Report Fails to Identify Critical Failures on BP Blowout

Oilfield Operations specialist identifies factors leading to BP spill and claims Commission report is inaccurate and misleading

NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 11, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- President Obama's National Oil Spill Commission released a chapter of its report last week drawing concerns from multiple voices on the issue due to the controversial nature of its findings. While the chapter argues the causes of the Macondo oil spill were due to oversights, and outright mistakes from a management perspective on the part of BP, Halliburton and Transocean, the report also unjustly blames systemic failures and weaknesses on the part of the petroleum industry as a whole.

"It is clear that mistakes were made in the final stages of the Macondo well," said oilfield operations specialist and three-decade industry veteran Phil Rae. "More than 14,000 deepwater wells have been successfully drilled across the world, underlining the rigorous industry standards which made that success possible. Unfortunately, this report perpetuates various inaccurate assumptions and erroneous conclusions regarding how the Macondo blowout was initiated and, as such, will not help protect against similar events in future."

In a recent report by Mr. Rae, "Genesis of the Deepwater Horizon Blowout," he discusses the key factors that determined the evolution of the BP well catastrophe. He identifies numerous rig problems and crucial steps that confused the crew and caused misinterpretation of a critical test of well integrity. A simple phone call to check those results would almost certainly have avoided catastrophe.

"Anomalies and pressure related problems happen every day in oilfield operations but they don't result in disaster. Numerous factors conspired that day aboard the Deepwater Horizon and caused the problems that ultimately led to the blowout, with both human error and mechanical failure playing a part," said Rae. "Better training and tighter supervision of critical operations are the means to address such challenges, not new government regulations. Broad conclusions about the industry as a whole cannot and should not be drawn from this one event."

A native of Aberdeen and a graduate of Aberdeen University, Phil Rae has been involved in the oil industry for more than 30 years, the majority of which have been with major international service companies.  He has wide-ranging theoretical and practical knowledge of oilfield operations, as well as specialist knowledge in the disciplines of cementing, acidising and fracturing. In addition to authoring more than 25 SPE papers, Phil has also written numerous technical papers and articles for various oil and gas industry publications. He has been involved in the development of several key completion and stimulation technologies and holds several patents in these areas.

Phil has been a participant and served as a committee member on several SPE Forums, Advanced Technology Workshops and Technical Conferences. He was co-chairman of an ATW in 1999, and serves on the SPE Forum Series Implementation Committee – Western Hemisphere. Phil is also on the Drilling & Completions Award Committee and has been a technical editor of the SPE Drilling and Completions Journal for many years.

SOURCE Phil Rae