On 20 April various BP managers were gathered on the deck of the Deepwater Horizon to celebrate its “spotless safety” record of seven years. But there were other things on their minds.

Deepwater Horizon was costing them $500,000 a day to rent from another company Transocean and with the addition of other costs, the combined daily expenditure was hovering around $1 million.

The subsequent events, as revealed by various crewmembers that survived the explosion, clearly point to cost cutting and compromising safety in the pursuit of profit. CNN published interviews with BP workers, who “described a corporate culture of cutting staff and ignoring warning signs ahead of the blast. They said BP routinely cut corners and pushed ahead despite concerns about safety.”

During the weeks previous to the explosion, rig workers had reported highly flammable pockets of gas escaping through the pipes, causing concern over a potential blowout. However, a number of safety procedures were circumvented, or just plain ignored, as BP decided that the risk was not significant enough to slow down drilling. Even more worrying was the damage done to a crucial piece of equipment at the bottom of the ocean, called the blow-out preventer (BOP), which had not been repaired for several weeks.

BP routinely cut corners and pushed ahead despite concerns about safety

That morning an argument occurred between the project manager and the chief engineer when BP management ordered mud in the drill hole to be cleared out and seawater pumped in. This would make drilling quicker but seawater significantly increases the chance of a blow out, since the mud acts as a crucial barrier to an explosion.

The explosion rocked the entire rig. Huge flames began to bellow into the sky as the gas from below the seabed was sucked into the engines of the rig. Emergency procedures failed as mechanisms, such as the BOP and the device to cut the rig away from the drill head, did not activate. Eleven workers were killed in the explosion and subsequent fire, and many more injured as rig workers threw themselves into the water to escape the flames.