Companies are tasked with a daily responsibility of making decisions that affect both the normal operations of the organization and the communities surrounding the business environment. Making ethical decisions is a complicated matter as they are always between competing issues influencing a company. For instance, the decision between long-term and short-term benefits, innovation and maintaining the status quo, or about minimizing certain risks and investing in growth. The Deepwater Horizon Disaster case study details the oil rig explosion and Macondo blowout, which took place in 2010. It is an example highlighting the complexities that are involved in ethical decision making. This essay will provide a summary of the case, explaining what happened and who or what was responsible for this disaster. Additionally, this paper will analyze the case study, outlining several insights regarding decision making processes in an organization.
Summary
The Deepwater Horizon was in the final stages of the oil rig exploratory when the largest spill in the history of marine oil drilling operations struck. The Macondo well, located off the coast of Louisiana was intended to be an exploratory well. In essence, drilling took place in efforts to determine hydrocarbon presence as well as analyze the various structures of the reservoir. In early April 2010, a decision was made to stop the drilling and prepare the well for abandonment so that it could be utilized later for production of oil and gas (Brown 236). However, according to some reports, there were four hydrocarbon zones that had been discovered at the abandonment depth; also the difference between the highest reservoir pore pressure and the fracture gradients was increasing reducing. As a result, there was a little margin left for continued safe drilling in addition to the establishment of a challenging environment for sealing the well.
Sealing, done through the use of cemented liners is a crucial thing in the temporary abandonment process as it ensures no hydrocarbon flow occurs. However, the narrow margins left during drilling made the task more difficult; moreover, the drilling team mistakenly thought that they had completed the cementing operation successfully. Therefore, they proceeded to conduct the standard technique of determining the integrity of the cemented barrier, which indicated confusing and inconclusive results. The team still thought that the test was a success and abandoned the well temporarily by displacing drilling mud with sea water; then they recovered the mud and discharged the fluid used in the previous drilling operations. However, there were various anomalies noted during this process; several procedures were followed to reestablish control over the well. Unfortunately, the efforts were fruitless resulting to two explosions, which led to a fire that caused the death of 11 workers and 16 serious injuries (Brown 246).
Analysis
It’s hard to establish a definitive mechanism that caused the explosion and blowout due to loss of important records and lack of reliable forensic information. Nevertheless, various investigative reports have developed an understanding of the main factors and decisions that led to the blowout of the Macondo well. Essentially, there were numerous operational and technical breakdowns that potentially contributed to the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and the spill from Macondo well. Such occurrences indicate lack of suitable approach in decision making, regarding managing the inherent uncertainties, risks, and dangers associated with drilling. Consequently, Deepwater Horizon failed to learn and incorporate insights from previous similar near accidents operations (Brown 238). The ethical and critical decision making processes requires sufficient checks and balances for any given situation affecting business processes. As such, the company did not conduct an adequate analysis when making some decisions that impacted the schedule for abandoning the exploratory well, or for the sealing process.
There are several decisions that led to the disaster; for instance, the decision made to proceed towards the well abandonment despite noting various anomalies suggest an insufficient consideration of risks. Different tests conducted showed that the cement put in place was not enough to act as an effective barrier to prevent hydrocarbon flow. Second, the decision to accept the tests as successful and satisfactory without review by trained personnel portrays lack of a sense of responsibility by the drilling team. The drilling team should have taken more time to analyze the potential hazard; also, the decision should have been corrected by the contractors or the oversight committee. The third questionable decision was cementing multiple hydrocarbon brine zones, an aspect that created a hydraulic fracture that potentially caused the gas to enter the well (Brown 240). In essence, the volume of cement used to prepare the well for abandonment, and the time left for curing affected the well’s integrity.
Conclusion
Deepwater Horizon disaster is largest explosion and blowout in the marine oil drilling operations. Although there is no distinct reason established, several questionable decisions made in the process are said to have contributed to the accident. In the daily running of business operations, it is essential to ensure that the decisions made lead to the best consequences for all parties. In the same way, since ethical decision making often involves competing goods, it is important to pay attention to key concepts that may have a devastating impact on the company. If the drilling team for Deepwater Horizon made the right decisions depending on the conditions of the well, the explosion would not have happened. Therefore, decision making is a critical part of running business activities; trained people and experts in the particular field should be involved in the process.
Work Cited
Brown, Elaine M. "The Deepwater Horizon Disaster." Case Studies in Organizational
Communication: Ethical Perspectives and Practices: Ethical Perspectives and Practices
(2012): 233-246.
