guardian.co.uk,
Associated Press, Tuesday 6 December 2011
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| The Deepwater Horizon blast, which killed 11 workers, led to the biggest oil spill in US history, which affected wildlife such as pelicans. Photograph: Sean Gardner/Reuters |
BP has
accused Halliburton of destroying damaging evidence relating to last year's Gulf
of Mexico oil spill.
In a court
filing, BP has alleged that the US oil services firm of intentionally
destroying evidence about possible problems with its cement slurry poured into
the deep-sea Macondo well about 100 miles (160 km) off the Louisiana coast. An
oil well must be cemented properly to avoid blowouts.
Also in the
documents filed in a New Orleans federal court, BP accuses Halliburton of
failing to produce incriminating computer modelling evidence.
BP asked a
US judge to penalise Halliburton and order a court-sponsored computer forensic
team to recover the modelling results.
Halliburton
has told media outlets that the accusations are untrue.
The
allegations in the 310-page motion add to a showdown among BP and the
contractors Halliburton and Transocean over blame in the Deepwater Horizon
blast in April 2010, which killed 11 workers and led to 206m US gallons (780m
litres) of crude oil escaping into the Gulf of Mexico. So far, BP, the majority
owner of the Macondo well, has footed the bill for the emergency response and
cleanup.
Also
involved are Anadarko Petroleum and Cameron International.
The first
trial over the disaster is scheduled to start 27 February in New Orleans. It is
expected to last three months and determine the liability of each company
involved in drilling the Macondo well. There will be other phases over cleanup
costs, punitive damages and other claims.
US federal
and independent investigations into the disaster have found fault in
Halliburton's cementing because it failed to properly plug the well. The firm
used a foamy cement slurry.
In Monday's
court filing, BP alleges that Halliburton employees discarded and destroyed
early test results they performed on the same batch of cement slurry used in
the Macondo well during an internal investigation into the disaster.
BP said
Halliburton's chief cement mixer for Gulf projects testified in depositions
that the cement slurry seemed "thin" to him but that he chose not to
write about his findings to his bosses out of fear he would be misinterpreted.
"I
didn't want to put anything on an email that could be twisted, and
turned," Rickey Morgan, the Halliburton cement expert, said in
depositions. He worked at a laboratory in Duncan, Oklahoma.
"Upon
reviewing these latest testing results, Halliburton employees destroyed records
of the testing as well as the physical cement samples used in the
testing," BP alleged.
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| Mistakes: A leaked internal memo from BP found that engineers misread pressure data on the Deepwater |
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