Unprecedented Accident Briefing Paper – 5.19.

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The accident aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and subsequent oil spill are
unprecedented – and so is the industry’s response. BP, government authorities and
companies from across the oil industry are working around the clock to stop the leak,
contain the spill and figure out what happened so we can make sure it doesn’t happen
again.

Safety is a core value of the oil and natural gas industry and this accident serves to
redouble our commitment to safety and environmental stewardship. We’ve formed two
task forces to examine offshore equipment and offshore operating practices, with the
ultimate goal of improving offshore safety and environmental protection in both the short
and long term.

The industry has mobilized an army of companies to help with response efforts. Some of
the many contributions include:
o Additional drilling rigs to serve as a staging area for equipment and responders;
o Advanced underwater vehicles that allow technicians and engineers to get a first
hand view of the sea floor;
o Equipment to provide live video feeds from the ocean floor;
o Oil spill response vessels and other vessels to help transport equipment to
response sites;
o Barges to capture and store oil that is skimmed up by response vessels, and
shallow water barges that hold pontoons used for skimming and can be deployed
in shallow water situations to protect the shoreline;
o Support vessels with dispersant chemicals, tanks and assorted tools to be
lowered to the well head to inject the dispersant directly into the leak stream; and
o Aircraft and helicopters deploying surface dispersants.

We are committed to finding out what went wrong and fixing it. We owe nothing less to
the workers who were lost, to our neighbors along the Gulf Coast bearing the burden of
the accident, and to the nation that has placed its trust in us to responsibly develop oil
and natural gas off its coasts.

Background
Immediately after the accident occurred, the oil and natural gas industry, along with the federal
government and state governments, worked together to respond and activate contingency and
emergency response plans at the regional and area levels:

Federal, state and industry officials formed the “Unified Command” as the management
system for performing rapid and effective cleanup.
Hundreds of vessels have responded to assist in containment and cleanup efforts,
including skimmers, tugs, barges and recovery vessels.
Thousands of personnel were deployed to protect the shoreline and wildlife.
Thousands of volunteers were trained to assist in the response effort.

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 Millions of feet of boom were made available or deployed.
Hundreds of thousands of gallons of dispersants were made available or deployed.
Millions of gallons of oil-water mix were recovered.
Multiple staging areas were set up along the coastline to facilitate the distribution of
response equipment as needed.

Since 1947, there have been:

More than 16.3 billion barrels of oil produced in the Gulf of Mexico;
More than 42,000 wells drilled;
More than 2,200 deepwater wells drilled over the past 20 years;
Documented improvements in worker safety with the recordable workday incident rate
declining from 3.39 percent in 1996 to 0.64 percent in 2008 for offshore operations; and
0.00123 percent oil spilled as a percentage of production.

Additionally, the oil and natural gas industry is currently very active in the Gulf of Mexico where:

1.7 million barrels of oil and 6.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas are produced per day;
35,000 workers are on the OCS at any one time;
51 active drilling rigs; and
More than 3,500 production platforms.

The oil and natural gas industry supports more than 9.2 million American jobs. Exploration and
production jobs, including those offshore, pay more than double the average wage in America.
Restricting offshore oil and natural gas development could slow down our domestic economy,
lead to job and government revenue losses and reduce domestic oil and natural gas production.