US Report Outlines BP Oil Spill Failures in Gulf of Mexico

Poor risk management and a failure to respond to warning signs were behind the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year, US investigators have said.

A US government report found BP made operational changes and didn't tell Transocean, the contractor that owned and ran the doomed Deepwater Horizon rig.

Meanwhile, Transocean missed vital opportunities to fix problems in the a cement casing when they misinterpreted a pressure test, it said.

On April 20 2010, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig caused the death of 11 workers.  In the subsequent oil spill, 4.9 million barrels of oil flowed into the Gulf of Mexico before the leak was finally capped.