Spiritual Forum

The House Energy and Commerce released dozens of internal documents that outline several problems on
the deepsea rig in the days and weeks before the April 20 explosion that
set in motion the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history. The
committee has been investigating the explosion and its aftermath.

"Time after time, it appears that BP made decisions that increased the risk of a blowout to save the company time or expense. If this is what happened,
carelessness and complacency have inflicted a heavy toll on the Gulf,
its inhabitants, and the workers on the rig," said Democratic Reps.
Henry A. Waxman and Bart Stupak.

The missteps emerged on the same day that President Barack Obama made his fourth visit to the Gulf, where he sought to assure beleaguered residents that the government will "leave the Gulf
Coast in better shape than it was before."

The breached well has dumped as much as 114 million gallons of oil into the Gulf under the worst-case scenario described by scientists — a rate of more than 2 million a day. BP has collected 5.6
million gallons of oil through its latest containment cap on top of the
well, or about 630,000 gallons per day.

But BP believes it will see considerable improvements in the next two weeks. The company said Monday that it could trap a maximum of roughly 2.2 million gallons of oil each day by
the end of June as it deploys additional containment efforts, including a
system that could start burning off vast quantities as early as
Tuesday. That would more than triple the amount of oil it is currently
capturing — and be a huge relief for those trying to keep it from
hitting the shore.

Possible 'game changer'
"It would be a game changer," said Coast Guard Chief Petty
Mark Boivin, deputy director for near-shore operations at a command
center in Mobile. He works with a team that coordinates the efforts of
roughly 80 skimming boats gathering oil off the coast.

Still, BP warned its containment efforts could face problems if hoses or pipes clog and engineers struggle to run the complicated collection system. Early
efforts at the bottom of the Gulf failed to capture oil.

Meanwhile, congressional investigators have identified several mistakes by BP in the weeks leading up to the disaster as it fell way behind on drilling the well.

BP started drilling in October, only to have the rig damaged by Hurricane Ida a month later. The company switched to the Deepwater
rig and resumed drilling on Feb. 6. The rig was 43 days late for its
next drilling location by the time it exploded April 20, costing BP at
least $500,000 each day it was overdue, congressional documents show.

As BP found itself in a frantic race against time to get the job done, engineers cut corners in the well design, cementing and drilling mud efforts and the installation
of safety devices known as "lockdown sleeves" and "centralizers,"
according to congressional investigators.

In the design of the well, the company apparently chose a riskier option among two possibilities to provide a barrier to the flow of gas in space surrounding steel tubes in the well, documents
and internal e-mails show. The decision saved BP $7 million to $10
million; the original cost estimate for the well was about $96 million.

'Crazy well'
In an e-mail, BP engineer Brian Morel told a fellow employee that the company is likely to make last-minute changes in the well. "We could be running it in 2-3 days, so need a relative quick response. Sorry for the late notice, this has beennightmare well which has everyone all over the place," Morel wrote.

The e-mail chain culminated with the following message by another worker: "This has been acrazy well for sure."

BP also apparently rejected advice of a subcontractor, Halliburton Inc.,in preparing for a cementing job to close up the well. BP rejectedHalliburton's recommendation to use 21 "centralizers" to make sure thecasing ran down the center of the well bore. Instead, BP used sixcentralizers.

In an e-mail on April 16, a BP official involved in the decision explained:"It will take 10 hours to install them. I do not like this." Later thatday, another official recognized the risks of proceeding withinsufficient centralizers but commented: "Who cares, it's done, end ofstory, will probably be fine."

The lawmakers also said BP also decided against a nine- to 12-hour procedure known as a "cement bond log" that would havetested the integrity of the cement. A team from Schlumberger, an oilservices firm, was on board the rig, but BP sent the team home on aregularly scheduled helicopter flight the morning of April 20.

Less than 12 hours later, the rig exploded.

BP also failed to fully circulate drilling mud, a 12-hour procedure thatcould have helped detect gas pockets that later shot up the well andexploded on the drilling rig.