At approximately 9:47 p.m.

(Central Standard Time) on the evening of April

20, 2010, an uncontrolled flow of water, oil mud, oil, gas, and other materials
came out of the drilling riser and possibly the drill pipe on the dynamically
positioned drilling vessel Deepwater Horizon owned by Transocean and
contracted by BP to drill the Mississippi Canyon 252 #1 Macondo well in
approximately 5,000 ft. of water in the northern Gulf of Mexico offshore the coast
of Louisiana.
A series of two or more explosions and a huge fire followed shortly after the
uncontrolled flow commenced. The fire continued unabated for about two days
fueled by hydrocarbons coming from the Macondo well.
The Deepwater Horizon was abandoned shortly after the fire started, but
11 of 126 persons aboard perished. The vessel sank about 36 hours later and the
fire was extinguished. The riser and drill pipe inside bent at the top of the subsea
Blowout Preventer (BOP) and dropped crumpled and broken on the seafloor,
spewing gas and oil.
It is considered the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum
industry.

Cement Job Design Decisions

The BP engineers chose to accept risks when designing the cement job based on
their awareness that remedial cementing work could be done at a later date.
Those additional risks included using a leftover cement blend that was not
appropriate for foamed cementing, using foamed cement in a SOBM
environment, limiting cement volume and selecting a reduced number of
centralizers.

1. The Macondo Slurry Design

1.1 Use of a Leftover Dry Blend
BP used a leftover cement dry blend from BP’s Kodiak #2 well on the Macondo
production string. This dry blend was not originally intended nor was it
appropriate for foamed cementing applications. The base cement dry blend used
for the production string on the Macondo well was not originally designed as a
foamed cement system, and because of this, risks associated with slurry and foam
stability were introduced to the job. The base dry blend used for the cementing of
the production string was a cement blend leftover from BP’s Kodiak #2 well.10
This dry blend consisted of:

LaFarge Class H Cement

20% SSA-1 Silica Flour
15% SSA-2 Silica Sand
0.07% EZ-Flo
0.25% D-Air 3000
0.2% SA-541
1.88 lb/sk KCl11

1.2 Use of Foamed Cement

The use of foamed cement complicated the slurry design, and the risks associated
with its application on the Macondo well went unrecognized by BP and
Halliburton.

1.3 Combined Risks of Foaming the Leftover Kodiak #2 Dry Blend

2. Job Execution / Cement Placement

2.1 Start of the Cement Job
BP started the cement job without key laboratory test results for the retarder
concentration used on the Macondo well.

2.2 Pre-job Circulation

BP limited the pre-job circulation to much less than the planned volume
prescribed in the April 15, 2010 BP drilling program.

CEMENT DECISIONS

“In the days leading up to Apr. 20, BP made a series of decisions that complicated
cementing operations, added incremental risks.
and may have contributed to the ultimate failure of the cement job,” the report
said. “These decisions included:
The use of only one cement barrier. BP did not set any additional cement or
mechanical barriers in the well, even though various well conditions created
difficulties for the production casing cement job.
 The location of the production casing. BP decided to set production casing
in a location in the well that created additional risk of hydrocarbon influx.
 The decision to install a lockdown sleeve. BP’s decision to include the
setting of a lockdown sleeve (a piece of equipment that connects and
holds the production casing to the wellhead during production) as part of
the temporary abandonment procedure at Macondo increased the risks
associated with subsequent operations, including the displacement of
mud, the negative test sequence and the setting of the surface plug.
 The production casing cement job. BP failed to perform the production
casing cement job in accordance with industry‐accepted
recommendations.”

Investigators concluded BP and Transocean crew members on the Deepwater

Horizon “missed the opportunity to remedy the cement problems when they
misinterpreted anomalies encountered during a critical test of cement barriers
called a negative test, which seeks to simulate what will happen if the well is
temporarily abandoned and to show whether the cement will hold against
hydrocarbon flow.”

INVESTIGATIONS BY BARTLIT

Despite not having the subpoena powers used by other investigative bodies,
Bartlit managed to convince Halliburton to turn over the exact recipe for the
cement mixture, something it hadn't been willing to share previously.

With the cement ingredients in hand, Bartlit then had Chevron perform nine
independent lab tests on the mixture under various conditions. Donating their
services, the Chevron scientists found the slurry was unstable in all nine tests.

It was later found out that Halliburton only provided BP with the data from one
of the three tests for which it had results before the cement was actually
poured in the well. The one set of results Halliburton shared with BP was from
February, two months before the accident, when the final conditions in the well
and even the size of the hole were not known.

The data from that test showed the cement was unstable, but when Halliburton
sent the results to BP by e-mail March 8, it only sent the numbers, no analysis,
and there was no indication that Halliburton mentioned it was a failed test.

Halliburton kept testing the cement and changing different variables, and fin ally
ran a successful test in the final days before the blowout, the commission
found. But Bartlit wrote that Halliburton may not have gotten the final results
of that test before the cement was actually poured into the well April 19 and
definitely did not share them with BP before the actual cement job was done.

In its Sept. 8 internal investigation report, BP said it was unable to check

Halliburton's tests because a court order barred anyone from accessing the
remaining 1.5 gallons of cement slurry actually used on the rig and Halliburton
refused to provide BP with its recipe.

The BP report said the test results it finally got from Halliburton showed it used
a cement with a lower foam level than what was required for the well. And like
the Oil Spill Commission did with Chevron, when BP tried to replicate the
Halliburton cement mixture under the pressure conditions at the bottom of the
well, it was unstable.

The March 8 e-mail from Halliburton to BP was eerily similar to a separate

report by the cementing contractor just two days before the accident that also
included alarming information that wasn't noticed. That report contained
Halliburton models warning of a severe risk of gas flowing into the well if BP
didn't use more stabilizing equipment in the well bore. But the warning was
placed deep inside the report, and key BP engineers have testified that they
never bothered to read the report until it was too late.

POSSIBLE CAUSES
1. The cement pumped into the BP Macondo well a day before it blew out
on April 20, 2010, was not given enough time to "set," or harden, before
a negative pressure test was run that allowed oil and natural gas to travel
up the drill pipe to the surface, where it exploded aboard the Dee pwater
Horizon drilling rig.
 2. The cement didn't cut off the flow of hydrocarbons into the well because
of inadequate design of the cementing slurry; the slurry failed to
perform as expected; and the cement was improperly placed in the well.

3. A total of only 60 barrels of cement was used according to the well plan,
not enough to provide an unfoamed portion at the bottom of the well
and foamed cement that would move up the annulus, the space between
the rock and the outer metal casing of the well. The 60 barrels were much
less than what was used to seal other BP wells in the Gulf, he said: 99.9
barrels at King South, 135.3 barrels at Nakika, and 244.1 barrels at
Isabella.

4. The decision to use only six centralizers, rather than the 21

recommended by Halliburton engineers, means that portions of the drill
pipe likely leaned closer to one side of the drill hole. When cement was
pumped in to fill the space around the pipe, it was unable to fill in the
narrow side, leaving a channel filled by drilling mud that hydrocarbons
could use to reach the surface.

5. The cement contained a nitrogen additive to make it lighter so that it

would flow more easily and better fill the area between the casing and the
lost circulation-washout zone. This also may have decreased its sealing
effectiveness. Gas from the reservoir may have further diluted the viscosity
of the cement
RECOMMENDATIONS

Margins of Safety
1. Given the critical role that margins of safety play in maintaining well
control, guidelines should be established to ensure that the design
approach incorporates protection against the various credible risks
associated with the drilling and completion processes.

2. During drilling, rig personnel should maintain a reasonable margin of safety

between the ECD and the density that will cause wellbore fracturing.

3. All primary cemented barriers to flow should be tested to verify quality,

quantity, and location of cement. The integrity of primary mechanical
barriers (such as the float equipment, liner tops, and wellhead seals) should
be verified by using the best available test procedures. All tests should have
established procedures and predefined criteria for acceptable performance
and should be subject to independent, near-real-time review by a
competent authority.

4. sThe general well design should include the review of fitness of

components for the intended use and be made a part of the well approval
process.