REASONS OF FAILURE OF BRITISH OIL SPILL

^{REASONS OF FAILURE OF BRITISH OIL SPILL}

(BP oil spill blamed on management and communication failures )

British oil spill was huge explosion occurred in the history and it is also called as Deepwater Horizon spill or Gulf of Mexico oil spill. It was an unescapable incident occurred due to sequence of downsizing decisions made by British petroleum plus its partners. There are number of reasons of failure of British oil spill. Few main are stated below:

• UNAWARE OF SPOTTING LEAKAGE EARLIER:

                                 One of the main reason behind failure of British oil spill is failure of employees in identifying primary signal of explosion. Moreover they also failed in identifying control over pressure of well as it was increasing steadily due to rising flow of gas plus oil approaching the plane. It was similar to blast of rig happened just fifty minutes earlier then this incident but it was considered as minor fault rather than a leakage.

• DEFEECTIVE CEMENT:

Defective composition of cement which is full of flows is also one of the reason behind this failure. Since this cement was utilized for sealing the well but due to defective composition it had not sealed the well properly as a result oil plus gas came out of it in pipeline approaching the plane. Thus defective formation of cement results in failure of creating seal resulting in leakage. In this case the major error conducted by British oil spill was failure in exercising appropriate attentiveness while utilizing cement to seal the well’s lowermost part.

• FAILURE IN INTERPRETING PRESSURE TESTS:

Another reason causing this failure was failure in interpreting tests of pressure. Though employees had conducted number of tests for determining proper pressure plus for ensuring proper seal around the well but then also they failed to interpret it properly resulting in explosion over British oil spill.

• FAILURE OF BATTERY BACKUP ARRANGEMENTS:

This failure of British oil spill caused destructions within line of control and one of the reason behind this is failure of battery backup arrangements plus failure of safety mechanism i.e. blowout preventer. The workers tried to took safety measures by closing blowout preventer’s safety valves however they failed to do so because this blowout preventer was composed in such a way that it could restrict the pathways of passing oil and for this it consists of 2 different procedures that close safety valves robotically in case of losing connection with plane and these both procedures consists of batteries but former was having flat structure of battery while later was having flawed button. As a result of having no battery backup system blowout preventer did not worked and failed in closing these channels resulting in explosion. According to investigation of forensic report this blowout preventer did not worked because its pipelines were twisted due to pressure of increased gas plus crude oil and according to report analysis of US this blowout preventer turned to be defective due to puncturing of pipelines and this happened due to early activation of blind shear rams- the huge blades inside blowout preventer.

• FAILURE OF VALVE 1 AND VALVE 2:

                     The two valves which were composed for stoppage of gas plus oil motion was failed, as a result permitting the gas plus oil to pass from pipelines approaching plane. Moreover eight minutes earlier the blast, the mud-gas mixture also initiated to pour on top of the rig’s base for which workers tend to shut safety valves of blowout preventer that was formed upon base of ocean and upon the topmost part of borehole of well which did not functioned appropriately resulting in failure of two valves and causing explosion.

• FAILURE OF GAS ALARM:

     Gas alarm failure is also the reason behind explosion as these are for informing about alarming situations and failure of this causes such explosions. Basically, Gas detecting technique was available in the rig inside which gas alarm system is formed which activates on or before arising of alarming situation as a warning and when this alarm activates, it automatically shut the ventilation fans for example the engine of rig for preventing the gas from reaching to potential causing explosion but this system was also failed due to technical defects causing failure of British oil spill.

• OVERWHELMED MUD-GAS SEPARATOR:

Overwhelmed mud and gas separator was also reason behind this failure because employees were having choice of distracting away the mud plus gas approaching towards the rig and making it able to pass by channels unharmed over the horizontal but despite of distracting this motion away from rig it was turned towards the rig and this device was basically composed for separating little gas quantity out of mud flow thus the separator of mud-gas was overwhelmed hurriedly resulting the igneous gas to cause huge explosion.

Other reasons behind this failure includes bad, insufficient and ineffective management and collapse of communication and mistakes of industry as if management was stronger and looking after its workforce activities properly then this failure might have never caused but due to lack of stronger communication between management and employees and due to bad management and industrial errors this incident occurred. Industrial errors includes providing insufficient and ineffective material resources resulting in formation of bad and defective structures, making improper frameworks plus plans and not using appropriate caution while doing their job. In conclusion there was several reasons existed behind this explosion causing failure of British oil spill.

Thus to conclude, it was an unexpected and horrible incident. If these mechanisms were carried out properly along with efficient management then this incident might have never occurred.