The Chief Counsel’s Report on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling has been released. Following on the heals of the January National Commission report to the President, the Chief Counsel’s report “provides damning evidence that preventable engineering and management mistakes—rather than mechanical failings—were the primary cause of the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion last spring,” notes ENR’s Pam Hunter.

Among the Technical Findings, the Report states that the root cause of the failure was that the cement that BP and Halliburton pumped to the bottom of the well did not seal off hydrocarbons in the formation. The report acknowledges several factors which may have increased the risk of cement failure, including...

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