{"id":4066,"date":"2010-05-04T21:51:09","date_gmt":"2010-05-05T01:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=4066"},"modified":"2010-05-04T21:53:07","modified_gmt":"2010-05-05T01:53:07","slug":"uh-oh-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2010\/05\/04\/uh-oh-6\/","title":{"rendered":"uh-oh&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"justify\">I&#8217;m really glad Marcy picked up this ball. I saw <strong>Halliburton<\/strong>&#8216;s name on this story and winced. That&#8217;s what <strong>Halliburton<\/strong> does &#8211; the engineering part of oil wells. But I hadn&#8217;t seen their statement:        <\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<div align=\"center\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/emptywheel.firedoglake.com\/2010\/05\/04\/halliburton-we-worked-to-spec\/\" target=\"_blank\">Halliburton:  We Worked to Spec<\/a><br \/>           By: <font color=\"#009999\">emptywheel<\/font><\/strong><br \/>           May 4, 2010<\/div>\n<p>         <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">As oil continues to gush into the Gulf, I&rsquo;ve been haunted by the  statement Halliburton put out about the Deepwater Horizon spill. Here&rsquo;s <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.halliburton.com\/public\/news\/pubsdata\/press_release\/2010\/corpnws_043010.html\" target=\"_blank\">the  statement<\/a><\/strong>, dated April 30, in its entirety.<\/div>\n<ul>\n<div align=\"justify\">Halliburton [NYSE: HAL] <strong>confirmed  today its  continued support of, and cooperation with, the ongoing  investigations<\/strong> into the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig incident  in the Gulf of Mexico  earlier this month. Halliburton extends its  heartfelt sympathy to the  families, friends and our industry colleagues  of the 11 people lost and  those injured in the tragedy. As <strong>one of several service providers on the rig<\/strong>,  Halliburton can  confirm the following:<\/div>\n<ol>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\">Halliburton performed a variety of services on the rig, including   cementing, and had four employees stationed on the rig at the time of   the accident. Halliburton&rsquo;s employees returned to shore safely, due, in   part, to the brave rescue efforts by the U.S. Coast Guard and other   organizations.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\">Halliburton had completed the cementing of the final production   casing string in accordance with the well design approximately&nbsp;20 hours   prior to the incident. The cement slurry design <strong>was consistent  with that  utilized in other similar applications<\/strong>.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong>In accordance with accepted industry practice approved by  our  customers<\/strong>, tests demonstrating the integrity of the  production casing  string were completed.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\">At the time of the incident, well operations had not yet reached the   point requiring the placement of the final cement plug which would   enable the planned temporary abandonment of the well, <strong>consistent  with  normal oilfield practice<\/strong>.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\">We are assisting with planning and engineering support for a wide   range of options designed to secure the well, including a potential   relief well.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<div align=\"justify\">Halliburton continues to assist in efforts to identify the factors   that may have lead up to the disaster, but <strong>it is premature and   irresponsible to speculate on any specific causal issues<\/strong>. <strong>Halliburton originated oilfield cementing<\/strong> and leads  the world in  effective, efficient delivery of zonal isolation and  engineering for the  life of the well, conducting thousands of  successful well cementing  jobs each year. The company views safety as  critical to its success and  is committed to continuously improve  performance. [my emphasis]<\/div>\n<\/ul>\n<div>HAL&rsquo;s first concern, in its statement, was to invoke &ldquo;its  cooperation&rdquo; in the investigation. Only after that did it mention the  casualties from the explosion. Then, it described (sort of) its role on  the rig, stating that their work was:<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>Consistent with that  utilized in other similar applications<\/li>\n<li>In accordance with accepted industry practice approved by our   customers<strong> <\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Consistent with  normal oilfield practice<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"justify\">You get the feeling that HAL wants to cement [heh] the impression  that everything it was doing on the rig was all standard practice? You  get the feeling that HAL wants you to know that everything they were  doing on the rig had been approved by BP? And it took them a full week to come up with that statement. All of which leads me to wonder whether&ndash;though mind you, I&rsquo;m just  wondering &ndash; HAL [which did, after all, originate oilfield cementing] did  something that may well have met BP&rsquo;s specifications, but which HAL,  with its expert knowledge of what it should do in conditions like those  at the Deepwater Horizon site, might be rethinking. That is, the tone  and content of their statement suggests HAL is preparing a defense that  it met spec, regardless of whether that spec was appropriate to the  conditions involved.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div align=\"justify\">and there&#8217;s this&#8230;      <\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<div align=\"center\">\t\t\t\t<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Blotter\/bp-fought-safety-measures-deepwater-oil-rigs\/story?id=10521078&#038;page=2\"><strong>BP Fought Safety Measures at Deepwater Oil Rigs<\/strong><\/a><br \/>      <strong><sup>Owner of Louisiana Oil Well Objected to System That Would  Have Shut Off Spill<\/sup><br \/>       ABC News<\/strong><br \/>     By MATTHEW MOSK, BRIAN ROSS and RHONDA SCHWARTZ <br \/>     Apr. 30, 2010<\/div>\n<p> BP,  the company that owned the Louisiana oil   rig that exploded last week, spent years battling federal regulators  over how many layers of safeguards would be needed to prevent a  deepwater well from this type of accident.<\/p>\n<p>One area of immediate concern, industry experts said, was the lack of a  remote system that would have allowed workers to clamp shut Deepwater  Horizon&#8217;s wellhead so it would not continue to gush oil. The rig is now  spilling 210,000 gallons of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico.<\/p>\n<p> In a letter sent last year to the Department of the Interior, BP  objected to what it called &quot;extensive, prescriptive regulations&quot;  proposed in new rules to toughen safety standards. &quot;We believe  industry&#8217;s current safety and environmental statistics demonstrate that  the voluntary programs&hellip;continue to be very successful.&quot; <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Site\/page?id=10523096\" target=\"external\">CLICK   HERE TO READ THE LETTER<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" class=\"story_date\">That was one in a series of clashes between the industry and federal  regulators that began during the Clinton administration. In 2000, the federal agency that oversaw oil rig  safety issued a safety alert that called added layers of backup &quot;an  essential component of a deepwater drilling system.&quot; The agency said  operators were expected to have multiple layers of protection to prevent  a spill&#8230; <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\">&#8230; A second area of focus emerging Friday involved the cement casing that  was supposed to seal the well and prevent gaps from opening between the  outside of the well pipe and the inside of the hole drilled into the sea  floor. If cement is not poured properly, oil and natural gas can escape  &ndash; a cause of more than a dozen previous well blowouts in the Gulf. <\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\"> House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman Friday sent a letter to <span class=\"DL-topic-highlighted\">Halliburton<\/span>,  the company responsible for pouring the cement seal, asking company  executives to brief committee investigators on conditions at the rig,  and preserve all documents relating to their work on the sea floor.<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\">Elmer Danenberger, an expert on offshore drilling who retired from the  U.S. Department of the Interior in January, told ABC News he is worried  that &quot;lack of attention&quot; during the pouring of the cement could be to  blame.<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\"> &quot;With these cementing operations it&#8217;s just a matter of not being  attentive enough,&quot; he said. &quot;What you want is a closed system. You want  the cemented pipe totally sealing the well bore. If you don&#8217;t have that,  you have problems&quot;&#8230;<\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div align=\"justify\">I agree with Marcy. Halliburton is being very careful in their statement. What worries me is that they weren&#8217;t so careful in their cementing of the well. In googling around about this process, I&#8217;m aware that I&#8217;m out of my depth, though this article in <strong><font color=\"#ff3300\">Offshore<\/font><\/strong> [<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.offshore-mag.com\/index\/article-display\/278112\/articles\/offshore\/volume-66\/issue-11\/drilling-completion\/optimizing-cement-systems-for-specific-well-conditions.html\" target=\"_blank\">Optimizing cement systems for specific well conditions<\/a><\/strong>] gave me a shudder as it described some of the things that might go wrong with the cementing process. Cementing involves sealing the &quot;entrance wound&quot; made by the drilling process. I don&#8217;t understand what this graph from the article really means, but I do understand the note on it:<\/div>\n<div align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"331\" vspace=\"5\" height=\"180\" border=\"1\" src=\"http:\/\/images.pennnet.com\/articles\/os\/cap\/cap_z0610offpcj2.gif\" \/><\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">It says, &quot;<strong><font color=\"#200020\">When the cement sheath fails, it does so catastrophically.<\/font><\/strong>&quot;<\/div>\n<p align=\"justify\">I don&#8217;t know what happened here. Whatever it was, it happened as they were cementing the entrance hole around the delivery pipeline to the surface. BP had apparently opted out of some kind of cut-off valve. And Halliburton was the company apparently doing the concreting. Whatever happened, it sounds to me like a screw-up. Score at the end of the first quarter: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong>ACT OF GOD<\/strong>: 0<br \/> <strong>ACT OF MAN<\/strong>: 2<\/div>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m really glad Marcy picked up this ball. I saw Halliburton&#8216;s name on this story and winced. That&#8217;s what Halliburton does &#8211; the engineering part of oil wells. But I hadn&#8217;t seen their statement: Halliburton: We Worked to Spec By: emptywheel May 4, 2010 As oil continues to gush into the Gulf, I&rsquo;ve been haunted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4066\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}