Oil-covered rocks by a public beach in Gulfport, Mississippi. Photo credit: Greenpeace USA.

How believable is BP’s report on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill?

BP has released the results of a four-month internal investigation into the circumstances around the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig, the blowout at the Macondo well, and the subsequent billion-dollar oil spill that coated the Gulf of Mexico. And though the results may be gratifying to the oil giant (and its shareholders) – the report claims that decisions by multiple work teams, contractors and companies contributed to the spill – critics are already crying foul.

“No single factor caused the Macondo well tragedy,” BP explained, in a press release announcing the report. “Rather, a sequence of failures involving a number of different parties led to the explosion and fire which killed 11 people and caused widespread pollution in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year.” Those failures – or “eight key factors”, as the report claims – were mechanical, human, the result of engineering design flaws, a bad cement job, and operational implementation – but they weren’t all BP’s fault.

That blame-shifting is not sitting well with critics, who were hoping for an abashed mea culpa from the oil giant. “BP is happy to slice up blame, as long as they get the smallest piece,” Rep. Ed Markey told a Telegraph reporter, following BP’s announcement of the findings. And Robert Gordon, a lawyer representing more than 1,000 fisherman, hotels and restaurants hit by the spill, told the paper, “BP blaming others for the Gulf oil disaster is like Bernie Madoff blaming his accountant.” Transocean, the rig contractor BP implicated in the report, also threw the ball back in BP’s court; the company released a statement to The Washington Independent reading, “This is a self-serving report that attempts to conceal the critical factor that set the stage for the Macondo incident: BP’s fatally flawed well design. In both its design and construction, BP made a series of cost-saving decisions that increased risk — in some cases, severely.”

But others aren’t so worried. As The Telegraph observed, “The City reacted with a shrug of the shoulders to BP’s report into its Gulf of Mexico spill yesterday, as the oil giant’s share price ticked marginally higher and analysts kept their share recommendations on hold.” Shareholders are relieved, especially by the report’s finding that there was no major issue, like a faulty coupling casing, that could be used to pin the whole disaster on BP.

And Patience Wheatcroft, columnist for The Wall Street Journal, noted that the report by no means exonerates BP. Moreover, “It would have been unreasonable to expect BP‘s report into the Macondo well disaster to have been a mea culpa from cover to cover. Deep sea drilling for oil involves many designers, contractors and suppliers and in a project on this scale, the scope for minor errors from any or all of the participants is wide.” It’s what happens next that’s the important part: Learning the lessons from the Macondo well may mean that BP has to pony up more than the $20 billion for damages it already has.

The Financial Times also noted that though this report isn’t likely to be the last word, “the story it tells is bound to inform the work of other inquiries, enabling BP to shape the narrative”. Though the Financial Times, in one of its leading editorials, doesn’t entirely condemn the report, it noted, “[T]he shadow of BP’s long-standing failure to embed a culture where safety is paramount hangs over the report.” That needs to change, going forward, not only for BP, but for the entire sector as well.