The owner of the rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico last year largely blames oil giant BP for the disaster in an internal investigative report released today that bolsters the Swiss firm’s arguments in the face of lawsuits and expected government fines. The report from Transocean says the April 20, 2010, Deepwater Horizon explosion and resulting oil spill was sparked by a succession of well design, construction, and temporary-abandonment decisions that compromised the integrity of the well and compounded the risk of its failure. Transocean says well owner BP made many of the decisions in the two weeks before the incident. The 854-page report doesn’t say Transocean holds no blame for what caused the disaster, but it comes pretty close to doing so.
Transocean says its evidence indicates that BP failed to properly assess, manage and communicate risk. On one key aspect—the failure of the blowout preventer to keep oil from leaking into the sea—the Transocean report seems to suggest the company takes no blame. BP’s own internal report on the disaster blamed a cascade of failures by multiple companies. Government investigations also have spread around the blame. The findings by all sides will be argued about for months and perhaps years to come as numerous lawsuits make their way through court. The companies involved in the disaster have sued each other in seeking to recoup losses or expected losses from the disaster. Fines ultimately imposed by the government could be in the billions of dollars, and the companies involved have been trying to shield themselves as much as possible.
