US oil spill probe blames bad management

Releasing a key chapter of its final report, the panel yesterday also took aim at US government officials, sharply criticising them for lax oversight of both the operation in the Gulf of Mexico and the industry.

The root causes of the blowout were "systemic and, absent significant reform in both industry practices and government policies, might well recur," the report said.

Despite the "inherent risks" of deepwater drilling, "the accident of April 20 was avoidable," it said, listing nine key decisions which were made to save time or money even though a safer alternative was available.

The explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig off the Louisiana coast "resulted from clear mistakes made in the first instance by BP, Halliburton, and Transocean, and by government officials who, relying too much on industry's assertions of the safety of their operations, failed to create and apply a program of regulatory oversight that would have properly minimized the risks of deepwater drilling."

BP welcomed the assessment, which analysts said would likely see the British company paying less compensation costs than expected -- it is selling USD 30 billion worth of assets to cover its part of the bill.

The company's shares rallied today after the panel said the British energy company was not solely to blame for the fatal Gulf of Mexico spill.

"Sharing the blame is helping BP shares to recover. When the disaster struck the only company blamed was BP, now it appears that others are responsible too," said Tamas Varga, an analyst at brokers PVM Oil Associates.

The presidential commission's assessment was part of its final report, to be released next week, on the deadly April blowout of BP's Macondo well.

Eleven workers were killed on the exploratory platform, which then sank, leaving the damaged drill to spew some 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf over three months.