BP On The Spot Again For Safety

[Jeffersons Ghost]

Outgoing CEO Hayward will be grilled by U.K. lawmakers over apparent lapses in North Sea drilling practices.
Parmy Olson, 09.15.10, 08:10 AM EDT

LONDON -- First the Gulf of Mexico, now the North Sea. There is no oil disaster to speak of in the body of water separating the U.K. and northern and central Europe, but BP's outgoing chief executive Tony Hayward will nevertheless come under extra pressure from lawmaker Wednesday following a report that the oil giant had not been in full compliance with safety regulations for its North Sea operations.

Shares of BP slid by 1.6% to 408.5 pence in London after a report in the Financial Times said four of the company's five North Sea installations inspected in 2009 had failed to comply with emergency regulations on oil spills, according to offshore inspection reports from the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

The inspectors reportedly told BP ( BP - news - people ) last October that it had failed to adequately conduct oil spill exercises, "training of some new personnel to basic safety standards was ineffective" and that the company "did not appear to identify the significance of issues raised by the complainant once they were put to you by ." BP replied that the processes in question had improved by November.

The news, however, suggests that Britain's Energy and Climate Change Committee will question Hayward about BP's ability to respond to an oil spill or other incident in the North Sea, as part of a government inquiry into the safety of deep water drilling in Britain.

http://www.forbes.com/2010/09/15/bp-tony-hayward-markets-equities-safety-drilling-north-sea.html?boxes=marketschannelnews