Energy Source

Many of the questions are attempts to get behind the report, for example, whether BP was taking extra risks to cut costs, how high the responsibility goes up the organization and whether there is a systemic problem at BP that needs addressing.

Sure enough, the presentation moves on to a lengthy assessment of some of the factors that BP believes are not responsible for the accident, which have been cited in Congress as possible causes.

One is the decision to use just six “centralisers” to stabilize the steel casing inside the hole, instead of 21, which modelling had suggested would cut the risk of oil and gas leaks. Only six were used because the BP team working on the well believed – incorrectly – that they had an unsuitable type of centralisers on board the rig. The investigation team concluded that the decision to use only six centralisers “likely did not contribute to the cement’s failure to isolate the main hydrocarbon zones”.

BP’s presentation of the results of its internal inquiry into the Deepwater Horizon disaster is being delivered in Washington, in recognition of the fact that the most important audience it is addressing is in the US government and Congress.

The general message of the report is that mistakes were made by BP, but also by Transocean and Halliburton, the two key contractors on the project. Without failures by all of those companies, the accident would not have happened.