Today marked the beginning of the fourth hearing for BP (NYSE:BP) as well as other companies holding a stake in the Macondo well. The Federal investigators and criminal lawyers are saying that BP was fully aware of the fact that there were extreme technical problems, but did not take any action leading to the April 20th explosion of the Deepwater Horizon.
There is a joint panel combining The Department of Interior and the U.S. Coast Guard. It is the responsibility of this panel to come to a conclusion as to cause of the massive oil spill. One of the main lines of questioning focused on whether there were major equipment failures on the rig, which would have played a part in the disaster.
A shot of natural gas catapulted to the surface from under the seabed, causing the rig to explode. Despite many precautions that are in place and designed to prevent this, the explosion still happened.
In a September 2009 audit done on BP, there were numerous problem found aboard the Deepwater Horizon. Panel member Jason Mathews, questioned BP's top official for maritime safety in the Gulf Neil Cramond, "With all these flaws identified within this audit, do you think it is a fundamental flaw for BP to pay [Transocean, the rigs owner] $500,000 a day knowing that there are all these problems with the rig." Cramond said he was comfortable with how the safety issues were handled.
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