Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig at the centre of last year’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill, has blamed BP, as operator of the well, for decisions that it said ultimately led to the fatal disaster.
The conclusions, reached after an internal investigation into the incident, found that a succession of decisions on well design, construction and plans for the Macondo well – many of which were taken by BP in the two weeks leading up to the accident on April 20 – had compromised the integrity of the well and compounded the likelihood of its failure.
The decisions, claimed Transocean, were “driven by BP’s knowledge that the geological window for safe drilling was becoming increasingly narrow”. The company’s conclusions mark the latest salvo in the legal battle with BP over who was responsible for the accident which killed 11 workers and led to the biggest ever accidental offshore oil spill. BP, said the report, failed to properly assess, manage and communicate risk to its contractors.
Transocean alleges that in the two weeks preceding the accident BP changed its plans for the well five times and that the final procedure ultimately implemented never received the required regulatory approval. It also takes issue with BP’s design of the well and the cement programme which was handled by Halliburton. “The resulting cement programme was of minimal quantity, left little margin for error, and was not tested adequately before or after the cementing operation,” Transocean said.
Transocean also said its blow-out preventer, a device designed as a last resort to close off a well, was properly maintained, but the extreme pressure from the well forced the drill pipe to bend, preventing the shears from cutting the pipe.
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