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- Dubai 05:43 06:59 12:35 15:41 18:05 19:21
A controlled burn in the area of the BP Oil Spill and Discover Enterprise in the Gulf of Mexico. The costs of handling the disaster have risen to $2 billion. (AFP)
A Deepwater Horizon rig worker said he identified a leak in the oil rig's safety equipment weeks before the explosion.
Tyrone Benton told BBC that the leak was not fixed at the time, but that instead, the faulty device, called the blowout preventer, was shut down and a second one relied on. When the rig exploded on April 20 killing 11 people, the device failed, the report said.
According to the BBC report, BP said rig owners Transocean were responsible for the operation and maintenance of that piece of equipment.
Transocean said it tested the device successfully before the accident. The oil company yesterday said the costs of handling the disaster have risen to $2 billion (Dh7.34bn).
The most critical piece of safety equipment on the rig, blowout preventers are designed to avert disasters just like the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, BBC said. The device has giant shears designed to cut and seal off the well's main pipe.
Benton told BBC that the problem was found on the control pods, effectively the brains of the blowout preventer and contain both electronics and hydraulics.
"We saw a leak on the pod, so by seeing the leak we informed the company men," Benton told BBC. "They have a control room where they could turn off that pod and turn on the other one, so that they don't have to stop production."
Professor Tad Patzek, petroleum expert at the University of Texas, was quoted as saying: "That is unacceptable. If you see any evidence of the blowout preventer not functioning properly, you should fix it by whatever means possible."
According to Benton his supervisor e-mailed both BP and Transocean about the leaks when they were discovered. He said he did not know whether the leaking pod was turned back on before the disaster or not.
The report quoted Benton as saying repairing the damaged control pod would have meant temporarily stopping drilling work on the rig at a time when it was costing BP $500,000 a day to operate the Deepwater Horizon.
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