It is not often we are given a very public – and highly critical – insight into an industry as private as oil. This is a sector that is used to secrecy, and one before which many governments, never mind members of the public, are forced to bend the knee.

Big Oil is used to waving away questions about the way it operates with the assuring mantra that "safety always comes first", but the blowout on board the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig last April blew away some of the mystique.

The report by BP's investigation team published today takes this demolition job a stage further by itemising a host of human and mechanical failures that it believes were responsible for the accident.

Critics of BP – and that now includes its rig operator Transocean – see this as an attempt to spread the blame among its partners, but whoever is responsible for each mistake, no one is questioning the basic narrative: a catalogue of chaos.

What is doubly disturbing about the problems, be they "human judgments, engineering design, operational implementation" as the investigating team points out, is that they were produced by the industry's finest. BP is the largest operator in the US Gulf; Transocean is the biggest rig operator in the world; and Halliburton, targeted by the report for its "cement" work on the stricken well, used to be led by former US vice president Dick Cheney. They are the industry aristocracy. One shudders to imagine what might be happening at less financially secure and worse-managed companies.

Neil Atkinson, energy industry research director at Datamonitor, said all the companies involved were "world class" but in this case "slipshod". The most common private reaction of the oil industry to the Gulf spill was "there but for the Grace of God go I," said Atkinson, who believed it showed an accident like this could happen any day, any place.

The BP investigation team makes 25 recommendations covering everything from blowout preventers, well control, emergency systems, cement testing, rig audit and personnel testing.

The company said it expected its finding "to be considered relevant to the oil industry more generally and for some of the recommendations to be widely adopted."

This will add to growing concerns among environmentalists, trade unions and the wider public that the oil industry desperately needs reining in.

They will give muscle to senior political figures such as Günther Oettinger, the European energy commissioner, who has already prosed a ban on some offshore drilling until all the lessons are learned from the Gulf blowout.

It also comes at a time when the oil industry is trying to move into more and more environmentally sensitive areas: Greenland and the Arctic region for example – as easily accessible reserves run out.

For Britain the report arrives just as the Health and Safety Executive has reported an alarming escalation in the number of offshore accidents.

The Guardian reported earlier this week that Transocean had come under scrutiny from the HSE after the safety regulator reported allegations of bullying and intimidation on some of its North Sea rigs.

The BP report is far from the final word on the Deepwater Horizon with further reports due from more obviously independent bodies such as the US coast guard and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

There will also be concerns that at a time when the industry should be working closely together to improve safety measures, there are signs of dispute and non-cooperation between the parties.

Transocean immediately rejected the BP report as "self-serving", while the oil company complained that its investigation team could not complete all of its work because of the "unavailability of Halliburton cement additives and products". BP goes on to say that that the team was also "unable to obtain access for testing of a representative Cameron blow out preventer" as well as the same safety device off the damaged Deepwater Horizon rig.

This is an industry at war with itself. That's not such a bad thing if it produces higher safety standards, more transparency – and a bit more humility.