WASHINGTON—Halliburton Co. testing conducted before the BP PLC Gulf of Mexico oil spill showed that cement similar to that pumped into the blown-out well would be unstable, but there is no evidence that the contractor sounded alarms to BP, according to a presidential commission investigating the disaster.
The test data, shared with staff of President Barack Obama’s commission on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, run counter to Halliburton’s claims that the nitrogen-cement mixture used in the Macondo well was stable.
The data, along with additional cement testing ordered by the spill commission, bolster BP’s claims that faulty cement contributed to the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, but the information doesn’t shed light on BP’s awareness of the problem.
“Halliburton (and perhaps BP) should have considered redesigning the foam slurry before pumping it at the Macondo well,” the spill commission’s chief counsel, Fred Bartlit, and other staffers said in a letter sent Thursday to the commission.
Full Story: Halliburton Tests Showed Faulty Cement Before Spill, Panel Says – WSJ.com