Page 66 - Well Control for Completions and Interventions

Introduction and Well Control Fundamentals 57

• Organizational factors.
Management of competence and training. Safety auditing and
safety leadership.
• Company interface.
Safety management interface between operating companies and
vendors.
The audit supported the view that the industry was supplying equip-
ment that provided key personnel with comprehensive and readable data,
enabling them to make the correct decision in the event of an emergency.
The audit also found that key personnel were generally empowered to
make decisions on well control matters, but concluded that scenario-
based training would improve matters.
Areas of concern included a lack of experienced personnel, the fact
that well control was not one of the key performance indicators used by
many operating companies, and poor implementation of a lessons-learned
system. The auditors were also concerned about the quality of interface
arrangements between the client company and drilling contractors.
Also responding to events on the Macondo well, the International
Association of Oil and Gas Producers (IOGP) issued a report (476) that
made several recommendations for enhancements to well control training,
g
examination, and certification. The report recommends CRM be included
in well operations training. It expresses an expectation that this would be
implemented by the industry and hopes it would “evolve to be embedded in
the well control curriculum as well as industry practices and procedures.”
h
Crew Resource Management, was developed in the late 1970s (by
NASA) to help prevent accidents in the airline industry. Now, almost uni-
versally applied, it undoubtedly saves lives. In the widely reported ditch-
ing of US Airways flight 1549 in the Hudson River on the January, 15,
2009, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded that
“the professionalism of the flight crewmembers and their excellent CRM during
the accident sequence contributed to their ability to maintain control of the airplane,
configure it to the extent possible under the circumstances, and fly an approach that
17
increased the survivability of the impact.”
Before recommending the inclusion of CRM into well operations
training, the IOGP had commissioned a study to investigate how such

g
IOGP. Report 476. Recommendations for enhancements to well control training,
examination, and certification.
h
Originally called Cockpit Resource Management.