Kent Well’s response to a reporter’s question and Colin Leach’s comment on BOE seem to give credence to our suspicion that the flow path for the Macondo well was inside the production casing! If true, this is enormously significant for the following reasons:
- The root cause of Macondo is eerily similar to that at Montara in that oil and gas entered the well via compromised cement in the casing shoe and a failed float. Did the BP engineers and TO crew even know about Montara? This shows why accident information must be promptly circulated and brought to the attention of key personnel everywhere in the world. It also demonstrates why the Montara report needs to be released without further delay.
- Presumed contributing factors that would be irrelevant or less significant: the long string vs. liner/tieback decision, and the failure to run a Cement Bond Log, additional centralizers, or a lockdown sleeve on the casing seal.
- Contributing factors that would have even greater importance: selection of the casing point (integrity at the base of the well), waiting on cement time, timing of the positive and negative pressure tests (this is a topic that warrants much more scrutiny and discussion), and failure to set a cement plug before displacing the mud with sea water.
