Gulf oil spill: Companies were 'rushing to make money faster,' survivor says

"I was certain I was going to die.’’ So it seemed to Stephen Stone, a survivor of the Deepwater Horizon explosion who on Thursday recounted his experience on the deadly night, the first by a drilling-rig worker before a congressional committee.

Putting a human face to highly technical Capitol Hill hearings, Stone told the House Judiciary Committee that the April 20 blast was "hardly the first thing to go wrong.’’ "This event was set in motion years ago by these companies needlessly rushing to make money faster, while cutting corners to save money,’’ he testified.

Keith D. Jones, whose 28-year-old son, Gordon, was among 11 workers who died in the explosion, told the committee, his voice breaking with emotion, "Please believe me, no amount of money will ever compensate us for Gordon’s loss. ... But reckless acts by employees of corporations, performed to try to make the most money the fastest, will never be deterred by the payment of mere compensatory damages.’’

Jones, a Baton Rouge, La., attorney, added: "If you want these companies, one of which is headquartered in Great Britain and another in Switzerland, to make every effort to make sure their employees don’t act as these did, putting American lives at risk, you must make certain that they are exposed to pain the only place they can feel it – their bank accounts,’’

Douglas Brown, the rig’s chief mechanic, also testified before the House panel. Stone told the committee he was jarred from his bunk about 10 o’clock the night of the explosion. "I didn’t know what the sound was, so I waited for a few seconds to see what was happening,’’ he said. "Another explosion went off -- the force of it ripped through my body and collapsed the upper decks of the rig.’’

"Someone had opened the door to my cabin, and people were running up and down the halls, screaming that we had to get out. I ran through the door of my cabin and toward the stairwell to the lifeboat deck, but it had collapsed. I ran back to my room to get my life jacket, my shoes, and my wedding ring.’’

The air was "smoky and gritty’’ with debris as he and a fellow worker made their way through the rubble to the lifeboat deck, he said. Once outside, he said he he looked at the derrick, "which was completely engulfed in flames so bright, it seemed like daytime.’’

"I remember seeing people just staring at the flames,’’ he continued. "Some people were getting into the lifeboats. And some people were in such shock that they just stood there, staring, unable to move.’’

When flames on the derrick intensified, Stone said, "People started to panic and scramble for the lifeboats.’’ He got strapped himself into a lifeboat and "waited for what seemed like hours. ... I was certain I was going to die.’’

The boat was lowered into the water and made its way to a nearby supply vessel where a medic tended to the injured until the Coast Guard arrived, about 30 minutes later, he said.

Some 28 hours after the explosion, Stone made it to land. "Before we were allowed to leave, we were lined up and made to take a drug test. It was only then, 28 hours after the explosion, that I was given access to a phone, and was allowed to call my wife and tell her I was OK,’’ he said.

Days later, Stone said, a representative of rig operator Transocean asked him to sign a document "stating I was not injured, in order to get $5,000 for the loss of my personal possessions.’’ He declined to sign and hired a lawyer.

A Transocean representative is scheduled to testify.

Stone said that although he was helping to pump drilling mud down into the wellbore hole, "we kept losing drilling mud, either because the underground formation was unstable or because drilling too quickly caused the formation to crack.’’

In the weeks leading up to the explosion, he said, workers about four times had to "stop pumping drilling mud and pump down a heavy-duty sealant compound instead, to seal the cracks in the formation that were causing us to lose mud.’’

-- Richard Simon, in Washington, D.C.

Comments

[Vito Buonomano]

If our Country taxed gasoline and other fossil fuels heavily like many other industrial nations and used that same tax to put tens of millions high milage hybrid vehicles on the road we would not be in the stupid mess we are in.
Drilling for oil one mile down in the ocean is a sign of mans stupidity and corporate greed. BP oil in the Gulf obviously can not compete with cheap OPEC foreign oil that is drying up around the world and bleeding our economy.
Maybe we should have our self motivated elected officials in Washington and the drill baby drill queen Sarah Palen work on these dangerous ticking time bombs in the Gulf instead of workers in the South trying to feed their families.
Presiden Obama needs to lead not follow our other Presidents of the past that put the interest of fossil fuel companies first instead of the people of the USA.
So lets wake up and invest in millions of American made Ford Hybrid Fusions rather than 700 million dollar oil rigs bombs built in foreign countries.

[Dave]

As a former offshore oil patch worker, I find the guessing and assumptions, the Monday-morning quarterbacking and the rear-seat driving of many of the commenters on posts like this one to be both telling and disturbing. One earlier commenter on this story implied that the _Times_ is not merely printing incorrect information about the cause of the spill, but outright lying about it. The commenter then goes on to make it crystal-clear that he doesn't have the slightest grasp of basic engineering principles, let alone the kind of highly-technical, extremely specialized knowledge involved in drilling and maintaining control over a deep-water, deep-formation drilling project. It's not the lack of knowledge per se that's disturbing, however; it's the apparently unquestioned willingness to form firm opinions and strongly-held beliefs and to construct long narratives concerning the nature and origin of the problem _despite_ lack of knowledge that is so disturbing.

I can think of a great many things broken societal institutions that would instantly be fixed and a great many more that would instantly be more helpful than anyone could have expected, if more people would simply stop forming and preaching invalid opinions based in ignorance.

[michelle]

I completely agree with you electricityisshocking. It is clear from Mr. Stone's description that they had been having problems witht he drilkling for a while. Clearly they knew there were cracks, but they continued on, regardless of safety.

[Erica Schumacher]

Honestly, the BP spill is just a metaphor for what is wrong with the nation, and the world. It's an example of the recklessness of transnational corporations, and a total lack of regulation on private companies that defile the Earth, Nature, and humanity. I really cannot see it any other way.

[Dan Zimmerman]

Mr Stone is not lieing. Loss of drilling mud circulation and pressure often precedes a kick. It looks more and more like a perforated pipe was losing pressure, then methane hydrate dissociation, or free gas under the hydrate formation, caused a kick. The following is from John Wright Co. and written by Mobil Oil and Boots and Coots employees, experts in this field;

Lost returns occur when kick tolerance is exceeded. But sometimes lost returns may occur before the kick is taken and an underground blowout will result.

During drilling, casing holed by drill pipe wear or pipe defects can result in sudden lost circulation and an underground blowout. In producing wells, internal tubing corrosion or pipe defects can lead to failure and sudden imposition of tubing pressure on production casing. Defects or external corrosion of this outer casing can lead to either a subsurface or surface blowout depending on depth of the flowing zone.

Gas flow after cementing is a major cause of surface annular blowouts.

[Cecelia Rios]

I understand turning a profit but blatant, bloody, untrammelled greed makes anyone or any corporation weak and stupid and rapacious. These same traits have perhaps made BP guilty of extinguishing species and livelihoods and fragile environments, ecosystems, tourism which can't easily be replaced. I congratulate you on your constribution to helping send this world to hell.

[Jaga Nath]

"If you want these companies, one of which is headquartered in Great Britain and another in Switzerland, to make every effort to make sure their employees don’t act as these did, putting American lives at risk, you must make certain that they are exposed to pain the only place they can feel it – their bank accounts,’’
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These corporations can easily file for Chapter 11, leaving behind all their debts and liabilities. As for the stockholders, oh well, they had their day.

The next thing that Omama should do is order a thorough inspection of all the rigs in the gulf to make sure that they're all working properly. No, the government shouldn't have to pay for it, let Big Oil shoulder the costs and present us a clean bill of health for these rigs.

[Dan]

You know that this report if flawed. Report the truth. People are people, many use any excuse to try and get money. The individual identified in this story seems to be trying that. The pressure in the well was not caused by cracks in the formation, cracks in the formation would have released pressure, causing the oil to rise slower. Sealant would have been used to seal up the cracks to help attain more pressure. It is evident that the explosion was probably top down directed. The gas that rises with the oil entered the engine room causing a massive explosion which reveresed the pressure in the extraction process. This is why the blow out preventor did not work. Stop trying to hang the company on the "rush to make money" concept and concentrate on how the gas entered the engine room. Oh yeah, that would not fill your need for a BP conspiracy would it.

[electricityisshocking]

Until we hold corporation CEOs in their 'fortresses on the hill' accountable, not just with fines, but personally, as criminals, nothing will change. Major corporations consider damage to the environment and government fines (when that actually happens) the cost of doing business. Until you make the CEOs feel fear for their own personal livelihood and personal freedom, they will continue to act as they do. Corporate brass know that they are playing the game with other peoples' money, while their own salaries and benefits are guaranteed.

Sadly, the requirements to rise through a corporation all too often yield a segment of humanity that we should not be proud of. Corporate brass do not fear the financial penalties and bad press that they do not personally feel, just as sharks do not fear pointed fingers and insults. Hit them in a way that matters, and you will see rapid change.

Unfortunately, our government (no matter the political stripe) has no will whatsoever to do this, as they are bought by the very same mentality that has brought us all to this.