ATLANTA- The owner of the rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico last year largely blames oil giant BP for the disaster in an internal investigation report released Wednesday that goes a long way in bolstering the Swiss firm's arguments in responding to pending lawsuits and expected government fines.The Transocean report said the April 20, 2010, Deepwater Horizon explosion and resulting oil spill was sparked by a succession of well design, construction, and temporary abandonment decisions that compromised the integrity of the well and compounded the risk of its failure. Transocean said many of the decisions were made by well owner BP in the two weeks before the incident.
The report doesn't say Transocean holds no blame for what caused the disaster, but it comes pretty close. In one of the few references to something Transocean workers didn't do correctly, the company report noted that none of the people monitoring the well, including the Transocean drill crew, initially detected the flow of oil through the well. However, the report said that once the crew did realise the well was flowing, it "undertook well-control activities that were consistent with its training." Transocean said the explosion was inevitable at that point.Transocean said its evidence indicates that BP failed to properly assess, manage and communicate risk. On one key aspect-the failure of the blowout preventer to keep oil from leaking into the sea- Transocean seemed to suggest it takes no blame.
BP's own internal report on the disaster blamed a cascade of failures by multiple companies for the disaster. Government investigations also have spread around the blame.The Transocean report said the findings don't represent the company's legal position, but they are consistent with many of the arguments the firm has been making for more than a year, and they are likely to be cited by Transocean in future proceedings.BP officials did not respond to several requests for comment.Among Transocean's findings:
• BP did not properly communicate to the drill crew the lack of testing on the cement or the uncertainty surrounding critical tests and procedures used to confirm the integrity of the barriers intended to inhibit the flow of hydrocarbons from the well. A hydrocarbon is a compound consisting of hydrogen and carbon that is found in oil and gas.
• BP adopted a technically complex nitrogen foam cement program for sealing the well. The resulting cementing job was of minimal quantity, left little margin for error, and was not tested adequately before or after the cementing operation. Further, the integrity of the cement may have been compromised by contamination, instability, and an inadequate number of devices used to centre the casing in the wellbore.
• Cement contractor Halliburton and BP did not adequately test the cement slurry used to seal the well.
• BP also failed to assess the risk of the temporary abandonment procedure used at Macondo. At the time of the explosion, BP was making sure the well was sealed so it could temporarily abandon the site and perhaps come back at some point in the future to produce oil from the exploratory well.Transocean said BP generated at least five different temporary abandonment plans for the Macondo well between April 12, 2010, and April 20, 2010. After this series of last-minute alterations, BP proceeded with a temporary abandonment plan that created risk and did not have the required government approval.
(TIME)