A US presidential panel probing the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster examined the industry's safety culture today, after its lead investigator said he found no evidence BP and its partners had sacrificed safety for profits.
'To date, we have not seen a single instance where a human being made a conscious decision to favour dollars over safety,' Fred Bartlit, chief counsel to the commission, said yesterday at the start of the two-day hearing.
The April 20 explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers and sparked a massive oil spill that crippled local fishing and tourism industries and did untold damage to the Gulf's fragile ecosystem.
Bartlit also said the probe team agreed with 90% of the findings of BP's 183-page in-house report released in September, but slapped the oil giant for taking 'unnecessary risks' that may have led to the explosion.
BP repeatedly changed its plan to secure the well after completing drilling, and also took the unusual step of placing a cement plug to seal the well 3,000 feet below the surface instead of the usual 300 feet, and then filling the space above it with water instead of heavier mud, the panel found.
'That cement plug acts as a backup barrier, just in case anything happens with the cement down at the bottom,' Bartlit said. 'If hydrocarbons begin to leak in they will be stopped by that surface cement plug. We think BP introduced a certain amount of risk into the situation that we think may not have been necessary,' he added.
Bartlit's assessment put him at odds with US lawmakers who accused BP and its main partners on the Macondo well, Halliburton and Transocean, of cutting corners to finish drilling the well, which was reportedly millions of dollars over-budget and costing $1.5m a day.
The seven-member commission has to present US President Barack Obama with a report on the root causes of the disaster by January 11.
According to the British giant, the spill is set to cost it some $40 billion. The disaster forced the resignation of chief executive Tony Hayward, who was replaced by American Bob Dudley, and the selling of assets worth up to $30 billion.
Former BP CEO defends sailing trip
The former chief executive of oil major BP defended his decision to go sailing while one of its wells was causing the worst-ever US oil spill, saying he wanted to see his son after three months fighting the leak.
Tony Hayward, in his first interview since stepping down as BP boss, told the BBC that he would probably do the same thing again, despite the fierce criticism it provoked from the White House and the Gulf of Mexico region, where the deepsea well was sited.
'I have to confess, at the time I was pretty angry actually. I hadn't seen my son for three months. I was on the boat for six hours. I'm not certain I'd do anything different,' he said.
Hayward had spent most of the previous three months in the US trying to stem the spill, during which his series of gaffes fanned public anger toward what had been, before the disaster, Europe's biggest oil company by market value.
The excursion involved a boat race near the Isle of Wight, which Hayward attended after he was called back to the UK by BP's chairman, who felt the company needed to put a new face on the response effort.
