A US Government safety panel has concluded that BP focused on personal worker safety at the expense of systemic and process risks that led to the explosion of the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico.
“BP applied lesser process safety standards” to contracted rigs than to its own facilities, Daniel Horowitz, board managing director of the US Chemical Safety Board told the Associated Press. “In reality, both Transocean and BP dropped the ball on major accident hazards in this case.”
The board’s report follows a two-day public hearing into the Macondo disaster.
The blow out of the Macondo well caused an explosion on Transocean’s Deepwater Horizon rig which killed eleven oil workers, injured another 17, and saw millions of barrels of oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico, requiring the largest clean-up operation in history and leaving BP with tens of billions of dollars in fines, lawsuits and restitutionary expenses.
The Transocean rig was leased to BP, which was the majority owner and operator of the Macondo well site.
According to the board’s report, BP and Transocean had “multiple safety management system deficiencies that contributed to the Macondo incident.”
The board’s investigation gave particular focus to tests run by drill workers shortly before the blowout to determine if the Macondo well was safely sealed with cement, according to the report.
A previous federal oil spill commission report, co-chaired by US Senator Bob Graham and former EPA chief William Reilly revealed similar problems, according to an AP report.
BP has put Halliburton, which was responsible for cementing, at fault, where Halliburton has blamed the well design and operatorship of the rig.
Testimony by rig workers has revealed that Macondo was a difficult well to drill, and was 43 days behind schedule at the time of the blow out. According to testimony by the rig’s chief mechanic before a federal investigative board in 2010, there was a “skirmish” between BP and Transocean rig workers over whether to displace drilling mud with water in an attempt to wrap up drilling operations and plug the well with cement.
The report said the tests were carried out in different ways by different oil workers, there were no written procedures on how to conduct the pressure tests, and “no written criteria or safe limits defined for determining if the test was a success or warnings on the consequences of deviation from the procedural requirements.”
The board’s investigation was slowed by some resistance from the companies involved, reports AP, including issues over access to the blow-out preventer for analysis.
In a news release, safety board investigator Cheryl MacKenzie said BP’s failings bore an “eerie resemblance” to what the safety board found in its investigation of a 2005 explosion at BP’s Texas City refinery, which killed 15 people. The board believes BP failed to take the safety lessons from the Texas City refinery explosion and apply them to offshore drilling.
BP says it has taken concrete steps to further enhance safety and risk management, including stringent new measures specifically for the Gulf of Mexico, where it has returned to drilling.
“Transocean is committed to continuous improvement in both personal and process safety performance,” Transocean spokesman Brian Kennedy said. “We look forward to reviewing the CSB report in its entirety toward that end, just as we have with the many investigative reports that have preceded it.”
The US Chemical Safety Board does not have the power to issue fines, and can only recommend changes to the industry and regulators.
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