This was the first "red flag" because a satisfactory cement job to the production string is fundamental to the safe operation on a go forward basis.

WSJ: The Oil Disaster Is About Human, Not System, Failure

Red tape from municipal and provincial governments gums up foreign investment, and the reduction in loans to cement and steel companies cuts all investment--including money for efficiency projects--to those industries.

FORBES: China's Power Problem

Given the two red flags that had been thrown up previously, one would have expected that as a precaution a cement plug would have been placed somewhere in the wellbore as a secondary pressure seal before this primary pressure control system (heavy mud) was evacuated from the wellbore.

WSJ: The Oil Disaster Is About Human, Not System, Failure