Blame and shame

TONY HAYWARD, BP's chief executive when the Deepwater Horizon rig caught fire and sank in April 2010, famously remarked that, “To put it simply, there was a bad cement job.” The report of the National Oil Spill Commission set up by Barack Obama to look into the loss of the rig and the subsequent massive oil spill, a portion of which was released on January 6th, differs subtly but crucially. The fundamental problem was not the dodgy cementing: it was BP's failure to exercise proper caution before relying on that cementing.

As previous analyses of the accident, including BP's own, have shown, the flawed cementing that let oil into the bottom of the supposedly sealed well was not the only issue. Subsequent portents were missed, procedures altered and tests muffed which should have saved the rig. Where the new report stands out is in showing how options that would have reduced the risk, like thorough cement testing, were systematically forgone in favour of cheaper alternatives without due consideration.

BP bears the brunt of the report's stinging criticism, but not all of it. The report says that tests by Halliburton, contracted to do the cementing, showed the cement being used was unlikely to set stably and effectively in the well; but Halliburton did not communicate that conclusion, or, it seems, all of the results, to BP. Transocean, which owned and ran the rig, failed to give anything like enough weight to the lessons of an “eerily similar” accident on one of its rigs in the North Sea the year before, which was only just kept under control.

The criticism of Transocean and Halliburton is not just a problem for those American companies; it is the foundation of the report's assertion that the oil industry has a systemic problem. As the commission's co-chair, William Reilly, has pointed out, there are oil companies with exemplary safety records. BP might just have been a bad egg. But the fact that all three of the companies working on the Deepwater Horizon made fatal errors in their management and communications indicates that there is much to be fixed in the attitudes and practices of the industry as a whole. These broader issues, and what the government might now do about them, are sure to make up much of the meat of the rest of the report, due for release next week.