Gulf Spill Hearing: Oil Execs Will Point Fingers At Each Other - Dan Froomkin

[WillyT]

Gulf Spill Hearing: Oil Execs Will Point Fingers At Each Other
Dan Froomkin - HuffingtonPost
First Posted: 05-10-10 05:58 PM | Updated: 05-10-10 06:55 PM

<snip>

Executives from the three companies most implicated in the disastrous oil-rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico will point fingers at each other Tuesday morning, according to the testimony they've prepared for a much-anticipated hearing of the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee.

Lamar McKay, president and chairman of BP America, will make a point of telling the committee that it wasn't actually BP's rig, stressing that the rig and its blowout preventer belonged to Transocean Limited.

Steven Newman, Transocean's president and CEO, will testify that his team was just doing what BP told them to do, how BP told them to do it -- and anyway it was subcontractor Halliburton's fault.

And Tim Probert, Halliburton's chief safety officer, will say that his company simply did what it was told, following industry practice. And he'll point out that Transocean, not Halliburton, was doing something when the rig blew.

BP's McKay (read the full text of his prepared statement here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/10/bp-deepwater-horizon-expl_n_570771.html ) portrays his company as something of a victim:

BP is one of the lease holders and the operator of this exploration well. As operator, BP hired Transocean to conduct the well drilling operations. Transocean owned the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and its equipment, including the blowout preventer.

Only seven of the 126 people onboard the Deepwater Horizon were BP employees, McKay insists. So BP itself has "only some of the story" and is "working to piece together what happened from meticulous review of the records of rig operations that we have as well as information from those witnesses to whom we have access."

<snip>

Much more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/10/gulf-spill-hearing-oil-ex_n_570827.html

:kick: