“This is the most colossally ignorant conclusion anyone could draw,” said Steiner, a retired professor at the University of Anchorage, Alaska. Steiner was closely involved in the early investigation and reporting of the BP disaster.
“This claim destroyed any credibility the commission may have had. One might question whether
Bartlit has a good BP job awaiting him when he is done,” Steiner said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.
“The people and companies that run these rigs wake up in the morning thinking of ways to cut costs, to enhance production and to generate more revenue in less time. Every single decision they make has to do with that,” he said. “The Deepwater Horizon rig was 43 days behind schedule, at about a million dollars a day. Don’t tell me that this was not a persistent pressure on everybody on the rig.”
Steiner said that the Deepwater Horizon’s drilling project at the Macondo well was troubled by difficulties from the start. “The first thing that happened was that they got their drill bit stuck at about 11,000 feet, and then the tool they sent down to find it got stuck. At this point they backed out, and had to drill a side-track hole, so by the time the whole thing got back on track, they were about 43 days behind schedule...”
“To say, after all this, that there were no cases where corners were cut to save costs is just absurd,” Steiner concluded. “If the commission is asserting that BP did not knowingly cut corners on safety, then the only alternative is that BP officials are incompetent buffoons that should never be allowed to conduct such risky energy projects in the first place. So, take your pick—either they knew they were creating a dangerous situation on Macondo, or they were clueless. If it is truly the latter, clearly they should never be allowed to drill another offshore well....”
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/stei-n11.shtml
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