This second test showed no pressure. That looked like a good result — but pressure on the drill pipe remained.
“It appears they began with the assumption that the cement job had been successful and kept running tests and proposing explanations until they convinced themselves that their assumption was correct,” concluded the 2011 report of the chief counsel to the Oil Spill Commission.
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The drill team continued to pump heavy mud out of the well. But then the well began spewing mud uncontrollably, followed by gas and then the explosion.
Attorneys for Kaluza and Vidrine would not discuss what their strategy will be at trial, but one possible argument is that the two men were trying to interpret the negative test without full information about potential problems with the well and the cement job.
“BP’s onshore team should have, and easily could have, alerted the well site leaders and rig crew that cement failure at Macondo might be more likely than normal and instructed them to be extra vigilant regarding any odd pressure readings,” the chief counsel’s report stated.
The Oil Spill Commission concluded that multiple risk factors played a role in the disaster, including a flawed recipe for the cement slurry; procedures that included unnecessary removal of mud from the well bore; inadequate supervision of late-stage decisions in the well design; and missed signals from pressure gauges suggesting that gas had entered the well. The commission also found feeble regulatory oversight by the government. “Each of the mistakes made on the rig and onshore by industry and government increased the risk of a well blowout,” the commission concluded.
In a bizarre twist to the onshore-offshore dichotomy, two of Kaluza and Vidrine’s bosses happened to be on the rig at the time of the disaster. The two BP executives, Pat O’Bryan and David Sims, had flown by helicopter to the rig that afternoon along with two Transocean executives. The four executives took a tour and then held a meeting to congratulate the rig crew on its record of safe operations. The executives were not asked for input into the interpretation of the negative test.
Neither Kaluza nor Vidrine testified during earlier investigatory hearings. BP records obtained by the government show that Kaluza e-mailed two colleagues days after the blowout:
“I believe there is a bladder effect on the mud below an annular preventer as we discussed,” Kaluza wrote.
The grand jury indictment charged that Kaluza and Vidrine “accepted a nonsensical explanation for the abnormal readings, again without calling engineers onshore to consult.”
Both men remain employed by BP but have been on leaves of absence since the disaster.
Kaluza’s attorney, Clarke, said his client is being blamed for an accident that was the result of a collective failure. Kaluza had been on Deepwater Horizon only four days when the disaster happened. He had replaced another company man who had gone to shore to take classes in blowout prevention.
“Right now he’s devastated. He’s with family. But he feels very strongly that he did not cause the deaths of his 11 co-workers and he did not cause the most monumental environmental disaster in the country’s history,” Clarke said of his client. “And he has every intention of proceeding to trial.”
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