[BITList] BP valued speed over safety

[CT's]

Scientists, drilling experts say BP valued speed over safety in oil rig disaster
      oh, no!   Not profit over safety..........................[this is capitalism – why not?]
      ct


      Published: Friday, November 26, 2010, 8:00 PM 
       David Hammer, The Times-Picayune 
      Follow 
      Share this story
      Story tools
      A group of 60 scientists and independent offshore drilling experts has challenged a major conclusion by the national Oil Spill Commission, saying that BP did indeed compromise safety in the name of profits when it made certain decisions that precipitated the disastrous BP oil well blowout in April.

      The Associated PressThe group of scientists and drilling experts contends that BP has a corporate culture that 'was embedded in risk-taking and cost-cutting,' and that played a role in the disaster.
      The Deepwater Horizon Study Group, led by noted University of California at Berkeley professor Bob Bea, largely agreed with the recent findings of President Barack Obama's commission regarding the root causes of the explosions that set off an 87-day oil spill off the Louisiana coast. The experts seconded the idea that the cement that was supposed to seal the well from oil and natural gas failed, most likely at the very bottom, and that rig officials misinterpreted a key pressure test that should have warned them of impending danger.

      But Bea and his colleagues took exception with the way the spill commission's lead investigator, Fred Bartlit Jr., declined to tie BP's management decisions to an effort to save time and money. During his Nov. 8 presentation of the commission's preliminary findings, Bartlit repeatedly said there is no "evidence" that anyone on the rig or at BP explicitly made a decision to "do it the cheap way instead of the safe way." 
      Bea's group counters that, even if nobody made that decision consciously, BP has a corporate culture that "was embedded in risk-taking and cost-cutting," and that played a role in the disaster.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/pipermail/bitlist/attachments/20101127/6a2c051e/attachment.shtml