[BITList] blame

[CT's]

ok folks, how do they locate a tanker 5000 ft above the leak/s to collect oil?

ct

Oil executives shift blame at Senate hearing
     


     
By Steven Mufson and David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer 
Tuesday, May 11, 2010; 12:41 PM 

Three big oil and oil service companies all pointed fingers at one another for blame in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in testimony Tuesday at the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. 

While saying that it was too early to make a final determination of the cause of the April 20 blowout that started the spill, the companies stressed one another's failures. 

BP America President Lamar McKay stressed the failure of the blowout preventer owned by rig operator Transocean. "The systems are intended to fail-close and be fail-safe," McKay said. "Sadly and for reasons we do not yet understand, in this case, they were not." 

But Transocean chief executive Steven Newman said the blowout preventers "were clearly not the root cause of the explosion." He said they might have been damaged by debris made of cement and steel casing material blown upward because of other failures. 

"The one thing we know with certainty is that on the evening of April 20 there was a sudden, catastrophic failure of the cement, the casing, or both," Newman said. The cementing job was done by Halliburton. 

Newman said that "the cementing sub-contractor is responsible for encasing the well in cement, for putting a temporary cement plug in the top of the well, and for ensuring the integrity of the cement." 

He said the failure of the cement or casing could have been the result of a number of miscalculations, but stressed that many key decisions were made by BP as the operator of the lease. 

He said that BP had directed that drilling mud used to counter pressure from the well be replaced by sea water. He also said that by April 17 the well had been completed and the blowout preventer was to be moved off site soon. "The attention now being given to the BOPs in this case is somewhat ironic because at the time of the explosion the drilling process was completed," he said. 

Halliburton's Tim Probert also tried to deflect blame, saying, "We understand that the drilling contractor . . . proceeded to displace the riser with seawater prior to the planned placement of the final cement plug." That plug was designed to keep the oil and gas in the well, a final step before pulling the drilling rig away from the well. Probert said that the final cement plug was never set. 

BP's McKay also said that Transocean as operator of the well was responsible for its safety and that certain control indicators might have suggested instability in the well before the blowout. 
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