Oil Spill Report Calls for Lessons to be Learned

Safety experts and environmental campaigners want tougher regulations governing deep water drilling in UK seas following an investigation into last year's Gulf of Mexico disaster which found cost cutting and short cuts were to blame.
While the government is opposed to calls from environmental campaigners for a moratorium on deep water drilling off the west coast of Scotland, because such a move would undermine the UK's energy security, MPs admit harsh North Sea conditions would make an oil spill very difficult to contain.
"Safety regulations on drilling in the UK are already tougher than they were in the Gulf of Mexico, but oil companies must not use that as an excuse for complacency,” said Tim Yeo, Chairman of the parliamentary energy and climate change committee, on Radio 4's Today Programme. He added that while the possibility of an incident happening in UK waters couldn't be eliminated entirely the risks could be substantially reduced.
“The results of the US Commission into the Deepwater Horizon disaster have serious implications for the oil industry and beyond,” said Andrew Sinclair of Glen Abbot, the UK's leading independent Business Continuity Consultancy firm with a number of international clients in the oil and gas industry. “Business continuity programmes which encompass risk management must now be fully supported at the highest levels in this sector. Companies must continually assess the risks of any operation they undertake and ensure that the highest safety standards are adhered to at all times.
“Safety and risk management have to be implemented from the top down otherwise it is too easy for a culture of short cuts and cost cutting gambles to become accepted practice.
“Contingency plans to avert any kind of incident must be in place and tested. The repercussions of the Gulf of Mexico spill, environmentally, economically and legislatively, will be felt for years to come even though the root causes which led to the blowout could have been avoided.
“If a similar incident happened in the North Sea the consequences could be catastrophic. It cannot be allowed to happen. In any business sector it is always better to prepare for and prevent an incident than it is to try and clear up afterwards.”
Concerns over the safety of deepwater drilling in UK waters follows the findings of a US government report into the Gulf of Mexico disaster which killed 11 people and caused one of the worst oil spills in history. The National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, set up by President Barack Obama to investigate the causes and provide recommendations preventing future spills, concluded the tragedy was caused by a failure of management.
The report, which is due to released in full on January 11, blames the three companies involved with the Macondo well, BP, Halliburton and Transocean, of making decisions which increased the risk of a blow out to save time and money.
“The well blew out because a number of separate risk factors, oversights, and outright mistakes combined to overwhelm the safeguards meant to prevent just such an event from happening,” says the report.
“But most of the mistakes and oversights at Macondo can be traced back to a single overarching failure—a failure of management. Better management by BP, Halliburton, and Transocean would almost certainly have prevented the blowout by improving the ability of individuals involved to identify the risks they faced, and to properly evaluate, communicate, and address them”.
The explosion on April 20 last year allowed millions of gallons of oil to seep into the sea until the well was capped three months later in July but not before BP was forced to pay out billions of dollars in costs and compensation claims. It also resulted in the resignation of BP's Chief Executive Tony Hayward.
Among the reasons for the disaster the Commission report found there had been inadequate risk evaluation and management and that many of the failures which contributed to the tragedy were preventable.
“Errors and misjudgments by at least three companies -- BP, Halliburton and Transocean -- contributed to the disaster,” said the report.
“Whether purposeful or not, many of the decisions that BP, Halliburton, and Transocean made that increased the risk of the Macondo blowout clearly saved those companies significant time (and money).”
Bob Graham, Co-Chairman of the US Commission, said the findings only served to compound the sense of tragedy because the evidence suggests the blowout was avoidable.
“This disaster likely would not have happened had the companies involved been guided by an unrelenting commitment to safety first. And it likely would not have happened if the responsible governmental regulators had the capacity and will to demand world class safety standards,” said Mr Graham. “There is nothing that we can do to bring back the lives of the men we lost that day. But we can honor their memory by pledging to take steps necessary to avoid repeating the fatal practices of the past.”
In response to the report BP said it was working to ensure lessons were learned from the incident so that improvements could be made in operations and contractor services in deep water drilling.

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