BP faced accusations in the US yesterday that it caused the worst oil spill in American history because of a calculated strategy to cut costs.
Politicians were told of a series of money-saving shortcuts and blunders that dramatically increased the danger of a spill before a rig blow-out killed 11 workers and sparked an environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.
Newly-released documents highlighted several problems on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the weeks before the April 20 explosion.
Investigators found BP was badly behind schedule on the well and losing hundreds of thousands of pounds a day.
According to the documents, released by the US House of Representatives, the company responded by cutting corners, including the installation of key safety devices.
In the design of the well, BP apparently chose the riskier of two options to provide a barrier to the flow of gas in space around steel tubes. The decision saved BP as much as £6.75million on work expected to cost about £64.8million.
BP also apparently rejected the advice of a sub-contractor, Halliburton, in preparing for a cementing job to close up the well. The firm used six “centralisers” instead of the 21 recommended.
In an e-mail on April 16, a BP official involved in the decision explained: “It will take 10 hours to instal them. I do not like this.”
Later that day, another official recognised the risks of proceeding with insufficient centralisers but commented: “Who cares, it’s done, end of story, will probably be fine.”
The documents showed BP also decided against a nine-to-12-hour procedure known as a “cement bond log” which would have tested the integrity of the cement.
A team from Schlumberger, an oil services firm, was on board the rig, but BP sent it home on the morning of April 20. Less than 12 hours later, the rig exploded.
Democrats Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak said: “Time after time, it appears BP made decisions that increased the risk of a blowout to save time or expense.
“If this is what happened, BP’s carelessness and complacency have inflicted a heavy toll on the Gulf, its inhabitants and the workers on the rig.”
President Barack Obama made his fourth visit to the Gulf yesterday and tried to reassure residents in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida that his government would “leave the Gulf Coast in better shape than it was before”.
He said: “It’s going to be painful for a lot of folks but things are going to return to normal.”
Scientists estimate the breached well may have spilled as much as 114million gallons of oil into the Gulf.
BP claims to have collected 5.6million gallons through a containment cap and believes there will be considerable improvements in the next two weeks.The company has now been given permission to start burning oil and gas piped up from its broken seafloor well as part of a pledge to triple the amount of crude it stops spilling out.
But it suffered a setback yesterday when a bolt of lightning struck the Discoverer Enterprise, the ship capturing oil from the well, and ignited a fire that halted containment efforts.
The fire was quickly extinguished and no one was injured, and BP said it hoped to resume containing oil from the well.
BP hopes to trap as much as 2.2million gallons of oil daily by the end of the month as it deploys additional containment equipment, including the flaring system.