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If you watched CNN last night and the night before, you may have seen Anderson Cooper's interviews with some of the workers who survived the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that BP leased from Transocean in the Gulf of Mexico. You may have been shocked to learn that BP appears to have put saving time and money ahead of saving human lives. I wasn't.
According to the CNN story, one of the men interviewed overheard an argument between a BP official and Transocean official:
The BP official wanted workers to replace heavy mud, used to keep the well's pressure down, with lighter seawater to help speed a process that was costing an estimated $750,000 a day and was already running five weeks late, rig survivors told CNN.
Time is money, the business world tells us, and so, despite knowing the substitution of seawater compromised safety, the Transocean official caved to BP's demand. Later, chief driller Dewey Revette voiced concern, survivors said, but what BP wanted ruled. Revette was one of the 11 men who died in the explosion.
As you'll see in the video, the companies preached safety endlessly, and documents show the Deepwater Horizon had a long record of no serious accidents. However, BP operations in the gulf from 2001 through 2007 did experience enough incidents to be fined by the Minerals Management Service. On the Deep Horizon that night, according to the workers, dedication to safety went out the window.
The workers' lawyer, Steve Gordon, calls BP's conduct criminal. He tells Cooper in the interview, "There's a crime scene sitting 5,000 feet below the water."
This is not the first time I've heard that BP's culture allegedly encouraged recklessness the night of the explosion. The more I read, the more it strikes me that BP may have been hampered by a confusing chain of command and a mindset that celebrated safety and yet seemed to put money, image, and protocol above all else. A May 27 story in the Wall Street Journal painted the same chaotic scene the rig workers did on CNN but from the perspective of a female worker who helped navigate the rig. The headline reads, "Nobody was in charge," and the article reveals what happened, according to 23-year-old Andrea Fleytas, when she tried to radio for help:
"Mayday, Mayday. This is Deepwater Horizon. We have an uncontrollable fire."
When Capt. Kuchta realized what she had done, he reprimanded her, she says.
"I didn't give you authority to do that," he said, according to Ms. Fleytas, who says she responded: "I'm sorry."
The running theme is that BP was "unprepared."
The uglier theme arising is that the company seems far more concerned with liability issues than people. If you've watched the congressional hearings on the disaster, you may have seen BP, Transocean, and Halliburton, the company that poured the cement for the rig, each pointing fingers at the other. In addition, there's Cameron, the company that produced the malfunctioning blowout preventer blamed for the explosion, defending its products on the sideline.
And then there's that BP official who took the fifth on grounds that he may incriminate himself. Things don't look good in terms of BP's absolution. I'm sure its board rejoices that some of our politicians are working to block attempts to remove the liability cap on damages.
With all this finger-pointing, when President Barack Obama appeared on the Today Show recently, he said he needs to listen to experts so he'll know "whose ass to kick." America's version of the Greek chorus in this drama, which is the public plus media, groans and points to BP.
Sleepless in Louisiana
Two nights ago, after another nearly sleepless night, I lay on
