BP released a document that spreads the blame around for the deep water well explosion.
They say Haliburton did a bad cementing job . They also did not have a good review procedure or have good Quality Assurance in place. But the BP well design was fine.
Haliburton says they recommended 21 centralizers ,while BP went with 6.
Transocean misread the pressure test reading and did not respond to signs of the blowout. But the BP well design was fine.
This might be the opening salvo in some long court cases to determine what percent of the financial obligations goes to each company. No good for the gulf people can come from this.
I was under the impression that BP was 100% responsible, legally speaking, regardless of whether the subcontractors screwed up. Obviously I’m not a lawyer. Maybe what I heard was that BP was absolutely responsible for the financial costs related to cleaning the spill. Liability from lawsuits might be a different matter altogether.
They may well be responsible for all payments required to sort out the mess (in as far as that’s possible).
However, they can then go looking for recompense from anyone else whose failure led to the problem in the first place.
In such a large and complex disaster involving many subcontractors it’s extremely unlikely that all the fault can be laid at one door.
This one will run and run.
It would be interesting to have a sweep based on when the last case is settled.
What I’ve found interesting is that literally every news story I’ve seen on this is ‘BP tries to pass the blame’. And I’m un the UK.
It seems pretty unlikely to me that such a complex accident involving so many players is entirely BP’s fault, though I agree the buck stops with them regarding responsibility. I have found the tone of the stories quite odd.
$10 on the Apocolypse coming first!
In what way is it strange?
I like the new commercials BP is running, in which they say, “BP takes full responsibility…for the clean-up.” You know that they are running these ads to confuse people into believing that they are taking full responsibility for the spill itself, just to slow down the angry letters and campaigns against them.
Perhaps, as a mark of contrition and penitence, BP should shut down all its operations in North America for a month.
I wonder how people would feel about that.
The “Too Big To Punish” argument?
Really?
What do you mean?
I didn’t say that. 
What were you trying to say, then? Shutting down the North American operations would throw a lot of people out of work, so obviously that would hurt us, not them.
Actually, what I love are are ads like, “We’ve created a fund to help out of work fishermen…” or “We’ll be here helping the community until all the oil is cleaned…” or something like that. Then they’ll say that they’re doing all of this because they really care, even though the real reason that they’re doing most of this is because the government is forcing them to.
Bp is the well designer. They chose the contractors who supplied all the components.
In Engineering, when you are expected to deliver a product, you select the component manufacturers and are responsible for the end product. Generally ,if a component fails, the maker will be glad to repair it to maintain the relationship .
You can get sued if a product fails. Then you can sue those who provided the bad components, if you can prove their product contributed to the failure. I have not seen a case where all the component manufacturers are sued simultaneously by the original purchaser.
Shutting down the operations until the MSS can inspect them for safety is sensible.They have been devoid of regulation for a long time and there is a low trust factor now. You can reopen each well after it has been inspected. You do not have to leave them all closed for the duration.
It’s “their fault” in the sense that they were the leaseholders, who contracted with others to do some of the work. If you build me a house as a contractor, and it is damaged by a storm it was supposedly built to withstand the force of, you’re liable to me. If the problem is that you subcontracted with Joe’s Flybynight Roofers to do the roofing, and Ed the Electrician depended on the stability of the roof in putting the electrical entrance where he did, then you (not primarily me) have recourse against Joe and Ed for a part or all of what you owe me, but it’s your fault – you made me a guarantee that your product didn’t live up to. It’s not my responsibility to inspect the quality of Joe and Ed’s work, it’s yours. You may come out of the lawsuit losing only what you paid the lawyer to fend me off while you have him collect from those two incompetent subcontractors, but it’s to you that I can first look to make good your guarantee. You in turn are entitled to collect from them for shoddy work , making you look bad and making you liable to me for their poor craftsmanship.
Likewise, BP is liable to the inhabitants of the Gulf Coast as a class (presuming this to be a monumental class-action suit) for the catastrophic failure of their well. What they’re doing here is to attempt to collect from their subcontractors, and to go public with that fact to reduce the onus against BP itself in the court of public opinion. If, hypothetically, it had been BP’s intent to drill a well that would be safe even against the worst conceivable natural disaster, and their subcontractors cut corners, leaving them liable, then BP would be innocent of wrongful intent, having been played unfairly by Haliburton, Transocean, et al. (In point of fact, evidence suggests there’s enough blame to go around – that everybody cut some corners on safety margins and such – I was stating the extreme case to show what they might hope for but be unlikely to get.)
I thought it was Obama’s fault…
Or Bush’s…
Wow!
Someone saying something in a way that tends to show them in the best possible light.
No one’s ever done that before.
It could really catch on. You could have all sorts of people doing it. It would be a godsend for politicians, for example.
There is a significant difference between pointing out that some entity is a great deal more integrated into a society than people seem to realise and saying they are too big to be expected to clear up some mess for which they are responsible.
Could you explain what you found odd about the tone of these stories?
Obviously I can’t speak for Baboonanza but I agree that the tone is very odd.
Any responsible news organisation should not be using language that could be taken to make it appear that they are making a judgement as to the merits of what they are reporting.
A more normal way of phrasing the story would be: “BP identifies those it believes share the blame for the accident”.
Using a phrase such as “Tries to share the blame” where a more neutral tone is easily employed is unprofessional for any source that values its impartiality.
I get that you’re being sarcastic, but I don’t get the point you’re trying to make.