BP will publish its report into the Gulf of Mexico spill on Wednesday. It should make for some very interesting reading.
The report, which has been prepared by Mark Bly, the UK oil group’s head of safety, is the first of many investigations into the accident on April 20 which killed 11 workers and led to almost 5m barrels of oil spewing into the waters of the gulf.
Mr Bly and members of his team will hold a briefing in Washington, DC on Wednesday. We can expect the report to be detailed and technical and to focus on the sequence of events leading up to the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig.
Mr Bly gave some early indications of where the investigation was going in May at a presentation in Washington. Key things being looked at were:
· The loss of integrity of the steel casing lining the well, which meant it was not sealed and allowed oil and gas to leak;
· “Unrecognised well conditions”, including a test that failed to identify that there was a leak and that oil and gas were moving up the well bore;
· The failure of the blow-out preventer or BOP, the stack of valves on the seabed designed to stop oil and gas escaping.
The presentation also detailed pressure tests that were done in the hours immediately prior to the accident – suggesting these either failed or were misread by the engineers on the rig.
Things may have changed since that early work was done but expect tomorrow’s report to focus on a complex combination of mistakes and breakdowns rather than just one factor.
