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\f0\fs24 \cf0 I'm Loren Steffy, Business Columnist for the Huston Chronicle and I'm also the
author of Drownling in Oil: BP and the Reckless Pursuit of Profit.\
\ I first became interested in the BP story
about five years ago after the deadly explosion at their Texas City refinery in 2005 that
killed about fifteen people and injured at least 170 others and from that accident we
began looking back at some of the other safety issues that were going on inside the company.
\ \
For several years I had actually very good access to BP executives. I interviewed Tony
Hayward three times. I interview Bob Malone who was head of BP America on numerous occasions.
I toured their thunder horse facility.\ \
John Browne became CEO of BP in 1995 and he really set the company on a course to become
one of the biggest oil companies in the world. He wanted to take what was kind of a stuffy,
government run enterprise and expand it to the point that it would rival Exxon as one
of the world's largest oil companies. \ \
Now Browne was able to really grow BP into quite a large company mostly through mergers
and acquisitions primarily here in the U.S. But as often happens with mergers, he failed
to pay attention to a lot of the details. The operating integrations. And that's where
when he would demand cost cuts you would see corners wind up being cut. \
\ When you look at the problems: the pipeline
leaks in Alaska, the Texas City explosion, even the problems with the Thunder Horse platform
initially. \ \
What you see is a culture of cutting corners, but it's a very subtle culture. If you talk
to people within BP they'll tell you nobody ever says we need you to cut corners on safety,
but that's the end result of the overall budget constraints that most of the operating divisions
are putting. They didn't monitor the way individual decisions might compound to result in disaster.
It's something known as process safety and when you look at other oil companies that's
one of the things they really stress, they put a big emphasis on. And that emphasis was
really lacking at BP.\ \
I would like to think that the culture at BP will change, but they've had an awful lot
of warning signs that haven't been heeded up till now. Their new CEO Bob Dudley is also
an insider, so I'm not really sure he's going to bring the fresh perspective that's needed.
The industry likes to talk about it's safety record in the Gulf, but when you look at the
history of BP the spill is really in context. It really follows their other operating disasters
of the past 10 years. \ \
I think it's important to remember that these types of accidents have a profound impact
on the families. Many of them have lost loved ones, Fathers, Brothers, Sisters, Mothers.
In some cases people are still struggling. They're still having health problems, and
some cases their lives will never the same. \
\ I'd like readers to come away from this book
with a deeper understanding not just of BP, but of this issue of process safety. Of how
seemingly innocent decisions can build up to catastrophe without the proper monitoring.
The largest misconception about the spill is that it was a one off. That this was something
unusual. The industry likes to talk about it's safety record in the Gulf, but when you
look at the history of BP this spill is really in context. It really follows their other
operating disasters of the past ten years. }