Four years before BP’s Deepwater Horizon became global news, ExxonMobil walked away from a $187 million investment in a similar deep sea well called Blackbeard. The well had yet to produce a single drop of oil when engineers detected geologic instability in the seabed. After consulting with geologists and drillers on the project, leaders decided that the best course of action was to cap the well and move on. Industry analysts at the time accused the organization of being too risk averse; after all, no incident had actually happened.
That narrative changed in 2010, when operators of the Deepwater Horizon lost control of a wellhead that had been experiencing similar disturbances. This time there was no speculation of whether the risk was “real” or not. The resulting explosion and fire killed 11 workers and created an environmental and public relations nightmare. For leaders across industry, the tragedy of the Deepwater Horizon was compounded by the fact that many of the lessons it had to offer had already been ‘learned’ before.