US oil spill: Bad management led to BP disaster
LONDON. January 5. KAZINFORM The companies involved in the BP oil spill had made decisions to cut costs and save time that contributed to the disaster, a US panel has found.
In a 48-page report, the presidential commission wrote that the failures were "systemic" and likely to recur without industry and government reform.
But it said BP did not have adequate controls in place to ensure safety.
The April blast aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 people and caused one of the worst oil spills in history.
The Macondo well, about a mile under the sea's surface, eventually leaked millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, damaging hundreds of miles of coastline before it was capped in July.
BP said in a statement that the report, like its own investigation, had found the accident was the result of multiple causes, involving multiple companies.
But, it said, the company was working with regulators "to ensure the lessons learned from Macondo lead to improvements in operations and contractor services in deepwater drilling".
Transocean, which owned the Deepwater Horizon rig, said that "the procedures being conducted in the final hours were crafted and directed by BP engineers and approved in advance by federal regulators", BBC News reports.
See www.bbc.co.uk for more information.