Focus Shifts From Oil Spill Response To Causes and Operational Reforms
With the failed blowout preventer atop BP’s Macondo well removed and BP moving toward a final plugging and abandonment of the well, the industry is beginning to focus more on the causes and eventual outcomes of the April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon that led to the deaths of 11 men and months-long oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico.
BP, a joint industry task force and a team of officials from the U.S. Dept. of Interior released three separate reports in the first week of September that give a clearer sense of about the lack of regulations that led to the permitting and operation of the Deepwater Horizon; the technical failures that may have caused the explosion; and the lack of technologies available to respond to the spill.