Worst Case Scenario Plan.......

So.... is this "doomsday"?

I would say this is a worst case scenario in regards to oil flowing freely......

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No doomsday depends on what kind of new regs the govement passes. Which could very well cause some doom.

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Hopefully it isn't too bad........I worry about this as well.

I have never worked offshore. So did anyone ever think this could happen? If it was never thought of as the doomsday event no one is ever going to plan for it. I mean in hindsight it looks really dumb obviously.

i would say that i was always aware that this could happen - in the same way that i am aware that a plane may crash every time i get on it, but i feel it is so remote that i'm not paralyzed w/ fear. however, i never thought i would see it. i thought that as an industry, we had reached a level of sophistication and reliability in our well designs, equipment design, equipment reliability, and experience that this would not happen -- specifically that it would not happen in the US GOM w/ a big operator like BP, and quality contractor like Transocean, and a state of the art rig like the Horizon.

The worst case scenario up until now has always been hitting the emergency disconnect button. and as an industry, this has been done successfully many, many times due to emergency situations ranging from fire to extreme weather (especially in the north sea). obviously, everything changes after this incident.

there's 2 separate issues that i'm sure the upcoming reg changes will address:
1) why did they take this enormous influx
2) why did the BOP's fail to shut in the well

until the final analysis is conducted, we really can't know how the regs will change.

one thing to keep in mind is that all the major operators in the gulf of mexico pay the Marine Spill Response Center a large, annual fee to stay on hot standby to deal w/ spills. i'm sure this event will change the entire spill response philosophy -- from the amount of equipment needed at the ready, to trying to better engineer a more permanent solutions to the top hat or containment dome ideas.

additionally, i could see a regulation where a plan for a relief well has to be submitted along w/ the permit to drill the exploration well.

TJG

as a person who was responsible for planning in my employment

you have to look at the specifics of a situation.

there is no one doomsday event. There are a nearly infinite number of doomsday events.

So, it becomes expedient to deal with some but not all scenarios.

You may create a matrix or grid, and consider the implications of many.

no one considers all possible outcomes to the degree that they have a 'plan' for all possible outcomes. There is no time or money for all that.

In any discipline, there become the usual and ordinary requirements, things you better take into account.

this mess was not created by weird unusual problems.
This mess was caused by ignoring readouts and silly blunders.

I wouldnt be surprised to see them make all the safety test be done with a third party.

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just saying "the negative test failed, so this happened" is an oversimplification.

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this is no place for objectivity.

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I work in the industry, but can't understand how a plan for a doomsday scenario was never mapped out. You would think that this would have been thought of before now. Even more bizarre when you think about it, it's one thing that BP didn't have a doomsday plan mapped out, but apparently none of the other majors/independents did either (or I assume they would have given BP a heads up on how to fix the problem).

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Hubris.

A ton of new regs or a attempt at a gov takeover would be alot worse. Yes we need to put things in place once we know exactly what happened but you can bet they will use this to push an agenda.