By Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica
A whistleblower filed a lawsuit this week to force the federal government
to halt operations at another massive BP oil platform in the Gulf of
Mexico, alleging that BP never reviewed critical engineering designs for
the operation and is therefore risking another catastrophic accident
that could “dwarf” the company’s Deepwater Horizon spill.
The
allegations about BP’s Atlantis platform were first made last year, but
they were laid out in fresh detail in the lawsuit filed in U.S. District
Court in Houston against Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and the
Minerals Management Service, the agency responsible for regulating
offshore drilling in the Gulf.
The whistleblower is Kenneth
Abbott, a former project control supervisor contracted by BP who also
gave an interview to “60
Minutes” on Sunday night. In a
conversation last week with ProPublica, Abbott alleged that BP failed to
review thousands of final design documents for systems and equipment on
the Atlantis platform — meaning BP management never confirmed the
systems were built as they were intended – and didn’t properly file the
documentation that functions as an instruction manual for rig workers to
shut down operations in the case of a blowout or other emergency.
Abbott
alleges that when he warned BP about the dangers presented by the
missing documentation the company ignored his concerns and instead
emphasized saving money.
“There were hundreds, if not thousands,
of drawings that hadn’t been approved and to send drawings (to the rig)
that hadn’t been approved could result in catastrophic operator errors,”
Abbott told ProPublica. “They turned their eye away from their
responsibility to make sure the overall design works. Instead they are
having bits and pieces fabricated and they are just hoping that these
contractors who make all these separate pieces can pull it together and
make it safe. The truth is these contractors see a piece of the puzzle;
they don’t see the whole thing.”
BP did not respond to a request
for comment from ProPublica, but has previously addressed Abbott’s
concerns in a January letter to congressional investigators stating that
the allegations are unfounded and that the Atlantis platform had final
documentation in place before it began operating.
According to an
e-mail sent to Abbott by BP’s ombudsman’s office, an independent group
employed by the company to address internal complaints, BP had not
complied with its own rules governing how and where the documentation
should be kept but had not necessarily violated any regulations for
drilling. The e-mail does not address the specifics raised in the
lawsuit.
A spokesperson for the Department of the Interior said
the agency would not comment on pending litigation.
Congress and
the Minerals and Management Service have been investigating Abbott’s
concerns since last year, when he and Food and Water Watch, an
environmental organization based in Washington, D.C., first filed the
complaints. But according to both Abbott and FWW, little has been done.
After the Deepwater Horizon Gulf spill underscored their concerns, they
decided to jointly file the lawsuit. Abbott was laid off shortly after
he raised the concerns to BP management.
According to the
lawsuit, by Nov. 28, 2008, when Abbott last had access to BP’s files,
only half of the 7,176 drawings detailing Atlantis’ sub-sea equipment
had been approved for design by an engineer and only 274 had been
approved “as built,” meaning they were checked and confirmed to meet
quality and design standards and the documentation made available to the
rig crew. Ninety percent of the design documents, the suit alleges, had
never been approved at all.
The Atlantis rig is even larger than
the Deepwater Horizon rig that sank in April. It began producing oil in
2007 and can produce 8.4 million gallons a day.
The components
include some of the critical infrastructure to protect against a spill.
According the suit, none of the sub-sea risers – the pipelines and hoses
that serve as a conduit for moving materials from the bottom of the
ocean to the facility — had been “issued for design.” The suit also
alleges that none of the wellhead documents were approved, and that none
of the documents for the manifolds that combine multiple pipeline flows
into a single line at the seafloor had been reviewed for final use.
Directions for how to use the piping and instrument systems that
help shut down operations in the event of an emergency, as well as the
computer software used to enact an emergency shutdown, had also not been
approved, the lawsuit says. According to the lawsuit, 14 percent those
documents had been approved for construction, and none received final
approval to ensure they were built and functioning properly.
“BP’s
worst-case scenario indicates that an oil spill from the BP Atlantis
Facility could be many times larger than the current oil spill from the
BP Deepwater Horizon,” the lawsuit states. “The catastrophic Horizon oil
spill would be a mere drop in the bucket when compared to the potential
size of a spill from the BP Atlantis facility.”
It is not clear
from the lawsuit or the limited statements made by BP or federal
regulators if BP has corrected the documentation problem since Abbott
was laid off.
Abbott told ProPublica he raised the documentation
issues repeatedly in e-mails and conversations with management, “saying
this was critical to operator safety and rig safety.”
“They just
ignored my requests for help,” he said. “There seemed to be a big
emphasis to push the contractors to get things done. And that was always
at the forefront of the operation.”
(Photo of the Atlantis rig from GVA’s website.)