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Oil Spill Commission Made Basic, Factual Mistakes
SOURCE Phil Rae

After $6 million dollars, 6 hearings, and seven months, the cause of the April 20th blowout laid out in the commission's report varies little from the one initially proposed by BP. It's a theory that still fails to explain all documented observations and known facts. More troubling though, the commission's 398-page report contains several claims that are factually incorrect.

For example, the commission reports the crew on the Deepwater Horizon saw the fluid level in the riser fall, realized they had a leak through the annular preventer, and topped up the riser with mud. Yet, that didn't happen.

When the crew started the negative test, they closed the annular preventer and bled off the drill pipe; but the pressure immediately rose. Consequently, they assumed the annular preventer was leaking. Upon inspection of the riser, crew members found it needed to be topped-up with ~60 bbls of mud. And for them, that appeared to confirm their suspicion of a leak.

Case closed, right? Wrong.

The annular preventer never suffered a leak. The pressure in the well rose, because the well was flowing. The commission fails to make this critical distinction. If the crew hadn't assumed there was a leak, they would have likely realized that the well was live and taken appropriate measures.

As explained in my report -- " Genesis of the Deepwater Horizon Blowout " -- the riser needed topped up because the casing shoe failed during displacement of mud with spacer and, consequently, the well lost mud. This is the actual reason the well went live, and it's important to understand this nuance if we hope to mitigate the risks of future blowouts.

The commission botched this and several other details. That means the members based all subsequent conclusions on a faulty initial analysis. Such foundational errors jeopardize the validity of the rest of its findings.

In addition to its erroneous assumption regarding the annular preventer, the commission report also makes it sound as if choosing a longstring over a liner when designing the well was perfectly acceptable. Such a stance misses the point altogether. There are specific reasons why BP should never have run a production long string on this well (or any other deepwater well). Yet, nobody has voiced these concerns so we can only assume the same mistake could be repeated anytime.

If the commission's true objective involved "examining relevant facts and circumstances concerning the root causes of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and developing options to guard against," it failed.