EMS5RIE: Risk Management of Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, focusing on the failures in risk management that led to the disaster. It begins with an introduction and background of the event, detailing the nature of the case and its chronology. The report then delves into a scien...Read More

Running head: RISK MANAGEMENT: DEEP WATER HORIZON OIL SPILL
Risk Management: Deep Water Horizon Oil Spill
Student Name

1RISK MANAGEMENT: DEEP WATER HORIZON OIL SPILL
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Background............................................................................................................................2
Nature of the case...................................................................................................................3
Chronology of the case...........................................................................................................4
Scientific analysis of cause/event/consequences including theories and assumptions..........4
Risk identification, modelling and analysis...........................................................................5
Proposal for improvement......................................................................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................7

2RISK MANAGEMENT: DEEP WATER HORIZON OIL SPILL
Introduction
The event regarding the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill case has been an event that is
discussed over several platforms regarding the issues that has taken place during the project.
The associated risks that the project had was not estimated right at the beginning and this is
why, the project resulted into a huge disaster. The project is identified to have unnoticed risk
occurrence possibilities that made it impossible for the project to have a successful outcome
without the occurrence of any risk situation. The explosion that occurred in the rig and the
adjoining areas was due to the occurrences of the risk. This is why, the outcome of the risk
situations in this case would be analysed to find out the background and the nature of the
case, the chronological events occurring in the case, the analysis of the cause and the
consequences of the event including the theories and the assumptions along with the analysis
of the risks with the further proposal for improvement as well.
Background
The case has identified that there has been an incident in the Deepwater Horizon that
was related to a project that mostly dealt with the offshore drilling rig that has been an
ongoing project event. The project was designed to deal with the offshore drilling rig that was
made to drill out oil from the ocean floors. It was in 2010 that the occurrence of the accident
in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred. The event that occurred during the ongoing
process was making hydrocarbons escape from the Macondo well and this further entered
into the Deepwater Horizon in the Transocean. The result of the hydrocarbon escape was a
giant explosion which also started fire on the rig. There has been a number of listed casualties
that have been identified in this case as well.
About 11 people were reported to lose their lives and at the same time there were
reports about 17 injured people at the site. The event ended with the sinking of the rig where

3RISK MANAGEMENT: DEEP WATER HORIZON OIL SPILL
the fire was fed by more and more hydrocarbon and at the same time. The spillage of
hydrocarbons continued to occur for the next 87 days, which resulted in the oil spillage such
that the resulting factor was found to be over the consideration of a disaster.
Nature of the case
The nature of the case as per the case study can easily be declared as the complex
outcome of the project that was not identified in the initial stages of the project planning
phases. There are several ways by which the associated risk could have been maintained
before the orchid by identifying the counter measures of the risk. British Petroleum could not
act as a probable organisation that could effectively plan the risks that was about to occur
before a project was even put into action. The project was complex in several faces as the risk
analysis process was not followed and therefore the associated human errors in the decision
making resulted in serious injuries and other casualties when the project ultimately failed.
Before making it obvious that the project had failed, it is much better option to consider this
outcome of the oil spill as a considerable amount of risk that could have been mitigated right
at the planning phase. However, since the risk analysis process was not followed, it became
an impending risk that operated over the oil rigs. The complex nature of the project could not
probably in sure how there would be a mitigation strategy provided to the impending risk.
Further this escalated and resulted into the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig which
caused death to several workers and injured 17 other people.
Since it was a complex situation where for the risk of human error was not analysed
well on this was responsible for not handling the data taken from the rig well. The volatile
liquids and gases were involved within the process and therefore it should have been must
specific with the data that was collected from the Deepwater Horizon. British Petroleum
failed to analyse the complexity that was in the nature of the project and did not look forward
to have a risk management plan identified write at the initial planning phases. Complexity

4RISK MANAGEMENT: DEEP WATER HORIZON OIL SPILL
within a project makes it extremely essential to have a risk management plan right at the
point of time where the project is not even started and is just at its initial stages where the
requirement and timeline and other project constraints are being planned out.
Chronology of the case
The project begin in 2010. When it was already April 20 in the same year, the
explosion and fire caused the workers to face several death reports and also reports of injuries
were found. The otherwise problematic situation contributed to to the system for taking the
decision of of marking the project is a failure and stopping any other progress about the
established project.
Scientific analysis of cause/event/consequences including theories and
assumptions
The scientific analysis of the mean cause behind the entire event includes the theories
and assumptions that need to be taken right before a project is even getting started or is even
put forward to take any action. Human error is one of the most commonly defined factor that
acts for a project as the human nature is dependent on the scenarios faced in the project. The
way by which any occurrences or event would affect a person would vary from one person to
another. The perception of looking onto a scenario from different perspectives would also be
varied. Human involvement is also included in the procedure of decision making which is
one of the most important factors of a project. One of the major factors within the project is
the decision making process that helps the project leader and the project team come forward
to build a project strategy with acceptable actions and taking care of all the changes that
occur throughout the project phases and are mostly concerned about the end product to be
provided to the end users and fulfilling the requirements of all the stakeholders involved in
the project.

5RISK MANAGEMENT: DEEP WATER HORIZON OIL SPILL
One of the major scientific aspect of this was also the inclusion of the scientific
factors of considering the Transocean and involvement of several natural gases that should
have been handled in a much more composed manner. The scientific factors working
throughout the project was not taken care of and was easily susceptible to human errors. The
project complexity has fallen victim to the general human errors and which is why the
organisation of British Petroleum could not handle the project for extracting oil from the sea
bed. The impending risk were not identified which eventually lead towards the downfall of
the entire project.
Risk identification, modelling and analysis
Identified Risk Risk Analysis Likelihood
of Risk
Consequence
of the Risk
Risk
Rating
Risk
Score
Failing in
performing the
analysis of
geological safety
for the well
The model of analysis
was not perform and
this killed the fluid
that was to be dumped
on the well and any
for the request was
also denied. this was a
concerned about the
safety of the
operational decisions
where abandoning the
well would result in
further health issues
and physical injuries.
Almost
certain
Catastrophe > 600 Very
High
Not adhering to
the post disaster
questions of
sealing the well
with the best
industry practices
The the sealing of the
well was not done
which was an ethical
decision error from
the end of the
managerial body.
Likely Disaster 300 -
599
High
Failing to adhere
to the negative
pressure tests and
still continuing
with the project
the negative pressure
test was conducted
and still there were
questionable reading
of the line games that
was misinterpreted
and temporary
Likely Disaster 300 -
599
High

6RISK MANAGEMENT: DEEP WATER HORIZON OIL SPILL
abandonment of the
well resulted into fatal
results.
Mechanical error
where the alarm
fail to activate
due to its
placement in in
an inhibited state
as a part of
managerial
administrative
decision fault
this is also a
managerial problem
where considerable
impact was not
analysed before
setting the alarm into
an inhibited state.
Almost
certain
Catastrophe > 600 Very
High
Proposal for improvement
The primary reason behind all these factors were identified to be e the basic
consideration of project complexity by the project team and the project manager involved in
the case by the organisation of British petroleum. However, it also needs to be identified that
this resulted into to a decision making problem within the entire project. Therefore, it is
easier to understand that decision making problem is a general human error that was made in
this project.
One of the major ways by which it can be improved is binary searching about a
project beforehand, even before the project has progressed. With initial researchers there
would be identification of all the impending risk that could have been avoided or can be
strategize to mitigate when they occur.
Conclusion
Therefore in conclusion it can be said that British Petroleum as an organisation had
failed to analyse the risk that was there at the point of time when the Deepwater Horizon oil
spill was taking place. The primary issue behind the oil spill and further explosion and fire
causing several casualties was found to be the assessment of impending risk management

7RISK MANAGEMENT: DEEP WATER HORIZON OIL SPILL
strategies for even the identification of the risk that could have jeopardize the entire project.
The risk has been identified with analysing the severity of risk with the likelihood,
consequences and risk ratings. This has been for the provided with a proposal for
improvement so that any problem related to this issues would not occur further for any other
similar project.

8RISK MANAGEMENT: DEEP WATER HORIZON OIL SPILL
References
Awkerman, J.A., Hemmer, B., Almario, A., Lilavois, C., Barron, M.G. and Raimondo, S.,
2016. Spatially explicit assessment of estuarine fish after Deepwater Horizon oil spill: trade‐
off in complexity and parsimony. Ecological Applications, 26(6), pp.1708-1720.
Baguley, J.G., Montagna, P.A., Cooksey, C., Hyland, J.L., Bang, H.W., Morrison, C.,
Kamikawa, A., Bennetts, P., Saiyo, G., Parsons, E. and Herdener, M., 2015. Community
response of deep-sea soft-sediment metazoan meiofauna to the Deepwater Horizon blowout
and oil spill. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 528, pp.127-140.
Balmer, J.E., Ylitalo, G.M., Rowles, T.K., Mullin, K.D., Wells, R.S., Townsend, F.I., Pearce,
R.W., Bolton, J.L., Zolman, E.S., Balmer, B.C. and Schwacke, L.H., 2018. Persistent organic
pollutants (POPs) in blood and blubber of common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus)
at three northern Gulf of Mexico sites following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Science of
the Total Environment, 621, pp.130-137.
Bock, M., Robinson, H., Wenning, R., French-McCay, D., Rowe, J. and Walker, A.H., 2018.
Comparative risk assessment of oil spill response options for a deepwater oil well blowout:
Part II. Relative risk methodology. Marine pollution bulletin, 133, pp.984-1000.
Fingas, M., 2016. Oil spill science and technology. Gulf professional publishing.
Grattan, L.M., Brumback, B., Roberts, S.M., Buckingham-Howes, S., Toben, A.C. and
Morris, G., 2017. “Bouncing back” after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Disaster
Prevention and Management: An International Journal, 26(2), pp.122-133.
Mills, R.W. and Koliba, C.J., 2015. The challenge of accountability in complex regulatory
networks: The case of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Regulation & Governance, 9(1),
pp.77-91.

9RISK MANAGEMENT: DEEP WATER HORIZON OIL SPILL
Nance, E., King, D., Wright, B. and Bullard, R.D., 2016. Ambient air concentrations
exceeded health-based standards for fine particulate matter and benzene during the
Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, 66(2),
pp.224-236.
Nelson, J.R. and Grubesic, T.H., 2018. Oil spill modeling: Risk, spatial vulnerability, and
impact assessment. Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment, 42(1), pp.112-
127.
Pranesh, V., Palanichamy, K., Saidat, O. and Peter, N., 2017. Lack of dynamic leadership
skills and human failure contribution analysis to manage risk in deep water horizon oil
platform. Safety science, 92, pp.85-93.
Ritchie, L.A., Gill, D.A. and Long, M.A., 2018. Mitigating litigating: An examination of
psychosocial impacts of compensation processes associated with the 2010 BP Deepwater
Horizon oil spill. Risk Analysis, 38(8), pp.1656-1671.
Walker, A.H., Scholz, D., McPeek, M., French-McCay, D., Rowe, J., Bock, M., Robinson, H.
and Wenning, R., 2018. Comparative risk assessment of spill response options for a
deepwater oil well blowout: Part III. Stakeholder engagement. Marine pollution bulletin, 133,
pp.970-983.