Oil Spill Investigators Spot Corporate ‘Culture of Complacency’

Posted on Nov 9, 2010

AP / Gerald Herbert

Flames and smoke engulf BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf after an explosion April 21.

A government commission looking into last spring’s eco-pocalypse in the Gulf of Mexico has detected a certain “culture of complacency” afoot at the trio of big companies implicated in the spill. Sounds about right.  —KA

Los Angeles Times:

A stream of evidence shows that “a culture of complacency” rather than a “culture of safety” prevailed at BP, Transocean Ltd. and Halliburton as they worked on the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, according to the chairmen of the presidential commission investigating the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The panel’s investigators uncovered “a suite of bad decisions,” many still inexplicable, involving tests that were poorly run, alarming results that were ignored, proper equipment that was sidelined and safety barriers that were removed prematurely at the high-pressure well, said William K. Reilly, who is co-chairman of the commission with former Democratic Sen. Bob Graham of Florida.

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