Oil giant BP had workers on the doomed Deepwater Horizon who could have reacted to “unexpected” pressure test readings before the rig exploded, the White House oil spill commission has said.
In an expanded report on the causes of the drilling disaster in the Gulf of Mexico last year, the commission released new details about events that preceded the accident.
Investigators said BP workers failed to ask a knowledgeable company engineer who was visiting the rig about unexpected results from a critical negative pressure test.
“If anyone had consulted him or any other shore-based engineer, the blowout might never have happened,” the commission said in a statement.
The misread pressure test and a decision to move ahead with temporary abandonment of BP’s Macondo well was a catalyst for the April 20 rig blast that killed 11 workers and unleashed millions of barrels of oil into the sea.
“Events likely would have turned out differently” had BP’s well site leaders brought their faulty explanation of the test results to the attention of one of the visiting engineers, the commission report said.
Engineers visiting the rig that day later questioned the crew’s interpretation of the test results.
BP onshore officials said they would have insisted on further testing had they been consulted.
“The sad fact is that this was an entirely preventable disaster,” said the commission’s chief counsel, Fred Bartlit.
“Poor decisions by management were the real cause.”
BP said it had already included its own internal probe and the commission’s conclusions into its future plans, and made significant management and organisational changes to improve its safety and risk management processes.
According to the new report, BP’s engineers had problems with a Halliburton engineer assigned to the Macondo well for years.
It also emerged yesterday that the embattled administrator of the £12billion fund for Gulf oil spill victims was told by BP that his formula for determining payments is too generous.
A document purporting to be from a major business was posted on the Gulf Coast Claims Facility website. A spokeswoman for the compensation fund confirmed the comments were written by BP.
The document said Kenneth Feinberg’s methodology artificially inflated future expected losses for victims of the spill.
It claims there is no factual basis to assume Gulf-wide claimants will experience losses this year equalling 70% of their 2010 losses, and losses in 2012 equalling 30% of last year’s losses.
Over the last two weeks, hundreds of Gulf residents and businesses have filed comments with GCCF. Many have accused Mr Feinberg of moving too slowly. Others say the payments have been too small and many complain the methodology he has proposed for final payments lowers the future impact of the spill on victims.
Massachusetts Democrat congressman Edward Markey, who sits on the House natural resources committee, said: “BP made errors in judgment that led to this oil spill, and now they’ve made another error in judgment by going after the very people their spill harmed.”