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White House blames BP for oil spill in Gulf of Mexico

06 January 2011 12:08 (UTC +04:00)

Baku - APA-Economics. The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was an avoidable disaster caused in part by a series of cost-cutting decisions made by BP and its partners, the White House oil commission has concluded, The Guardian reported.

In a preview of its final report, due next week, the national oil spill commission said systemic management failure at BP, Transocean, and Halliburton caused the blow-out in the Gulf of Mexico, and warned that such a disaster would likely recur because of industry complacency.

Many of the poor decisions taken on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig before the fatal blow-out on 20 April were taken to save time and money

On 11 January, the seven-member commission will publish its full report into the causes of the blow-out, which killed 11 men and spewed 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf. Its findings could prove critical to the civil lawsuit filed last month by the US Justice Department against BP, Transocean and other companies involved in the spill for damages to the environment, as well as the hundreds of lawsuits filed by Gulf residents who have lost their livelihoods because of the spill.

The report warned that BP and the other companies could be liable for billions more in compensation to people who have lost money because of the oil spill, and for damage to natural resources.

The explosion was caused by a sudden kick of gas through the 5,000 ft riser pipe connecting the well to the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that â€“ another investigation found â€“ went undetected for several crucial moments. The report identified a series of mistakes that, it said, eventually made the blow-out "inevitable."

It paid particular attention to the faulty cementing job, performed by Halliburton, at the bottom of the well. But it blamed BP for failing to exercise proper oversight over the cementing job, and for misreading a pressure test that indicated the well had not been properly sealed.

"Based on evidence currently available, there is nothing to suggest that BP’s engineering team conducted a formal, disciplined analysis of the combined impact of these risk factors on the prospects for a successful cement job," the report said.

It also criticised BP’s choice of a long string well design. BP crew were also wrong to replace heavy drilling mud in the riser pipe with lighter seawater before the well was properly sealed, the report said.