Halliburton misplaces mystery radioactive device: 'Do not handle'
Last edited Sat Sep 15, 2012, 09:53 PM - Edit history (1)
Source: NBC News
Somewhere in West Texas is a 7-inch radioactive cylinder that Halliburton would like to find. Anyone who comes across it is advised to keep their distance.
The oil field services company lost track of the device, which is used to assess potential sites for hydraulic fracturing, last Tuesday while trying to transport it from Pecos to a well site near Odessa 130 miles away. A special unit of the Texas National Guard has now stepped in to aid Halliburton in a search for the cylinder, according to Bloomberg.
"It's not something that produces radiation in an extremely dangerous form," said Chris Van Deusen, a spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services. "But it’s best for people to stay back, 20 or 25 feet."
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The tool that Halliburton lost contains a mixture of beryllium and americium-241, the same radioactive isotope of americium that is found in very small quantities in a common type of smoke detector.
Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49045210/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.UFUw9kLv3Qc
National Guard looking now for it. My question, how could they "lose" something like that?
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Arctic Dave
(13,812 posts)Ten to one, someone forgot it at the drillsite.
malokvale77
(4,879 posts)Sorry, couldn't resist.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Who recently circumvented the security setup of a nuclear power plant, as there is only the tiniest bit of Federal oversight, and management apparently feels why shouldn't security guards nap, play cards or masturbate instead of looking at all the security cameras, all I can say is Goddess help us all.
Our government is all about its super-surveillance of us civilians as we board airplanes, rather than protecting us where it counts. But since there are far fewer nuke plants and nuke devices than airplanes, I guess that is where the kickback money and outright profit is.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)[img]
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Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)silvershadow
(10,336 posts)
mallard
(569 posts)... to pick up on the 'signal'?
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)
KansDem
(28,498 posts)A lockbox holding Romney's 1040s?
foo_bar
(4,193 posts)silvershadow
(10,336 posts)OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)"You'll see."
chuckstevens
(1,201 posts)"If happy fun ball starts to smoke, get away IMMEDIATELY!" ........ "Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball!"
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)
im1013
(633 posts)
jmowreader
(50,561 posts)Geologists use low-level radioactive sources to test soil density all the time.
rucky
(35,211 posts)
Alcibiades
(5,061 posts)But do stay ten yards away from the thing, if you can. And resist the temptation to stick it up your bum.
Sirveri
(4,517 posts)Or at least the older ones, I don't know if they've come up with a better way lately.
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)Africa News
September 21, 2004 Tuesday
Halliburton Barred From Receiving Contracts
BYLINE: Nigeria First
LENGTH: 418 words
The Federal Government on 20 September placed an embargo on the award of contracts to Halliburton Energy Services Nigeria
Limited (HENSL), an oil service company linked to United States (US) Vice President Dick Cheney.
This is as a result of what Government has termed "negligent conduct, which led to the loss of two ionizing radioactive sources from
Nigeria in 2002." Thus far Halliburton has also failed to cooperate with government authorities in ensuring the return of the sources
to Nigeria.
The two radioactive materials, which contained caesium-137, were reported missing by Halliburton while in transit between the
southern Nigerian oil cities of Warri and Port Harcourt in December 2002. Efforts by the Federal Government to recover the lost
radioactive materials since 2002, which has taken government officials to Germany where the materials were transferred, have not
yielded results.
A committee headed by the Minister of Justice, Chief Akinlolu Olujinmi, which was set up to probe the theft, subsequently submitted
an interim report to the President. The report claimed that the hand-held materials were later intercepted by German authorities at a
steel recycling plant in Bavaria.
WALL STREET JOURNAL ABSTRACTS
March 6, 2003, Thursday
RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL IS STOLEN FROM HALLIBURTON
BYLINE: BY RUSSELL GOLD
SECTION: Section B; Page 3, Column 2
LENGTH: 53 words
Halliburton Co says an oil-field device that contains radioactive americium 241 was stolen from its Nigeria operations in early
December; atomic-watchdog officials are concerned that the material could be used to make a so-called dirty bomb, although there
is no evidence that the theft is connected to terrorism
Africa News
June 21, 2004 Monday
Nigeria;
American Firm, Haliburton to Know Fate Soon
BYLINE: P.M. News
LENGTH: 216 words
Nigeria will next month release the report of a high-powered committee it constituted to investigate the activities of a U.S. petroleum
service company, Halliburton.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the company, Halliburton Energy Services, was last year indicted by the federal
government over the disappearance of two radioactive materials in the Niger Delta in 2002.
Halliburton had in December 2002, declared the radioactive materials missing while in transit between Warri, Delta State, and Port
Harcourt, Rivers State.
The hand-held materials contained Caesium-137, which can be used in a radioactive "dirty bomb", but are primarily used to x-ray
oil wells and pipelines to check cracks, as well as for radiography, nuclear well-logging and nuclear gauging.
Xinhua
September 20, 2004 Monday
Nigeria imposes indefinite ban on awarding contracts to Halliburton,XINHUA
LENGTH: 360 words
ABUJA, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- Nigeria on Monday imposed a indefinite ban on the award of contracts to US oil service giant
Halliburton's local subsidiary HENSL for its negligence that led to the loss of two ionizing radioactive sources.
"The federal government has decided to place an embargo on the patronage of Halliburton Energy Services Nigeria Ltd. (HENSL)
arising from its negligent conduct, which led to the loss of two ionizing radioactive sources from Nigeria in 2002," a statement from
the State House said.
German authorities later intercepted them at a steel recycling plant in Bavaria, but refused Nigeria's request to return the materials
and instead returned them to Halliburton. The company moved them to the United States in January this year.
The Nigeria Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NNRA) had in March suspended Halliburton from carrying out any activity involving the
use, importation, transport and transfer of a radioactive source in Nigeria until the missing materials are recovered.
Africa News
December 6, 2004 Monday
Nigeria;
NNRA Confirms Return of Stolen Radioactive Materials
BYLINE: Daily Champion
LENGTH: 463 words
NIGERIAN Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NNRA) has confirmed the return by Halliburton Energy Services Nigeria Ltd of two
stolen radioactive materials.
Speaking with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) weekend in Abuja, the NNRA Director-General, Mr. Shamsudeen Elegba, said the
American oil service company had recently brought back the controversial materials from Houston, Texas.
"The items are now legally under our control, while the company is physically having them, but we have sealed the items with special
packs that cannot be broken without our consent," Elegba stated.
He said the agency had conducted various tests to ascertain integrity of the materials and confirm that they were the "real ones taken
away."
BBC Sumary of World Broadcasts
June 16, 2004, Wednesday
Nigeria: Row seen brewing with Germany over missing radioactive material
SOURCE: The Guardian web site, Lagos, in English 16 Jun 04
LENGTH: 887 words
The justice minister and attorney-general of the federation, Chief Akinlolu Olujinmi, yesterday expressed dismay at Germany's
seeming disregard for Nigeria in ensuring justice over the matter. He disclosed that the Nigerian government had already lodged its
protest on the matter to its German and US counterparts as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Olujinmi said in the statement that the committee set up by the federal government visited Germany between 18 and 23 January this
year with a view to retrieving the radioactive materials and to monitor the trial of all the suspects.
"To their dismay, however, the members of the committee were told that Halliburton had taken possession of the radioactive devices
and had exported same to the US on 16 January 2004, two days before the committee was billed to arrive in Germany," Olujinmi
disclosed.
The attorney-general said: "The federal government has protested to the German government against the abrupt, unilateral
discontinuation of the criminal investigation, improper lifting of the seizure on the radioactive sources and release of sources to
Halliburton USA despite the manifest registration of Nigeria's interest in the matter.
The Washington Post
November 30, 2003 Sunday
Final Edition
Smugglers Enticed by Dirty Bomb Components;
Radioactive Materials Are Sought Worldwide
BYLINE: Joby Warrick, Washington Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A Section; A01
LENGTH: 2896 words
DATELINE: TBILISI, Georgia
Dozens of smuggling routes for nuclear and radiological materials have been charted over the past decade, but since 1999 a clear
favorite has emerged. Judging from cases reported to police, nuclear traffickers have discovered abundant opportunity in Europe's
southeastern flank: the Black Sea and Caucasus states that have long served as a crossroads linking Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
Topping the list is Georgia, the former Soviet republic where huge crowds of demonstrators recently forced President Eduard
Shevardnadze to resign. The small nation of 5 million suffers from porous borders, official corruption and rampant smuggling,
problems exacerbated by three ethnic rebellions -- in the provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the north, and Adzharia in the
south -- and regular incursions by guerrillas in the eastern region bordering Chechnya. In the conflict zones, trafficking in contraband
has gone from a sideline trade to a thriving industry that supports tens of thousands of people, including, by some accounts, leaders of
the rebel movements.
At least three times since 1999, officials have discovered kilogram-quantity caches of uranium in vehicles leaving or entering
Georgia. In the most recent case, on June 26, just over a pound of uranium was seized at the Georgia-Armenia border by guards
armed with U.S.-supplied radiation detectors, according to Georgian security officials. Tests to determine the origin and enrichment
level of the uranium were carried out with the help of U.S. Energy Department officials. The agency has declined to release the
results. Georgian officials say they believe the material originated in Russia and was being transported through Georgia for resale in Iran.
Another recent theft, viewed by U.S. and U.N. officials as especially grave, occurred in December when a large well-logger was
stolen from a truck in Nigeria. The owner of the device was Halliburton Co., based in Houston, which conducted its own search for
several weeks before notifying the U.N. nuclear watchdog of the loss.
begin_within
(21,551 posts)
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)How the fuck does something like that otherwise get lost? 
silvershadow
(10,336 posts)should be handling this material.