A federal board allowed to monitor the testing of a key piece of Gulf oil spill evidence -- the blowout preventer -- demanded on Thursday that the analysis stop until representatives of the companies that made and maintained the device are removed from the process.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board said in a letter to the head of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement that having the companies involved hands-on in the forensic analysis that began more than a month ago undermines the investigation’s credibility.
However, while Cameron and Transocean officials are among a small army of representatives from companies and federal agencies allowed to watch and consult, they are not involved in the actual testing. That’s being done by a Norwegian firm. The board said it also wants that firm terminated or at least supervised by a neutral third-party.
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Transocean said in an e-mail to The Associated Press that the safety board’s “accusations are totally unfounded.”
The safety board investigates serious chemical accidents and makes recommendations. It had previously agreed to the current test protocols and has complained that it hasn’t been allowed to be more involved.
“Given the well—publicized history of improper relationships between the former Minerals Management Service and members of the oil industry, one would have expected that extraordinary care would be taken to conduct the BOP testing above reproach,” the letter said. “One would have expected an independent, second set of eyes like the CSB to be welcomed. Regrettably this has not been the case.”
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The MMS was renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement after two scathing reports by a federal inspector general highlighted drug use and sex among agency employees and oil and gas industry executives, and said drilling regulators accepted gifts and trips from oil and gas companies and even negotiated to go work for the industry while overseeing it.
Since the blowout preventer testing began Nov. 16 at a NASA facility in New Orleans, technicians have largely been disassembling the 300-ton device that failed to stop the oil spill and have so far not determined why it didn’t do its job, according to a person briefed on the progress who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation.
Blowout preventers sit at the wellhead of exploratory wells and are supposed to lock in place to prevent a spill in the case of an explosion. They can snuff a blowout by squeezing rubber seals tightly around the pipes with up to 1 million pounds (450,000 kilograms) of force. If the seals fail, the blowout preventer deploys a last line of defence -- a set of rams that can slice right through the pipes and cap the blowout.
Following the April 20 rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, the blowout preventer used with BP’s well did not stop the flow of oil to the sea. Eleven workers were killed in the blast, and some 200 million gallons (757 million litres) of oil spewed from BP’s undersea well before it was capped, according to government estimates that BP disputes.
The device was raised from the seafloor on Sept. 4.
After the device was taken to shore, it sat at the New Orleans facility for two months while officials from many interested companies and agencies debated about the proper protocols for analyzing it and who would get to watch.
By agreement, the federal Joint Investigation Team selected the people who would have access to the test site and the ability to consult if needed. Besides Cameron and Transocean, the selection included representatives from BP, the Department of Justice and the Chemical Safety Board. Even an expert representing the plaintiffs in the multi-district oil spill lawsuits in New Orleans was included.
To bolster its claims about conflicts of interest, the safety board referred to pictures of a Transocean subsea supervisor, Owen McWhorter, fiddling with the hydraulic fluid on the so-called Lower Marine Riser Package and removing the drill pipe from the device.
However, the LMRP is a separate device from the blowout preventer. It was removed from the BOP so that that device could be tested.
A third picture shows McWhorter removing the upper pipe ram of the blowout preventer on Dec. 10. A spokeswoman for the ocean management agency, Melissa Schwartz, said Thursday that the firm handling the testing, DNV, allowed McWhorter to do that work without telling federal investigators.
Schwartz said her agency was alerted by the safety board on Dec. 13, and by the time her agency responded three days later, McWhorter had already been removed from the process.
Schwartz said the companies have been permitted to provide technical expertise through an agreement reached with the court, for the sole purpose of answering questions. Company representatives are observers only and are not involved in the examination, she said.
A spokesman for Det Norske Veritas, Blaine Collins, said in an e-mail to AP that he could not comment, referring questions to ocean management agency.