom never created a solid seal and the oil and gas started to
leak. To start the operation as soon as possible the BP started extracting the crude oil with
this major weakness which leads the operation to a massive disaster. In perception with
failure every small area is rectified, independent of how small the issue is. Any operation will
not start until the issue is resolved. However, the BP could have stopped the massive disaster
if they have followed the preoccupation with failure (Hollnagel, 2017).
1.2 Mindfulness:
According to the authors, the mindfulness is another aspect of the control and fast
responses. The mindfulness defines that the mind should fully be focused on what is
happening in surroundings. It is a basic ability of a human to be fully attentive and aware of
what they are doing what is happening around them (Zoogman et al., 2015). In the case of

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Deepwater Horizon, the crew was not aware of what was happening around them. They have
done various pressure tests to check whether the concrete seal was solid or not. They have
found that the concrete seal was solid enough to handle all the pressure, but actually, they
misinterpreted the tests (Simon-Friedt et al., 2016). This unawareness caused the massive
disaster in the history of the petroleum industry. As described in the theory of the
mindfulness that the individuals must aware of their respective environments, the crew
members of the Deepwater Horizon was not. Whether the concrete seal was working
perfectly or not, irrespective of that the crew member of the Deepwater Horizon failed to
detect the leakage of the oil and gas towards the surface of the water in the well (Gutierrez-
Miravete, 2013). From the recent researches it has been found that the leakage started about
an hour ago before the explosion and during this time the pressure in the well increased
massively, but still, the crew members of the Deepwater Horizon failed to detect the leakage.
The disaster could have never been happened if the crew members of the organization
responded according to the action needed at that time.
Conclusion:
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that the BP Deepwater Horizon was a
massive disaster in the petroleum industry, but it may be stopped easily if a proper
investigation happened before the operation started. This disaster affected the human and the
sea life vastly. As described in the above control and fast response if the crew members of the
Deepwater Horizon was aware then this disaster may not affect the environment this much.
From the analysis of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, other companies should take some steps
to ensure their safety in near future.

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References:
Gutierrez-Miravete, E. (2013). Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.
Hollnagel, E. (2017). The ETTO principle: efficiency-thoroughness trade-off: why things that
go right sometimes go wrong. CRC Press.
Mason, O. U., Scott, N. M., Gonzalez, A., Robbins-Pianka, A., Bælum, J., Kimbrel, J., ... &
Fortney, J. L. (2014). Metagenomics reveals sediment microbial community response
to Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The ISME journal, 8(7), 1464.
Michel, J., Owens, E. H., Zengel, S., Graham, A., Nixon, Z., Allard, T., ... & Rutherford, N.
(2013). Extent and degree of shoreline oiling: Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Gulf of
Mexico, USA. PloS one, 8(6), e65087.
Montagna, P. A., Baguley, J. G., Cooksey, C., Hartwell, I., Hyde, L. J., Hyland, J. L., ... &
Rhodes, A. C. (2013). Deep-sea benthic footprint of the Deepwater Horizon blowout.
PloS one, 8(8), e70540.
Simon-Friedt, B. R., Howard, J. L., Wilson, M. J., Gauthe, D., Bogen, D., Nguyen, D., ... &
Wickliffe, J. K. (2016). Louisiana residents’ self-reported lack of information
following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill: Effects on seafood consumption and risk
perception. Journal of environmental management, 180, 526-537.
Valentine, D. L., Fisher, G. B., Bagby, S. C., Nelson, R. K., Reddy, C. M., Sylva, S. P., &
Woo, M. A. (2014). Fallout plume of submerged oil from Deepwater
Horizon. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(45), 15906-15911.
Zoogman, S., Goldberg, S. B., Hoyt, W. T., & Miller, L. (2015). Mindfulness interventions
with youth: A meta-analysis. Mindfulness, 6(2), 290-302.