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BP internal report assigns blame for oil explosion
Source: Agencies |
September 9, 2010, Thursday
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OIL giant BP laid much of the blame for the rig explosion and the massive Gulf of Mexico spill on itself, other companies' workers and a complex series of failures in an internal report released yesterday before a key piece of evidence has been analyzed.
In a 193-page report posted on its website, the British company described the incident as an accident that arose from a complex and interlinked series of mechanical failures, human judgments, engineering design, operational implementation and team interfaces.
BP spread the blame around, and was even critical of its own workers' conduct, but it defended some parts of the well's design and it was careful in its assessments. It already faces hundreds of lawsuits and billions of dollars of liabilities.
In public hearings, it had tried to shift some of the blame to rig owner Transocean Ltd and cement contractor Halliburton. BP was leasing the rig from Transocean and owned the well that blew out.
A Transocean lawyer said the company had no immediate comment on the report.
BP's report is far from the final word on possible causes of the explosion, as several divisions of the United States government, including the Justice Department, Coast Guard and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, are also investigating.
Also, a key piece of the puzzle - the blowout preventer that failed to stop the oil from leaking from the well off the Louisiana coast - was raised from the water on Saturday. It is being taken to a NASA facility in New Orleans where government investigators plan to analyze it, so those conclusions were not part of BP's report.
The April 20 rig explosion killed 11 workers and led to nearly 800 million liters of oil spewing from BP's undersea well. Investigators know the explosion was triggered by a bubble of methane gas that escaped from the well and shot up the drill column, expanding quickly as it burst through several seals and barriers before igniting.
But they don't know exactly how or why the gas escaped. And they don't know why the blowout preventer didn't seal the well pipe at the sea bottom after the eruption.
In a 193-page report posted on its website, the British company described the incident as an accident that arose from a complex and interlinked series of mechanical failures, human judgments, engineering design, operational implementation and team interfaces.
BP spread the blame around, and was even critical of its own workers' conduct, but it defended some parts of the well's design and it was careful in its assessments. It already faces hundreds of lawsuits and billions of dollars of liabilities.
In public hearings, it had tried to shift some of the blame to rig owner Transocean Ltd and cement contractor Halliburton. BP was leasing the rig from Transocean and owned the well that blew out.
A Transocean lawyer said the company had no immediate comment on the report.
BP's report is far from the final word on possible causes of the explosion, as several divisions of the United States government, including the Justice Department, Coast Guard and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, are also investigating.
Also, a key piece of the puzzle - the blowout preventer that failed to stop the oil from leaking from the well off the Louisiana coast - was raised from the water on Saturday. It is being taken to a NASA facility in New Orleans where government investigators plan to analyze it, so those conclusions were not part of BP's report.
The April 20 rig explosion killed 11 workers and led to nearly 800 million liters of oil spewing from BP's undersea well. Investigators know the explosion was triggered by a bubble of methane gas that escaped from the well and shot up the drill column, expanding quickly as it burst through several seals and barriers before igniting.
But they don't know exactly how or why the gas escaped. And they don't know why the blowout preventer didn't seal the well pipe at the sea bottom after the eruption.
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