BP is attacked over safety by US oil spill probe chief

William K Reilly, co-chairman of the National Commission investigating the spill, declared the industry needed a "major transformation" in its approach to safety to avoid another major offshore drilling disaster.

His words were described by one analyst in London as "potentially explosive" as his panel next month delivers its report on the incident which will be instrumental in framing US policy on offshore drilling and future regulation of the industry.

British companies rely heavily on the oil and gas deposits off the US coast for their profits and are among those lobbying Barack Obama to lift the ban on drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
Reilly has for many years served on the board of ConocoPhillips.

He told a gathering of industry officials that BP and the other contractors on the Deepwater Macondo well, Halliburton and Transocean, had made "breathtakingly inept and largely preventable" mistakes. He went on to condemn the absence of "a shared industry culture that puts a premium on safety and risk management".

He made harsh criticisms of the lack of oversight from federal regulators of the industry, who "failed us miserably", but the oil companies and their contractors received most of his fire.

"The interest group that could most threaten the future viability of offshore drilling is the oil and gas industry itself," he said, according to a transcript of his speech reported by the Wall Street Journal today.

BP and Shell declined to comment, but one analyst highlighted how it seemed the US track record on safety was worse than in many other parts of the world. A senior source at a UK oil supermajor with a good safety record told the analyst its records suggested there was a cultural problem with safety in the US.

"Perhaps it is because a worker in Nigeria or some other part of the world who is employed by a prestigious major firm is less likely to ignore its rules and regulations than someone employed in the US. They tend to follow the commands from the company more diligently than Americans, perhaps because their jobs are more important to them," the analyst said, paraphrasing his source.