August 10, 2010 by offshoreenergy
We have heard plenty about Macondo’s real, imagined, and convenient villains, but very little about the heroes. Let’s pay tribute to them:
- First and foremost the eleven men who lost their lives exploring for energy for our economy and security. Sadly, were it not for the massive spill, their sacrifice would have received little public attention.
- The rescue crews who brought the other 115 workers safely to shore.
- The responders who worked under difficult conditions to minimize the environmental effects of the spilled oil.
- The relief well crews who demonstrated how complex drilling operations should be conducted.
- The ROV and well intervention teams. The performance of the ROVs and subsea tools is perhaps the biggest Macondo success story. Their pioneering work will be studied in developing the well intervention, capping, and collection plans that will be a part of future drilling programs.
- The people of Louisiana, who despite their personal adversity continue to believe that energy, fishing, and other offshore interests can and must co-exist.
- The MMS oil spill research program. In the lean years following the Valdez oil spill research surge, MMS continued to conduct important burning, dispersant, remote sensing, and mechanical cleanup studies, while upgrading and expanding the use of the nation’s major oil spill response test facility – Ohmsett.
- The Unified Command scientists who are providing comprehensive scientific data about the effects of the spill, and refuse to be swayed by sensational media reports.
- Oil consuming bacteria!
- Others?
Posted in accidents, well control incidents | Tagged accidents, blowouts, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana, macondo, offshore oil, ohmsett, oil spill, relief well, safety, well control | 3 Comments »
August 10, 2010 by offshoreenergy
Jet Blue Flight Attendant Steven Slater
What if Steven Slater worked for Tiger Mike? It wouldn’t last very long, but it would be very entertaining while it did.
Click here if you still haven’t heard the Steven Slater story.
The 5 Best Things About Flight Attendant Steven Slater’s Freakout
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged jet blue, steven slater, Tiger Mike | 2 Comments »
August 9, 2010 by offshoreenergy
My former colleague Clarence Kershaw, a retired USGS/MMS inspector and a very knowledgeable offshore oil and gas guy, has run into some Tiger Mikes in his career. Clarence has shared some thoughts on the subject:
I liked your comments on “More Mike Talk”. I personally think organizations (Military, Government and civilian) are too obsessed with superior/ underling relationships. It is acceptable for “Mike” types in a superior/owner position to issue instructions-orders-regulations to lower echelon personnel, but is is not always accepted (or sometimes allowed) for lower echelon personnel to “correct” or point out even possible errors made by superiors.
There are a lot of lower echelon personnel who have made an attempt to correct a mistake by a superior and then been rebuffed. After that they tend to accept errors and say “It’s not my job, man.” I’ve seen engineers get indignant when something they approved in error was pointed out by an inspector or secretary. I knew one District Supervisor who did not like to have his writing corrected by an excellent secretary. She would end up bringing it to me to point out to him, because he would not accept it from her. He didn’t always accept it from me either.
My point is if you had a “Tiger Mike” type running the rig just prior to the blowout, it wouldn’t make any difference to him how unstable the well was if he had already made up his mind to continue operations.
No, I don’t know the answer. One person has to be in charge, but each individual must have over-riding “stop work” authority to assure safety!!! The problem is magnified if a disagreement occurs and management consistently backs up the one in charge.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged accidents, macondo, management, Tiger Mike, well control | Leave a Comment »
August 8, 2010 by offshoreenergy
A newspaper says it has obtained an internal audit conducted by BP PLC on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that details severe safety flaws months before the Gulf of Mexico spill.
link
Comment: Was this a planned leak? If so, how does this strengthen BP’s legal position? The DWH had deficiencies (bad for Transoocean), but BP knew about the deficiencies and didn’t ensure that they were corrected (worse for BP?). As indicated by the poster below (More “Mike Talk”), the poor working relationship between the operator and contractor may have been the real core problem.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged blowouts, bp, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, offshore oil, oil spill, safety, transocean, well control | Leave a Comment »
August 8, 2010 by offshoreenergy
From a poster who has requested anonymity (for background about this topic, see the 2 preceding posts):
There has been a lot of hard work done to update Mike and bring him into the modern world. I too have had experiences with “Mike” and at a minimum they are distracting and most cases unsafe. Mike and those like him are bullies, plain and simple. They may have technical skills, however their people skills are lacking. Mike doesn’t only work for Operators. I don’t think there is an appreciation of the complex people relationships that are laid over the technical issues and inevitably there are culture clashes. It appears that regardless of Transocean and the Deepwater Horizon having worked for BP, the relationships between senior BP and TO personnel was extremely disfunctional. As someone with multiple decades of experience, I was amazed that what I believed were top flight organizations appear to have not progressed out of the stone age. I’m not sure what the solution is here. The competance of all individuals expecially those in senior positions is very important, however the skill set must include more than technical competance alone. Significant time and money are spent in well control schools, but when the people involved can’t communicate, all such training doesn’t realize much benefit. It may be trite, but there needs to be a TEAM. I thought the major players had that concept in their management schemes but the recent history, at least for this incident, does not appear to indicate this. It appears there is another big task to add to the long list of items needing attention to prevent another such occurance like Macando … and Montara.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged accidents, macondo, management, Montara, safety, Tiger Mike, well control | 1 Comment »
August 8, 2010 by offshoreenergy
Hart E&P shares reader feedback about the infamous Tiger Mike. (also, see our precious post)
Meanwhile BOE Senior VP Odd Finnestad recalls experiences with Mike-like characters offshore Norway:
For some reason I think there were many – and still are some – Tiger Mikes around in the business. I know they were here in Norway when our first field, the Ekofisk, was discovered by the “Ocean Viking” and later developed the field way back in the sixties. And when you would be sacked simply for having been clumsy enough to have had your fingers crushed by the makeup or breakout tongs. The comment of the ODECO supervisor would then probably be: “Five minutes for a smoke. Then you come back or you f…. jump on the first f…. helicopter!” He might even have added: “And, if you do, I don’t want to see your f…. face again!” well knowing that it was not really necessary for him to elaborate on the fate of the poor Norwegian roustabout that had just signed on for the good money!
You do not find so many of these supervisors in the offshore NCS today. But I think I can still see some – busily harassing employees in other types of oil and gas related organisations.
The Tiger Mikes of today are much more subtle. While they may say the right things (at least officially), their actions and offhand comments send other signals. They insist on making every decision, create an atmosphere where employees are afraid to raise safety concerns, and ignore warning signs that might delay operations and increase costs.
When things go wrong, the temptation for both operators and regulators is to be more like Tiger Mike – more memos, more prescription, and more approvals. While this approach may address certain technical or operational details that contributed to a specific accident, it does not address the fundamental leadership, organizational, and cultural shortcomings that must be corrected to improve operational performance and reduce safety and environmental risks.
Great organizations stimulate and harness employee energy and ingenuity such that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Similarly, great regulations foster organizational excellence on the part of both the regulated community and the regulator.
Don’t be like Mike!
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged accidents, management, Norway, Odd Finnestad, safety, Tiger Mike | Leave a Comment »
August 7, 2010 by offshoreenergy
Tiger's visionary health and safety policy.
Throw away your text books and ignore everything you learned in supervisory training classes. Instead, study the wisdom of Tiger Mike, an oil baron and a visionary management guru. In addition to his leadership genius, Tiger Mike (LSU grad?) was a brilliant wildcatter who drilled 49 consecutive dry holes (industry record?) and a snappy dresser (“Tiger Mike’s wardrobe consisted of only one-piece khaki polyester leisure suits with white shoes and white belt.”) Truly inspiring!
I saw paper copies of these memos in the pre-internet days, and am pleased to see that they are now posted on the web, so that everyone can benefit from Mike’s wisdom 🙂
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
August 6, 2010 by offshoreenergy
G’Day Australia. There are now only 2 weeks until the Federal election. Ironically, the election, which may have delayed the release of the Montara Inquiry report, will be held on the first anniversary of that blowout.
This report will play an important role in keeping our workers safe, protecting our environment and safeguarding our energy security. Minister Martin Ferguson
BOE fully agrees with Minister Ferguson’s statement about the importance of the Montara Inquiry report and hopes that he or his successor promptly releases the report after the election. The lessons learned at Montara will not only prevent accidents in Australia, but elsewhere in the world. In light of the disturbing similarities between the two blowouts, it is possible that closer international attention to Montara might even have prevented the Macondo blowout.
Posted in accidents, well control incidents | Tagged Australia, blowouts, macondo, Montara, offshore oil, safety, well control | Leave a Comment »
August 6, 2010 by offshoreenergy
- Now that the Unified Command has had a couple of days to review the static kill data (which were certainly considered in planning the cementing operation that was concluded yesterday), please provide an update on the latest thinking with regard to the well’s flow path.
- Please post a cross section schematic (best estimate) of the well after the completion of yesterday’s cementing operation.
Posted in accidents, well control incidents | Tagged accidents, blowouts, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, offshore oil, oil spill, relief well, safety, well control | Leave a Comment »
August 5, 2010 by offshoreenergy
I have stated over and over again, let me be perfectly clear. I am the National Incident Commander. I issue the orders. This will not be done until we complete the bottom kill. Admiral Allen, 5 August 2010
Al "I'm in charge here" Haig
Just kidding Admiral Allen 🙂
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
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