Oblivion: Leadership During Engineering Moments of Truth?
Engineers are employed to design and construct the “weakest” or “cheapest”
structures and operations that will succeed in accomplishing our objectives. We add
risk by drilling and removing layers of the natural barrier preventing blowout of
combustible and hazardous fluids under stress and replacing them simultaneously
with our artificial, dependent, physical and operational barriers and imperfect
controls adding this risk for reward and within moral and ethical limits that is the
definition of “good”.
“The Problem”
There is a big difference between mitigation and relying on low incident “luck” and
yet how many operations are not adequately thought through, measured and
weighed to determine precise positions of operational loads within resistance
envelopes in order to focus on and keep separation between these positions and the
boundaries that envelope them? How often are assessments of geomechanics and
casing and operational barriers and controls deemed “within” arbitrary margins of
safety after layers upon layers of “best estimates”? More importantly how oblivious
or unconcerned is upper management in these isolated moments? For that matter
how involved are direct supervisors at times? The due diligence and due process
creates the precise moral and ethical limits we must operate within. Without moral
and ethical limits even a good thing is bad. Perhaps many of us have been witness to
designs that would have failed if a “worst case” load had occurred and the
consequences would have been unacceptable yet not mitigated. Is relying on this
“luck” bad? Should we in fact be building vast distaste of boundless disregard?
There is a big difference in design factors from low pressure “sweet” oil wells in the
mature areas of the Permian basin and HTHP dry sour gas wells near fishing
communities and prevailing winds and currents in environmentally sensitive areas
and yet design factors are often rigidly and indiscriminately set not inspiring nor
motivating engineers to weigh operational tasks and diligently consider the
“footprints” their operational loads make nor focus on separation between these
positions and the boundaries that well constructs must envelope them within. If we
design the Permian well like the HTHP well we waste time and money, yet if we drill
the HTHP dry sour gas well like the Permian well we jeopardize those on the rig and
surroundings suffer the consequences of inappropriate hazard mitigation, load
definition, leak and load resistance assurance, and uncertainty avoidance and
people die and lose their most valuable assets as the rig burns down in a fiery grave
of waste. There are areas where we can pump on the formations all day long and
get only a few barrels of sweet oil. These are the extremes and most of our projects
are wells that exist between the two extremes yet most financial and safety risk
managers are oblivious as to where and when the hazard mitigation, life and
financial, happens in the process and that many, if not most, engineers put into this
position may be improperly prepared nor supported with executive wisdom to deal
with the stresses of that moment and the spot they are often isolated in. It certainly
is not safe to be unaware of the safety critical moments in the design that all the
safety mantra feign knowledge of. Clearly, there are non critical areas that the
highest levels of diligence and scrutiny are wasteful in yet correct engineering in
this assessment process is essential and assuming that these engineers are prepared
and supported or that any people pronouncing safety standards are involved in or
even remotely aware of the spot these engineers work within this safety critical
moment in the engineering design phase is a problem.
“The Solution”
My assertion on these topics is that we as engineers owe the public and our
coworkers due diligence in coming to our conclusions and designing our limits and
due process and transparency in broadcasting the levels of hazard and uncertainty
and the health of our barriers and mitigations in relation to them to all that are
within a reasonable radius of hazard the closest being the frontline workers. Yet the
exact opposite is not just commonly done yet in “cut n paste” designs and the
secrecy and whitewashing of hazards and uncertainty in supporting these projects,
to ensure the corporate freedom to pursue these projects unrestrained, they are
policy, and more often than they ignore and distract focus on the precursors of
consequence that these early engineering designs constitute. This discussion is
important not as criticism and yet as inspirational to ask right questions that refuse
to ignore “the emperor has no clothes” with a wink, handshake and ignore
treatment of hazards and uncertainty assessments and subsequent operational
loads and design factors decisions. The CEOs need to know that their safety
programs are firmly in the hands of engineers at these moments and not the HSE
people, and the front line workers that get left “holding the bag” all too often. An
“over done” casing design is as a gold ring in a pig’s snout yet an underdone one is
like a fireman with a squirt gun. A CEO or HSE head that doesn’t know and manage
the safety critical moments in well design is akin to letting a toddler land a jumbo
jet.