SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2010
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The Nation A15 Credibility of BP oil spill study is challenged
Firms involved in operation call report flawed and self-serving
BY DAVID S. HILZENRATH Delivering the results of BP’s
internal oil spill investigation last week, chief investigator Mark Bly said he found no sign that the company cut corners to savemoney. “My view is that we didn’t see
any indications that support that,” Bly said. But BP’s voluminous report on
the causes of the April 20 explo- sion in the Gulf ofMexico on the Deepwater Horizon rig does not include information of other in- vestigations highlighting actions thatmight save time ormoney. The report says that amixture
could have clogged a line in- volved in the test, masking the
fact that hydrocarbons were flowing into the well. The material that went into
the mixture — more than 400 barrels of products called Form- A-Set and Form-A-Squeeze — was left over on the rig after the well drilling. The material was designed to plug leaks, such as cracks in rock formations. Under environmental protec-
tion standards, if BP used the leftover material in the well, it could then dump the product directly into the gulf instead of transporting it to shore for dis- posal as hazardous waste, Leo Lindner, a drilling fluid special- ist for contractor M-I SWACO, testified at a federal hearing in July. During the April 20 pressure
test, BP used it as a “spacer” to separate seawater from dense drilling fluid called “mud” in a column of fluids pumped into the well. “They didn’t want to have to dispose of them,” Lindner said of
the leftover Form-A-Set and Form-A-Squeeze. The BP report does not discuss
the disposal advantage that Lindner described. The report said the decision to use the material as a spacer “was driven by the opportunity for the benefi- cial re-use of thematerials.” Bly told reporters that using
such a mixture was “not an uncommon thing to do.” Lindner cast the choice in a
different light. “It’s not something that we’ve
ever done before,” he said. At a government hearing in
August, BP manager David Sims was asked if he had ever used a similarmixture as a spacer. “No, I have not,” Sims said. TheBP report spreadsmuch of
the responsibility for the cata- strophic blowout to other com- panies involved in the well oper- ation, and it concludes that some of BP’s most widely criticized decisions in the construction of the well probably did not con-
tribute to the disaster. Other companies involved in
the operation have challenged the report’s credibility, saying it is flawed and self-serving. The report faults some aspects
of BP’s performance. For exam- ple, it says BP personnel misin- terpreted the results of the pres- sure test, failing to recognize the danger. And it says BP did not do enough to assess the allegedly unsuccessful cement job. But the report endorses a rela-
tively benign explanation of BP’s decision to use six devices called centralizers to stabilize the pipe in the well instead of the 21 recommended by contractorHal- liburton. The report attributes it to an erroneous belief thatBP did not have the right kind of cen- tralizers on hand, and it says the decision probably did not con- tribute to the disaster. In contrast, Democratic lead-
ers of the House Energy and Commerce Committee have cited an internal BP e-mail as evidence
that the company was interested in saving time andmoney. In a statement after BP re-
leased the results of the Bly team investigation, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the energy and commerce com- mittee, said the report “glosses over the role and responsibility of BP” and “regrettably does not address the corporate culture at BP that shortchanged safety and caused somuch harmto the Gulf and the Deepwater Horizon workers.” The Bly team reached some
conclusions that are difficult for the general reader to assess given their highly technical nature. The spacer issue is, in some respects, less complex. Bly, who is BP’s head of safety
and operations, said that using the leftover fluids in the pressure test “would have been fine” if the material had not penetrated an area where it did not belong. The report says M-I SWACO reviewed the mixture’s proper-
ties and recommended it as suit- able. In his July testimony, Lindner
of M-I SWACO said, “[W]e had the product there, and BP want- ed to use it.” Lindner said to assess its suit-
ability, he mixed a gallon of Form-A-Set in equal parts with Form-A-Squeeze and left it over- night to observe the reaction. The amount of fluid used in
the well-integrity test was about double the volume of spacer used in pressure tests, he said. The Bly report’s most detailed
discussion of the spacer is con- tained in Appendix Q,whichwas not included in the 234-page document distributed at Wednesday’s briefing. (Appendi- ces A to H are in the printed document; the rest was issued electronically.) Appendix Q says that, accord-
ing to an M-I Swaco mud engi- neer, use of the mixture as a spacer “was not standard.”
hilzenrath@washpost.com
NOAH BERGER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Emergency workers in San Bruno, Calif., take a break at the site of a gas-line explosion. Authorities say two people remain missing.
Obama pledges to help Calif. in blast response
Cause of explosion undetermined; utility checking call records
ASSOCIATED PRESS President Obama called Cali-
fornia Gov. Arnold Schwarzeneg- geronSaturdaytooffer thefederal government’s help after a gas-line explosion that killed at least four people in a suburban San Francis- coneighborhood. Obama expressed condolences
over the loss of life and assured Schwarzenegger (R) that resourc- es would be available to recover from the explosion, the White House said. Officials were still trying to de-
termine what led to the blast that injured dozens of people in the
hills overlooking San Francisco Bay onThursday. Although authorities earlier
saidno onewasmissing, they said Saturday that twopeoplewereun- accountedfor. The explosionleft a giant crater
anddestroyeddozensof 1960s-era homes. Assemblyman Jerry Hill, who
represents San Bruno and sur- rounding cities, said he has heard multiple reports from constitu- ents who had alerted the utility PG&E of gas odors in the neigh- borhoodbefore thedisaster. The residents “deserve to know
if PG&E used the correct proce- dures in the days and weeks lead- ingupto thisdisaster,”Hill said. PG&E President Chris Johns
said the company is examining its records to gather information about those calls.
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