BP Wants to Pay Less, Oil Spill Commission's Latest Report Details Fault
In a submission to the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, oil giant BP recently challenged the payout rules proposed by the GCCF regarding settlements to those harmed by the oil spill that followed the catastrophic loss of the BP Deepwater Horizon drilling platform. That final payout methodology proposes compensation of twice the losses suffered by damage claimants in 2010, minus payments already received.
Now, BP says the payment methodology offers too much to those who suffered in the Deepwater Horizon's aftermath. In a filing posted at the close of the GCCF's two-week public comment period regarding the payment scheme, and which is available at the GCCF's website, BP contends that the payout methodology's key assumptions about future losses are unsupported, whether by actual data or analysis. That is, BP flatly rejects any assumption that Gulf Coast claimants will suffer losses equaling twice the amount suffered through last year. BP contends that the likely amount of damages for oil spill claimants falls in the range of only 25 to 50 percent of the claimants' 2010 losses.
That notion runs counter to the observations of many others who have filed comments with the GCCF, many of whom challenge the fund's payments as too small and too long in coming. (As explained here, it is not necessarily in each claimant's best interest to obtain recovery from the GCCF in exchange for waiving rights to future compensation; each victim of the BP Deepwater Horizon tragedy should consult an experienced maritime attorney before making that decision.)
Just a day after BP's filing, on February 17 the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling released the full report of its Chief Counsel, Fred Bartlit. While the Commission gave its own final report on January 11, one chapter of that report summarized the results of the investigation by Bartlit's team. According to the Commission, the Chief Counsel's investigative team unearthed and analyzed far more information than could have been included in the Commission's own report, and so the additional report has been released now in order to provide the fullest possible account of the investigation into the causes of the Macondo well blowout.
Among the many findings in the Chief Counsel's report: BP was aware of problems with Halliburton personnel and work product years before the Deepwater Horizon blowout; a BP engineering reorganization in early 2010 resulted in delays and distractions for the team drilling the Macondo well; BP's own well site leaders accepted facially implausible explanations for problematic test results on the well; and BP engineers failed to fully review the cement design intended for the Macondo well even though they knew the job would be a difficult one and that Halliburton's engineer was not doing "quality work."
BP's most recent attempt to evade full financial responsibility for the widespread harm caused by last April's drilling disaster stands in stark contrast to the Chief Counsel's ultimate determination: the failures that gave rise to the Macondo blowout all trace back to an overarching failure of management. According to Bartlit, "Better management of personnel, risk, and communications by BP and its contractors would almost certainly have prevented the blowout. The Macondo disaster was not inevitable."
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