BP set to avoid gross negligence charge; key component in busted well approved in 90 minutes

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/06/bp-gulf-oil-spill-commission

Gulf oil spill: BP set to avoid gross negligence charge
Shares rise as US commission blames 'systemic' causes for spill and analysts say inquiry unlikely to contradict findings
Tim Webb

BP is likely to be cleared of the potentially ruinous charge of gross negligence, according to City analysts, after a powerful US commission blamed "systemic" causes for the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

The company's shares rose by more than 2% in trading this morning after Barack Obama's national commission released part of its final report into the disaster, before full publication on Tuesday.

The report is the first of several parallel investigations, and will influence the crucial inquiry carried out by the US department of justice (DoJ). Unless evidence comes to light showing that BP wilfully or singularly disregarded safety in the run-up to the world's biggest accidental offshore oil spill, the DoJ is unlikely to contradict the commission's findings and recommend a charge of gross negligence...

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40941697/ns/us_news-environment/

Key component in busted Gulf well approved in just 90 minutes by U.S. officials
Commission report warns disaster 'might well recur' without significant reform

A request by BP to set an "unusually deep cement plug" on the Gulf oil well that subsequently exploded killing 11 people was approved by the then-Minerals Management Service in just 90 minutes, according to a presidential commission report on the disaster. That decision was one of the nine technical and engineering calls that the commission says — in a 48-page excerpt of its final report obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press — increased the risk of a blowout.

The oil spill commission said a string of poor decisions led to technical problems that contributed to the deadly April 20 accident, which led to more than 200 million gallons of oil spewing from BP's well a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico. "The blowout was not the product of a series of abberational decisions made by a rogue industry or government officials that could not have been anticipated or expected to occur again," the commission concluded. "Rather, the root causes are systemic, and absent significant reform in both industry practices and government policies, might well recur," it added...