BP Releases Its Report On Gulf Disaster, Spreads The Blame Around
Posted September 8, 2010 8:14 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Nearly five months after the explosion that killed 11 men and caused the oil leak that would become the worst environmental disaster in American history, BP has released a report on the incident.
In its analysis of the events that led up to the explosion on the oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, BP spread the blame around to Halliburton – the cement contractor – and Transocean Ltd. – the rig owner.
A large bubble of methane gas caused the explosion. It quickly moved and expanded up the drill column, bursting seals and barriers before it finally caught fire. Investigators are still trying to figure out why the gas was able to travel up the Macondo well and why the blowout preventer didn’t stop the oil from leaking out.
The blowout preventer was taken out of the water on Saturday. Government analysts are still waiting to inspect it, so that key information wasn’t included in BP’s report.
In the BP analysis authored by Mark Bly, the company’s head of Safety and Operations, a finger is pointed at the cement slurry used at the bottom of the well. BP claims it failed to contain the gas.
The report released Wednesday also notes that both BP and Transocean accepted a negative pressure test when they shouldn’t have.
The BP report also points a finger at Transocean rig workers, who it claims failed to respond to the “influx of hydrocarbons into the well until the hydrocarbons were in the riser and rapidly flowing to the surface.”
Former BP CEO Tony Hayward, who angered Gulf Coast residents at the end of May when he said he’d like to see an end to the disaster because “I’d like my life back”, also offered his take on the report.
“To put it simply, there was a bad cement job and a failure of the shoe track barrier at the bottom of the well, which let hydrocarbons from the reservoir into the production casing,” he said in a statement.
Many people, including politicians, industry experts and workers who survived the explosion, blame BP for the disaster, claiming the company deliberately cut corners because the project was more than a month behind schedule and $20 million over budget.
“Based on the report, it would appear unlikely that the well design contributed to the incident, as the investigation found that the hydrocarbons flowed up the production casing through the bottom of the well,” Hayward said.
