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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Summary................................................................................................1
I. Introduction ..................................................................................................... 10
A. The Investigation ......................................................................................... 10
B. Background Regarding Deepwater Drilling in the Gulf of Mexico ............ 13
C. Companies Involved in the Macondo Well.................................................. 16
D. The Deepwater Horizon............................................................................... 18
E. The Macondo Well....................................................................................... 19
F. The Blowout................................................................................................. 23
II. Well Design...................................................................................................... 25
A. Cost of the Macondo Well............................................................................ 25
B. Drilling Margin........................................................................................... 27
C. Casing Program........................................................................................... 31
D. Mud Program and Type .............................................................................. 32
E. Mud Losses .................................................................................................. 33
F. Well Ballooning ........................................................................................... 34
G. Planned and Actual Total Depth................................................................. 34
H. Designing the Production Casing – Long String versus Liner................... 36
III. Cementing........................................................................................................ 40
A. Cementing Process....................................................................................... 40
B. Cement Design and Modeling..................................................................... 41
C. Gas Flow Potential....................................................................................... 46
D. Centralizers.................................................................................................. 47
E. Float Collar .................................................................................................. 49
F. Cementing the Macondo Production Casing .............................................. 53
G. Industry Standards for Cementing.............................................................. 57
IV. Possible Flow Paths ........................................................................................ 61
V. Conclusions on Well Design, Cementing, and Flow Path ........................ 68
A. Cause of the Failure of the Cement Barrier.................................................. 68
B. Contributing Causes of the Cement Barrier Failure ................................... 68
C. Possible Contributing Causes of the Cement Barrier Failure ..................... 70
D. Flow Path Cause .......................................................................................... 73
VI. Challenges at the Macondo Well .................................................................. 75
A. Kicks and Stuck Drill Pipe .......................................................................... 75
B. Scheduling Conflicts and Cost Overruns.................................................... 78
C. Personnel Changes and Conflicts ................................................................ 79
D. Safety Stand‐down....................................................................................... 83
VII. Temporary Abandonment of the Macondo Well....................................... 85

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