For an oil industry executive and former drilling supervisor, Bob Cavnar can be pretty tough on his colleagues.
In his new book about the Deepwater Horizon accident, Disaster on the Horizon: High Stakes, High Risks, and the Story Behind the Deepwater Well Blowout,” he lays blame for the tragedy at the feet of not just BP and Transocean, but an attitude of complacency that he says grips all of the industry.
He digs into the details of the accident and response, hits on the history of BP, deep-water drilling and government regulation. He names names, and few come out of his analysis looking good.
Known to many as the founder of local news and views blog site The Daily Hurricane, Cavnar just took over as CEO of Luca Technologies, a Golden, Colo.-based firm that is developing technology for enhanced oil and gas production.
Cavnar took a few minutes between the new job and starting his book promotion tour to talk to me. Below are some excerpts:
In a nutshell, why do you think the accident happened?
I believe this whole incident was preventable and was really the fault of human error. The people on the rig failed to listen to the well as it became more and more dangerous.
Obviously there were design flaws. BP will take issue and say the design was fine, but I believe the well design is flawed because it had one less downhole barrier.
I quote [former Boots & Coots well control expert] Larry Flak, who says the best way to control a deepwater blowout is to not have one, because they’re so hard to control once you get gas above the BOP.
I don’t think it was necessarily one person’s fault. It was like in airplane accident where it takes at least three things to go wrong for there to be an accident, except in this case there were a whole lot more.
You don’t lay all the blame on BP, though. You put in on the Transocean rig crew as well.
[The late Transocean rig worker] Jason Anderson was doing his best but he was put in an untenable position, trying to finish a well that was not safe.
Transocean bears the responsibility for modifications to the BOP [he details those shortcomings quite well]. But on the decision to use the nitrified cement, to not circulate the well completely bottoms-up and to displace the riser with seawater before the cement job was complete: That was BP’s decision.
So you don’t believe BP’s version of events from the Bly Report, that the blowout came through the center of the well and not the annulus?
It seems real tortured to me that it came down from a production zone, up through the cement, and through two float valves. The more natural path is up the back side.
Why do you think the people on board made so many mistakes?
They were anxious to get off the well and had to move on to plug another well. They were under pressure from Houston. They were trying to rationalize their decisions that way. That doesn’t acquit [BP company men Don] Vidrine or [Robert] Kaluza. They were 20-, 30-year guys too.
But because the company VIPs were on the rig they were distracted and you had a short change of tour [a new shift came on several hours earlier as part of change in schedule] just when they started the tests. So you had a new tool pusher, driller, assistant driller.
Money and cutting costs came into consideration with well design in Houston, but not necessarily with the guys on the rig. I think they were desperate to get off that well, and were more likely to shave corners to save times. Displacing the riser early was them trying to combine steps and I think it blinded them to what the well was telling them.
The book includes details about a number of other close calls in the offshore drilling business that I think many of us haven’t heard about before. Why did you include that?
We think we’re on top of all this stuff, but the margin of error is razor thin.
One of the things I write about is because we’ve been so successful and done such marvelous things offshore in extreme conditions, we tend to get over confident and complacent.
You have a chapter about what you call the BP-government merger. Explain that.
Sometime about August, Admiral Thad Allen was asked where the idea came from for the static kill and well integrity test, and he said something like he wasn’t sure, that they all worked to closely together it could have come up around the coffee pot.
So what I did was I backed up and started listening to the rhetoric from the administration in early May. The language from [Rep. Ed] Markey, [Sec. of the Interior Ken] Salazar and President Obama got sharper and sharper until June 16, when BP came to the White House and agreed to the $20 billion escrow fund.
Instantly the rhetoric changed and softened. There were a couple of times where there was clear disagreement over some issues, but it became very much one message, with BP stepping back to the background.
Do you think the government was colluding with BP to downplay the size of the spill early on with what are now clearly ridiculously low flow estimates?
I think the government was operating on very poor information. Just after the rig sank, BP told the Coast Guard the oil had stopped flowing, but at the very moment Admiral Landry was on TV saying that BP had ROVs on the bottom of the ocean trying desperately to get the BOP shut.
Do you think the government lied about how much oil was left in the Gulf once the well was shut in?
I think NOAA did obfuscate the information. They wanted that New York Times headline that said “most of the oil is gone” and they got it, although if you ready the report itself it didn’t really say that.
You’re an industry insider but you’re tough on the industry in the book. Was it the Deepwater Horizon incident that led to this view?
It was a couple of things over the years. I’ve been in the business for 30 years. Early on in my career I was injured in a pit fire. I’ve had crewmen injured or killed.
Also in my early days I watched oil and gas operators taking fresh water reservoirs and pumping them into waterfloods and open pits. So I started to get a view on how the industry should operate more responsibly. As I’ve risen in the ranks over the years I’ve tried to act on that.
The oil and gas industry is its own worst enemy. We tend to treat the public as ignorant and think PR and “public education” campaigns are sufficient, when in fact we have lobbyists full-time fighting everything that makes the industry safer or cleaner.
I don’t think the people in the industry are bad people, but we set up an environment of opposition. We need to turn down the volume a bit. It’s easy to see why people call us “Big Oil:” because we act like it.
Any website that cites Bob Cavnar as a source loses all credibility. Bob Cavnar is a whacko.
Cavnar is not a petroleum engineer and thus is not qualified in this arena. 99+% of what has been published on this subject has come from similarly, or less, informed people.
Agree with houtexanfan. Bob is a finance guy. He worked his way up in the patch through acquisitions not in the field. He’s a landman! Not a finder and definately not a driller! The only oil/gas he ever found was in the board room. . His real (and possibly only) skill is off balance sheet financing. He belongs to the Enron school.
I certainly don’t personally know Mr. Cavnar, but many of your comments are coming from people that know absolutely nothing about the subject of offshore drilling. Mostly B/S!Mr. Cavnar is probably “right-on” with at least two conclusions: 1.)human error, and 2.)attitude of complacency!If I were going to add to his conclusions, I would certainly include lack of education and training of personnel.
Maybe you can lock Loren Steffy and Bob Cavnar in a room together, and between the two of them they can figure out how we harness unicorn farts to power our economy on clean energy. That would have more credibility than this tripe.
“Insiders” know Bob, but he is not one of them. Bob is still trying to figure out how to close the V-door. Until Macondo, Bob thought Float Equipment belonged in a parade.
Jim Evans,
You make an assumption about others which may or may not be true (in my case you are very wrong). We do not make assumptions about Bob.
Mr. Cavnar may be right about some things, but he quickly dismisses a key finding of the Bly report w/o analysis. Just that the central path “seems tortured”. Maybe he explains better in his book. Rejecting that central finding, despite specific readings during the pressure test (the rate of increase indicating the total size of the vessel [pipe] being pressured up, and the specific pressures reached) and despite the fact that the annulus was found to be dry…doesn’t sound very analytical to me. Does he believe that their pressure test data was doctored? And/or that Mr. Wright’s team was mistaken about the annulus being dry?
Despite his working in this field for so many years, several people are claiming to able to attest to his lack of knowledge. Not sure what kind of intimate knowledge you have about Mr. Cavnar to be able to speak so surely about him.
Are you saying that someone could not have knowledge about a subject unless they work in that field? No one can gleen information by conversations with those in the know, by reading studies and articles written by someone with expertise? What is the point of education if learning and studying something nets you nothing?
The one sure thing that can be gleaned from the comments here is that people who disagree with Bob’s politics are ready to disagree with anything else he talks about.
Cavnar blogs/writes for the Huffington Post…just sayin’
Houstontexan wrote: “What is the point of education if learning and studying something nets you nothing?”
.
You are right about many subjects, but oil and gas drilling cannot be learned by reading about it in a book. Never. It takes years of heavy field experience.
aAnswers to HoustonTExan:
Q1. Are you saying that someone could not have knowledge about a subject unless they work in that field? A1: A person can have knowledge, but someone in the field with experience is better informed and (all things equal) will make a better decision.
Q2. No one can gleen information by conversations with those in the know, by reading studies and articles written by someone with expertise? A2: No, they cannot. You can learn the vocabulary and memorize the lines, but that is far from knowledge. By the way, this is exactly what congressmen do. The know jack — about the subject and haven’t seen a mathbook since high school, but they talk like drilling engineers.
Q3: What is the point of education if learning and studying something nets you nothing? A3: All knowledge is not the same. Doctors do not know the law any more than lawyers know engineering. If you want to be an expert in engineering, go to college, major in engineering, and get an engineering degree. Then work for about 30 years in the engineering profession.
Bob is right about the lobbyists and some of you just make flip remarks because you do not agree with his politics, without considering the full implication. The American people tend to forget that politics in this country is not run by the people, of the people, or for the people. It is run by the money men, Oil being a major player, who has an army of plebs in Washington doing its bidding. You only have to look at the Bush and Ben Laden clans to see how tight they are when it comes to making money, nothing dividing them, even the threat of one of them committing an act of terror on our soil. The thing I find incredible is even during the Gulf disaster, when the environment, people’s livelihood, way of life and some of the most beautiful coast line in the country was devastated, still the cry drill, drill, drill was heard, not just from the money men, but from the ordinary Joe on the street, it would seem the lobbyists have even got to some of us, without us even knowing and we are not trying to raise money for re-election.
Gage.Creed wrote: “…people who disagree with Bob’s politics are ready to disagree with anything else he talks about.”
***************
President Reagan said it best:
“The problem with liberals isn’t that they know so much. It’s just that they know so much that is not true.”
Bob has an agenda. If the evidence does not support his agenda, then that evidence simply does not exist.
Houstantexan wrote: “Are you saying that someone could not have knowledge about a subject unless they work in that field? No one can gleen information by conversations with those in the know, by reading studies and articles written by someone with expertise?”
*******************
Not at all. However, reading and studying does not qualify one to offer a half hearted analysis of an idustry, as cover for a proffering a political agenda. I will be curious how many references Mr. Cavnar cites that hold technical merit or technical positions within API, SPE, or the IADC.
http://www.api.org/Standards/
To date in his Huffpo blogs, rather than reference actual technical material in his “analysis,” Cavnar prefers to demonize BP and “Big Oil” as a scourge. He paints the entire industry as interested in only raping the land and people in search of profit; scheming with ‘Bush’ to constantly weaken regulation to plunder and pillage without any governance.
Any reasonable person, especially those even remotely familiar with the industry, know this is simply not true….Or maybe a better way to say that is most reasonable people will realize this is not ALL the truth.
A few months ago I was at a luncheon of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the guest speaker was a professor from Rice or UH that works in the Oil Industry and he said alot of the same things. It was not an accident, when there were so many shortcuts taken and indicators of a problem before the explosion.
But lets go ahead and blame the present administration anyway.
Look what I found -
“Robert L. Cavnar is a 30 plus year veteran of the oil and gas industry with deep experience in operations, start-ups, turn-arounds, and management of both public and private companies.”
“He oversaw the expansion of the company’s operations, onshore and offshore, managing over 300 field personnel.”
“He began his career on drilling rigs and in pipeline operations, working 10 years in the field supervising well cementing and stimulation operations, managing multiple-rig drilling and workover programs, as well as managing construction of gas gathering and processing facilities. He was certified by the USGS/MMS in well control and blowout prevention almost 30 years ago.”
It seems that all you Bob haters don’t know what you’re talking about, or are just lying about him because you disagree with his politics.
http://dailyhurricane.com/bobs-biography-june-2010/
I don’t care if Bob is a liberal, conservative,fascist, socialist, communist or anything else relating to his politic beliefs. My comments are only directed to his lack of expertice in an area he professes to be an expert. He is an opportunist that is pushing a book on a subject that easily raises the ire on all sides.
I’m just glad we exported Bob Cavnar to Colorado. The State is now a better place…
As an associate of Mr. Cavnar, I can dispute the statements thrown around here. Bob has been working in the industry for over 30 years. His start in the industry was in the field, not in a finance office, or on a board of directors. His ability to out-work, out-think, and out-manage everyone else led him to advance his education and rise to the top. Disagree with his politics- fine. But it’s petty and immature to question his obvious credibility on this industry.
Having worked on offshore rigs for 9 years I know that what he says is spot on. But isn’t it a lot better letting Faux News explain it all for us and blame Obama? I particularly like to hear from those who have never been near on offshore rig but are quick to attack.
I’d like to congratulate Bob on his new book, …..and…. I can’t wait to read it! :)
I have worked in the oilfield industry and have been in that environment all my life, and all the accidents I’ve heard about or been around have been preventable and caused by human error.
I know how many safety requirements there are in place and how not following one small detail can have dire consequences, let alone, three or four.
I would have to agree that the disaster could have and should have been prevented.
Oh…and btw….Mr. Blonde…. …..appropriately named…. LOL
Well, I’m gonna copy and paste a book from press clips myself on this, and then I’ll create a lot of talk and get some free advertising by joining the ranks of the government loving liberal press and make a million bucks…even if it still doesn’t answer any questions about what really happened. Everyone loves a trumpet player who’s in tune against the big bad old oil companies. Heck I might get me a book signing gig…in another state, of course.
All of a sudden comrade bob comes out of the woodwork as some “expert.” Hogwash! He thinks that every ill in the world is the direct fault of the “failed policies of the Bush Cheney administration!” He is a liberal super left wing wacko…nothing more or less…did I mention that he is rude?
William: “comrade bob”; “Hogwash”; “super left wing wacko”.
Then you call Bob “rude”? Kinda sorta seems like that term applies to you.
It looks like the people who are quick to call Mr. Cavnar names and denigrate his 30+ years of experience are probably people who had trouble getting their GED. Just goes to show that computers are so user-friendly that even your local armchair quarterback can use one.
Good job, Bob and spot on. When corporations are not regulated – or permitted to “self-regulate” – disaster follows, and as you have said, more will probably follow until this country learns from its mistakes.
Just read Bob’s book. Seems he is the first to throw stones and insults. Maybe it is time some stop defending him. I was very dissapointed in his unwarnted attacks on engineers/Aggies/oil field workers et al. Appears to me that he thinks he is the only bright bulb amoungst the multitude of dim wits that populate the oil industry. He is rude and he makes plenty of factual mistakes in “Disaster on the Horizion”. Like him or hate him it don’t matter to me. What does matter is that he is glib, insulting and he doesn’t fact check his work.
Truthordare:
What are the factual mistakes?
I see all the “genius” and “brave” online dungflinging Bob haters are out in force with their usual unsubstantiated, histrionic, and slanderous character attacks. Not one poster slamming Bob has quoted him to dispute his points nor logically challenged any of his points.
Case in point is Mr Blonde’s specious claim that Bob is “not a petroleum engineer” thereby automatically rendering his insight and opinions invalid. Now Mr. Blonde, do you even know what exactly a petroleum engineer is responsible for? Are all company men, toolpushers, drillers, etc., petroleum engineers Mr. Blonde? Is it requisite training/education for such positions? Then why would that accreditation be any more relevant than someone who worked in the filed for over 30 years ranging from jobs as the most basic roughneck to CEO?
Truthordare, do you care to back up your slanderous and easily “refudiated” claim that Bob does not have any direct hands on field experience in the oil industry? And please quote page and verse from Bob’s book where he partook in “unwarnted [sic] attacks on engineers/Aggies/oil field workers”? And Tom Fowler has already noted which you failed to substantiate, what are Bob’s “factual mistakes”?
Houstantexan, aside from the fact that your attack rant was incoherent and contradictory, you provide no concrete information, case study examples, or even anecdotal evidence of your unsubstantiated assertions. So by its nature, hands on field work in the oil industry can easily be learned through book study only huh? And how many video games, electronic gadgets, and various mechanical devices you have become an instant expert on by just reading the owner’s manual only without learning through trial and error and multiple repetition of the tasks? And are you claiming Bob has no field experience despite all his verifiable credentials to the contrary?
Petty, small minded, ignorant, uneducated, and logically and factually challenged trolls as the irrational Bob Bashers on this article will be the downfall of this great country in the international political and economic stage unless their ilk are reigned in and prevented from destroying what is great in our stellar country.
Thank you Bob for the courage to speak up and speak out, knowing the unwarranted slings and arrows that inevitably are to be aimed in your direction by the pathetically small minded, insecure cowards that always inevitably rear their ugly heads (or the opposite bodily extremities) in such forums.
Page 12, Bob says:
“the general alarm system was disarmed.”
Transocean had been operating with its alarm system in manual. There has not been any testimony indicating that the manual method failed to work adequately during the blowout.
Page 12, Bob says:
“many of the gas sensors were inhibited”
From Real-time data, Interviews, MBI testimony
April 20
~21:47 First gas alarm sounded. Gas rapidly dispersed, setting off other gas alarms.
Page 14, Bob says:
“… about 30% of our DOMESTIC ENERGY SUPPLY comes from that region [Gulf of Mexico]”
Total DOMESTIC ENERGY PRODUCTION (2003) in the US consisted of coal 32%, nuclear 12%, renewables 5%, natural gas 29%, oil 22% of which offshore was 11%.
Page 69, Bob says:
“some engineers couldn’t run a doughnut shop”
Maybe, but that still is an insult. If you don’t think so just replace the word ‘engineers’ with any group (race, creed, color or gender) of your choice and see what it sounds like. Its rude,unnecessary and inflammatory.
bubbabobcat,
I didn’t say “Bob does not have any direct hands on field experience in the oil industry?” I said “lack of expertice in an area he professes to be an expert”.
Rather than try to prove a negative, it is quite simple if you would just provide some background so that we can dismiss this question of Bob’s experience. Can you or anyone else, including Bob, provide any evidence whatsoever that, in the last quarter century (25 years), Bob worked OFFSHORE and ONBOARD a semisubmersible or drillship with a subsea BOP, while drilling a well, as a toolpusher, driller, company man, rig hand, cement engineer, casing engineer or any other drilling related job?
Look what I found -
Alarm systems disarmed: “Michael Williams told a US government investigation that the alarm – which could have detected a build-up in natural gas and closed parts of the rig – was disarmed so it would not wake people up at night.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/7907660/BP-oil-rig-blast-safety-alarm-was-off-says-engineer.html
Domestic supply: US crude production 5.4 million bbls per day. From the offshore gulf: 1.6 = 30%
http://www.eia.doe.gov/special/gulf_of_mexico/index.cfm
“couldn’t run a doughnut shop” – A little too close to home?
On the other issue, there is no “question of Bob’s experience” except in your own mind caused by your hate of him because he disagrees with you politically.
Serenity,
The last first. I don’t know Bob. I didn’t insult Bob and I don’t even know what Bob’s polotics are nor do I care. I don’t hate Bob, I don’t hate you. I disagre with Bob and I disagree with you. I have not insulted you.
I am not questioning Bob’s experiences. I am only asking a simple question:
Can you or anyone else, including Bob, provide any evidence whatsoever that, in the last quarter century (25 years), Bob worked OFFSHORE and ONBOARD a semisubmersible or drillship with a subsea BOP, while drilling a well, as a toolpusher, driller, company man, rig hand, cement engineer, casing engineer or any other drilling related job?
Serenity,
On the issue of the insult. It is an insult no matter if it is about me or any other engineer. It is rude to make disparaging remarks about a person or their profession.
Serenity,
Yes you are correct. “Domestic supply: US crude production 5.4 million bbls per day. From the offshore gulf: 1.6 = 30%”
But,
Page 14, Bob says:
“… about 30% of our DOMESTIC ENERGY SUPPLY comes from that region [Gulf of Mexico]”
30% of the US crude production is not 30% of the DOMESTIC ENERGY SUPPLY.
Serenity,
About the alarms being “DISABLED”
The article you reference does not quote Mike Williams as saying that the alarm was DISABLED. He said the general safety alarm was habitually set to “INHIBITED” to avoid waking up the crew with late-night sirens and emergency lights.
The general alarm was inhibited – not disabled. There is a difference. The automatic alarm was inhibited, i.e. it was in manual mode. There is no testimony that it did not work in the manual mode.
Transocean has a separate audit of the rig in early April, in which inspectors testing the fire detection system found no detectors inhibited.
As I noted previously, the gas detectors did function. However, the Deepwater Horizon engine room HVAC fans and dampers were not designed to trip automatically upon gas detection; manual activation was required.
Actually, that’s what he said on Pg. 79.
Also, the entire doughnut shop quote is: “Certainly there are great CEOs who happen to be engineers; I also know some engineers who couldn’t run a doughnut shop with a full-time management consultant and who have run their companies into the ground.”
You’re cherry picking and taking out of context in an attempt to discredit the writer. Surely, even you don’t think every engineer perfect, do you? You’re gleaning a 250 page book looking for issues to get offended about.
You’re trying to discredit him because you don’t like what he says. So far, you have failed to point out any material errors in the book.
“General alarm didn’t sound until after explosion, survivor testifies”
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/10/general_alarm_didnt_sound_unti.html
“Worker says lack of sirens hampered efforts to evacuate crew”
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/deepwaterhorizon/7122868.html
“If the general alarm had sounded, it may have given them time to evacuate to safer areas.”
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/10/flashing_warning_lights_on_dee.html
Sure doesn’t look like the “inhibited” alarm set to manual worked very well.
Serenity,
He says one thing on page 14 and another on 79. One is incorrect. I said it contained “factual mistakes” and so it does.
IT’S AN INSULT. Q.E.D.
I guess you can’t provide any insight to my question:
Can you or anyone else, including Bob, provide any evidence whatsoever that, in the last quarter century (25 years), Bob worked OFFSHORE and ONBOARD a semisubmersible or drillship with a subsea BOP, while drilling a well, as a toolpusher, driller, company man, rig hand, cement engineer, casing engineer or any other drilling related job?
Every book contains “factual mistakes”. The measure is if it’s material and changes conclusions, and this certainly doesn’t do that.
On experience, you’ll have to ask the author directly, but I wouldn’t expect an answer to someone using an anonymous ID insulting him on a public discussion board.
“many of the gas sensors were inhibited” and “the general alarm system was disarmed.”
are factually and materially incorrect.
Scoring this debate from the cheap seats, I’ll give serenity a very slight edge on the fact checking argument. truthordare might win the argument on technicalities based simply on nit-picking, but has failed to convince me that his ‘factual errors’ are much more than dithering over semantics and aren’t enough to impact the larger points being made.
But I’ll give truthofdare the nod on the merits of his ‘rude’ debate. The doughnut shop line, even in it’s entirety, it unnecessary and inflammatory. It’s a thow-away line meant just to demean someone else.
So, it’s pretty much a draw.
Thanks for playing folks….
Though I do appreciate the both of you for a spirited debate that rose above the name calling that is too prevalent these days. Thank you.
And on that topic I would also like to thank bubbabobcat for this bit:
“Petty, small minded, ignorant, uneducated, and logically and factually challenged trolls as the irrational Bob Bashers on this article will be the downfall of this great country in the international political and economic stage unless their ilk are reigned in and prevented from destroying what is great in our stellar country.”
Well said.
Which is why I appreciated truthordare for basing his challenge on factual interpretation and for raising his objection to what he perceives in the book as ‘glib and insulting.’ Those are all fair points.
We could all do with more civil debate, and less ‘glib and insulting.’
Good night all.
And lastly. Apologies to truthordare for the choice of gender reference if it should have been ‘her’ objection, or ‘her’ challenge. It’s just so hard to choose a pronoun when everybody is using a handle!