Petroleum Africa
Find us on: 
Monday, July 29, 2013
Halliburton Energy Services Inc. has entered into an agreement with the US government to plead guilty to destroying evidence in connection with the 2010 Deepwater Horizon incident in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the US Department of Justice. The service firm signed a cooperation and guilty plea agreement in which it agrees to plead guilty and admit its criminal conduct.
Under the plea agreement Halliburton also agreed to, subject to the court’s approval, pay the maximum-available statutory fine, to be subject to three years of probation, and to continue its cooperation in the government’s ongoing criminal investigation.
Following the April 2010 blow out at the Macondo well site Halliburton conducted its own review of various technical aspects of the well’s design and construction and established an internal working group to examine the Macondo well blowout, including whether the number of centralizers used on the final production casing could have contributed to the blowout. Prior to the blowout, Halliburton had recommended to BP the use of 21 centralizers in the Macondo well. BP opted to use six centralizers instead.
Court documents said that in connection with its own internal post-incident examination of the well Halliburton, through its Cementing Technology Director, directed a senior program manager for the Cement Product Line to run two computer simulations of the Macondo well final cementing job using Halliburton’s Displace 3D simulation program to compare the impact of using six versus 21 centralizers. Displace 3D was a next-generation simulation program that was being developed to model fluid interfaces and their movement through the wellbore and annulus of a well. These simulations indicated that there was little difference between using six and 21 centralizers, this is where the destroying of evidence starts. The documents say that the program manager was directed to, and did, destroy the Displace 3D results. The company also destroyed other evidence in a later incident.
Efforts to forensically recover the original destroyed Displace 3D computer simulations during ensuing civil litigation and federal criminal investigation by the Deepwater Horizon Task Force were unsuccessful. In agreeing to plead guilty, Halliburton has accepted criminal responsibility for destroying the aforementioned evidence.
" alt="First LNG Realized at the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim Project">
" alt="United Energy Acquires Western Desert Producer APEX">
" alt="Baker Hughes Announces Major Gas Technology Orders for Venture Global LNG">
" alt="ReconAfrica: Naingopo Results Demonstrate a Working Petroleum System">
" alt="Tullow Highlights 2025 Operational Plans in Ghana">
" alt="TotalEnergies to Supply 1.5 TWh to STMicroelectronics in France Over 15 years">
" alt="Rockhopper Reaches Final Settlement with United on Egypt’s Abu Sennan Concession">
" alt="Oil & Gas Crucial for African Growth: AEC Calls for Industry Support to Defend African Market">
