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All Eyes on BP Gulf Oil Spill Report 09/08 05:36
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Oil giant BP PLC on Wednesday planned to release the
conclusions of its internal investigation into the rig explosion that killed 11
workers and led to the massive Gulf of Mexico spill.
BP was striking first with a detailed report about what it believes went
wrong on the Deepwater Horizon on April 20. It comes just days after a key
piece of evidence in the explosion was raised to the surface but has not yet
been analyzed. It also comes as the blame game heats up in Washington and in
the courtroom.
BP was unlikely to place too much onus on itself, given the hundreds of
lawsuits and billions of dollars of liabilities it faces. In public hearings,
the company has tried to shift some blame to rig owner Transocean Ltd. and
cement contractor Halliburton. BP was leasing the rig from Transocean and owned
the well that blew out a mile under the Gulf surface, spewing some 206 million
gallons of oil into the water over three months.
BP's report is far from the final word on possible causes of the explosion,
as several divisions of the U.S. government, including the Justice Department,
Coast Guard and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement,
are also investigating.
Also, a key piece of the puzzle --- the blowout preventer that failed to
stop the oil from leaking from the well off the Louisiana coast --- was raised
from the water on Saturday. As of Tuesday afternoon, it had not reached a NASA
facility in New Orleans where government investigators planned to analyze it,
so those conclusions will not be part of BP's report.
Investigators know the explosion was triggered by a bubble of methane gas
that escaped from the well and shot up the drill column, expanding quickly as
it burst through several seals and barriers before igniting.
But they don't know exactly how or why the gas escaped. And they don't know
why the blowout preventer didn't seal the well pipe at the sea bottom after the
eruption, as it was supposed to.
The details of BP's internal report have been closely guarded --- and only a
short list of people saw it ahead of its release. Mark Bly, BP's group head of
safety and operations, compiled the report and said in May that there was a gas
plume before the explosion.
"This was a pretty large plume of gas ... I think it was a large enough
where there was a high likelihood it would have ignited," he said.
There were other signs of problems, including an unexpected loss of fluid
from a pipe known as a riser five hours before the explosion that could have
indicated a leak in the blowout preventer.
Witness statements show that rig workers talked just minutes before the
blowout about pressure problems in the well.
At first, nobody seemed too worried, workers have said. Then panic set in.
Workers called their bosses to report that the well was "coming in" and that
they were "getting mud back." The drilling supervisor, Jason Anderson, tried to
shut down the well.
It didn't work. At least two explosions turned the rig into an inferno.
Members of Congress, industry experts and workers who survived the rig
explosion have accused BP's engineers of cutting corners to save time and money
on a project that was 43 days and more than $20 million behind schedule at the
time of the blast.
(CZ)
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