国际英语新闻：Management failures lead to oil spill in Gulf of Mexico: government panel

HOUSTON, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- Management failures by British oil giant BP and its partners led to the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a U.S. government commission investigating the BP spill said on Wednesday.

In its final report on the cause of the spill, the seven-member panel blamed the disaster on "missteps and oversights" by BP, rig owner Transocean and contractor Halliburton, saying those errors were "rooted in systemic failures" and could happen again without significant reform of the federal government and the offshore drilling industry.

The spill was not an isolated incident caused by "rogue industry or government officials." "The root causes are systemic and, absent significant reform in both industry practices and government policies, might well recur," the report said.

The report outlined a series of major missteps by BP, by Halliburton, which oversaw the cementing of the blown-out Macondo well, and by Transocean, owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig, which exploded in late April 2010 and unleashed the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

BP was blamed for not using a "cement bond log" or another diagnostic tool to test stability of the cementing, and the company's "fundamental mistake" was its failure to exercise caution before relying on the cement as a barrier to the flow of oil and gas up the well, according to the report.

The panel reiterated its previous criticism of Halliburton's cement work on the well. It criticized BP and Transocean for lacking an internal procedure to interpret negative pressure tests.

The report outlined the decisions made by BP and its partners to save time and money. "Whether purposeful or not, many of the decisions that BP, Halliburton, and Transocean made that increased the risk of the Macondo blowout clearly saved those companies significant time," the report said.

Tasked by U.S. President Barack Obama with finding the root causes of the spill and recommending changes to prevent it from recurring, the commission is set to formally release its final report next Tuesday.