Gulf Oil Spill: Markey, Stupak Excoriate BP for Shortcuts, Cost-Cutting, Safety Failures

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce whose ranking members include Markey, Waxman and Stupak, releases briefing memo which pinpoints specific BP failures of well design, control and safety.

The memo was released to support Markey and Stupak's introduction of the Blowout Preventer Act of 2010 bill, which addresses and requires the technical elements BP failed to include on the Deepwater Horizon rig.

A portion of the briefing memo is included below; the excerpt highlights in wide brush strokes BP's failures and oversights, and gives a brief chronology of government investigations both subsequent and ongoing.

"On April 20, 2010, at about 10:00 pm, an explosion occurred on the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling which was drilling a well in BP's Macondo Prospect, approximately 40 miles south of the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico. There were 126 people on the rig at the time of the explosion. Fifteen crew members were injured and eleven died. The Coast Guard responded to the explosions and fire which caused the rig to sink and resulted in the ongoing blowout.

"Serious questions have been raised about the causes of the explosion and the adequacy of industry practices and regulatory standards relating to oil and gas drilling. Ongoing investigations are being conducted by a Marine Board of Investigation (a joint effort under the Coast Guard and the Minerals Management Service), a Presidential Commission, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, and several Congressional Committees, including the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

"The President also ordered the Secretary of the Interior to review the accident and propose additional precautions and technologies to improve the safety of offshore oil and gas drilling; the findings of this review were published on May 27, 2010 in a document usually referred to as the DOI 30-day Report. The Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation has also held three hearings on the explosion and blowout.

"The subcommittee investigation revealed that numerous key safety precautions were neglected by BP prior to the Deepwater Horizon's explosions and fire. To prevent flow of dangerous gases, BP chose a well design that used only a single barrier rather than a design that used multiple barriers. BP ignored the advice of its contractor, Halliburton, and chose a cement sealing approach that was predicted to fail. BP failed to conduct a key cement test. BP failed to fully circulate well fluids, an did not install a key piece of equipment at the wellhead prior to the explosion.

"Several of these steps, though considered industry best practices, are not mandated under current law. All of these decisions saved time and money for BP, but increased risks."

Source: House Committee on Energy and Commerce