Cooler but still well above normal this week

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

By HARRY R. WEBER and HOLBROOK MOHR, Associated Press


      NEW ORLEANS (AP) - With everything Big Oil and the government
have learned in the year since the Gulf of Mexico disaster, could
it happen again? Absolutely, according to an Associated Press
examination of the industry and interviews with experts on the
perils of deep-sea drilling.


      The government has given the OK for oil exploration in
treacherously deep waters to resume, saying it is confident such
drilling can be done safely. The industry has given similar
assurances. But there are still serious questions in some quarters
about whether the lessons of the BP oil spill have been applied.


      The industry "is ill-prepared at the least," said Charles
Perrow, a Yale University professor specializing in accidents
involving high-risk technologies. "I have seen no evidence that
they have marshaled containment efforts that are sufficient to deal
with another major spill. I don't think they have found ways to
change the corporate culture sufficiently to prevent future
accidents."


      He added: "There are so many opportunities for things to go
wrong that major spills are unavoidable."


      The worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history began with an
explosion April 20, 2010, that killed 11 workers aboard the
Deepwater Horizon rig. More than 200 million gallons of crude
spewed from the well a mile beneath the sea.


      Since then, new drilling rules have been imposed, a high-tech
system for capping a blown-out well and containing the oil has been
built, and regulators have taken steps to ramp up oversight of the
industry.


      But deep-sea drilling remains highly risky. The effectiveness of
the much-touted containment system is being questioned because it
hasn't been tested on the sea floor. A design flaw in the blowout
preventers widely used across the industry has been identified but
not corrected. And regulators are allowing companies to obtain
drilling permits before approving their updated oil-spill response
plans.


      After a monthslong moratorium, the Obama administration resumed
issuing drilling permits earlier this year amid great pressure from
the industry and lawmakers seeking to protect communities and
workers whose livelihoods depend on drilling.


      A petroleum industry group is creating a center for offshore
safety in Houston to address management practices and improve
industry communication. And the agency that oversees offshore
drilling now bars inspectors from regulating a company that employs
a family member or friend. Also, inspectors who join the agency
from the oil industry cannot perform inspections of their former
employers for two years.


      BP says it is poised to become a much safer company. It ousted
several key figures during the disaster - including CEO Tony
Hayward - and created a powerful unit to police company safety. 


BP
spokesman Daren Beaudo said that because of advances made during
the crisis, "the capability exists to respond to a deep-water well
blowout." Similarly, Chevron spokesman Russell A. Johnson said his
company is "confident of our ability to prevent an incident
similar" to the Gulf oil spill.


      Whether any of that translates into better protection remains to
be seen.


      "I'm not an oddsmaker, but I would say in the next five years
we should have at least one major blowout," Perrow said. "Even if
everybody tries very hard, there is going to be an accident caused
by cost-cutting and pressure on workers. These are moneymaking
machines and they make money by pushing things to the limit."


      After the Deepwater Horizon explosion, oil producers including
BP were criticized for errors in their federally required oil-spill
response plans, such as severely underestimating the time it takes
oil to reach shore.


      Several of the biggest oil producers told the AP they have
updated their response plans but are still waiting for them to be
approved. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and
Enforcement said it is operating under a 2002 federal regulation
that allows two years to approve such plans. In the meantime,
companies are allowed to proceed with their drilling applications
and obtain permits as long as they certify in writing that they can
handle a spill, said agency spokeswoman Eileen Angelico.


      The agency "is taking the oil companies' word for it that they
can handle a spill," said David Pettit, a senior attorney for the
National Resources Defense Council, one of the nation's leading
environmental groups. "This is the same kind of deference to
claimed oil company expertise that led directly to the BP Deepwater
Horizon disaster."


      Regulators, however, point out that operators have to provide
significant supplemental data before permits are approved.


      To bolster their case for safer drilling, the companies can
point to a new system developed by industry titans including Exxon
Mobil, Chevron, Shell and ConocoPhillips to contain oil spills. The
system includes a cap and a series of undersea devices - including
cables, a riser and a piece of equipment that would pump
dispersant. Lines would be hooked up to vessels on the surface.


      Oil companies say the system is capable of quickly containing a
blowout 8,000 feet under water and capturing as much as 60,000
barrels of oil per day. By comparison, at the height of the Gulf
spill in mid-June, BP's well was spewing some 57,000 barrels a day
at a depth of 5,000 feet.


      Michael Bromwich, director of the U.S. agency that regulates
offshore drilling, recently acknowledged that the system was not
tested in a dynamic situation - meaning in the ocean or during
blowout conditions. He said such testing would be ideal, but he was
still confident the system would work.


      Martin W. Massey, CEO of the Marine Well Containment Co., the
consortium of companies that built the system, told the AP that
components of the system were tested on land in Houston in a
controlled environment, with government officials monitoring and
approving it. He suggested that ocean testing was not necessary.


      "We're quite confident," he said. "We're ready to respond.
The system is ready to go."


      The consortium has said an expanded network capable of plugging
a well at more than 10,000 feet below the surface and collecting
100,000 barrels of oil per day won't be ready until early 2012.


      Another piece of equipment that has come under new scrutiny is
the blowout preventer.


      In a report last month, a firm hired by the government to test
the 300-ton device made by Houston-based Cameron and used with BP's
ill-fated well said the device failed to pinch the well shut in
part because of a design flaw that prevented it from cutting
through a drill pipe that had been knocked off center.


      Cameron is one of the biggest manufacturers of blowout
preventers, so the finding has raised concerns that the devices may
have to be overhauled across the board. No design changes have been
announced since the finding, and a Cameron vice president defended
the integrity of the blowout preventers at a federal hearing this
month.


      If oil reaches the surface and threatens land, response
companies today would still rely on the same equipment and
technology that failed to quickly protect land during the BP spill.
Floating booms, for example, would still be put in place around
sensitive marshes and beaches.


      Bromwich said recently that some oil and gas companies continue
to tell him they believe the Deepwater Horizon was an aberration
belonging to one party - BP - and it could not happen to them.


      "In my judgment, this is as disappointing as it is
shortsighted," Bromwich said. "Our view is this was a broad
problem."


      Mohr reported from Jackson, Miss. Associated Press writers
Michael Kunzelman in New Orleans and Dina Cappiello in Washington
contributed to this report.

Gallery

Panel: Gulf oil spill could happen again

Disasters

With everything Big Oil and the government
have learned in the year since the Gulf of Mexico disaster, could
it happen again? Absolutely, according to an Associated Press
examination of the industry and interviews with experts on the
perils of deep-sea drilling.

Experts fear another oil disaster

Go Deeper.

Like this?

News you can use in your inbox