NYTimes: Firms Knew of Cement Flaws Before Spill, Panel Says

[Generic Other]

WASHINGTON — Halliburton knew weeks before the fatal explosion of the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico that the cement mixture they planned to use to seal the bottom of the well was unstable but still went ahead with the job, the presidential commission investigating the accident said on Thursday.

In the first official finding of responsibility for the blowout, which killed 11 workers and led to the largest offshore oil spill in American history, the commission staff determined that Halliburton had conducted three laboratory tests that indicated that the cement mixture did not meet industry standards.

The result of at least one of those tests was given on March 8 to BP, which failed to act upon it, the panel’s lead investigator, Fred H. Bartlit Jr., said in a letter delivered to the commissioners on Thursday.

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Although Mr. Bartlit does not specifically identify the cement failure as the sole or even primary cause of the blowout, he makes clear in his letter that if the cement had done its job and kept the highly pressured oil and gas out of the well bore, there would not have been an accident.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/29/us/29spill.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

OMG. Jail time.

[Bolo Boffin]

1. The first congressional panel I saw on this was three people: BP, Transocean, and Halliburton

The BP guy and the Transocean guy were stony. The Halliburton guy was sweating and nervous. IIRC, it was the president of Tranocean and some big executive from BP, but the Halliburton guy was a lawyer. I thought right then and there it would come back to the cementing eventually.

[katandmoon]

2. One thing I'm sure of is that nobody from Haliburton will ever do jail time as long as Obama's DOJ

is in charge, much less be prosecuted.

Prosecutions are only for whistleblowers.