BP report shares spill blame with other firms

BP’s internal probe of the Deepwater Horizon disaster points fingers at rig owner Transocean Ltd. and contractor Halliburton Co. while also accepting some blame for the fatal accident that touched off the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

The company on Wednesday released a 193-page report based on a probe that began right after the April 20 rig disaster. The accident killed 11 workers and dumped an estimated 4.1 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico over roughly three months before the well was capped.

The report concludes there is no smoking gun but rather that the disaster stemmed from a cascading series of failures.

“The team did not identify any single action or inaction that caused this accident. Rather, a complex and interlinked series of mechanical failures, human judgments, engineering design, operational implementation and team interfaces came together to allow the initiation and escalation of the accident. Multiple companies, work teams and circumstances were involved over time,” states the report, based on the probe led by Mark Bly, BP’s Head of Safety and Operations.

In one of the report’s various findings, the probe faults the cementing job on the ill-fated Macondo well performed by contractor Halliburton. “Improved engineering rigor, cement testing and communication of risk by Halliburton could have identified the low probability of the cement to achieve zonal isolation,” it states.

However, the report doesn’t let BP off the hook entirely, adding: “Improved technical assurance, risk management and management of change by the BP Macondo well team could have raised awareness of the challenges of achieving zonal isolation and led to additional mitigation steps.”

BP also said that over a crucial 40-minute period, the Transocean rig crew failed to “recognize and act on the influx of hydrocarbons into the well until the hydrocarbons were in the riser and rapidly flowing to the surface.”

Outgoing BP CEO Tony Hayward said in a prepared statement that BP’s well design — which has come under intense scrutiny from lawmakers and other investigators — was probably not the problem.

“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. The negative pressure test was accepted when it should not have been, there were failures in well control procedures and in the blow-out preventer; and the rig’s fire and gas system did not prevent ignition,” he said in a prepared statement.



“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,” he said.

BP said that more than 50 specialists from within and outside the company took part in the four-month probe. It is one of several inquiries into the disaster and safety reforms to prevent future spills.

Others include a joint Interior Department-U.S. Coast Guard investigation, Capitol Hill probes, and an inquiry by a White House-created commission probing the “root causes” and future policy changes needed. The Justice Department has also launched a criminal and civil inquiry in connection with the spill.