Aside from the finger pointing by the various parties involved in the Deepwater Horizon disaster at the Macondo oil well, as discussed in the previous blog, another theme has grown in importance over the past few weeks. In addition to “Who’s to blame?” we now have “Who’s really in charge?”

Brittania roils the waves

BP, often called recently by its former name British Petroleum, says it’s responsible but so, too, are a few other firms who might share the blame. Those firms might also share the costs of the cleanup (assuming that the continuing oil flow is ever stopped) unless BP is proved in court (some time in the next two or three decades) to be negligent. BP has ponied up at least $20 billion to be held in escrow as a start for repairing the damages caused by the spill. Meanwhile the damages mount and the compensation for them seems, to the victims at least, to be trickling in at best.

Meanwhile, the other major oil companies seems to be having second thoughts about their partnership arrangements. As the Financial Times reports:

. . . an executive at one company said he was “shocked” when he saw the design of the Macondo well, noting that his company would not have used features of BP’s design such as the “long string” in an exploration well or a well that was thought to be high pressure, which makes the work more difficult and risky.

It appears that each of the other majors is decidedly of the opinion that “We would never think of designing a deep water well like that”. What, never? Well, hardly ever. In any case the FT report goes on to say that:

In the past the oil majors have been relatively trusting of one another’s safety process, reserving more scrutiny for smaller companies and companies from oil rich countries.

and  that:

BP’s peers will also gauge carefully the reaction of oil-rich countries to BP, to avoid reducing their chance of winning oilfield auctions in case BP is seen as undesirable. Whether that will be the case is too early to tell, one executive said.

All of which points to a climate change in the dealings of oil companies with each other and with the countries whose oil they hope to exploit. Despite many brave words about this spill being a once in several lifetimes occurrence, confidence around the world about the safety of deep ocean oil wells has been cut down a few notches.

Brittania soils the waves

This leads to the other question at the start of this missive: “Who’s really in charge?” BP says it is in charge of halting the progress of the current disaster. So does the US Coast Guard. So do several state agencies. More finger pointing. More frustration on the part of the victims. Meanwhile, Tony Hayward BP’s CEO and public relations ace, goes sailing around the Isle of Wight in order to relieve his tension. Unfortunately, the Gulf Coast shrimp boat owners can’t go to sea because of the oil pollution. No tension relief there.

Do you get the feeling that there’s something . . . well, horribly disorganized about all this?

It’s the system, stupid!

In the first third of my professional career I was a systems engineer involved in developing US military space technology. The key principle of systems engineering is that one has to look at the whole system, not just the individual parts. The “whole system” includes not only the technological components but also the so-called externalities, such as the people involved, the systems operational environment, its failure modes, and its failure prevention options, among other factors. To do this job effectively requires teams comprising generalists as well as specialists in all the appropriate disciplines. This helps insure that no little problems become big ones since each component of the system, as well as its interactions with all the other components, is thoroughly analyzed. The systems engineers thereby act as the proof testers, the validators, the overseers of the system design. One of the frequent complaints about a good systems engineering job is: it’s too expensive!

Compared to what?

Is a competent systems engineering effort of a million or so dollars more expensive than a 20+ billion dollar tab resulting from its lack? Because it seems fairly clear, judging from press reports, that there was no one really in charge of the whole system around the Macondo well. There apparently was no overall systems engineering done there. The major components of the well allegedly were inadequately tested and safeguards ignored. There seems to have been no serious environmental impact analysis, even about the effect on walruses.

Meanwhile the oil is still flowing, the economy of the Gulf bordering states is drying up and the hurricane season is upon us. On the other hand, as I’ve said in previous blogs, maybe this will finally set us on a more sustainable path.

Have a <insert your own adjective here> day.