Not your every day spill

September 9, 2010 by · 1 Comment 

When BP spilled more than 200 million gallons of oil into the gulf of Mexico and killed 11 workers on the rig, nothing short of a disaster ensued.  Everyone has heard of the leak and everyone blames BP for it. However a article from  NPR released yesterday says,  BP has released a  report that concludes “multiple companies and worker teams” are to blame for the rig explosion and leak. The report goes on to say that “a series of complex events, rather than one mistake lead to this tragedy.” BP is trying to shift some of the blame to Transocean the contractor of the rig and the contractor Haliburton. The NPR article goes on to look fairly at what all three parties have done wrong with the spill. BP had been cutting corners and was 20 million dollars behind on the project. This lead to lack safety measures for example the failure of the blowout preventer. NPR’s article also looks at the other parties responsibility in the mess. Transocean employees could have easily checked the systems before the spill to see there was problem. Haliburton had done a bad job at constructing the well bore.

The way I look at the article is that the report made by BP is pointless. I look at the report as an attempt from BP who is backed into a corner trying to put the fire someplace else; even try to get more time for the hearings that BP is currently being investigated for. Mark Bly head of operations at BP says it all starts with the bad cement in the well. I can agree with this statement, however its your responsibility as a company to test the project from head to toe. If the results aren’t up to standard you take Haliburton to court. BP as a company should of also been aware that any type of budget cutting should never happen to safety measure especially in dealing with a oil well. I think the public will not pay any attention to the report by BP and if anything look down on their attempt to redirect some of the blame, even if some is due.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129720165

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One Response to “Not your every day spill”
  1. fuglsang says:

    I heard that story, Reid, though I wasn’t paying close attention. It did note that BP took “full responsibility,” but at the same time pointed fingers. NPR did a nice job of covering the bases rather than just taking the story at face value. This is an aspect of reporting to be aware of. The media are snowed under by press releases, many of which get reported without question. In this case, many media are not necessarily buying BP’s attempts and are trying to dig deeper. That’s a good thing.