The Buck Stops Where?

According to a 193-page report released yesterday, British Petroleum (BP) has concluded that "multiple companies and work teams" were responsible for the devastating 20 April 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Per the executive summary (here; BP press release here),

The team did not identify any single action or inaction that caused this accident. Rather, a complex and interlinked series of mechanical failures, human judgments, engineering design, operational implementation and team interfaces came together to allow the initiation and escalation of the accident. Multiple companies, work teams and circumstances were involved over time.

This sounds just like a mea culpa, doesn't it? Well, maybe not.

In fact, it sounds more like an effort to deflect as much culpa onto other parties as possible, especially Transocean (which owned the rig) and Halliburton (the rig's cement contractor).

Note that on the same day that BP's report was issued, news came from the Gulf that the well still has not been fully sealed (New York Times story here), "as engineers worked to better understand the well's condition."

The report laid out a number of significant errors, human and mechanical. Some are well-known, such as the failure of the "blow-out preventer" (which was raised from the ocean floor over the Labor Day weekend and will be analyzed by government investigators); others are less familiar, such as the particular cement slurry that was used at the bottom of the well.

Both Transocean and Halliburton have raised objections to BP's findings.

Tiernan Ray, on his Barron's blog, reported that Transocean said, "This is a self-serving report that attempts to conceal the critical factor that set the stage for the Macondo incident: BP’s fatally flawed well design. In both its design and construction, BP made a series of cost-saving decisions that increased risk – in some cases, severely." (Side notes: I like calling the biggest oil-spill disaster ever an "incident", don't you? "Macondo" refers to the Macondo Prospect, the part of the Gulf of Mexico in which the Deepwater Horizon well was located.)

Halliburton's response was a little more measured, and did not specifically deny some of the more serious allegations, saying only: "Halliburton remains confident that all the work it performed with respect to the Macondo well was completed in accordance with BP’s specifications for its well construction plan and instructions.... The well owner is responsible for designing the well program and any testing related to the well. Contractors do not specify well design or make decisions regarding testing procedures as that responsibility lies with the well owner." (Full response in Ray's blog, here)

In the end, we may learn that actions taken by Halliburton and Transocean did indeed have an impact on the scale and scope of the disaster. But being (partially) at fault is not the same thing as being responsible. It was BP's well; Halliburton and Transocean were contracted by BP; the buck should stop with BP.