The Well from Hell (Andrew Mitchell)

Wed, Mar 20th 2019 at 7:30 pm - 10:30 pm

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The Well from Hell (Andrew Mitchell)

Andrew is a fellow Rotarian, being a member of the North Cotswold Club. He has spent many years working in the oil industry. A large part of that time was at sea as a ships Master, latterly, advising and becoming a world authority on Marine Safety and Law. 

The film Deep Water Horizon was an action packed movie, which tells the horrific story of an oil exploration platform explosion. 

April 20th 2010 Macondo 242 exploded in the Gulf of Mexico creating one of the largest oils spills in the history of oil exploration. 

BP reported a number of catastrophic failures, which contributed to the ultimate destruction of the semi submersible drilling platform. These ranged from human errors in interpreting and acting upon   data received from tests, to the use of sub standard sealing mud and the failure of various valves and fail safe mechanisms. The final straw appeared to be when the Blow Out Preventor failed to cap the well and disconnect the platform, simply because it had a flat battery and then it’s back up also failed because of a faulty switch. 

Whilst listening to Andrew go through the details of the workplace cultures in the oil industry at the time, one could see that it was a recipe for disaster. This was such a huge disaster both in human loss off life and damage to the environment that governments became embroiled in protracted legal discussions and arguments, in order to compensate those who were affected, both directly and indirectly. Understandably, large companies with reputations to protect were slow to admit their part and employed experts to argue their corner.  

When Andrew asked for questions, at the end of his talk, hands shot up everywhere around the room. He was bombarded with questions. This showed how his account of the graphic events of that fateful day gripped every one of us in the audience.  

John Barnes.

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