NEW ORLEANS — On the second day of testimony in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill trial, BP’s top executive for North American operations at the time of the disaster insisted that his company was not solely to blame and shared responsibility for the accident with its contractors.
Lamar McKay, the former president of BP America and current chief executive in charge of global upstream operations, faced questioning on Wednesday from lawyers from Transocean, the Deepwater Horizon rig, and Halliburton, the cement provider, who insisted that BP was ultimately responsible for the accident.
“We agreed that we are part of the responsibility for this tragic accident,” Mr. McKay said on the stand. “We were part of the cause of the accident, yes.”
Don Godwin, Halliburton’s lawyer, argued that had tests that BP had misinterpreted shown that the cement that sealed the well was defective, the cement could have been fixed and the accident would not have happened.
“We agreed there were misinterpretations,” Mr. McKay said. “That was one of the causes.” But he added that BP depends on its contractors.
On Tuesday, Mr. McKay acknowledged that a well explosion had been identified as a risk before it happened.
“There was a risk identified for a blowout,” he said. “The blowout was an identified risk, and it was a big risk, yes.”
Robert Cunningham, a lawyer for private plaintiffs, tried to pin down Mr. McKay on BP’s responsibility for the 2010 disaster that killed 11 workers and dumped millions of barrels of oil into the gulf. Mr. Cunningham suggested that the British company’s cost-cutting and risk-taking culture were at the heart of the explosion and spill. He pressed Mr. McKay on the fact that a BP report on the accident held contractors responsible, but did not cite management failures.
Mr. McKay repeatedly responded that BP was responsible for designing the well, but that the rig, cement and other contractors shared responsibility for safety on the drilling operations.
“It’s a team effort,” he said. “It’s a shared responsibility to manage the safety and risk.” There was little, if anything, in his comments that diverged from what BP executives have said in the past.
The Federal District Court trial in New Orleans combines suits brought by the Justice Department, state governments, private businesses and individual claimants against BP and several of its contractors. Decisions on culpability and damages could be a year or more away, but they are likely to have profound effects on environmental law and on the viability of BP as a major oil company with global ambitions.
BP Executive Shares Blame With Contractors
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BP Executive Shares Blame With Contractors
