Three Companies, One Well

April 20, 2010. Deepwater Horizon.

Three companies were responsible for one well: BP, Transocean, and Halliburton.

When the well blew out, killing 11 workers, investigations revealed something worse than negligence.

Communication failures across organizational boundaries.

The White House commission concluded: "These companies failed to share important information, preventing them from fully appreciating the risks."

Warning signs existed. But they had to cross company lines. Every handoff lost context.

A similar near-miss had occurred four months earlier on another Transocean rig. The lessons never reached Deepwater Horizon.

BP knew of issues with Halliburton's cement work for years. Nobody connected the dots.

The investigator's conclusion: "Confusion, lack of communication, disorganization and inattention to crucial safety issues."

Information degrades across space. Three companies meant three gradients of decay.

This note explores Spatial Information Degradation, one of four dynamics from The Momentum Engine. Every organizational boundary is a context cliff.