Source: The Times-Picayune

The Deepwater Horizon's blowout preventer -- the key device for shutting off a wild oil well -- had a leak in the days before it failed to operate and BP did not comply with a federal regulation requiring the rig to suspend operations, a BP company man testified Tuesday.

Well site leader Ronald Sepulvado told a Marine Board investigative panel in Kenner that before he wrapped up his stint as BP's top man on the rig four days before the April 20 accident, he reported that one of the control pods on the blowout preventer, or BOP, had a leak.

He said he told his supervisor in Houston, BP team leader John Guide, and assumed that Guide would notify federal regulators at the Minerals Management Service. According to investigators, that never happened.

Federal Regulation 250.451(d) states that if someone drilling in federal waters encounters "a BOP control station or pod that does not function properly" the rig must "suspend further drilling operations until that station or pod is operable."

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