Deep Water: The Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling

Background

What it found

1. The Commission concludes that the blowout could have been prevented. It traces its immediate causes to identifiable mistakes by BP, Halliburton and Transocean, and by government officials who relied too much on industry's assurances of safety. ¶ p. 127

   “The explosive loss of the Macondo well could have been prevented. The immediate causes of the Macondo well blowout can be traced to a series of identifiable mistakes made by BP, Halliburton, and Transocean that reveal such systematic failures in risk management that they place in doubt the safety culture of the entire industry.”

2. Regulation did not keep pace as drilling moved into deep water. The report finds that the Minerals Management Service was torn between collecting revenue and enforcing safety, and lacked the resources, training and engineering expertise to oversee the wells it approved; the officials who approved Macondo's permits were neither required nor equipped to assess what mattered most to its safety. p. 85 p. 56 p. 77

3. On the evening of the blowout, the crew ran a negative-pressure test whose readings showed the well was not sealed. The report finds they explained the readings away, then missed further warning signs in the hour before the blowout. p. 119 p. 121

4. The Commission calls the root cause a failure of industry management. Many decisions that raised the risk at Macondo also saved time and money, and none was subject to formal risk analysis. The Commission says it cannot tell whether anyone knowingly chose a riskier option to save money. p. 122 p. 122 p. 125 p. 125

   “The most significant failure at Macondo—and the clear root cause of the blowout—was a failure of industry management.”

5. Neither industry nor government was ready for a deepwater spill. BP's response plan listed walruses as a species of concern and named a wildlife expert who had died; for four weeks the official estimate of the flow was 5,000 barrels a day, far below the true figure. ¶ p. 133 p. 133

   “But it is impossible to argue that the industry or the country was prepared for a disaster of the magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Twenty years after the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, the same blunt response technologies—booms, dispersants, and skimmers—were used, to limited effect.”

6. The spill struck a coast already in crisis. The report sets it against the loss of more than 2,300 square miles of Louisiana's wetlands since the 1927 flood, and calls for a restoration effort lasting decades. p. 173 p. 197

7. Government oversight alone will not be enough, the Commission says; the industry must transform its own safety culture, and should set up a self-policing safety institute modelled on the one the nuclear industry created after Three Mile Island, kept apart from its lobbying body, the American Petroleum Institute. p. 217 p. 241 p. 241

8. For government, it recommends an independent safety agency within the Interior Department, regulators funded by fees on industry, a much higher cap on liability for spills, and 80 percent of Clean Water Act penalties for restoring the Gulf. p. 256 p. 283 p. 279

   “Congress and the Department of the Interior should create an independent agency within the Department of the Interior with enforcement authority to oversee all aspects of offshore drilling safety (operational and occupational), as well as the structural and operational integrity of all offshore energy production facilities, including both oil and gas production and renewable energy production.”

Where to start reading

Short on time? These sections carry the report's argument. Each opens at the start of the section.

1. Part I and Chapter 1: Sudden Death on the Gulf of Mexico p. 1 · Read →

   An hour-by-hour account of 20 April on the rig, from the cement job that morning to the explosion and the evacuation.

   “Down in Ezell's cabin, he was still watching TV when his phone rang. It was assistant driller Steve Curtis calling, also from the rig floor. ‘We have a situation. …The well is blown out. . . . We have mud going to the crown.’”

2. Part II and Chapter 4: The Macondo Well and the Blowout p. 89 · Read →

   The Commission's technical account of why the well failed, from the cement job to the warning signs missed in the last hour.

   “It appears instead they started from the assumption that the well could not be flowing, and kept running tests and coming up with various explanations until they had convinced themselves their assumption was correct.”

3. Part III and Chapter 8: Changing Business as Usual p. 217 · Read →

   The case for the industry to change its own safety culture, and how.

   “The Deepwater Horizon blowout, explosion, and oil spill did not have to happen.”

4. Chapter 9: The Need for a New, Independent Agency p. 255 · Read →

   Why renaming and splitting the old regulator was not enough, and the independent safety agency the Commission proposed instead.

   “Although the proposed reorganization of Interior's offshore leasing, safety, and revenue management program represents a significant improvement, it does not adequately address the deeper problem of fully insulating the Department's safety and environmental protection functions from the pressures to increase production and maximize lease revenues.”

5. Chapter 10: American Energy Policy and the Future of Offshore Drilling p. 294 · Read →

   The Commission on drilling in new frontiers such as the Arctic, and on rebuilding public trust.

   “The extent to which offshore drilling contributes to augmenting that domestic supply depends importantly on rebuilding public faith in existing offshore energy exploration and production.”