Like most of us said at the time, BP’s flawed management led to last year’s disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
The loss of life at the Macondo site on April 20, 2010, and the subsequent pollution of the Gulf of Mexico through the summer of 2010 were the result of poor risk management, last-minute changes to plans, failure to observe and respond to critical indicators, inadequate well control response, and insufficient emergency bridge response training by companies and individuals responsible for drilling at the Macondo well and for the operation of the Deepwater Horizon.
BP, as the designated operator under BOEMRE regulations, was ultimately responsible for conducting operations at Macondo in a way that ensured the safety and protection of personnel, equipment, natural resources, and the environment.
That indictment comes from the joint task force of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement and the Coast Guard, which issued a comprehensive report (pdf) Wednesday.
Although Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon, was responsible for the cement job that was at the heart of the failure,
In the days leading up to April 20, BP made a series of decisions that complicated cementing operations, added incremental risk, and may have contributed to the ultimate failure of the cement job.
Those included cost-cutting decisions:
- To use only one cement barrier, despite “various well conditions [that] created difficulties for the production casing cement job.”
- To ignore “industry-accepted” procedures in the cement casing job
In addition, BP’s decision to install a lock-down sleeve “increased the risks associated with subsequent operations, including the displacement of mud, the negative test sequence and the setting of the surface plug.”
Finally, BP selected a location the set production casing “that created additional risk of hydrocarbon influx.”
The Panel also “found evidence that BP and, in some instances, its contractors violated” a score of federal regulations.
From Bloomberg (emphasis added):
A 212-page report issued today by a joint Interior Department-Coast Guard panel reflects a management team in disarray when it was supposed to be monitoring and directing the “critical” final stages of drilling the well 40 miles (62 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast….
John Guide, the BP engineer who led the team that designed and oversaw the Macondo project, based key decisions involving equipment selection and safety tests on whether they would boost costs for a project that was already $58 million, or 61 percent, over budget, the report said…
Federal investigators faulted BP for failing to apprise Transocean crew members of all the risks associated with numerous design decisions. Nonetheless, Transocean and Halliburton workers aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig that night should have noticed the tell-tale signs that a blowout was imminent, the panel said.
According to the NY Times, “The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation that could bring indictments and heavy fines.”
“Today’s report increases the likelihood that BP, Transocean and Halliburton will face criminal charges for their roles in causing the gulf oil spill,” [David M. Uhlmann, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School and former chief of the Justice Department’s environmental crimes section] said in an e-mail. “The Justice Department may have outside experts for both its criminal and civil cases, and it could develop additional information about the causes of the spill in those investigations, but it will be hard for the Department to distance itself from the findings of the Coast Guard and Boemre.”
From The Houston Chronicle:
“[The report] hammers BP more than they’ve been hammered already,” said Eric Smith, associate director of Tulane University’s Energy Institute in New Orleans. But it also “sucks in Halliburton and Transocean and says ‘you don’t get off scot-free either.’?”
Investigators concluded the three companies violated more than half a dozen federal offshore safety regulations at the site. Those alleged violations may bring penalties, and could figure into the Justice Department’s investigation of the incident as well as civil lawsuits over the disaster.
What is inexplicable to me is this headline: BP shares rise after oil spill investigation.
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Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com