On this day in 2010, the BP Macondo blowout, explosion and oil releaase happened that saw 11 people killed, 17 injured and nearly 5 million barrles of oil released into the Gulf of Mexico.  The effects of this incident are felt to this day.

This incident highlighted several issues including how woefully prepared oil companies are to respond to a crisis and event such as this, and noted how organizational culture, structure and incentives can drive behaviours.  Although the inentivizing of behviours are seen as positive reinforcement to achieve the noted results, financial incentives can be powerful motivators that reward poor behviour sin the puruit of financial gain.

Some of the root causes of the BP Macondo incident that we should cntinue to study and address in our own organizations include:

• The cement job within the well, needed to seal the oil reservoir from reaching the environment failed, or was poorly executed, thus creating a path to the environment for the oil to leak.  A pressure test result was misinterpreted which ressultd in personnel belieiving that the cement job was holding pressure when it was not and partially due to management accpeting a remote explanation for the oil leaking into the well 
• Poor cement quality was used
• Severely underbalanced drilling techniques were utilized before additional barriers were installed on the well.
• Operations and management did not recognize other weak signals of a leak before it was too late.
• Risks associated with the drillwell were not well understood or known
• Inadequate supervision of contractor organizations
• Poor communication amongst the core companies involved it the drilling of the well
• The desire to increase efficiency and to save rig time was not robustly evaulated aginst the safety or overall risk assessment
• Poor training in emergency procedures
• Lack of a culture of leadership

If you think about the incidents that continue to occur at sites today, even the small, seemingly innocuous incidents all still have components of the Macondo root causes as factor in their occurrence.  There are lessons we can learn from the large incidents that can be applied to everyday activities in the oil and gas business, and in this case even if you ar enot involved in offshore deep ater drilling.