Expert: BP drilled well despite early problems
Testimony focuses on what company did before rig blast
NEW ORLEANS — BP PLC took chances drilling its doomed Macondo well long before it ruptured in 2010, a well design and pressure expert said Wednesday in the second day of testimony in the civil trial over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Alan Huffman, chief technology officer for Fusion Petroleum Technologies Inc., said BP forged ahead with the well in 2009 outside the margin deemed safe by the industry and regulators.
He said there was a “kick” in the well during one of many intervals in drilling, which indicates pressure was unstable and there could be a rupture or other problem. Rather than stop drilling, the company went ahead with another interval.
“It is truly egregious to drill that extra 100 feet knowing you could lose the well in the process,” Huffman said.
Testifying on behalf of the Justice Department, Gulf Coast states affected by the spill and plaintiffs suing BP and its partners, Huffman said the well was “dangerous andfragile” and “they should not have drilled ahead at all.”
In the first phase of the trial, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier will seek to allocate blame among well owner BP, driller Transocean Ltd., cement services provider Halliburton Co. and others, unless a settlement cuts the trial short.
The April 2010 blowout caused an explosion that killed 11 men and sent more than 4 million barrels of crude spewing into the Gulf.
Huffman, a geophysicist
Boat accident causes small spill
A small boat collided with an inactive oil and gas well about 50 miles south of New Orleans on Tuesday night, causing a small oil spill, the U.S. Coast Guard and the operator of the well said Wednesday.
The accident occurred about 7 p.m. local time Tuesday, when a 42-foot offshore oil service boat, the Sea Raider, struck a wellhead owned by Swift Energy Co. in inland water off Plaquemines Parish. who analyzed BP documentation of the well’s condition, said BP should have sought permission from regulators before drilling without a safe “drilling margin” — referring to the required minimum weight of the drilling fluid compared with the rock the drill was penetrating.
He told Transocean attorney Kerry Miller that a safe drilling margin was the “first line of defense” against a blowout for the operator, which in this case was BP.
“It is the responsibility of the operator to determine those parameters and tell the drilling people what to do,” Huffman said.
On cross-examination, BP lawyer Matt Regan Dead fish float in oil near Port Sulphur, La., two months after the April 20, 2010, rig explosion and spill in the Gulf. challenged Huffman’s expertise, noting that he was not a regulator.
“You have never been to an offshore rig that’s operating in your life?” Regan asked, to which Huffman replied: “That’s true.”
Huffman said he was unaware of any documented violations of drilling regulations on the Macondo operation. He said he analyzed that operation at the Justice Department’s request to weigh in on how the well was drilled and how it applied to regulations.
After more back and forth ondrilling regulations and margin, the judge interjected, seemingly to clarify Huffman’s point. “Is this a weakest-link issue?” Barbier asked.
“That is the practice I’ve seen industrywide, your honor,” Huffman answered.
Earlier Wednesday, plaintiffs played an excerpt of a recorded deposition of Kevin Lacy, former senior vice president of Gulf drilling operations for BP, who resigned from the company a few months before the spill because of what he said were concerns about BP’s safety practices.
He testified that he was under pressure from top BP management to shave hundreds of millions of dollars in costs and got bonuses for doing so.