Well, it took me a while but I finally tracked down the Wall Street Journal article on the BP Blowout Disaster that every one-
is referencing.
I didn’t think it was much of a much in terms of things we didn’t know already, but it sure got the print media’s attention and since it did take so long to find I thought I’d share it with you.
Gulf Spill Linked to BP’s Lack of ‘Discipline’
By STEPHEN POWER, BEN CASSELMAN And RUSSELL GOLD, The Wall Street Journal
NOVEMBER 17, 2010
Engineers’ Report Blames Oil Giant for Failing to Ensure That Safety Trumped Cost; Regulators’ Technical Acumen Is Panned
An “insufficient consideration of risk” and “a lack of operating discipline” by oil giant BP PLC contributed to the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, according to a report due for public release Wednesday from a team of technical experts.
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The report provides little new information on the specific causes of the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig, instead providing a long list of decisions by BP and other companies that it says may have played a role in the disaster.
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But the panel also identifies non-technical factors that it says likely contributed to the accident. The panel cites off “a lack of management discipline” and a “lack of onboard expertise and of clearly defined responsibilities.”The report doesn’t attempt to assign blame to individual workers or companies, and it doesn’t directly address one of the key questions raised by Congressional and other investigators: whether BP cut corners to save money. It does say that many of BP’s choices “were likely to result in less cost and less time relative to other options,” and it criticizes the lack of processes to ensure that safety didn’t take a back seat to cost.
One nice thing about it is that it does have a link to a .pdf version of the preliminary report.
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