BP boss denies dodging tough questions on spill

CHASTENED by heavy criticism, a grim-faced BP chief executive Tony Hayward insisted yesterday he was “devastated with this accident” in the Gulf of Mexico and denied shunning tough questions from Congress on the nation’s worst oil spill.

“I’m not stonewalling,” Hayward told a House investigations subcommittee, responding to suggestions that he was dodging questions.

Hayward said he was “deeply sorry” for the spill that’s been gushing for more than eight weeks. “I understand the seriousness of the situation, the frustrations and fears that continue to be voiced,” he said.

Waiting to testify, Hayward had to endure more than an hour of mostly unrelenting criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike.

“We are not small people, but we wish to get our lives back,” Rep Bart Stupak, D-Mich, the subcommittee chairman, told Hayward, throwing back comments made the day before by BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg – about how BP sympathised with the “small people” of the Gulf – and Hayward’s earlier remark that he wanted his “life back”.

Later, Hayward appeared unflappable during a tense exchange with Rep Henry Waxman, D-Calif, chairman of the full House Energy and Commerce Committee.

He sought to deflect accusations – based on internal BP documents obtained by congressional investigators – that BP chose a particular well design that was riskier but cheaper by $7 million (€5.6m) to $10m.

“I’m not stonewalling. I simply was not involved in the decision-making process,” Hayward told Waxman, adding that the well’s engineering team clearly had grappled with such issues.

“What’s clear to me,” Waxman interrupted, “is that you don’t want to answer our questions”.

He added, “You’re kicking the can down the road and acting like you have nothing to do with... this company. I find that irresponsible.”

Waxman told the BP executive that in his committee’s review of 30,000 items, there was “not a single email or document that you paid even the slightest attention to the dangers at this well”.

At one point he said, “I am not a cement engineer” when asked about issues surrounding the quality of cement work done by contractor Halliburton Co. He also said, “I am not a drilling engineer”.

And when asked by Rep Edward Markey about underwater oil plumes from the spill – the existence of which Hayward has challenged in the past – the BP executive said, “I’m not an oceanographic scientist”.

Hayward declined to use the word “plumes” but said “data indicates there is oil in very low concentrations” beneath the surface, some of which came from the spill and some of which came from other sources.

Hayward said under oath to lawmakers that “I feel a great deal of responsibility” for the April explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that triggered the giant spill.

“The fire and explosion on the Deepwater Horizon never should have happened,” Hayward said. And, while “we need to know what went wrong,” it’s still “too early to say what caused the incident. There is still extensive work to do”.

Rep Joe Barton, R-Texas, turned the tables and apologised to BP, accusing the White House of conducting a “$20 billion shakedown” by requiring the company to establish the fund to compensate those hurt by the spill.

“I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House” on Wednesday, said Barton, who has received at least $100,470 in political contributions from oil and gas interests since the beginning of 2009.

Vice President Joe Biden later called the shakedown comment “outrageous,” and White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said, “What is shameful is that Joe Barton seems to have more concern for big corporations that caused this disaster than the fishermen, small business owners and communities whose lives have been devastated by the destruction.”

Later, Barton told the committee: “I want the record to be absolutely clear that I think BP is responsible for this accident, should be held responsible and should in every way do everything possible to make good on the consequences that have resulted from this accident.

“And if anything I said this morning has been misconstrued, in opposite effect, I want to apologise for that misconstruction.”