Staying in the Zone: The cognitive components associated with offshore drillers' situation awareness

Situation Awareness (SA) issues are often identified as contributing factors to drilling incidents, most recently in the Deepwater Horizon blowout. Two studies aimed to identify the cognitive components required for offshore drillers to develop and maintain SA whilst controlling subsea hydrocarbon wells. In study one, critical incident interviews were conducted with 18 experienced drilling personnel. Transcripts were subjected to thematic analysis, producing a framework of cognitive processes that enable drillers to build up an understanding of what is happening in the well bore and surrounding environment, predicting how the situation may develop. In the second study, analysis of 24 hours of observations (in-vivo and video) from a high fidelity well control simulator suggest behaviors such as monitoring and crew sharing information contribute to the drillers’ SA. The findings highlight the importance of SA for safe and effective performance in drilling and are being used to develop a cognitive task analysis.