BP executives face Senate inquisitors

OIL EXECUTIVES involved in the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico reacted to their inquisitors on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources with a mixture of contrition and buck-passing yesterday.

The oil-soaked birds of the Gulf Coast seemed a long way from the marble-columned hearing room, with its red brocade curtains and gilded ceiling. The oilmen treated the catastrophe, which has leaked millions of gallons of petroleum into the Gulf, as if it were an act of God rather than a manmade disaster.

Lamar McKay, the chairman of BP America, said, “We have all experienced a tragic series of events” and expressed his “deepest sympathies” to the families of 11 oil workers who died when the rig exploded and sank on April 20th.

Tim Probert, the head of safety and environmental issues at Halliburton, the sub-contractor who encased the well and plugged it with cement before it exploded, repeated McKay’s words, almost verbatim. Steven Newman, the chief executive officer for Transocean, which leased the rig to BP, spoke of his “heavy, aching heart”. None of which prevented the oil executives from engaging in what Senator Robert Menendez called “the liability chase; a Texas two-step”. The recriminations formed a perfect circle, with BP blaming Transocean, Transocean blaming Halliburton and Halliburton blaming BP.

Mr McKay of BP emphasised that “BP hired Transocean to conduct the well-drilling operations. Transocean owned the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and its equipment, including the blowout preventer”. Speculation has concentrated on the blowout preventer, the column of pipes equipped with a series of valves and cutting “shear rams” which are intended to prevent petrol and natural gas surging out of a well and exploding.

Mr Newman acted offended at the mere suggestion “that the blowout preventers used on this project were the cause of the accident. That simply makes no sense.”

The Transocean executive pointed a metaphorical finger at the man seated to his left, Mr Probert of Halliburton. With their thinning hair and grey suits, the three men looked strikingly similar, though Mr Probert stood out for his suntan, pin-stripes and British accent.

For Mr Newman, there seemed to be no doubt that faulty cement and well casing (provided by Halliburton) were the culprits.

Attention has in recent days turned to Halliburton’s use of nitrogen-charged cement (which makes a strong-bonding, meringue-like mixture) to temporarily plug the new oil well until BP could return to set up a permanent structure.

Mr Probert would have none of it. Halliburton was “on standby” when the explosion occurred, having completed its part of the job 20 hours before workers lost control of the well. For his part, Mr Probert clearly blamed BP, reiterating that his company worked only under instructions from “the well owner” who remained “the ultimate authority for decisions on how and when various activities are conducted”.

The circle of blame was almost complete, but the Mineral Management Service (MMS), the subdivison of the Department of the Interior responsible for regulating the petroleum industry, also took a beating, in the person of its just-retired chief of offshore regulatory programmes, Elmer P Danenberger III.

Mr Danenberger expressed outrage at media reports, based on an interior department investigation, that MMS inspectors indulged in sex and drugs with the very people they were meant to be regulating.

Whenever MMS inspected the blowout preventers, the stacks with their plethora of “multiple redundancies” always passed with flying colours, Senator Menendez noted. “And yet, when you needed it, it failed.”

Mr Danenberger could find no fault with the companies’ response to the oil spill. “Every solution is being tried,” he said earnestly. “The relief well (two of which are being drilled by BP to permanently shut the leak) will work (in about three months). Chances are very good the leak will be killed before that.”

BP is now attempting two temporary solutions.