BP, subcontractors: Spill is the other guy's fault

[sabra]

Source: CNN Money

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The three oil companies primarily involved in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill blamed each other Tuesday for the accident last month that left 11 workers dead and oil still spewing into the Gulf.

At a hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, BP (BP), the well's owner and lead operator of the project, sought to turn attention to the valve that was supposed to shut off the well in case of an accident. The valve, known as a blowout preventer, is owned by drilling rig operator Transocean, which was contracted to drill the well for BP using its Deepwater Horizon drill rig.

"Transocean's blowout preventer failed to operate," said Lamar McKay, chairman and president of BP America, according to prepared testimony. "Only seven of the 126 onboard the Deepwater Horizon were BP employees, so we have only some of the story."

...

The well's cementing was done by Halliburton (HAL, Fortune 500). But Halliburton's chief safety and environmental officer, Tim Probert, said responsibility also lay with BP.

"Halliburton, as a service provider to the well owner, is contractually bound to comply with the well owner's instructions on all matters relating to the performance of all work-related activities," said Probert. "Halliburton is confident that the cementing work on the well was completed in accordance with the requirements of the well owner's well construction pla

Read more: http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/11/news/companies/BP_hearings/index.htm?hpt=T1

[Trillo]

1. I remembered a private schools method of assigning blame.

When they wanted to know who did something, we were all punished until someone admitted to the act under investigation.

If it's good enough for a private K-12 school (some 30+ years ago), why isn't it good enough for corporate.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

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[Jennicut]

13. Maybe because there has to be an actual investigation before people are thrown in jail.

Though they probably deserve it, along with Blankenship from Massey Energy.

[elocs]

3. Well the buck has to stop somewhere. Who hired the subcontractors?

Unless BP has a signed document saying they are not responsible for the actions of their subcontractor, then I think they are ultimately responsible.

[whereaminow]

20. Who buys and consumes the oil so they can hire the subcontractors?

We do! We do!

Who holds back the electric car?
Who makes Steve Gutenberg a star?
We do! We do!

[tridim]

4. Has anyone suggested that maybe all three companies are equally at fault?

[tbredbeck]

8. Depends on the scope...

If you focus on this as a single isolated incident then BP has it all on them. Contractually and legally, they are the operator and the buck stops with them. It doesn't matter who built the BOP, who did the cement job, or who owns the rig. It certainly doesn't matter how many BP employees were on the rig.

In a somewhat larger scope, you can say all oil companies who lobbied against regulation are responsible as well as the regulators who gave them free passes in many cases. You may need to separate the initial explosion from the subsequent leak, but potentially a BOP with a remote activation could have stopped the spill in its tracks. Proposed rules for requiring these remote activation devices were scrapped due to industry claims that it was too expensive and unnecessary.

And in a larger view, we need to look in the mirror. As one friend of mine stated, "11 people are dead, but we're still driving". Our economy is greased with oil and consumer demands for cheap gasoline. Energy is, well, energetic, and comes with risks and costs. Even with enhanced BOP's with remote activation, eventually one of those will also fail. As a society we need to be having an honest discussion about the trade-offs of our energy sources *including* the actual cost including climate effects and pollution. From my perspective, that discussion really isn't happening.

[tridim]

9. Well, I'm just dealing with the reality that these rotten companies..

are going to blame everyone and everything as long as they can. Since that's the plan we might as well sidestep it completely and go after all the guilty parties separately, lest they all skate due to "legal" technicalities.

The 1989 Exxon Valdez case still isn't settled.

[tbredbeck]

12. blame game

There really shouldn't be any technicalities to escape responsibility. BP is the operator and is ultimately responsible. Halliburton and Transocean are contractors working in all ways directly under the instructions by BP. The operator designs the well, not Transocean. The operator also designs/approves the cement job. Halliburton and Transocean ought to be steaming mad right now that BP is trying to push off blame on them.

Full disclosure - I work for a major oil company, though not BP. Note that the position I'm stating here would be to blame my own company had they been operator.

Valdez is settled, I think, at least as far as the legal case goes. The Supreme Court made a final ruling which greatly reduced the damages Exxon had to pay. Ridiculous decision. Of course, if you mean by "settled" that they have actually cleaned up the oil, then no, not even close...

[AlbertCat]

21. BP is the operator and is ultimately responsible.

Halliburton and Transocean are contractors working in all ways directly under the instructions by BP.


**********
Then why doesn't BP just put the well together and cement it themselves?

Or is BP hiring professionals who claim to know what they are doing and can do the job?

Yes, BP is ultimately responsible....and then they can sue their subcontractors for not doing their job, I suppose. But just being hired by somebody else to do a job does not relieve you of the responsibility of the quality of that job. Especially if the job is "what you do".

[daleo]

23. Drill baby drill deserves some blame too. n/t

[benld74]

5. Not meaning to Degrade The Three Stooges but I,,

cant help thinking of this post and their short as sign painters. They are standing apart from one another and Moe is attempting to get them to point to the 'correct' right side of th hall. Moe counts to 3 and yells GO.
THey all wind up pointing to complete opposite sides of the hallway,,

[niceypoo]

6. Arrogant corporations refuse to do the right thing...

When the e coli problem hit Jack-in-the-box restaurants in the early 90s, the company stepped up to the plate. They reached fair settlements immediately with all of the victims families - out of court, they voluntarily paid all of the hospital bills, they publicly took blame and apologized, they gave out free food for weeks to lure back customers. They did all the right things and the company survived.

BP came out swinging trying to rip off the victims with paltry $5k payments and immediately began playing the denial/blame game. I hope BP collapses.

[AlbertCat]

22. I hope BP collapses.

This is not a local problem. This is the friggin' GULF of MEXICO, fer christ sake! You can see the damn slick FROM SPACE! NOLA is a huge INTERNATIONAL port. It will not just effect LA, MS, FL and AL, but Mexico and the islands in the Caribbean as well. What if it creeps into the Atlantic proper? What about Sea Food Markets world wide?

Dissolve BP...seize its assets and use them to set up some kind of fund to help deal with the myriad of terrible consequences to come for decades from this disaster. (including the unemployment problem it will create here and abroad) This is a global disaster!

[sakabatou]

7. Motherfuckers...

[Hubert Flottz]

10. Looks like the BullShit preventer failed too.

[Arctic Dave]

11. These corporations are just sharpening theirs knives right now,

just wait until they actually pull them out on each other. If I were their competition I would be kicking back, smiling and wondering what the sale price of their assests will be.

[louis-t]

14. What I have not heard mentioned re: sealing the well.

They were sealing it for future use. With cement. Which means they were not going to pump any oil 'at this time'. This is done every day all throughout the gulf, according to what I have read, and heard firsthand from people in the business. There are probably hundreds of wells in the gulf that are sealed. This is part of how the market is manipulated.

[pattmarty]

15. That'll be the headline on the Fox news crawl tonight: "Oil execs...........

...........say spill an accident, administration officials have no one to blame". Then they will go on to "comment" how it was the Obama administration's fault for being asleep at the switch. In the meanwhile intentionally omitting that there was no switch to be asleep at for the last fucking 40 yrs.

[happygoluckytoyou]

18. SORRY...FOX HEADLINE TONIGHT... Paris shows hooch on dancing with the stars...film at 11

[friendly_iconoclast]

16. "Joint and several liability", motherfuckers!

A phrase we need to make those involved very familiar with...

[whereaminow]

17. Voters, Public, Consumers: Spill is the other guy's fault

WRONG!!! The spill is OUR fault!!! We risk all for convenience.. and glitter.. can't live without glitter

[AlbertCat]

19. "Halliburton, as a service provider to the well owner, is contractually bound to comply with the wel

"Halliburton, as a service provider to the well owner, is contractually bound to comply with the well owner's instructions on all matters relating to the performance of all work-related activities,"

********

Hi, Halliburton, I'm BP, and I'd like you to pour this mile deep off shore well with mashed potatoes while wearing pink tutus, m'kay?

"Why sure, massa! Whatever you want. Anything at all..."


Uh huh.... that's just how it went. Halliburton is innocent of everything since the beginning of time! Jess doin' what they're told. Just complete lackeys. No one expects them to know anything about what they're doing except what they have been told.