BP Report Spreads Blame Around for Oil Disaster

(CBS/AP)  Updated at 7:08 p.m. ET

BP took some of the blame for the Gulf oil disaster in an internal report issued Wednesday, acknowledging among other things that it misinterpreted a key pressure test of the well. But in a possible preview of its legal strategy, it also pointed the finger at its partners on the doomed rig.

The highly technical 193-page report was posted on the company's website, and attributes the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history and the rig explosion that set it off to a complex chain of failures both human and mechanical. Some of those problems have been made public over the past 4½ months, such as the failure of the blowout preventer to clamp the well shut.

BP's Deepwater Accident Investigation Summary
Special Section: Disaster in the Gulf

The report is far from the definitive ruling on the cause of the catastrophe. For one thing, government investigators have not yet begun to fully analyze the blowout preventer, which was raised from the bottom of the sea over Labor Day weekend.

The blowout preventer was raised from the water off the coast of Louisiana on Saturday. As of Tuesday afternoon, it had not reached a NASA facility in New Orleans where government investigators planned to analyze it.

Blowout Preventer May Hold Clues to Oil Spill

But it provides an early look at the company's probable legal strategy - spreading the blame among itself, rig owner Transocean, and cement contractor Halliburton - as it deals with hundreds of lawsuits, billions of dollars in claims and possible criminal charges in the coming months and years.

Critics of BP called the report self-serving.

"This report is not BP's mea culpa," said Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., a member of a congressional panel investigating the spill. "Of their own eight key findings, they only explicitly take responsibility for half of one. BP is happy to slice up blame as long as they get the smallest piece."

The report's conclusions stand in contrast to a widely seen BP ad campaign in which the company casts no blame for the explosion and vows to clean up and restore the Gulf Coast.

"BP blaming others for the Gulf oil disaster is like Bernie Madoff blaming his accountant," said Robert Gordon, an attorney for fishermen, hotels and restaurants affected by the spill. Another plaintiff's lawyer, W. Mark Lanier, scoffed: "This is like the ringleader of a lynch mob saying, `Well, I didn't bring the rope; he did."'

The disaster began when the Deepwater Horizon exploded off the coast of Louisiana on April 20, killing 11 workers. BP's well spewed more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf before a temporary cap stopped it in mid-July.

Members of Congress, industry experts and workers who survived the blast have accused BP's engineers of cutting corners to save time and money on a project that was 43 days and more than $20 million behind schedule at the time of the blast.

Nearly 24 hours before the explosion, Halliburton was using cement to seal the gap between the well casing and the hole drilled in the seafloor. It was also cementing the bottom of the well shut until the day BP was ready to begin extracting oil and gas from it.

In BP's version of events, Halliburton's bad cement job allowed natural gas to seep into the well which eventually blew out right through the center of its pipe, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann. But other analysts suspect the well's outer casing chosen by BP, despite knowing it was cheaper and riskier.

The report also read "more thorough review and testing by Halliburton" and "stronger quality assurance" by BP's well team might have identified weaknesses in the plan for cementing.

The report acknowledged, as investigators have previously suggested, that BP's engineers and employees of Transocean misinterpreted a pressure test of the well's integrity before the explosion.

"The Transocean rig crew and BP well site leaders reached the incorrect view that the test was successful and that well integrity had been established," the investigators said.

They also blamed employees on the rig from both companies for failing to respond to other warning signs that the well was in danger of blowing out.

The words "blame" and "mistake" never appear in the report. "Fault" shows up 20 times, but only once in the same sentence as the company's name.

"The team did not identify any single action or inaction that caused this accident," the investigators said. "Rather, a complex and interlinked series of mechanical failures, human judgments, engineering design, operational implementation and team interfaces came together to allow the initiation and escalation of the accident. Multiple companies, work teams and circumstances were involved over time."

Mark Bly, who as BP's safety chief led the internal investigation, said the report was a reconstruction of what happened on the rig based on the company's data and interviews with mostly BP employees and was not meant to focus on assigning blame. The six-person investigating panel had access to only a few workers from other companies, and samples of the actual cement used in the well were not released to BP.

Transocean blasted the report as a self-serving attempt to conceal what it called the real cause of the explosion - "BP's fatally flawed well design."

Halliburton said it found a number of omissions and inaccuracies in the report and is confident the work it completed on the well met BP's specifications. "Contractors do not specify well design or make decisions regarding testing procedures as that responsibility lies with the well owner," the company said.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs noted "there is an active investigation into what went wrong" and said the administration's job is to find out what happened and hold those responsible accountable. Federal prosecutors are among those investigating.

In Wednesday trading in New York, BP stock rose $1.18, or 3.2 percent, to close at $38.37.

Investigators know the explosion was triggered by a bubble of methane gas that shot up the drill column and ignited. But they don't know exactly how and why the gas escaped. And they don't know for certain why the blowout preventer didn't work.

But in its report, BP said the blowout preventer didn't do its job because it was damaged in the explosion and because it had a bad valve and weak batteries. Transocean, which was responsible for maintaining the blowout preventer, has insisted the batteries were in working order.

BP also said:

- Its use of six centralizers during the cementing, instead of the 21 recommended by Halliburton, probably did not contribute to the cement's failure. Centralizers make sure the casing is running down the center of the well bore. If the casing is cemented off-center, there is a risk of an imperfect seal that could allow oil and gas to escape.

- Just before the blast, the flammable gas leaking from the well was directed onto the rig instead of being vented overboard. The rig's ventilation system may have allowed the gas to enter the engine rooms, where it may have ignited.

- Recommendations should be considered to improve offshore drilling practices. It suggested, among other things, that standards for reporting and investigating incidents be clarified and strengthened.

Separately on Wednesday, the Obama administration said it sent a sixth bill, for $128.5 million, to BP and others for costs associated with the spill. The first five bills, totaling $389.9 million, have been paid in full by BP, the government said.

The disaster has already cost BP roughly $8 billion, not including a $20 billion victims' compensation fund it has agreed to set up.

[mb91764]

193 pages that no common person could figure out.Everone to blame,no one taking responseability.Most people know why it happen,pure old greed.Sounds like the U.S. congress and not BP, maybe they are the one and the same.SPOOKY! get real nothing is going to happen,They will drag this out that the avg.american will be worry about there jobs,money,and homes and would care less. P.S. the lawyers(congress) will end up with all of the money anyhow.

[ctroubledog]

What do you expect of these people, this is what they call good business. It may be legal but what about ethics, I've worked around the oil business a lot of my life and ethics goes out the window when greed becomes involved. Pass the buck is the name of the game and it is just a game to them.

[babooph]

Much like getting your mother in laws take on your divorce...

[josephp5]

The real causes of the disaster:

1. BP drilled the first well too fast. This caused cracks in the strata surrounding the well. This first well had to be abandoned and a second well drilled, causing BP to be even more determined to take short cuts to save time.

2. BP removed the drilling mud before the last of the three concrete well plugs had set, to expedite the reopening of the well. There was evidently a heated discussion between Haliburton, which had done the well plugs, and BP over this issue, and BP prevailed in their plan to remove the drilling mud earlier than Haliburton recommended.

3. BP used a faulty blowout preventer---one they knew was faulty. Only one of the two required communication pods was working. BP also was warned by Chief Electronics Technician Mike Williams that the seal on the blowout preventer was damaged due to an error. But BP used this clearly faulty blowout preventer anyway.

There is little question that these were the events that caused the catastrophe to occur. And all of them were 100% BP's fault, and 100% inexcusable.

[formrusmcsgt]

Critics of BP called the report self-serving.
---
Nothing new.

All of BP's short-cuts that led to this debacle were self-serving as well.

[steeepe]

But they're taking "full responsibility", right? At least that's what their multimillion dollar ad campaign claims.

[Myopinion046]

One word: spin.

[consciousnes]

Well, everyone is still blaming everone else. Ultimately it is BP's fault because they designed the well, they hired the sub contractors and PB is responsible for what they tell them to do.
BP can say it was many factors, but when all is said and done it was BP who comunicated the orders to do thing the way they were done. BP should just take responsibility and if any other company's product failed, BP should get restitution from them.

[afmcalax]

Typical corporation ... absolutely no accountability and no responsibility. BP is praying that the Republicans win in November as that will ensure that the final tab is picked up by the tax payer instead of the companies that caused the damage. Wait for the special BP tax break hidden in a Republican sponsored bill.

[Lifeson2112]

Actually, Obama was the biggest recipient of BP money. It is the Democrats you'd better be watching out for. They are so far in bed with these people it is ridiculous and they've managed to convince you that its the Republicans doing it. Sad. Really, really sad.

[josephp5]

Both Republicans and Democrats are complicit in allowing huge corporations like BP to run roughshod over the interests of the people. The only difference is in degree and appearances---the Democrats flirt with corporations and try to pretend that they dont, while Republicans have completely sold out to corporate interests and make no bones about it.

[bradkt1]

This is an old, tried-and-true ploy...of everyone is to blame, then no one can be held responsible.