Oil Leak Hearing - Senate Energy Committee

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Copies of planned testimony, obtained Monday by The Associated Press, brought into the open fissures among the companies caught up in the accident and its legal and economic fallout.

A top executive of BP, which leased the rig for exploratory drilling, focuses on a critical safety device that was supposed to shut off oil flow on the ocean floor in the event of a well blowout but "failed to operate."

"That was to be the fail-safe in case of an accident," Lamar McKay, chairman of BP America, says, pointedly noting that the 450-ton blowout protector -- as well as the rig itself -- was owned by Transocean Ltd.

Of the 126 people on the Deepwater Horizon rig when it was engulfed in flames, only seven were BP employees, said McKay.

But Transocean CEO Steven Newman was seeking to put responsibility on BP.

"Offshore oil and gas production projects begin and end with the operator, in this case BP," said Newman, according to the prepared remarks. His testimony says it was BP that prepared the drilling plan and was in charge when the drilling concluded and the crew was preparing to cap the well 5,000 feet beneath the sea.

To blame the blowout protecters "simply makes no sense" because there is "no reason to believe" that the equipment was not operational, Newman argues.

Newman also cites a third company, Halliburton Inc., which as a subcontractor was encasing the well pipe in cement before plugging it -- a process dictated by BP's drilling plan.

A Halliburton executive, Tim Probert, planned to assert that the company's work was finished "in accordance with the requirements" set out by BP and with accepted industry practices. He says pressure tests were conducted after the cementing work was finished to demonstrate well integrity.

BP and Transocean are conducting separate investigations into what went wrong.

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Posted by lsugradman
So the EPA hates humans and animals? Cuz they approved the use of the dispersant.

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