BP oil spill report blames poor management

The Commission investigating the BP oil spill has found BP and other companies guilty of complacency and blames cost cutting and poor management and engineering decisions.


The National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling has released forward chapters in advance of the full report which will come out on January 11.

The report says that a raft of engineering mistakes and management failures led to the explosion which killed 11 people.

What is particularly damning is that the report says that the failures were preventable and blames BP, Halliburton and Transocean for misjudgements that contributed to the disaster. It also blames the industry and its regulation at large.

Co-chair Bob Graham said: “This disaster likely would not have happened had the companies involved been guided by an unrelenting commitment to safety first.

“And it likely would not have happened if the responsible government regulators had the capacity and will to demand world class safety standards”.

Furthermore, federal regulation failed to address basic procedures for testing the cement seal and the companies involved displayed complacency in their engineering operations.

The report said: “Whether purposeful or not, many decisions that BP, Halliburton and Transocean made that increased the risk of the Macondo blowout clearly saved those companies significant time (and money).”

The report may strengthen the US government’s litigation against BP and other companies.

You can read the report here.

Alison Brown

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