Reports on spill cite lack of research, investment

Fearing an underground collapse of huge proportions, a federal government team nearly forced BP to reopen a capping stack on the leaking Macondo oil well July 16, a move that might have prolonged the massive spill for weeks.

The government had given BP the go-ahead to cap the well even though renowned physicist and hydrogen bomb pioneer Richard Garwin and drilling experts from Exxon Mobil and Shell Oil had warned against closing the capping stack in the first place. Then, on July 15, unexpectedly low pressure readings worried government officials, who put off a decision until morning.

A single cellphone photo of pressure readings saved the day.

One U.S. Geological Survey scientist at BP's Houston headquarters sent the photo to a colleague in California, who overnight developed a reservoir model that explained that the depletion of the reservoir accounted for the lower than expected pressure readings. Reassured, the high-level government team let BP keep the capping stack closed.

The new details are contained in one of a pair of staff reports released Monday by the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling.

In the other report, the staff of the presidential commission said that a lack of preparedness, a dearth of research and insufficient investment in new techniques hindered the cleanup once the oil had spilled into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

The report said federal agencies consistently spent less than they were authorized to spend on improving cleanup technology. In addition, two of the five biggest oil companies - Conoco Phillips and Chevron - spent no money at all in the past 20 years on developing better in-house ways to clean up after a spill. Two companies spent only modest amounts, and BP's letter to the commission was not clear on whether the company spent money on cleanup technology.

Exxon Mobil, whose tanker the Exxon Valdez tanker crashed and spilled oil off the Alaska coast in 1989, told the commission that its investments in containment and cleanup technology amounted to about $60 million over the past 20 years.

Citing phrases used in an industry report, the draft report said "neither boom design and construction, nor the 'principles behind skimming systems,' nor the 'basics of mechanical recovery systems,' have significantly changed."

It added: "Existing response equipment was not up to the challenge of such a large spill."

In the first report, the commission staff said that although BP was able to come up with spill control techniques "in a compressed time frame," it added that "those impressive efforts . . . were made necessary by the failure to anticipate a subsea blowout in the first place."

The commission staff urged the commission members to adopt a series of recommendations including that the government hire its own petroleum engineering experts; improve techniques for getting a quick, accurate estimate of the flow of oil in a spill; order better diagnostic tools be installed on blowout preventers; and ensure that smaller companies drilling offshore exploratory wells have insurance or partners with the financial capability of responding to any disaster in the future.