BP 2006 Oil Spill in Alaska, Deadly Texas Refinery Explosion in 2005 Had Similar Root Causes, Congress Finds

In 2006 and 2007, BP was directly involved in oil spill and related accident in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska and an explosion at BP Texas City oil refinery which killed 15.

Both spill and fatal explosion were found, by the Chemical Safety Board, to have been caused by cost-cutting BP corporate policy.

Congress has asked the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) to investigate BP once more. On June 7, more than six weeks into the oil spill i, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce requested the Chemical Safety Board to investigate BP once more, for the third time in four years.

In March 2007, CSB concluded an extensive investigation into the root cause of the 2005 explosion at BP's Texas City refinery that took 15 lives.

CSB also compared the refinery explosion with a massive 2006 leak at a BP-controlled pipeline in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. CSB found striking similarities between the reported causes of both incidents, including a focus on budgetary concerns rather than sound risk analysis.

CSB identified cost-cutting, a lax safety culture, and production pressures from BP executives as factors that weakened process safety at the refinery and led to the explosion.

Here is the text of the committee's request to the CSB.

Also listen to killed Deepwater Horizon rig workers' wives testify before Congress.

We are writing to request that the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) investigate the root causes of the April 20 blowout on the Deepwater Horizon rig.

We make this request because we believe CSB' s past work on BP puts it in a unique position to address questions about BP's safety culture and practices.

In March 2007, CSB concluded an extensive investigation into the root cause of the 2005 explosion at BP's Texas City refinery that took 15 lives.

CSB identified cost-cutting, a lax safety culture, and production pressures from BP executives as factors that weakened process safety at the refinery and led to the explosion.

CSB also compared the refinery explosion with the massive leak at a BP pipeline it controlled in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska in 2006. CSB found striking similarities between the reported causes of these two incidents, including a focus on budgetary concerns rather than sound risk analysis.

As part of your investigation, we ask that you address the following questions:

Do the circumstances and events leading up to the Deepwater Horizon explosion reflect
problems it n BP' s corporate safety culture?

What role, if any, did cost-cutting and budgetary concerns play in BP' s decisions about
well design and testing?

How did BP, Transocean, and other contractors apply "management of change" programs to assess the consequences of modifications to process, technology, and equipment on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig as well as organizational changes, including changes to personnel, training, and budget?

Did BP provide adequate oversight of the contractors working on the well?

Can the CSB draw any parallels between the root causes of the April 20 oil rig explosion
and the causes o the 2005 BP Texas City refinery explosion?

For this investigation, we request that CSB assign the investigative team that led the BP
Texas City inquiry.

In addition, we understand that CSB evaluates incidents of significance according to ten criteria, such as death, injury, and environmental damage, and assigns each incident a score to help the Board determine whether an incident merits an investigation.