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Mark Bly, BP’s head of safety and operations, released on September 7, 2010 an internal report blaming not only the company, but also its partners for the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion and oil spill. A spokesman at Transocean quickly lashed out, calling it a “self-serving report” that minimized what was critical: BP’s “fatally flawed” well design. For example, “Over a 40-minute period, the Transocean rig crew failed to recognize and act on the influx of hydrocarbons into the well,” the report states. A BP spokesman declined comment on whether BP staff were also supposed to be monitoring the pressure. Companies such as Royal Dutch Shell monitor all their wells in real time from central locations. Also, the “unstable” cement mixture used by contractor Halliburton allowed hydrocarbons to leak into the well, the report said. However, it was BP managers who decided to use a long production string rather than a casing tie back, decreasing the number of barriers to gas flow. Also, BP employees neglected to run a cement bond log (CBL) to test the integrity of the cement. They installed fewer than one third of the recommended number of centralizers, dramatically increasing the risk of cement channeling and gas flow Failing to conduct a complete “bottoms up” circulation of the well to insure the quality of the cement seal. Lastly, they did not run a lockdown sleeve to secure the production string to the well head, eliminating yet another barrier to a blowout. In his report, Bly defended the well’s design, which has been criticized by industry experts. “The investigation team reviewed the decision to install a 97/8 in. x 7 in. long string production casing rather than a 7 in. production liner, which would have been tied back to the wellhead later, and concluded that both options provided a sound basis of design.” To relegate or ignore the contributing factors of design while pointing to Halliburton’s “unstable” cement mixture suggests a subterranean motive. A likely candidate is minimizing damages from the many legal challenges facing BP.  That is, Mark Bly was essentially trying to spread the blame in order to spread the damages so his company could limit its losses from the well explosion. Such a purpose deviates from BP’s commercials wherein BP managers protest that they are doing everything they can to take responsibility for the disaster. Were it only true that saying it made it so. Even as BP’s media blitz was extolling the company’s responsibility, claims were being so scrutinized that the US Government pressured the company to allow an independent party deal with the claims. Sadly, some people are doubtlessly being taken in by the commercials. Just being on the air proffers a certain degree of legitimacy. It is more difficult to discern how a report is being used. A shark is a feeding machine. So too is a company. To expect a company to all of a sudden lose sight of its function is to believe in the tooth fairy.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39046088/ns/us_news-environment/
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