not only do we have the transition team but the lame duck session, the charlie rangel inquiry, the debt commission continues its suggestions of how to handle -- and i'm probably missing other things. leadership elections. the important leadership elections. all of this at one time seems i'm sure people that don't watch this how can they get all of of this done. now do they keep the lame duck session running with big decisions while organizing the new congress? >> there is no question that republicans are going to keep the pressure on. they are going to say on things like tax cuts and spending they have to do a stop gap measure to keep the government funded. republicans will say to democrats and publicly to the media that the voters sent the message and they don't want the democrats to do the things they are doing, which wibut leadersh elections are very important and

you are going to have all the members in for leadership election and orientation so it will be busy and weighty decisions will be made so it will be very crazy here in washington. >> the lame duck sessions are always surreal because you will have people in town that lost, a lot of democrats that lost. there are some elections unsettled. and there is a lot of behind-the-scenes struggle going on about are they had he with the leadership lineup or do they need something different. the current house speaker has announced she is running for minority leader and so far she has no opposition but there is a lot of griping that maybe that is not the direction that mocrats need to go. at the same time there is this incredibly active schedule of talks for the new members, really nitty-gritty how to organize an office, hire a staff, ethics, how the

legislative process works. on top of that, dinners, receptions that are going to keep people busy. i think what you will see in public is different than what is going on in private which in many ways will shape more fully what the new congress will look like. >> things that the lame duck must get done, tax cuts and continuing resolution. it is interesting to hear mr. walden refer to the democrats seem to be negotiating from thousands of miles apart. what are the signals from the white house and how is the congress reacting to it? >> up until the elections we heard a white house that was opposed to doing any kind of tax cut or continuation of the tax reduction for the wealthiest taxpayers. in recent days we have heard them sort of start to signal they might be more open to doing some of that if it were temporary in the interests of a deal to make sure middle class people, those earning $250,000 or less, get their tax cuts.

so, the outlines the deal are pretty clear but there is still a lot of liberals who are unhappy with the notion that to get a tax cut for the middle class they think should get it that you have to throw in a large reduction for millionaires. so i think that is what is behind some of the back and forth. the outlines are pretty clear but not everyone is happy with it. >> we will come back to mr. walden and his specific responsibilities. he had energy going in right-sizing the house. >> he face as congress that has been set in its ways. he has even suggested putting suggestion boxes around the building to take suggestions. this is an institution that doesn't change very often. the house schedule hasn't really been changed in four decades. so, talking about doing alternate weeks in session and three weeks in and one week out, these are radical changes that republicans are floating.

it is tough to say what they will be able to get done. he signaled that he is willing to fire part of the capital staff, which is not something that will be easy to do. also, he is signaling he wants to do things that are good for democrats and republicans, kind of nonpartisan things to make it run better. but he wants to find spending cuts to save money in the capital which invary bring means something -- invariably means somebody will not be happy. so it is long set and a lot of things that could save money but will face resistance from any number of corners. >> thank you very much for being on the show with us. appreciate it. >> thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

watch live coverage on c-span 2 at 2:00 eastern. on monday a house ethics subcommittee on the case against representative charles rangel. he is accused of 13 violations chug failing to -- including failing to disclose at least $600,000 of assets and income in reports to congress. we will have that live monday at 9:00 a.m. eastern on c-span 3. now a look at some of the newly elected governors. georgia republican natuhan deal won 53% of the vote and will take the seat held by the republican governor son any perdue. in hawaii, the democrat kneel

abercrombie won with 58% of the vote defeating the lieutenant govern governor. that seat is now held by a republican who is term limited. >> the national commission on the b.p. deep water horizon oil spill met to examine the root causes of the oil rig explosion. first rargs from the chief -- remarks from the chief counsel of the commission. this first portion is about a half hour. >> i said earlier i want to be sure you don't confuse what was said with what i said earlier. i said we see no instance where a decision-making person or group of people sat there aware of safety risks, aware of costs and opted to give up safety for cost there are people that make observations about what they thought other people might be

doing. i'm not saying -- we do not say everything done was perfectly safe. we are saying, and people have said people traded safety for dollars. we studied the hell out of this. we welcome anybody that gives us something we missed but we don't see a person or three people sitting there at a table considering safety and cost and giving up safety for cost. we have not seen that. and you have to be sure you understand that. now we are going to kick detection. this is transoceans's -- they have a volume this thick on how you operate in deep water, which is impressive indeed. they say a kick is when oil gas gets in the well bore. that the driller, that is a transocean person has to continuously monitor what is gog on. if there is a kick, the driller

has to shut the well in quickly. speed will determine the severity. as i said earlier and i will show you one more time later on, you have to remember, things really happen fast. at the bottom what might be three or four barrels of gas by the time it get to the surface it is moving like hell and it will erode. it is powerful beyond bee leave. you will see the impact of these gas influxes eroding away all the way up to the surface. this really happens fast. once oil and gas get in the riser you have almost no time to act. that is important to understand. remember i showed you at the beginning the rotary where the oil and gas came up on the rig? and i showed you a little glass shack nearby? this is the driller's shack. this is the driller. he is sitting there and has a screen in front of him. and he can choose what is to be

on that screen and how it is to be displayed. the fact that he can choose what is on the screen is important because we so far do not know what was on a screen like that that night. we don't know what was on the screen because it went down with the rig. we don't know how it was set up. we will be asking questions of t teo and others but we only have a secondary source as to what the kick evidence really was. here is a better shot of the driller screen. we have been on the rigs. commissioner murray went on the rig with us and saw this. if you look here off of this side there is another screen. that has what is called sperry sun data. the driller has the transocean high tech data, the transocean high tech data is gone.

sperry sun is the subsidiary of haliburton and they keep separate information that is available here. it is also available shoreside at b.p.'s office. if you went in the macondo office you could have seen the data. there was no one in that office that night. everyone had gone home. this is the sperry sun data. the information as to what was happening when the cement job failed at the bottom of the well and created a kick is here. let's zero in a little bit. this is the information. what we have done is to move it sideways because every time b.p.

displays this information they take it sideway he is and panned it because it is easiero see it that way. and that is ok. here is drill pipe pressure. here is a pump pressure. here is the sperry sun information. this is a little complicated. we don't know that anybody in the world saw this specific information that night. was available in the drill shack. it was available in the haliburton mud logger shack, which i showed you. it was available back shoreside in houston. but we don't know that anybody was looking at it because the driller, remember, had this information available but would have been looking at the t.o. screens, not this. so, it is difficult for us to surmise what this information shows when we don't know anybody ever looked at it. but what it does show is this.

here -- and i try to imagine myself having been there eight hours in that chair watching this stuff and i imagine is this a big deal? well, here it is here turned sideways and spread out and the drill pipe pressure, the pump pressure is constant, yet the drill pipe pressure is increasing. it is a slight increase. it is subtle. now, if the driller knows that they are at the same time displacing heavier fluids, mud, with lighter fluids, sea water, maybe it makes this upward move of the drill pipe pressure more significant. one of the points we will make here is that the system depends on the right person watching this information at the right ti time, having enough knowledge about all the other activities that are going on on the rig to

interpret it the right way and to act very rapidly. it depends on people getting -- basically one person getting everything right at the right time when you have to move fast. at any rate, we have talked to a lot of people here about whether, if they were sitting there -- people in the industry generally. because i don't have subpoena power i have to tell you i'm telling you what people told me. i can't subpoena people and put them under oath. i wish i could, respectfully to the commissioners because i think it is damned important but that is the way it goes. people in the industry have said of course we would have noticed that. that is a kick detection that we would move pass so i pressed them like i'm pressing myself here and people begin to say, gee, i don't know. at least about this first one. now, the second one is interesting because they turn

off the pumps totally to perform a test. now the drill pipe pressure is going up quite a bit. we have met with t.o. at length and they have given us a lot of data and useful explanations that can explain why at the beginning and end some of this happened but nobody can say that in the core of this period the drill pipe pressure wasn't going up we the pumps were off. and most people we talked to throughout the industry say that is a kick and it should have been detected and somebody move fast. the explosion occurred at 2149. this is 2110 to 2112. the b.o.p. could be closed in 46 or 47 seconds. so, we will be talking about this later, but when i looked at

this as just an ordinary person, i said with all the skills that nasa and people have, isn't there a better way to display this information so that it clear and we have algorithms that point when things are heading in the wrong direction. now, this is a little bit unfair because i'm talking about the sperry sun data. and the data the driller was looking at was the t.o. data. and maybe the t.o. data was a lot clearer than it. maybe it was not as clear. maybe there was digital information that was easier to pick up. we would like to know that to the commission, please, but we don't. i would expect, i guess, that the t.o. screen, just common sense, would be better than sperry sun because it is their rig and investment,and their money but that is sheer guesswork. but that is a critical thing that would be good to know.

now, we know there was a kick then. we know hydrocarbons were coming through the cement job that had not been remediated. could have been if people decided to but wasn't. we know there was a leak. remember, i told you earlier that we would discuss where the leak occurred. did it come up this annulus or up the chute? let's go to the next one. this is a casing hanger seal. we have talked to drill quip. they have some of the best engineers i have ever met and they say there is no damage to the casing hanger seals at all. they are pristine. if the leak came up the an new husband there -- annulus there would be damage to the casing hanger seals.

remember i sold you you would be blown away by the power of this gas under pressure comin up through the riser carrying sand and everything? this is the way the inside looks made in the factory. this so stro that on the the inside quarter inch deep slots have been totally blown away by the force of the gas coming up through the casing. amazing the force of the stuff. but the inside is totally eroded and the outside is pristine. b.p. agrees that the leak was up the shoe and not the annulus. i think t.o. degrees. we are not sure about haliburton. we will ask them today. they may say we don't have a dog in that hunt. that is what we will do this afternoon. we. and more importantly drill quip believes that it came up the shoe and not the annulus.

they say if the flow from the annulus it would have come from these holes. you have seen what that pressure can do in a big area. these little locals would have been just torn apart if it had come up through the annulus. that is more evidence our way. now, there's been a discussion here of what happened at the very end. transocean was good enough to prepare this slide for us, which shows the kinds of activities that were going on. the negative test took three hours. they did it two or three times. sean grimsley has told but the discussion. at 8:00 they deem it done, wrongly, erroneously. we have to keep repeating. nobody thought they were taking a chance. nobody thought the negative test had been screwed up. for one reason or another they convinced themselves that a faulty test had actually

succeeded. a critical point in this thing. you will have a chance to look at this. we are not going to go through these at length. it shows the activities that are going on from 8:00 when they begin displacing the riser, and when you take the sea water out of the riser, when take the mud out of the riser and put in sea water then there is less pressure holding in the oil and gas at the bottom of the formation. we see the different it's that were going on and -- the different activities that were going on and it will be up to the commission to decide if there were too many activities and done by different people, if you should have rules about what activities are going on so everybody knows what everybody else is doing. that is part of the regulator aspect of this. now, here is the diverters, the

mud gas separator. remember that the hydrocarbons come up here. the crew has a choice of sending the stuff that is coming up. mud is now on the rig floor. it is there because the pressure of the reservoir is pushing the mud up first and if it comes up first gas comes next. when gas comes up that is really bad. so, the crew could send the stuff to the mud gas goose neck, a mud gas operator. mud sometimes has gas it in. you can separate them and put the gas overboard and you are find. the mud gas separate for is a relatively lightweight piece of apparatus. it in no way could have withstood the pressures coming from the bottom of the well and it didn't and there is a

question as to whether if the crew had diverted it overboard, if immediately, as soon as they saw a problem instead of sending it to the mud gas they sent it ov overboard, would that have stopped the explosion, would it have mitigated it? we have some information on diverter diverter diverters:remember gas is in the riser now. the issue is b.p. says the t.o. crew might have done better if they sent it overboard instead of to the mud gas operaseparato. we are all dealing with hind sight now. let's see what the existing knowledge was on diverters. there is a transocean document.

gas in the riser, if rapid expansion of gaza in the riser the flow must be diverted overboard. if you look at the manual you are impressed by it. it is a safety expert's dream. everything anybody could ever imagine is in there. we will talk tomorrow more about it because as one looks at it everything under the sun is covered. it is hard to see at a particular place somebody saying symptoms of that or this. if you see that, do this. this is not by way of criticism. people have tried to get it right but it may be that when time is short there might have been different ways to make clear exactly what should have been done in a short period of time. we will get to that tomorrow. there is a report on diversion 1992 to 2006, 16 of 20 diverter uses were successful.

the success rate for diverters was very high. go to the next. and this is a point we have covered before. we all know now that a little gas at the bottom is a lot of gas at the top. you have seen the erosion and we can cut to the chase. let's cut to the next slide. hydrocarbons emerge on the rig. that is where the initial explosion is. there's been talk of can you fireproof a rig.

a lot of attention is paid to every light fixture being sealed and things like that. drilling driggs are not as tire protected. anybody with any engineering knows that gas and air creates a perfect substance for an explosi explosion. to an ordinary person not a rig expert, if you have huge volumes of highly inflame belieable gas up into the riser extremely high pressure mixed in a perfect air mixture it is pretty likely something is going to happen. this is what happened. transocean tried its darnedest that people now that problems

could occur when things are unbalanced. they had an earlier well controlled problem in the north sea. i agreed with them and its lawyers that this slide accurately reflects what was learned from that explosion. transocean and the well's operator analyzed the event and here are the conclusions they reached. high vigilance is required we you have one barrier under balanced. we had the -- the only barrier we had that night was the cement. it had failed the negative pressure test and the well was underbalanced and that called for heightened, high vigilance by everybody and the crew. people knew this is something you have to really be careful. now, what is high vigilance?

what are the five steps you ought to take? should you have your lands somewhere? i don't know but we agree that t.o., that is lesson they learned and communicated to their people. secondly, they say it twice, you have to recognize when the well is under balanced. you have to be aware of the well-being underbalanced and you have to be having heightened vigilance. a lot of it has to be the person with the right knowledge, seek the right information and making a decision quick. finally, remember i showed you t the sperry sun kick detect information, the red drill pain pressure going up? and i said the problem is and gets confusing that that is not probably what the driller was looking at? one would hope the drill are was looking at -- driller was looking at clearer information but we can't assume until we

figure it out. but transocean knew that they had the highlight to the drill er what the kick detectors are we you are not drilling. they were not drilling. there were kick detectors. some were subtle. some were less subtle. and again this is a wonderful observation but how do you light it? these are some of the issues the commissioners will be dealing with. they are not easy issues. i don't envy the commission their task here. the last two hours. it is 8:02. the b.p. is open. the cement which we know is flawed is the only barrier. the negative pressure test is over. it has been wrongly interpreted as successful when everybody now agrees it was unsuccessful.

they begin to remove the heavy mud, which underbalances the well and allows the hydrocarbons to come up. 50 minutes later, b.p. calculates through their -- they have some software called olga, which we have not unpacked yet. you know what i mean by that. we haven't gone through it. we assume it is sensible and i put up here b.p.'s conclusions and most people don't disagree. now the well is underbalanced. it took 50 minutes of taking the heavy mud and putting in the sea water to underbalance the well. that means that if the cement job is failing, the hydrocarbons will start entering the well. ok. a little after that, nine minutes after that, we get this subtle increase. there is anomalous drill pipe pressure. the symptoms are starting to

show up. on the sperry you sun data -- sperry sun data we do not know what transocean's driller was looking at. now we get the pumps are off and the drill pipe pressure is going up more steeply. the b.p. is open. the cement is the only barrier. hyd hydrocarbons are going to get up in the drill pipe. when they do above the b.o.p. there is nothing you can do to top that. when above the b.o.p. you can't stop the influx of hydrocarbons. 2138 the b.p. report calculates hydrocarbons are now in the riser. the b.p. is open. they are above the b.p. if you shut it down you still have a phaoemile of riser full hydrocarbons. imagine the volume. they are going to come out on the rig. even if the b.o.p. is shut at that point you probably are

going to have a big explosion. now, would that have solved some of the later problems? maybe. 2140 mud is coming out on the rig floor. it is in the top in the riser. the hydrocarbons are coming up and they are pushing the mud out on the rig floor. re gog, seemed like a week ago, closehe annulus. so the crew, transocean's crew operated in at 2141, bp says this isthe first kick -- this is the first aion taken by the group when they physically see the mucoming up on the floor. we don't know if that is active. i'm just telling you what bp says. there are disputes between bp

and transocean, who said what to who win. there are disputes between how burden, bp and who said to who win. there are disputes. if the commission place, about who has responsibility for what. we have sat down with everybody. we get a lot of arguments. this is where subpoena power, s senator power would be helpful. it would be hard to resolve those. earby ship, the damon bankston, if you go out to these wells, there are all these chips working about it. you got to the north sea there

will be 20 standoff chips. it's like a small community out there. the drill crew does exactly the right thing. they think of his ship. it is an exposure to the wanted to get involved. they say move back, something bad is going on. gas comes out on the drill floor. you see how fast this happens. 2138 they are in the rising. eight minutes later the gas is up. first explosion, power loss. things happen fast. th word brings to lightthose last couple of hours and was going on. you see clearly that it's when the negative-pressure test is wrongly concluded to have worked, and they start removing the mud, put pressure on the hydrocarbons released, that's when everything starts going south.

now, i said earlier we would give this group, and we've given them already, the bp, halliburton ntl, our preliminary tactical conclusions. and we begin the afternoon, i will say if anybody want to comment on any of these, they're free to comment. if they want to comment, fine. if they don't want to, they don't have to. .com making doesn't mean they can agree. theyan submit a paper within five days, as long as it wants, with every kind of idea under the sun in a. and if we ever get subpoena power we would use those papers to cross examine people for the. i don't mean that any thrat. it's just a statement which would be a good thing to do. okay. preliminary. that means we will change unless someone gives us information that we are wrong, not i have told all the parties at the beginning of this back in august that i would tyou exactly what we re thinking, so nobody is

surprised and you've had every chance in the world to prove, tell us how wecrewed up and how we are wrong. we don't think we are, but everybody makes mistakes. flow path was exclusively through the shoe track and that the casing. the cement, ay be contaminated, may be displaced by other materials in the shoe track, and in some portion of the annulus space failed to the height of current agreement, the and is spacing is what walls off the hydrocarbons of the hydrocarbons couldn't get in unless something happened there, channeling contamination something. pre-jump laboratory data should have prompted redesign. we look at some of these differing reults. we think maybe more time could have been spent getting consistent result remember that most of the lab reports show that this stuff works better if you stir for three hours in the laboratory before you foam it aired on the

rig, you don't store it for three hours before you foam it. you foam it and then you send it down the well. the sequence is different that it may be scientifically that foaming and then taking that long trip down the well iso get the same scientific result as first conitioning it for three hours and informing it. we don't know that. the negativpressure test -- oh, someools might have identified the failure. most opetors would not have on the tools at the time that they would have relied on negative-pressure test. the halliburton passionte bp conceded in its report that maybe if they've done a risk assessment at that time, all of the things we showed the commission earlier, although cement issues, maybe they would have run the cement block instead of runnng passionate -- said halliburton home. we don't know that.

the negative-pressure test repeatedly showed the primary senate job had not isoted hydrocarbons. we think sean grimsley drove that home. despite showing that, bp and t.o. treated the negative-pressure test as a success. bp's temporary abandonment procedures introduced additional risk. setting down at 3000 feet instead of 300 feet reduces the pressure of holding the hydrocarbons at the bottom of the well. bp had good reasons for doing that, which you heard, but we feel and we're ready to be talked out of it if we made a mistake, i keep saying this, i don't have anybody after january 11 saying, you know, you miss something, fred, tell us now. we think that setting the mporary abaonment plug,

300-foot plug, that low instead of 300 feet, introduced some additional risk. people have told us looking at this that the simultaneous activities and the nature of the monitoring equipment may detection more difficult during riser displacement. if there's something that i'm blessed about than others, it is this one because youcan argue endlessly over the efct of moving mud around in these parents that we have heard this enough times, that that is a prevented conclusion we are confident we are prepared to make. nevertheless, the kid indications which i should you through drill pipe red lines were clear enough that if observed, would have allowed the rig crew to have responded only. the irony here is we don't know what the tos driller was looking at. i would hope the information would be at least as good as halliburton's sperry-sun

information. was the rig crew recognizthe influx, there were options that might prevent or delay the explosion. diverting overboard, explained the burgers. instead putting this stuff up to the mud-gas separator, saying it overboard. and triggering the emergency disconnect earlier might have shot in the well and limited the impact of an explosion. and there aren't issues as to whether the emergency disconnect would have worked, other things would afford, with the cables damaged, there's a lot of complexity in this, and that's why we say might have shot in. data conclusions regarding the b.o.p. should have weighed results of a rented b.p. examination and testing. i'm sure you are cae more about the b.o.p. as i said, five times,it's premature. and, finally, and it really is important, i mentioned this three times, you distinguish what i'm saying, as we stand

here today and we've asked everybody, we don't see where a man or two men, or a group of men were making one of these decisions, and they had in their mind that if we do it this way it will be safer, if we do it this way it will be cheaper. we're going to do the cheapay instead of the safeway. we haven't seen that. we know, commissioners, that a million have dollars a day is a lot of money, even in the united states government today. and the idea that a case delay cost causing the and half dollars is overhanging the people on the rig they want to do a good job but they don't want to risk their lives or the lives of their buddies that at the complex sort o matrix or that the matrix is they want to be efficient, and they want, they don't ant to waste money, but they don't want their buddies to get killed, or themselves. i've been on a lot of rates. i do not beat anybody on these

rigs, i don't think people sit there and say well, this is really dangerous but the guys in london will make more money. i don't think they think that way. i think it is more competent than that, okay? so, what we are saying is that human beings that made the decision, shoreside and on the big, we don't see a concrete situation where a human being made a trade off of safety for dollars. thanks so much for your attention. and adding it will be as good a number of questions of the panel. >> thank you, fred, sean, sam, for that tour de force. we will resume

>> thanks, bill.

>> gentlemen, as i said earlier, that we were going to give you a chance to comment on any of the conclusions. if you don't comment, that doesn't mean you admit them. >> do you have a position on that? >> fred, can we get a little more amplification?

>> like b.p. said if their report, just from shoe track. >> you are doing further work? >>e continually look at new evidence as it comes up. as when the seal assembly was pulled and when we come to final conclusions, we will submit an answer. >> you feel that supports your view the leak came through the shoe track. >> you are both halliburton. you don't both have to have an know. do either of you have an opinion -- >> i'm sorry, fred, people speak into the microphone and begin when had they are the first to answer question to introduce themselves.

>> and i do disagree with the conclusion drawn. >> you think the leak came up the annulus? >> i think it was initiated up the annulus. >> what do you base that on? >> there's a few pieces of data. i think that has been shared. basically, as a result of the cementing we believe that gas was pushed up through the annulus -- >> excuse me a second. let's put the long string up there. i'm sorry to interrupt. >> that's fine. >> if you go back to where the seal was. it was circulated out of the well prior to them coming out

hole. this is with the mud in the hole obviously. once the casing made it it on the bottom, the circulation was not performed i believe that gas was allowed to coalesce through that as they started to pump mud into the annulus. the fluids, what that does -- because we indicate there's no losses, you're essentially taking that pressure from down hole and essentially carrying that pressure up into the annulus, towards the base of seal assembly. that's 13,000 psi. at the point of the cementing operation, obviously we indicated to b.p., i think it's already been brought out we fell like there was going to be a channel present in the cements operation that would allow communication -- >> let me just interrupt for a second.

only to set the stage. >> yes. >> b.p. concluded in it its report. they were no leaks from the reservoir another before or during the cement operation. i take it you agree with that? >> there was no leaks. >> no leaks. the hydrocarbons did not enter the well before or during the cement operation. >> i disagree with that, then. >> when do you think they entered the well? >> when we were operating the well. the well was in balance. we know from the prior trip. gas coalesced into the well board. as we did the cement job and displaced it. it was pushing gas and oil toward the seal assembly to the bop >> do i understand halliburton

view, they were hydrocarbons in the annulus. as the cement turned the corner -- >> yes. that was my view. we continued to push that into the annulus. you drug that pressure all the way up to the seal assembly. roughly 13,000 psi we agreed the casing test was successful. if the casing test was successful and we had gas and oil coming in through the shoe track, as you pressured up and did that cases test, you would see anomlys. you would have a change in slope in the pressure test. we don't see that.

i don't believe anything entered inside the casing. >> is it your position, the hydrocarbons were present and pushed up here and those were the hydrocarbons that exited on the floor? >> i believe pay went to the annulus. they made it to the sealing assembly. we sealed the assembly. you're trapping the pressure underneath. we did the pressure test. indicates good integrity. as soon as you create the negative test and reduce that pressure of hydrostatic mud on that seal assembly, you're removeing that pressure. think about 13,000 psi. that results in around 9500 psi

acting up on the seal assembly. you put mud on that seal and have a resulting pressure acting up as 11,000 psi acting on that entire seal assembly. from the 22 inches. force area. if you run those calculations that's 2.5 million tons of force. the casing weighing down in that mud weighs roughly 750,000 pounds. you end up having 1.5 million pounds. with the rapid influx, i believe

you had a failure point at the seven inch casing. that's when fluids then began to move up the casing. >> so you think during the negative test. hydrocarbons got in here. came up here -- >> no. >> the hydrocarbons are sitting up at seal assembly. sitting up therewaiting. you create that pressure differential, you have the seal assembly lift up. they coalesce inside the bop area. the gas and oil is already there. it's not going to migrate 18,000 feet after the pressure test all the way up that casing and cause the blow out. i believe it was already present

and that's what caused the blow out. i believe potentially departed weak point in the casing. >> is this where you're looking? >> yes, sir. that's a rough, quick assessment. >> mr. blight. do you have any comment on that? >> only the work we did as to this topic is covered expenseively in the report. in the appendice. i was very confident when the report was issued two months ago, today, that that had been the flow path. we demonstrated that with well flow modelling. matching the surface pressure data. and then confirmed it with additional information that became available to demonstrate it had not come up the annulus. since that report as come out,

there's been further confirming data that demonstrates it did not come up through the seal assembly. >> do you understand the point he was making? >> i could not follow the logic of his description. >> i guess i will respectfully suggest, you give us a written piece on this. >> i think i get the outline of what you're saying. it's new to me and new to everybody. then allow the other parties to examine and comment and return. >> thank you.

>> and in some portion of the annulus space. failed to stop the hydrocarbon >> bill ambrose with transocean. presently, we looked at some level of cement. >> we defer to halliburton >> cement failed to isolate hydrocarboned in the >> yes. i agree. >> so you agree with proposition number two? thank you. our next point is pre-job laboratory data should have prompted data on the slurry

>> there has been new information since we completed our report. when our report came out, we signalled we felt this was the case and we didn't see evidence that some critical information had been looked at in in the testing. that was around stability and other matters. and that was our view at the time of our report. i was interested to see the letter that came out within the last ten day that is seem to concur where that and there may have been further information not available to the team. i think this is a very important point >> mr. ambrose. >> again, i have to defer on this point >> mr. vargo, you, in hindsight today, do you agree or disagree.

>> depending on the lab test you're looking at. there was a lot of design work when we actually executed the job. >> well, do you agree or disagree with the conclusions number three? >> tentative conclusion. >> i would say we're still looking into it it right now. >> thank you. >> don't have a position. >> the next point. cement evaluation tools might have identified the cementing failure. i don't know if there's sufficient expertise. is it true, the cementing tool would have been able to identify the cement? is it true or don't you know? >> i'm not an expert, the experts that worked on this said

-- >> so b.p. agrees with what sam said. most people would do the test later on? you said in your report that if b.p. had done a risk assessment at the time you might have done the cement monologue. what is the risk assessment b.p. would have done that you're refer to go in your report? >> so the criticism we raised. we didn't see an individual point. the cbo was a matter of engineering perspective. given the nature of job, the team would have done a more formalized risk assessment. >> we put up a list of issues pertaining to the job earlier.

would the formal risk assessment involved going through all those factors as a group rather than taking them one at a time? >> i think the way that the 13, that you showed isn't probably how it would have worked. i think there was linkages and contingences in those. the first 2 were the nature of drilling in the gulf of mexico. those were well-understood and informed decisions around foamed cemen cement. i don't believe the 13 is how someone would have looked at it >> i'm not familiar with the term "formal risk assessment". >> typically. it would be a process. you said in your report, we

agreed we're anything to it stick with your report, that if you had done a formal risk assessment, you might have, in your words, run a cement bond log. can you tell us in a nut shell, what would that formal risk assessment have amounted to? >> what we were thinking about was that there was a number of factors that the team saw that indicated they were okay as you reported earlier this morning. they were reports back from the rig. the cement job went well et cetera. there was a lot of confirming evidence that everything was okay. they were factors here. the difference in the load pressure that we said. in hindsight, those could have caused the team to think a bit

more carefully. that was the nature of the report >> mr. vargo. do you have a view of the tool of the cement bond log? >> i think cement evaluation tools are useful. they will use what they call a cement bond log tool. they can use ultrasonic tools and affective in identifying conventional cements as well. let's turn, megan to the demonstrative, people might have forgotten why this is important. it could have value in identifying topic cement. let's look at that. i know i caught you by surprise, kid. but that's the way it goes. while you're looking for that, let's go to the next one and

we'll come back. this is my fault, not hers. believe me. negative pressure test repeatedly show they did not hydrocarbons. you all agree? >> yes. you treated the negative pressure test as a complete success. in meeting with you, mr. ambrose, i have seen a difference emerging as to whether you're people, maybe i have seen it, i may be wrong. whether your people didn't take a position and you wanted to go with b.p. to take this responsibility. mr. ambrose. do you agree that b.p. and to personnel treated the negative pressure test as a complete

success? >> i think when you look at that test, there was a lot of confusion at that time. the industry standard the operator will provide the -- >> the operator is b.p.? >> yes. they do not have the authority to prove or disprove that negative test. so when the approval came back, there was a good negative test. our people proceeded ahead on good faith it was a good test. >> do your people know what a negative test is? >> certainly in the course of normal business, we understand what a negative test is. >> you do them all the time? >> when you look at the structure of, you know, negative test, the operator will design a negative test. we will set that negative test up to that design. their interpretation of that test and the experience with that test resides with operator.

>> did your people on the well that night have the training and ability to interpret a negative pressure test? >> interpretation is the responsibility of the operator. >> that wasn't my question. did they have the training and experience to interpret a negative test? >> i can't set here today and tell you whether they did or did not have the interpretation of the test. >> you don't know whether the personnel we listed here had the experience and training to tell whether a negative pressure test was successful or not? >> in this particular test, they were complications with the negative test which i'm sure we will get into. with the depth and competitions

of the spacer. in hindsight, we can say when the test was set up on the drill pipe, it was giving correct results. we believe it was communicating with the formation. when the decision-when the crew was told to change that to the kill, the spacer became very important. that added confusion and became complicated. >> were your people, did they have the training and experience to look at that 1400 pounds always stuck on the drill pipe and draw a conclusion to the meaning of it? >> today, i don't know. we haven't been able to talk to those people. >> mr. bly. i take it you agree with the second to last bullet? >> yes, sir, we covered this in

some detail in our report. attempts to go back and piece together every step that happened. our conclusion. there was a number of discussions between b.p. and transocean personnel. appears they were trying to do the test correctly. at the end of the day, they misinterpreted the results. >> if, under transocean's policies, even if, i am assuming this. it was b.p. that would supposed to do the primarily interpretation. if your guys, you're people to the rig had seen this. they would have said something. >> absolutely. >> do you have any reason to believe, mr. bly. that the to personnel along with your people believe the negative pressure test was a success? >> i believe they both thought the test was a success. yes. >> this is one of these areas,

commissioners, where it would be useful, i supposed to sit people in a row i told you yesterday that i would try it to point out areas where having subpoena power and the ability to actually cross-examination people might be useful. this is an example. you have seen developed. now, b.p.'s temporary abandonment procedures introduced additional risk. we don't quantify the risks. do you agree or disagree with that? >> i don't exactly agree. in our work, we went through what turned out to be the eight critical things we thought had contributed casually here. we clearly identified the, you know, the failure to isolate at the bottom the well and subsequently the monitoring. we didn't see the procedures as particular to that.

we felt they were covered in the other things we described. >> you saw the testimony at least the people that testified, thought it was unusual instead of setting the upper cement plug at 300 feet, it was unusual to go to 3000 people. >> one was a decision to set a cement plug in sea water >> let me stop you for a second. >> your initial plan was to set in sea water? >> yes. >> the initial plan, i'm sorry to interrupt, that was your plan. >> i can't tell you that. i was going to remark.

setting a cement plug in sea water is a good way to get a firm plug. >> originally, you were going to set in mud? >> i can't remember that detail. >> can you put up shawn's sequence? >> people do set cement plugs in mud, don't they? >> i think there is a mixture. >> some set in sea water. is that your experience, mr. vargo. >> yes. mud or sea water. that depends. >> you guys are the ones that set this? >> yes. we displace out at 300 feet. in other areas of the well, we're sitting them in mud. >> you typically set at 300 feet. how much plugs have you set in your experience in your >>

>> >> sure. thousand. >> can you quantify for the commissioners in some way, often you set at 3000 feet. >> i have never seen them set this deep. >> in your whole career? >> whole year. >> this is the original e-mail, you were going to set the plug in cement. do you recall? >> i recall from this morning's decision. >> now. if setting a plug in mud wouldn't work, your guys wouldn't have made the initial proposal to set in mud, would they? >> i think there's engineering decisions you make. >> was that yes or no? >> you asked me to speculate what they were thinking. there's engineering choices you

make. i think setting in mud is sometimes you do and sometimes people set at sea water. >> who is mr. moralez? >> an engineer? >> yes, a b.p. engineer. >> vice president? >> oh, b.p.. i'm sorry. who would have been part of the decision to set the cement plug in mud, other than mr. morales? >> that would have been the engineering and ops team would have worked together on those design decisions. >> of course, you do that as qualified to make that decision. >> yes, i do. >> so if the decision of made to change it, if they're qualified we can't say it was a mistake to set it in mud. >> i didn't say that. >> i know you didn't. but it's not a mistake to set in mud? >> i don't believe, it's an engineering trade off. >> people set them in mud and it works. is it true?

does the whole panel get >> agree. >> agree. >> now, the reason that you didn't set the cement plug at 300 feet because you wanted to hang that drill pipe in setting the lock down >>. i think that's a separate decision. that had to do with the depth as opposed to set in sea water. >> moving from 300 feet to 3000 feet took the mud out of well, didn't it? >> it increased the interbalance on the well, yes. >> that's called underbalancing, increasing the well. there's less force holding the hydrocarbons in, does the panel agree with that? >> yes, sir. >> let's go to the next page of

conclusions. >> we haven't completed the point. what i said was, it was more draw down. there's no reason to believe that increases the risk. in the plug had been set at 500 feet below the mud line, the well still would have been underbalanced. if that, if the flow indicators had been missed in the negative test, the same thing would have happened. i think the point and the reason i have taken an exception to it. it's making a judgment about a 0 small change in risk i think is -- wasn't a causable factor >> that maybe. there's a small change in risk that wasn't a causal factor >> once it's underbalanced.

it's not gng to flow. if the miss the negative test. the same thing is going to happen. >> as i told, the purpose here is not to argue or cross-examination. i will be willing to accept a short paper from b.p. on why there was no increase on the risk by going down to 3000 feet or if the risk was small or inconsequential. the purpose of this, the commissioners yesterday. to see the differences that emerged. if we need further work. we will invite submissions. >> nature of flow monitoring equipment may make it difficult for the riser. >> you said that might have been the case. transocean was good enough to give us a slide. i guess you prepared, mr.

ambrose and your team. here it is. we will start with mr. vargo. you probably don't have an opinion as to whether kick detection was obscured. you don't have a dog in that dispute? >> i would agree with that statement. the number the simultaneous decisions would be used to evaluate a case. >> mr. bly. i read your report. you offered an opinion you might. do you have anything to add? >> no, sir. the primarily reasons for our report, it could have, 40 or 50

minutes before the crash. those reasons were not observed and acted on until quite late in the event. you're right. it's possible the activities may have made it so that the crew didn't notice. but we all said it didn't have to. we believe the well was monitorable even with the simultaneous activities you should way. >> i think, you know, you didn't try to put yourself ahead of any particular person. you just apined at what was going on. you disagree with that >>. mr. ambrose. >> i think the term "simultaneous activities" may mean something different. the activities you're talking about are sequential required to finish the end of the well. and the chart, as you can see, it does show that a lot of these thing are sequential in nature.

they are necessary steps to make sure we can really abandon a well. >> you say very normal end of well sequence of activities? >> up to the point where we started, the well control activities. >> right. >> so, yes, we do, in our analysis, also agree that the underbalance point happened just before 8 o'clock. excuse me, before 9 o'clock. they were different things happening during that time. >> i think b.p. said. 8:52 a.m. >> and, i think the thought was one of things you said in your opening remarks, you have to get in the heads of the people on the rig. we can only suppose what was going through our crew's head that night. what i can say at this point.

when you look at the trend on a minute by minute base with 20/20 hindsight. you see trends that he expected to happen. and you know, they were points in time where things were mas d masked. an example was when the trip tank was emptied, the flow just kept coming in. coincidences aren't your best friend. he did the necessary thing at that point to put the 14 pound oil based mud that was in his trip tank back to the system. it's unfortunate, it masked what was the biggest inflow at that point. >> that's an interesting point i hadn't thought of. have you, has transocean given

attention since this. the actions regarding the trip tank could have masked what was going on. have you thought about any different ways of conducting these end of well activities that could avoid, like you said. an unfortunate coincidence that masked what was really going on? >> we haven't concluded our investigation yet. just a little over three weeks ago with your assistance had helped us understand >> fair enough. >> if before the commission report is due in january, in december, you think more about the end of well activities and have concrete ideas to bridge this, we appreciate that and will receive can consider it. >> we will continue to be

cooperative with the investigation. by the way, let's go back. megan to the chart that has the red line and the pump line, i call the "kick chart". this is something that we have talked about a lot. a and -- it's true, isn't it, that the t. o. representative on the driller's screen of these events, you don't know what it looks like as you sit here today? >> the driller's screen is a very high-tech system. you got a good impression of what that looked like. they are very customizable. depending on the operation at the time, the crew could have been looking at, the screens are in a number of different formats. today, we don't know. the logger for the driller

system, for the high-tech drillage system went down with the rig. we can suppose he was looking at something similar to what we provided the commission. >> for the record, commissioners, the t. o. refers to the high-tech system. that's their internal lingo. would you expect the driller to look on your system at some, might be different, the data might be presented differently. some indication of drill pipe pressure? >> the driller would have stand by for drill pressure on his screen. would you expect him to be monitoring that at all times? >> i think when you look at, particularly the machine test. it's one of areas -- why don't you explain the test >> the machine test was a period where a, shortly after

9 o'clock, the 14 pnd oil-based mud is coming back to the pit. the 16 pound spacer is about to arrive back. you're shutting down your pumping operations to make sure you have 16 pound mud at the top of riser. that's the point where you discharge over board after that point. so, shortly after 9 o'clock, the mud pumps were shut down for four and a half minutes precisely after the pump was shut off, there was 60 seconds of pressure. the natural tendency, we talked with driller to say, how would you go about this period of

time? this four and a half minutes. that would have told him things appeared constant in the well. then when he confirmed that, he may have then turned to do the next step in the process, which was line up another mud pump to pump down the lines. >> let me make sure i understand. i appreciate the forthrightness of your remarks. you're saying people might look at this for 60 seconds, if it looks okay. they might turn to do something else and not be focused at all times to those lines? we don't know that. we're really guessing. you're using your judgment based as someone in this business. is that what you're telling me? we're doing our best to estimate. we can't talk to dewy.

>> does everybody in the panel agree. in hindsight. this will be for you you, he's an expert on this spery sun data. we spent time with him, there isn't anybody in the world that knows about this data or studied it. we appreciate you coming here. do we all agree, at a time when you're putting heavier fluids in, instead of lighter fluids, the drill pipe is steady. the lamen is a small increase, was an indication that the hydrocarbons were coming from the reservoir into the well? do you agree? >> the expectation hydrocarbons were introduced, yes, you would see an increase in pressure. >> you agree that look at this,

the spery sun person would wonder what was going on down there? >> if it were represented in this fashion and no longer had them looking at the screen, they would have seen that ramp up. might have given pause. pick up the phone and call the drillist. not necessarily a kick per se. but something to investigate. >> would this second period, on this sperry sun data be an indication of kick? >> again, if it were presented in this fashion, the log on the left is the actual log they were watching on the horizon. the pressure, especially that first increase, it basically draws a straight line. it's difficult to spot that 100

pound increase over that extended period using that representation. this being a fairly unconventional respond to a kick. you expect the drop in stand by pressure due to the lighter hydrocarbon introduced, this in fact, increased the stand-by pressure. but something to give pause. >> you pointed to something that concerns us as lamen engineers but not experts in your business, that is the difficulty of somebody sitting there at t end of the 8th hour of his shift and seeing any trends. would the fact that the crew, displacing heavy mud with lighter sea water given more significance to that line? >> again, you would expect a slight drop in stand-by

pressure. it would depend on the flow rate. if i may, i would like to just clear up something regarding the data itself and how you would be watching this. we refer to this data a lot as "realtime data". it's only realtime as you're watching it. no different than watching a ball game and seeing the replay. once you're looking at replay, it's no longer live. we are no no longer looking at it in realtime. to view this data and watch this data in realtime is significantly different than going back post job and looking at it. so when you're staring as these traces, you have to wait a significant number of minutes in some cases to notice a certain trend. >> it's not -- >> i'm. we worked at one time on, did we

ever animate this slowly? this left hand one? i can't remember that. i pointed out today. whenever b.p. wants to explain this data, they take it and flip it. do you agree as the expert here on sperr y sun. things that might be be aparent? >> yes. you can emphasize certain responses and make them look more or less significant. >> megan, you're right. that's start up here and keep going. this is this first kick line here. that's sort of what you would be seeing as it traces down there, right? >> right

>> it's your view, i guess that is as clear as it could be? >> yes. as the displays turning it side ways and the time frame. those will work in situations like this when you're trying to do an analysis. they're not conducive to proper rig monitoring. the scales chosen for displays in the mud logging check. i'm not familiar with the ones presented to the drillers. they select a scale or presentation that's sufficient to them. to present that side ways comparison on that much reduced and zoomed in scale. would make it very difficult for them to track large increases or decreases in stand-by pressure. what you end up with the stand pipe would reach the top of scale. you have to wrap it up from the

bottom. you don't want to see that what you're monitoring the well. >> here's another -- here's the side ways one goes slowly. of course, we all know this was not the way it was presented on this data. transocean has its data. its own system. who pays sperry sun to do the data? >> b.p. >> most was the to data. the stand-by pressure you see in that database of transocean's data collected in their high-tech system and transmitted to us realtime. most the data transmitted to us realtime from transocean. some of the data was a result of our own censors was the flow

out, the gas, and they were a couple of stand bypass transducers around our service. the tank volume. the choke and kill was selected by transocean and transmitted to sperry. >> maybe you can tell us, to already as data. can would be a simple matter by methods. i'm curious. would you pay extra? >> if you look at the totality. for it is not well control is part. geologic et cetera.

there's a lot of thing it's used for. that's the reason it was sent in. >> mr. ambrose, do you know, i have never focused before. the drill pipe information came transocean. you have the heroes and ones or was there an, an log system. :

it is not the original points, so to speak. it is not exactly the same data. it is not point by point data. we are not exactly how -- certain how it is average. >> let me inform the commission that anybody with ahead on their shoulders would take the existing data, which we know

came in part from transocn and get the transocean model that has been made and put the zeroes and ones in there so the commission would know exactly what the driller was looking at. i have been told some people do not want to do with. that may be something we want to pay more attention to. do you think, mr. ambrose, it is possible from an engineering point of view to take this data and put it in what drove the technical aspect data. -- aspect data? >> it is possible. we have run into a few roadblocks.

>> i think the commission would agree it would be worthwhile. maybe the commission could lend some weight to your effort to resolve this problem. do you think, and i am saying this not in a positive way, but if i were the owner of the raid, you guys, i would want my high- tech data to be as valuable as possible. i think we can all see that some of the elements of his data are hard to pick up with a drill. would it have presented a thiskick -- this kick information in a clearer or more dramatic way? >> i think it is premature to speculate on what it may or may not look like.

of this is we do not know exactly how it was set up that night. we can only estimate that. so, it is an unfortunate thing we will not know exactly what it looks like, but i think with more effort, today, we will be able to look at -- >> anything the commission can do to back you in that effort, we will do within reason, obviously. let's go on. by the way, how many different places a on therig would the high tech data have been displayed? we know it is driller's shack. how many other places? >> it was broadcast on the closed circuit system. any tv on the rig.

was ondrill floor and another office. >> do you know whether any to employee at any level looked at the high-tech data that night? >> we do not know at this stage. >> in your data does not go shoreside backsa -- nd youran -- d -- and your data does not go shoreside? >> so, we historic plea retain mud logging data for ourselves. >> we have your data because it

was sent shoreside, right? >> yes. >> , many different places on the rig that night did you have that? >> it would be on the closed circuit tv. anybody wanting to see the data, they would just look at the tv. >> have you found one single person on rig that night who says, yes, i saw that data? [unintelligible] >> let's go on to the next point please. let's take the point -- do you think indications were clear and not that if observes could have

allowed the rig crew to have reacted earlier? do you agree or this -- disagree that if this had been observed by someone trained in interpreting the data, this would have allowed them to react? do you have an opinion on that? >> yes. >> mr. ambrose, do you have an opinion? >> yes, i would agree with that. >> yes, i would say the indicators would have noted, would have been noted. i would not necessarily call some of those indicators clear. >> clear enough? ok. we are trying to get it right here. if there is a better way to say

this, if you have better ways of raising this to get perfect, just submitted to us and we will consider them. we've made lots of changes to make sure we get it accurate. we have run it by everybody. we will keep doing that. i promise. once the problem was recognized, bp says at 2141, the mud came up. is that when it was recognized? >> that is when the first action was taken. >> there are several things that might have happened in when theyshut the well. we know your view. mr. ambrose, this is your company's document. it's as if there is a rapid expansion of gas in the riser,

the diver must be closed. does everybody know that in your business? >> ps. >> so, they know there is a time to move fast? correct? are your people trained to use a diverter and throw it overboard under certain conditions? >> i think when you look to this particular case, you have to look again -- into outlined it quite well at the beginning -- this particular case in perspective was of 550 freight train hitting the floor. things happen very quickly. then it was followed by what we estimate to be jet engines of gas coming out of the rotary. >> you mean the whole area of fuel supply for the jet engines?

quacks' it was coming from the rotary. that is the order of magnitude of this event. >> is that a useful analogy for the commission? >> once it was allowed to get out of control, it was very dynamic. i do not agree with the characterization however that it happened instantly. hence, the importance of recognizing a came through the bottom of the well. it had to this place the entire will bore with mud. there were indicators for at least 40 minutes before it happened. to me, that is not instant. that is a fairly long period time in this business. once the riser began to move, absolutely. it was a very dynamic unloading of the well. >> he was on the well that

night, right? >> he was on the well that night, i guess. there were both on therig -- the rig that evening. >> can you tell a little bit about the qualifications of people to become all will lead for bp? >> and generally speaking, multiple years to move into the deep water. multiple years moving through the ranks. they had both been working in offshore and deepwater operations for many years. i cannot remember exactly. it was least -- at least eight or 10. >> you earlier pointed out, you heard me say repeatedly that the system depended on a person being in the right place at the right time looking at the right

information. you all agree with that? >> yes. >> yes. >> why, instead of having a driller or co be the only persons to look at this, why were they not assigned to look at this data as it came in? they are highly experienced. their engineers. they are well trained. they are a on therig -- on the rig. what were they not looking at it as it came in? >> the leadership is providing broad oversight. it is an active minute by minute activity. it happens through each phase of the drilling operation, and i think it is described in the transocean book.

you need someone to be actively looking at each minute as you drill the well, or what have you. that is the purpose. >> i have asked this question, if the commission is interested, and everybody in the industry does the same thing. a lot of people say the same thing. not everybody. i have always said, well, why is this is really important, why not have -- you have two experienced people. why not have the hot eyes on this data which can be -- why not have two guys on this data which can be difficult to interpret? >> i can give you the view -- it is not covered explicitly in the report, but i think in many cases -- >> if i ask a question that you

think is unfair and goes beyond the report, you do not have to answer it. that is the rule. >> i think in that generation of rigs, you often do see two sets of eyes. the mud locker provides more information. i think there are multiple eyes. >> do we know if you are a mud logger, the statistical error if he was watching this information? >> he was at his station. we do not know if he was looking at that specific display. >> it needs to be clear to the commission that these screens are different all the time. the driller can pick different parameters. they can display them different ways. they can pick the things they want to say. it is almost like a video game.

you can pull up anything you want. you can make it look the way you wanted to look. that is why we have such a hard time, all of us, mr. ambrose and i have talked for hours about this, trying to figure it out. we do not get any closer. we want to know what was going on there, but we cannot know it. ok, the diverter. if the crew used the diverter to move the hydrocarbons over board, mr. ambrose? " we do not know that information yet. they did go to the mud-gas separator first. at this stage, we do not know if they switched to the full converter. >> is it true that the mud-gas separator is a fragile

equipment, compared to the diverter? >> it can handle a substantial amount of low, but again, it goes back to the feed. this event, once it started to unfold, it accelerated very rapidly. what may have been ok initially on the mud-gas separator very quickly, oil began to accelerate up the well bore. >> like a said -- >> it is impossible to said. >> i am impressed by the -- by the attention to detail in your manual. i may have missed it. is there a specific instruction given to drillers that, if in doubt, the burke overboard? things like that? what do you want drillers to

have in their head? >> when you go to the manual, it will reference if you suspect you have gas in your riser, you should go overboard. the question is, did we suspect or think there was gas in the riser? if you look at the steps that he took, we can now see in the data that towards the end of the his an initial response was the appropriate response. he did that. >> and he was in the drill shack that night? >> that is correct. there is one of two things that could be the problem. it could be that either gases are expanding, or it could be

leaking and you could still get that fluid addition to your riser. his next action was to close the well bore, which you can now see in the data. that is what caused the pressure increase onward. >> mr ambrose was saying that once the mud came up on the floor, they closed and you can tell that by looking at the pressure. you agree with that? >> we said -- >> and it was not entirely holding. it closed around it. that was showing pressure. there were two actions with hydrocarbons in the riser, correct? >> we know. we have not concluded on whether it ever switcd to going overboard. >> there is much on the floor.

is it likely, do you have an opinion that the pressures, the sand, gas, that they just could ut off with those emissions? >> we looked at the covered riser and the drill pipe that came out of that. when you look at the tool joint, can you put up the one slide will for the tool joint? we believe -- you know, it was a lot of force. this is what a normal tool joint would look like. this is one of the recovered pieces. the damage was from opening up on the riser. this is a perception of what a normal piece of drill pipe looks

like. if we can look at the next one -- the eroded area you see in the middle, we believe that this piece was closed in the upper section of the riser, and this is what happened when they closed with the o.p. when you look at that trend -- >> please tell the commission what this is. >> this is the weight of the drill strength you can measure. >> its started moving quickly. this particular tool joint, which was position, i believe, originally between the upper and lower anular blew upwards, and when he closed it, it is not

just be robert donuts, there are some metal fingersr -- ubber donut, -- rubber donut, but there are some metal fingers. >> was said the -- it the anular he? . it is closed or park closed. some gas is getting through it. it is so powerful, they just eroded this piece of steel. is this carbon steel? >> does 135 -- that is35 p.s.i. stuff, yes. that is just several minutes. >> that gives you an idea.

ok, do you have any more comments on the s, mr. ambrose? >> it just goes back to the speed. it is one of the questions we will have for a long time. what was he suspecting was coming at him? he took all the actions that were normal inappropriate. it is unfortunate the magnitude of this event -- it overcame the equipment. >> i am kind of an ex-engineer, but i was floored when i heard about this happening. you, he trained your tool pushers to appreciate the speed with which things can go south here? >> i think everyone working on deep water wells understands the magnitude. >> let's go back to our conclusions.

one of our conclusions was diverting overboard, using the diverter and not the gas separator, might have prevented or delayed the explosion. do you agree with that, mr. ambrose? or you just do not know? >> i do not know if there is a way you can tell. this event was too great. the question is whether the diversion -- is whether the diverter would have withstood the mud. and then, again, the slip joint in its self -- we sitting here today cannot tell you whether it would or would have nots. we will let you know. >> i take it that everyone agrees the final technical conclusion should wait on what

the norwegian company learns about the b.o.p. >> we agree with that. we do believe the b.o.p. work within its design limit. >> so you believed b.o.p. closed. the anular closed when it was supposed to close? >> within is designed limits, yes? >> you do not think the sheer ram was ever closed? >> we do think it was closed. >> do you think -- this is probably an unfair question. i am curious. you think when the norwegians are looking at be b.o.p., do you

think there'll be enough left for them to figure out what happened? >> we know that pictures were taken on the back of the service vessel, when they took piures looking down more andb to the.o.p. -- the b.o.p. >> if it were closed you would see wash patterns? >> we believe it was closed, but we believed it failed and a severed. it is somewhat like snipping a fire hose with a pair of scissors. it is going to shoot out sideways. that would have eroded away the rubber seals from the inside as

they were closing. the thought that rubber would have survived that under these high flow conditions is unlikely. >> you heard me say, and i worded it very specifically -- that we had seen no evidence, particular men or groups of men making the decision and consciously having a safety focus and a dollar-wise focus, and chose dollars over safety. have any of you seen on the rig that anybody made a decision that favored dollars over safety? >> no. >> no, sir. >> no, sir. >> that completes my door round.

sam will now ask questions. >> let's take a break. i am sorry. [laughter] >> you have been quite in charge. let's do take a 15-minute break.

>> everyone, take your seats. we will resume. >> ok. >> there was of 40-minute break on the schedule, and i think i said 15. do you want to wait a bit? >> all the bp counsel are gone.

no, i will tell him right now. just tell him. >> is the commission please? >> yes, sir. ofthere's this little issue subpoena power. some have said that some legislators did not want us to have subpoena power because we might be too hard on you guys, or something like that.

somebody at the break had the idea of the other companies -- and i know you cannot speak for them -- but would you be willing, halliburton, t.o. and bp, would you be willing to tell congress you support our having subpoena power -- [laughter] i am not kidding. we obviously needed to get to the bottom of this. we owe it to the families of the victims to get to the bottom of it. so, if you could answer now, fine. if you cannot, we would like to know, would to publicly support the commission in giving us the subpoena power we need to clean up some of these areas i want to talk to you guys about for the last hour and a half?

anyone prepared to talk now? >> i will have to discuss that more broadly with bp. >> is it ok with you? >> i will have to say the same. i think we have been very open and supportive. we will continue that. i will take that back and ask. >> i will have to say the best. i am willing to meet with you often and anywhere you like, but i cannot answer for my company in that regard. >> the council -- the commission -- i sort of suspected they would say they had to go back and talk to their clients. no comment? thank you. thank you for your cooperation, a gentleman. -- gentlemaen. >> is the microphone on? i would like to take over some

of the questioning from fred now that we are back from the break. you were talking about the flow path for the hydrocarbon. i believe you can put up that slide? i believe you said it was your view that the hydrocarbon coming even before the cement jog, there were already being pumped up. >> that is correct. >> in des believe you said that it was trapped up here? and e pressure was such that it eventually broke through? >> that is correct. >> ok. are you familiar as to when in the process the assembly -- >> the steel assembly is set after the cementing operation is complete. >> at the point when the cement

job is being poured and the hydrocarbons are coming up, there is no sealed is there? >> no. the flow path is out of the top of the case. one point i did not make before is that in the operation of placement, we are monitoring pressure on the surface, ok? so we are monitoring the placement operation. i think you or someone else mentioned you were expecting to see the cement at the end of the cementing operation. that number is also a trend that goes along with the actual watching, and typically what you will see is you will see that pressure gradually increase. we will note it on the data with all this displacement, it is continuing to decrease, which is completely against the trend analysis that the simulation

program anticipates. the only way to have pressure drop on your display at that point is something either -- there is a restriction or there is something to cause that pressure to drop. you do not see that trend as you would be expecting the pressure to decrease. that is the amount of lift that i believe you indicated. but the trend does not indicate that you are lifting a lot of cement. >> you acknowledge, you say the hydrocarbons are being pushed up through the cement job? >> that is correct. >> how long does that take? >> new look at the volume, it is very close to the volume in anyanulus.

-- in the anulus. >> you carry those fluids thereof the cementing operation of the way up to the assembly at the end of the cement job, and that is when you go ahead. >> that is what i am curious about. the seal is not set during the cement job? >> no. >> the reason being, you need to circulate the mud out of this interface, otherwise mudd has nowhere to go, correct? >> that is correct. >> why is it if there is no seal up here during the cement job, would you say the hydrocarbons are coming up, with the hydrocarbons go straight up through? >> if you still have pressure from the mud backing down on the fluids. immediately after the cementing

operation, you do set seal assembly. you have to lock it down. you essentially set the seal assembly -- >> you said almost the entire volume had been circulated by the time the cement job was completed, correct? >> no. matteru've done is as a of fact of pumping new money, that takes your marker from the base of the well and moves it out to theb.o.p. stack. -- the b.o.p. stack. >> i am curious. why would they not move to the steel assembly? >> there is still pressure on their holding it back. you can set the seal assembly.

>> so the riser was actively holding back this 1,300 pounds p.s.i. >> you see that pressure drop of their routes the -- all throughout the cementing operation. so something has to allow for that pressure to drop, as opposed to the pressure increasing. that is the only data i can see. >> it migrated write about to where the seal was. >> that is correct. >> and after that point, the hydrocarbons exerted some much pressure on the seal assembly, that it lifted it up? >> wants to evacuate the mud out of the riser, you displaced the

sea water, you create a higher differential across the seal assembly, which can create enough pressure were forced to lift up the seal assembly and lift the gas that has coalesced at that point to circulate it out. >> ok. you are aware that recently, i think in the last month or so, we actually bought -- brought the seal assembly. i would like to show one picture, please. right here, as i understand, these two flanges are the metal seals, correct? >> that is correct as far as i know. >> and those metal fittings it inside of other metal, correct? >> yes, sir. >> so, if this were to be lifted

up, those would have had to go past other metal, correct? >> it would have been lifted up. >> do you see any damage to suggest they were pushed up? >> in not an expert on this type of equipment, but it looks pretty good. >> looks pretty good to you. >> i cannot said the request ok. are you familiar with a lead impression tool? what is that? >> it gives you an impression so you know how to go back and do fishing operations in the hole. >> my impression is that before you set down the lockdowns leave, --

>> i am not experience with that, sir. >> are you aware that one of the rigs drilling the belief will pull this up? >> yes, sir. >> are you aware that they ran the case assembly? >> i am not aware of that. >> it showed that the case and stanley was where it should have been, had nothing happened? >> let me close with this comment. as a result of this incident, i was requested by dp operations to go -- bp management to go to the command center to solve the problems that we had, and i was in the main office for roughly four weeks. i attribute to a lot of the information that was going on in there. at the time when we were looking at the wellhead, from what i

could see, and this is my opinion, you could see that the seal had lifted up. it was what appeared to be a nannyrov -- appeared to be in the rov pictures. that is my opinion, again, sir. >> which you agree, that these casing hangar seals are not damaged and the casing hangar steel assembly was where it was supposed to be? >> if that is the case. we would have to explain the data that we have that i have just presented with regards to the pressure dropped during the displacement of the cementing operation. kwame investigate these types of incidents, or any incidents, when all is try to look at the given information. the solution has to fit all the

information. there is a lot of information that may not have been considered. so, i would say at the end of the day, all the information would have to be explained, and why there's a pressure drop and why there was damage here. i would say personally i believe that the blowout occurred with the seal assembly. >> fair enough. mr. ambrose, i wanted to ask you about a conversation you had with mr. bartlett. i believe you said that he had not said the crew was trained in-pressure test? >> not directly. our training program covers i do not know specifically our training programs coversnegative pressures tests.

they have done them. but the interpretation lies with the engineers. with bp in this case? >> with bp in this case? who is jimmy harrell. >> the manager. >> he has the highest person in control of the rig? he testified he -- he was asked who on deepwater horizon was in

charge of interpreting the data for the nagative test. answer -- "usually the company man any -- and the tool pusher up there." >> jason anderson. >> when you look at the general way this works, the typical practice is the operator provides the plan in the interpretation resides with the operator. it is a collaborative effort at some point. i understand where people may have blurred opinions, but interpretation lies with the operator. >> do you agree that the nagative pressure test is an

important test? >> yes. >> it is the only test that tests the integrity of the cement job at the bottom, right? >> yes. >> so it is important to get it right? >> of course. >> you expect that your crew would know how to interpret a test, said they were not relying solely on the skills of thewellside -- the wellside leader. >> again, the interpretation lies with the operator. they make that call. the negative test is no different. from the standpoint of who makes the decision, that interpretation lies with the operator. >> ok. just one more quotation.

the question -- was the negative test you wanted performed, was the test a successful test in your judgment? does this indicate a thatmr. h -- that mr. harrell had concluded the test was successful? >> there's been a lot of confusion about first test, second test. we have been looking at this for several months and 20/20 hindsight. we are not sure whether he was referring to the first to the second. at the end of the day, again, the engineers that designed the

test need to approve it. if you look at testimony, he agrees with that. bp should have a person to interpret this, and their engineers. >> do you agree that the bp wellside leaders are principally responsible for interpreting the negative pressure test? >> both parties were actively involved in discussion in our report, and measures to make sure the test was done correctly and interpreted. both parties agreed it was successful. >> i think that brings up a point. when you look at the testimony, they neither disagree or agree with the discussion.

we have reason to believe there was a phone call back to the shore that mr. colusa had gone back. there was a discrepancy. we still do not have clarity. we have no way of knowing. >> one of our concerns is there seems to be some finger- pointing. i nder if there was a clear chain of command, who was supposed to be collecting in interpreting? this is a question and answer, and he was asked if it was mr. colusa's responsibility to negative test.

do you agree? >> i think that is the right statement from the bp perspective. >> mr. bly, do you agreed that pressure test is the only one that tested the cement in the wealth that's correct yes. >> yes, sir? >> i should along animation this morning. i think you were probably watching. did you see anything incorrect but that animation that we went through, showing how pressure went up and down, how decisions were made?

>> the negative test? >> i could not track every step of the way. >> but nothing jumped out at you? i just want to make sure that we got it right. >> that was quite a lot of detail you showed. >> mr ambrose? >> there was lots of -- there was a lot of detail. i could not tell and alignment. >> it does bp have a policy where its people can call back when there aren't these types of thesenomaliesa -- reare types of data anomalies? >> it is an interpretation

issue. absolutely, it is not policy. that is to behavior we expect from people. >> there is no clear policy saying, this is a need to call back in this situation? >> for this particular negative test, there was not a standardized way to describe how it should be done. it was generally recognized, whether you are looking for pressure or flowback. that is what week highlighted in our work and recommended that we have a more formalized way of doing that test to trigger when someone might call back. >> certain issues should be elevated with a call back to shore. in line with that expectation, this particular issue should have been called back to shore?

>> it is hard to know what these guys were thinking. it seems to me they thought they had it in good shape and did not need to consult higher input. >> mr. ambrose, did transition transocean -- transocean have a policy that would have these guys call back to management? >> i do not believe so. >> is there a similar expectation transocean, like it sounds like there were at bp, that when there are anomalies in should be elevated of the management? >> we have a stop the job philosophy at transocean. if you have concerns, you can do

that. i think jimmy harrell demonstrated that. that has been covered in testimony. if there is an anomaly that cannot be explained, then they need to stop the job and figure that out and elevate it where it needs to go. >> but was this a particular anomaly you believe should be called in, either on the rig or onshore? >> i cannot get into the head of the guys that night to understand what they were thinking or how they looked at the situation. a lot of people looked at it. the wellside leaders interpreted it and they went for ruth that interpretation.

>> neither bp nor transocean had specific procedures on how to conduct or interpret a negative test? >> yes, we said that in our report. >> and for transocean? >> yes. >> i know that bp is taking remedial measures. in transocean doing anything to make sure the crew knows how to interpret these tests? >> as soon as we have all of our fax, and we conclude on our investigation, we will make our report public and decide how to proceed in the best interests. >> do you know, mr. ambrose, were people within transocean at least trained on how to conduct a negative test?

>> i do not believe a negative pressure test was specifically covered in our training. just from general work experience, they may have understood what it was. but >> all right. i would like to put up on the screen the application that bp submitted on april 14, putting forth its temporary abandonment procedure. i just want to pass -- ask -- is that or does that describe

the negative pressure test that was performed? >> yes, i think it does. >> ok. i want to walk through this. so, my natural reading -- correct me if i am wrong -- negative pressure test the was supposed to be performed before displacing the 3,000 feet of sea water. >> i do not know if i'm going to be able to debate with you about the technical meaning o the steps in this. there are people that work in i.t. that could.

i will try, but i am not sure if i can answer every question. >> ok, you are going to displace the mud with seawater down to 3,000 feet before you conduct the negative pressure test? >> i do not see the 3,000 feet on here, is what i am looking at. >> it is not until stop to -- step two. that is described in the first bullet point, right? >> it appears to be, yes. >> it is consistent with negative pressure test bthat was run on the night of april 20, right? but i understand your question. on the night of the 20th, and they went straight to the test. >> in the permanent, they said

we would do the test before displacement. >> correct. >> so the test performed on april 20 at was a bit different than april 15? >> yes. >> now, i think there has been dispute as to whether -- i asked you about calls backe to shore. i think mr. ambrose said there were calls made by be paid. bp has said there is no

evidence of calls. mr. ambrose, what is the basis of your statement that there were calls by at least one wellside leader? >> just in general conversation with a few people on the rig, that miss yourcolusa -- mr. colusa had made a call. again, we of not been able to talk to mr. colusa or anyone else from bp or other third- party site. this is based on testimony from transocean people. >> who are those people? >> i did not name them off the top of my head. >> been in the transocean of >> been in the transocean of the