Oil Spill Response and Containment

Both industry and government were unprepared to respond to a massive oil spill—even though such a spill was foreseeable—and they were both completely unprepared to contain a deepwater well blowout. At the time of the Macondo well blowout on April 20, 2010, the federal government was unprepared to oversee a deepwater well-containment effort. BP—and industry more generally—had no proven options for rapid containment in deepwater other than attempting to close the blowout preventer.

Spill response planning by both government and industry must improve. Industry spill response plans must provide realistic assessments of response capability, including well containment. Government review of those plans must be rigorous and involve all federal agencies with responsibilities for oil spill response. The federal government must do a better job of integrating state and local officials into spill planning and training exercises. Industry needs to develop, and government needs to incentivize, the next generation of more effective response technologies.

At the same time, the government must develop in-house expertise to effectively oversee well-containment operations and to accurately estimate flow rates following a blowout. Industry must be required to develop well-containment technologies that are rapidly deployable and must demonstrate their effectiveness in deepwater.