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anything wrong with them. You put new seals in them, you put them
back together, and they’re good to go.

And we determined that by performing condition‐based monitoring, and
in seeing any changes, whether it be through reaction times or pressure,
that we can determine whether this is worthy for work or whether we
369
need to be looking at replacing this piece of equipment.

Stringfellow further explained:

To take some of this equipment and disassemble it and inspect it and then
put it back into service ‐ you have to look at maintenance history, and
that’s something that I think that, you know, that you’re not aware of, of
the things that we’ve seen in the past to build this condition‐based
monitoring, which we put a lot of time and effort into for this equipment.

By doing this, we feel that we cut risk of taking – we’ve had brand‐new
pieces of equipment go into service and fail. It’s called infant mortality.
370
And – and – and we can get off into this and into much deeper talk – you
know, discussions. But, again, what we see right here in the way that
we’re doing this, we feel that we have a piece of equipment down there
that will do what it’s designed to do.
371

Most of the maintenance done by Transocean as a result of condition‐
based monitoring occurs when a drilling rig moves from one location to
another. This minimizes rig downtime and the costs associated with
372
performing the maintenance. Stringfellow testified:

Taking BOP bodies completely apart, and say, checking the sealing areas
of ring gaskets. We found that by disassembling these areas, to do an
inspection on them and then put them back together, we have more issues
with them than after we disassemble them than we do before. I mean, we
never had a problem.

369 Testimony of William Stringfellow, Joint Investigation Hearing, August 25, 2010 at 358‐59.
370 One witness described the “infant mortality” concept that equipment can fail sooner from
performing too much maintenance, disassembly, and overhaul of equipment. Fry Testimony at
69.
371 Stringfellow testimony at 375‐76.
372 Hay testimony at 255.

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