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Halliburton Could Be at Fault for Oil Spill

MyOwnDrum

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Not much attention has been on the possible cause of the oil rig blast. This article sheds light on a possible cause.


Halliburton Could Be at Fault for Oil Spill - Science and Tech - The Atlantic

How did the Gulf oil rig explode? A prominent theory adds Halliburton to the mix. Workers had just finished cementing the well when the rig blew, leading experts to speculate that a flaw in this process could have caused the explosion. Halliburton, the largest company in the global cementing business, was in charge of cementing the well.

In order to prevent oil and natural leakage, rig workers pump cement down wells after they've finished drilling. This process requires a very particular type of cement, one that must be mixed and stirred in a precise fashion. If the cement is flawed, it can crack or fail to set properly, allowing oil and gas to leak through. If gas escaped through the Gulf rig's cement, it could have shot back up the well -- what's known as a "blowout" -- and ignited the fatal blast.

Halliburton was also responsible for cementing a well off the coast of Australia that blew last August, leaking oil for ten weeks before it was plugged. Though the investigation continues, an official from the U.S. Minerals Management Service testified that a poor cement job probably caused the explosion.
 
Hmm - that's conflicting:


"Halliburton, the largest company in the global cementing business, was in charge of cementing the well."

" rig workers pump cement down wells after they've finished drilling."
So - which one is it - a rig workerrs *employed* by BP who mixed the cement (possibly doing it wrong) which caused the problem?

Or Halliburton itself via it's own employees who were suppose to be trained in this area?

If it needs to be done precisely then the people at Halliburton should handle it directly and with well trained professionals.

But, this article doesn't point out whether it was done directly by Halliburton employees - or by BP employees who are not trained in this area.
 
Hmm - that's conflicting:



So - which one is it - a rig workerrs *employed* by BP who mixed the cement (possibly doing it wrong) which caused the problem?

Or Halliburton itself via it's own employees who were suppose to be trained in this area?

If it needs to be done precisely then the people at Halliburton should handle it directly and with well trained professionals.

But, this article doesn't point out whether it was done directly by Halliburton employees - or by BP employees who are not trained in this area.



Knowing the oil field services business a bit

The cementing would have been done directly by Halliburton employees, or well trained contractors from other oil field services contractors with the specific skills in this type of job. (ie BJ Services, Schlumberger)It is not something that is done by normal oil rig workers.
 
The rig is hired by BP but is owned and operated by Transocean.
 
It sounds like BP is legally responsible for the cost & responsibility or stopping and cleaning up the oil spill. They may only be on the hook for $75 million for lost income type lawsuits. That won't go far in a multi billion fishing industry. Not to mention any losses as the oil slick winds around Florida and heads up the coast. If Haliburton caused another explosion on an oil rig, BP will probably have to sue them themselves.

What happened?
What More Can Halliburton Tell Us About the Horizon Oil Blowout and Its Risks?

A publicly available Halliburton PowerPoint presentation from last November might tell us a lot about what could have caused the oil blowout, fire and massive oil gushing at the Horizon rig.

Suppose you’re that division of Halliburton that has the dangerous job of "cementing" the drilling hole and the gaps between the hole and pipe. You’ve done this lots of times in shallow water wells, but you’ve learned through previous experience in deep water there’s a particularly difficult problem having to do with the presence of gas that has seeped to the ocean floor and been captured in essentially "frozen" crystallized formations.

The problem is that when you drill into these formations, and then try to inject cement into the hole/gaps to prevent leakage, the curing process for that creates heat. That heat can, if not controlled, cause the gas to escape the frozen crystals. If a lot of gas is released all at once, as could happen during the cement/curing process, it can cause a blowout where the cementing is occurring, or force gas and/or oil up the pipeline to the drilling rig on the surface. And the heat created by the process may be just enough to ignite the gas [or more likely, a spark at the rig -- see comments], causing the explosion and fire.

Did this happen at the Horizon rig? And if Halliburton already knew about this problem months (years) ago, and knew the risks it might create, why are we just now learning about this?

From Halliburton’s presentation (large pdf), page 10, last November (my bold):

Challenges
• Shallow water flow may occur during or after cement job
• Under water blow out has happened
• Gas flow may occur after a cement job in deepwater environments that contain major hydrate zones.
• Destabilization of hydrates after the cement job is confirmed by downhole cameras.
• The gas flow could slow down in hours to days if the de- stabilization is not severe.
• However, the consequences could be more severe in worse cases.

Page 13 lists the design objectives but then concedes they can’t all be met at once:

Deepwater Well Objectives
• Cement slurry should be placed in the entire annulus with no losses
• Temperature increase during slurry hydration should not destabilize hydrates
• There should be no influx of shallow water or gas into the annulus
• The cement slurry should develop strength in the shortest time after placement
Conditions in deepwater wells are not
conducive to achieving all of these
objectives simultaneously
Halliburton Presentation May Explain Horizon Oil Rig Explosion and Fire | The Seminal

Halliburton's actual presentation is on the site. It's pretty interesting. It's also pretty obvious that this deep water drilling carries with it many safety issues. To drill in 5,000 feet of water they did not follow anywhere near enough safety features. Both Halliburton and BP and probably TransOcean will pay dearly for this **** up.

The gov't needs to stop depending on oil companies for safety features. That's like putting the fox in charge of the hen house. :doh
 
It sounds like BP is legally responsible for the cost & responsibility or stopping and cleaning up the oil spill. They may only be on the hook for $75 million for lost income type lawsuits. That won't go far in a multi billion fishing industry. Not to mention any losses as the oil slick winds around Florida and heads up the coast. If Haliburton caused another explosion on an oil rig, BP will probably have to sue them themselves.

My guess is that we who pay taxes will get stuck with the bill and the damages/losses to the entire gulf coast.
 
"The Obama-man sent little men with drills, wearing red suits with a hammer & sickle/crescent moon & star logo, to sabotage it!"

I knew it. Fox News is always right.
 
My guess is that we who pay taxes will get stuck with the bill and the damages/losses to the entire gulf coast.

And we who buy gasoline for our cars.
 
My guess is that we who pay taxes will get stuck with the bill and the damages/losses to the entire gulf coast.

Somehow it always comes back around to us.
 
And we who buy gasoline for our cars.

Yeah, that too, but gasoline taxes won't pay for all the damage that has been done along the coast. I expect the price of gas to rise partially out of panic, and partially because of the mental impact that this mess will cause. I have quite a few friends along the gulf coast in Louisiana and Alabama, and a couple of them are in the oil business (specifically as suppliers of oil drilling equipment and service). Maybe they are over-reacting, but they are saying it's significantly worse (the damage) than what we are seeing and hearing on the news.
 
Terry Lambert, who works for ADTI, had a son who was one of the BP Company reps on the Horizon when the incident occurred. Here's what he sent me.

TALKED TO MY SON, HE IS AT HOME NOW, AND IN GOOD SHAPE, WHAT I WAS TOLD WAS THEY HAD SET A 9-5/8 TAPERED PRODUCTION LINER, DID THEIR CEMENT JOB, HAD POSITIVE TESTED, AND ALSO NEGITIVE TESTED, THEY WERE GOING TO SET A BALANCED PLUG AROUND 3000' BELOW THE WELL HEAD WHICH WOULD BE AT ABOUT 8000', THE SENIOR COMPANY MAN WANTED TO SET THE BALANCED PLUG IN MUD, BUT THE ENGINEERS WANTED TO DISPLACE WITH WATER PRIOR TO SETTING BALANCED PLUG, SO THEY DISPLACED FROM 3000' BELOW MUD LINE, AND WERE GETTING READY TO SET PLUG. THE DERRICKMAN CALLED THE DRILLER AND SAID HE NEEDED HELP, HE HAD MUD GOING EVERYWHERE, AND ABOUT THIS TIME THE DRILL FLOOR DISAPEARED, THEN THERE WAS AN EXPLOSION, THEN A SECOND EXPLOSION.

THE FLAMES ARE NOW GOING STRAIGHT UP ALLOWING EVACUATION OF MEN, THEN YOU KNOW THE REST.

THE HANDS THAT ARE MISSING ARE THE ONES THAT WERE ON THE DRILL FLOOR AND PUMP ROOM. YOU KNOW THE RESULTS OF THAT. THIS ALL TOOK PLACE IN LESS THAN A MINUTE.

RIG WAS EVACUATED IN ABOUT 25 MINUTES.

IT IS BELIVED THAT THE SEAL ASSEMBLY AT THE WELL HEAD GAVE UP. IF THAT IS THE CASE AND THEY WOULD HAVE SET THE BALANCED PLUG IN MUD THEN DISPLACED THE RISER, IT WOULD ONLY HAVE DELAYED WHAT HAPPENED BY A COUPLE OF HOURS.

GAS MUST HAVE CHANNELLED THROUGH THE CEMENT JOB AND UP THE BACK SIDE OF THE
9-5/8 PRODUCTION CASING.
 
The Cementing was to have been performed by Haliburton.
 
My guess is that we who pay taxes will get stuck with the bill and the damages/losses to the entire gulf coast.

There is a multi-billion (2.7 billion I think) dollar fund set up for this type of accident to pay for cleanup, loss of income, and repair of equipment. It is paid for by a 5 cent per barrel of oil tax among other sources.
 
Jujuman13;

Is Terry's son a step son by any chance? Because neither of the BP's representative’s last name was Lambert.... Another thing, since the author gave particular information on the well bore by displacing from 3000ft below the mud line to surface, why did he think that the blow-out accrue from the annulus side of the well and not from the well bore? That's what through me for a loop.
 
The gov't needs to stop depending on oil companies for safety features. That's like putting the fox in charge of the hen house. :doh

There's where you're wrong. Blowouts like this cost oil companies along with the service companies that get drug into the liability, billions of dollars. I would much rather the oil companies be responsible for blowout safety; alot more than some government bureaucrat. Letting the oil companies do it is like the farmer gaurding the hen house.

BTW, it didn't take long for a, "it's Halliburton's fault", thread to get cranked up.

Let me clue ya'll into something: Halliburton isn't liable for anything concerning this blowout. If anyone gets drug into the fracus, it'll be FMC, because they're the ones that built the blowout preventer.
 
And somehow the pending increase in gas prices will be blamed on Obama. Wait for it...wait for it...

If he bans drilling, it will be rest squarely upon his doorstep.
 
I knew it, I knew it all along, the evil and sinister Dick Cheney and his pals over at the equally evil and sinister Halliburton are behind this deliberate oil leak that is ruining the gulf of mexico.

And somewhere George Bush is sitting on his deck drinking a cold one while breaking out in an evil snicker.
 
I know I'm an old school roughneck but never, and I repeat, NEVER have I seen BOP's placed anywhere we couldn't get to them in a heart beat. The levers to operate them sat 4 steps away from lead tongs and the pipe bank. Two steps directly behind the driller. The BOP's themselves were dirctly below the drill floor.

Putting them, as I understand it, as the diagrams show, near or on the ocean floor is beyond my comprehension. I must have misunderstood the details. Another thing. Does it not set uneasy in everyones mind to run the surface casing through 5000 feet of water before ever spuddin' in? Seems to me that an angry ocean could snap that like a toothpick.

There is a lot here that just doesn't add up to me. I would like to write it off as my lack of knowlege of modern technology. But the same physics that applied a million years ago apply today. I just don't get it.

BOP's are probably one of the most maintained and tested pieces of equipment on a rig. Of all things to screw up, that one will cost a ruffneck and a roustabout his ass. God help the Derrick hand.
 
I know I'm an old school roughneck but never, and I repeat, NEVER have I seen BOP's placed anywhere we couldn't get to them in a heart beat. The levers to operate them sat 4 steps away from lead tongs and the pipe bank. Two steps directly behind the driller. The BOP's themselves were dirctly below the drill floor.

By the same token, you can't have 5,000 feet of pipe between your BOP stack and the wellhead, either.

Putting them, as I understand it, as the diagrams show, near or on the ocean floor is beyond my comprehension. I must have misunderstood the details. Another thing. Does it not set uneasy in everyones mind to run the surface casing through 5000 feet of water before ever spuddin' in? Seems to me that an angry ocean could snap that like a toothpick.

That's why they run the pipe string down to the wellhead through deepwater risers that are able to flex with the current.
 
There's where you're wrong. Blowouts like this cost oil companies along with the service companies that get drug into the liability, billions of dollars. I would much rather the oil companies be responsible for blowout safety; alot more than some government bureaucrat. Letting the oil companies do it is like the farmer gaurding the hen house.

BTW, it didn't take long for a, "it's Halliburton's fault", thread to get cranked up.

Let me clue ya'll into something: Halliburton isn't liable for anything concerning this blowout. If anyone gets drug into the fracus, it'll be FMC, because they're the ones that built the blowout preventer.

Here's a "clue" for you... If the oil companies , aka BP, really cared about safety and the impact on our environment from a spill they would have all safety features on their oil rigs. The Exxon Valdez spill isn't 100% cleaned up. They don't care so they don't want to spend money on something that has a smaller chance of happening. Cheeney and Bush lowered the regs and depended on oil companies to be responsible. How ****ing more selfish and stupid can you get? It's 100% their responsibility to prevent and then clean up and then pay for the clean up of their screw ups. It was Cheeney who blocked the mandate of those emergency BOP activators. Did you know BP has that safety feature on their own rigs but, they don't put them on those rigs they lease. Hmmm... why is that? Hmmmm.... Some idiots are claiming it was the Coast Guard's duty to have a gazillion feet of boom on board each of their ships just in case one of those hundreds of rigs in the gulf had a spill. Dumb doesn't cover that one. Halliburton will be sued by BP since it was H who caused the explosion and it's not the first time for them to cause one. What a surprise, ehh?
 
Here's a "clue" for you... If the oil companies , aka BP, really cared about safety and the impact on our environment from a spill they would have all safety features on their oil rigs. The Exxon Valdez spill isn't 100% cleaned up. They don't care so they don't want to spend money on something that has a smaller chance of happening. Cheeney and Bush lowered the regs and depended on oil companies to be responsible. How ****ing more selfish and stupid can you get? It's 100% their responsibility to prevent and then clean up and then pay for the clean up of their screw ups. It was Cheeney who blocked the mandate of those emergency BOP activators. Did you know BP has that safety feature on their own rigs but, they don't put them on those rigs they lease. Hmmm... why is that? Hmmmm.... Some idiots are claiming it was the Coast Guard's duty to have a gazillion feet of boom on board each of their ships just in case one of those hundreds of rigs in the gulf had a spill. Dumb doesn't cover that one. Halliburton will be sued by BP since it was H who caused the explosion and it's not the first time for them to cause one. What a surprise, ehh?

Oil companies would NEVER have enough safety equipment to make you happy. In truly partisan fashion, you blame Bush and Cheney for some nebulous reason that only you know of. I guess you forgot that Obama excused BP from having an EIS on this well, plus additional wells AFTER this one blew up. But that's ok in your mind isn't it??

You must be really smart. :roll: It appears that you already know Halliburton caused the explosion, even though no expert agrees with you.

The Coast Guard was required to have fire booms since 1994, but you call the person pointing out the requirement an idiot ??? You're right, dumb doesn't cover that one... pot meet kettle.
 
Oil companies would NEVER have enough safety equipment to make you happy.

They need to have whatever they might need if the worst goes wrong. They're drilling 5,000 feet under the ocean. They need to be safety conscious. Period.

In truly partisan fashion, you blame Bush and Cheney for some nebulous reason that only you know of.

Absolutely. I'm not the only person aware of their guilt here. And if you were brave enough to do any research on this issue you would know this too. Bush and Cheeney packed all the agencies with their lobbyist pals. They were totally anti-environment right across the board. If a reg cost an industry money, they removed it or watered it down. It was those criminals who allowed BP, specifically!, to convince them they would police their own mistakes. Total BS! BP didn't want that accousticly activated BOP because it cost them money. How can any American defend that kind of selfish decision?

I guess you forgot that Obama excused BP from having an EIS on this well, plus additional wells AFTER this one blew up. But that's ok in your mind isn't it??

I'm not at all happy with what Obama's admin has allowed to get by them either. But, to switch the target onto Obama is to admit Bush and Cheeney are to blame for the severity of this spill. Unlike you, all I care about here is the environment. If BP can get that oil out safely then I'm all for them. But, they need to put safety and the environment first, not their profits.

It appears that you already know Halliburton caused the explosion, even though no expert agrees with you.

It sure looks like Haliburton screwed up yet another cementing process here. This is not the first time their bad cementing job has caused an explosion.

The Coast Guard was required to have fire booms since 1994, but you call the person pointing out the requirement an idiot ??? You're right, dumb doesn't cover that one... pot meet kettle.

So, if a Coast Guard ship is required to carry some booms, just how much do they have to have on board? Could they ever have all the booms that this spill required? Do you think Coast Guard ships have to circle every single oil rig just in case it develops a spill? Duh! This kind of bull**** is nothing but blind rhetoric trying to blame Obama for another of Bush & Cheeney’s crimes against our country. Yes, I think anybody who defends such anti-American behavior is an idiot, for starters.

BP is the only group responsible for mopping up this oil spill. To try to lay any blame on the Coast Guard is like blaming George W Bush for being stupid. :roll:
 
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