  The blowout preventer (BOP) system is one of the most important well safety
barriers during the drilling phase because it can prevent the development of
blowout events. This paper investigates BOP system's main failures using an
LSA-based methodology. A total of 1312 failure records from companies worldwide
were collected from the International Association of Drilling Contractors'
RAPID-S53 database. The database contains recordings of halted drilling
operations due to BOP system's failures and component's function deviations.
The main failure scenarios of the components annular preventer, shear rams
preventer, compensated chamber solenoid valve, and hydraulic regulators were
identified using the proposed methodology. The scenarios contained valuable
information about corrective maintenance procedures, such as frequently
observed failure modes, detection methods used, suspected causes, and
corrective actions. The findings highlighted that the major failures of the
components under consideration were leakages caused by damaged elastomeric
seals. The majority of the failures were detected during function and pressure
tests with the BOP system in the rig. This study provides an alternative safety
analysis that contributes to understanding blowout preventer system's critical
component failures by applying a methodology based on a well-established text
mining technique and analyzing failure records from an international database.
