Industry reacts to Deepwater Horizon probe

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 (UPI) -- Critics and representatives from the oil industry reacted strongly to a U.S. federal report on deep-water drilling calling for more regulatory oversight.

A presidential panel examining last year's Gulf of Mexico oil spill said private industrial and government reforms were needed to prevent another disaster.

The panel in its report released Tuesday found the failure of the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico "can be traced to a series of identifiable mistakes made by BP, Halliburton and Transocean that reveal such systematic failures in risk management that they place in doubt the safety culture of the entire industry."

Halliburton in a statement said it disagreed with several of the panel's findings, specifically assessments of stability tests related to the cementing of the Macondo well. The company added that it appeared the panel "omitted information provided to it by Halliburton in response to its numerous inquiries."

Transocean and BP had no public comments available.

Marilyn Heiman, director of the Pew Environment Group's offshore group, said the panel's findings made it "clear" that federal rules on offshore drilling are "extremely lax" and "dangerously outdated."

Randall Luthi, the president of the National Ocean Industries Association, said that while the report would be "required reading" for the industry, it wasn't "an indictment of offshore oil and gas production."

BP's offshore Deepwater Horizon rig caught fire and sank in April, killing 11 workers and leading to one of the worst environmental disasters in the history of the industry.