Before Brown came to the witness stand at the hearings in Kenner, a ship captain with 15 years of drilling experience told the joint investigative panel that he doesn't know why a rig would displace the protective column of heavy mud with light seawater before closing off a well.
"That's something you learn at well-control school," said Capt. Carl Smith, a former Coast Guard captain serving as an expert witness for the panel. "If you're circulating fluid, you need to monitor how much is going in and how much is coming out. If you get more fluid out than in, it's an indicator that something's going on."
Smith testified that there is an inherent conflict on any drilling rig between the company that's leasing the rig and oilfield and the drilling operators. He said the "company man" represents a firm that leases the rig and often pays $500,000 a day to drill for the oil, so is concerned about speed and cost. The crew, meanwhile, is generally more concerned about safety and controlling the well, he said.
"That's a natural point of conflict that I've seen," Smith said. "Some (company men) have become outright adversaries, but they're the people paying the bills. They control helicopters, the boats, what's going on and off the rig. But I have to say, most of them are safety conscious."
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