House panel probing oil rig explosion finds safety device failure

Lawmakers on a House subcommittee probing the causes of the
Deepwater Horizon rig explosion said Wednesday they had found multiple
deficiencies in a key system designed to be the last line of defense
against a blowout.

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), chairman of the
Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations subpanel, which opened
its hearing Wednesday, said there were at least “four significant
problems” with the blowout preventer. The system is supposed to seal
off a well in an emergency and prevent unwanted leaks.

{mosads}Among the problems, Stupak said, was a leak in the blowout preventer’s hydraulic system.

“The
safety of [BP’s] entire operation rested on the performance of a
leaking, modified and defective blowout preventer,” Stupak said.

Stupak outlined other issues as well.

The
preventer had been modified and a test ram, which is not intended to
pinch the pipe in case of an emergency, had been improperly wired to a
control panel BP officials tried to use to shut off the spill.

Meanwhile,
blowout preventers in general are not powerful enough to cut through
threaded joints that link different sections of drill pipe. That leaves
around 10 percent of the pipe that the preventer would be unable to
shear through.

Lastly, emergency systems designed to engage the blowout preventer appear to have failed.

Timothy
Probert, an executive with Halliburton, said if the blowout preventer
had worked, “the accident would not have happened.”

BP Chairman
and President Lamar McKay and executives from Transocean, which owned
the drilling rig, and Cameron International, which built a system
designed as a last line of defense against oil blowouts, also testified.

Rep.
Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce
Committee, sharply criticized the companies involved in the accident.

“This catastrophe appears to have been caused by a calamitous series of equipment and operational failures,” Waxman said.

Waxman
focused on a critical pressure test prior to the blast on the Deepwater
Horizon rig. Workers on the rig conducted the test to see if a cement
cap inside the well designed to keep explosive gas from leaking up was
working.

Waxman said James Dupree, BP senior vice president for
the Gulf of Mexico, told House investigators that cement poured into
the drill by Halliburton was given 16.5 hours to set. Then fluid
pressure inside the well was reduced to observe whether gas was still
getting through, according to Waxman.

Waxman said Dupree said the
first test was “not satisfactory” and “inconclusive” because of
“significant pressure discrepancies.” 

A second test also found
starkly different pressure readings within the drill system, Waxman
said Dupree told investigators. The test measures pressure at three
points: inside the drill that is under the sea floor and on “choke” and
“kill” lines that run from the drilling rig to the blowout preventer
near the well hole.

The drill had pressure readings of 1,400 pounds per square inch (psi). The choke and kills lines had 0 psi readings.

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Executives
at oil companies involved with the drilling operation who testified
Wednesday said the different readings would be cause for concern.

The
discrepancies indicate “something is happening in the well bore that
shouldn’t be happening,” said Steven Newman, CEO of Transocean.

Waxman
said Dupree told the committee that he believed the second test took
place just moments prior to the blast, but Waxman said there remained
confusion about when the tests were conducted.

A counsel for BP
told the committee on Tuesday subsequent tests eased concerns and “at 8
p.m. company officials determined that the additional results justified
ending the test and proceeding with well operations,” Waxman said.

The explosion happened around two hours later.

Halliburton’s
Probert said it was premature to pin the blame on the cement or casing
inside the well as a cause of the “catastrophe.” Halliburton poured the
cement into the well hole.