i think public sam sankar drove that -- i think sean grimsley drove that home. they treated the negative pressure test as a success. abandonment procedures introduced additional risks. sitting at 3,000 feet reduces the pressure at the bottom of the well. bp had good reasons for doing that. we feel -- i don't want to have anybody saying he missed something, tell us now. we think setting the temporary abandonment plug that low introduced some additional risk. people have told us looking at this that the simultaneous activities and the nature of the monitoring equipment made detection more difficult. if there is something i am less certain about, -- you can argue endlessly over the effects of moving mud around. that is a preliminary conclusion we are prepared to make. the big indications which i showed you were clear enough that if observed would have allowed the crew to respond earlier. the irony is we don't know what the driller was looking at. i would hope the information would be at least as good as halliburton. once the crew recognized the influx there were op

resenting right now is sean grimsley. he is the deputy counsel to chief counsel fred arlette and this is live coverage now on c-span2. >> yes, i thought it was and they wanted to do another one. iraq and there is nothing wrong with doing a second test to confirm. question, the bp person, that is mr. kaluza wanted to do a second test. lancer, i didn't say that. does this indicate that at least mr. harold that night in his judgment had concluded that the first negative pressure test was a success? >> i'm not certain. there has been a lot of confusion about first test in second test. in our minds after looking at this for several months and 20/20 hindsight, really there was nothing moved around. we think it was juan tessa whether or not he was referring to the whole thing or the second we are not sure. at the end of the day, again the engineers that designed the attesting to approve it, and if you look at testimony from bp's on personnel such as mr. died, he agrees with that, that bp should have been the person that interpre

that's because to do what they did, as sean grimsley will explain, they had to have the b.o.p. open. there were no other mechanical barriers in place. so the cement job was it. now, what's interesting is it is known in the industry that these cement jobs are, from time to time, not perfect. it's not an awful thing. nobody has screwed up. it's not an easy thing, as we explained, to fill a thousand feet of narrow annulus with cement. so sometimes it, you have spaces in the annulus. and you have to, you have to remediate or fix a cement job. so let's look at this. here's a cement job, and you can see this is that skinny little annulus that sean grimsley showed you, and for one or another reason the annulus doesn't have cement in it here, and it should. believe it or not, these engineers have developed ways of being down there 18,000 feet and fixing that. here's what they do, it's called squeezing. the term squeezing is important because there's a critical e-mail that uses that term. here's the situation. if the casing isn't centered in a well, and as you'll see it's pretty hard to

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 conclus

that's because to do what they did, as sean grimsley will explain, they had to have the b.o.p. open. there were no other mechanical barriers in place. so the cement job was it. now, what's interesting is it is known in the industry that these cement jobs are, from time to time, not perfect. it's not an awful thing. nobody has screwed up. it's not an easy thing, as we explained, to fill a thousand feet of narrow annulus with cement. so sometimes it, you have spaces in the annulus. and you have to, you have to remediate or fix a cement job. so let's look at this. here's a cement job, and you can see this is that skinny little annulus that sean grimsley showed you, and for one or another reason the annulus doesn't have cement in it here, and it should. believe it or not, these engineers have developed ways of being down there 18,000 feet and fixing that. here's what they do, it's called squeezing. the term squeezing is important because there's a critical e-mail that uses that term. here's the situation. if the casing isn't centered in a well, and as you'll see it's pretty hard to

that's because to do what they did, as sean grimsley will explain, they had to have the b.o.p.open. there were no other mechanical barriers in place. so the cement job was it. now, what's interesting is it is known in the industry that these cement jobs are, from time to time, not perfect. it's not an awful thing. nobody has screwed up. it's not an easy thing, as we explained, to fill a thousand feet of narrow annulus with cement. so sometimes it, you have spaces in the annulus. and you have to, you have to remediate or fix a cement job. so let's look at this. here's a cement job, and you can see this is that skinny little annulus that sean grimsley showed you, and for one or another reason the annulus doesn't have cement in it here, and it should. believe it or not, these engineers have developed ways of being down there 18,000 feet and fixing that. here's what they do, it's called squeezing. the term squeezing is important because there's a critical e-mail that uses that term. here's the situation. if the casing isn't centered in a well, and as you'll see it's pretty hard to

i think public sam sankar drove that -- i think sean grimsley drove that home. they treated the negative pressure test as a success. abandonment procedures introduced additional risks. sitting at 3,000 feet reduces the pressure at the bottom of the well. bp had good reasons for doing that. we feel -- i don't want to have anybody saying he missed something, tell us now. we think setting the temporary abandonment plug that low introduced some additional risk. people have told us looking at this that the simultaneous activities and the nature of the monitoring equipment made detection more difficult. if there is something i am less certain about, -- you can argue endlessly over the effects of moving mud around. that is a preliminary conclusion we are prepared to make. the big indications which i showed you were clear enough that if observed would have allowed the crew to respond earlier. the irony is we don't know what the driller was looking at. i would hope the information would be at least as good as halliburton. once the crew recognized the influx there were op