Blame game begins as BP and contractors attend oil spill hearings
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BP, which leased the rig from Transocean, had spent 350m so far on its effort to stop the spill and clean it up, it said on Monday. BP has received 4700 claims for damages related to the spill and so far has paid out 3,5m on 295 of the claims.
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“That was to be the fail-safe in case of an accident,” Lamar McKay, chairman of BP America, said in testimony, pointedly noting that the 450-ton blowout protector — as well as the rig itself — was owned by Swiss-based Transocean.
Of the 126 people on the Deepwater Horizon rig when it was engulfed in flames, only seven were BP employees, said McKay.
But Transocean CEO Steven Newman was seeking to put responsibility on BP. “Offshore oil and gas production projects begin and end with the operator, in this case BP,” said Newman, according to the prepared remarks. His testimony says it was BP that prepared the drilling plan and was in charge when the drilling concluded and the crew was preparing to cap the well 1500m beneath the sea.
To blame the blowout protectors “simply makes no sense” because there is “no reason to believe” that the equipment was not operational, Newman argues. Newman also cites a third company, Halliburton, which as a subcontractor was encasing the well pipe in cement before plugging it — a process dictated by BP’s drilling plan.
BP blames Transocean, Transocean blames Halliburton, and Halliburton blames BP.
I learned about a game like this in elementary school. It goes like this: Paper covers rock…
Actually, paper can win that game if it were Machiavellian enough. Think about it.
