Halliburton has today accused oil giant BP of “poor decisions and practices” following accusations of destroyed evidence in relation to last year's Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
In a court filing earlier this week, BP alleged that the US oil services firm had intentionally destroyed evidence about possible problems with its cement slurry poured into the deep-sea Macondo well off the Louisiana coast. An oil well must be cemented properly to avoid blowouts.
However today, Houston-based Halliburton turned on BP saying the legal bid was an attempt “to divert attention from its poor decision and practices” and the evidence of test results have “little or no relevance to the case”.
In a statement released today, the company added: “BP recently filed a motion for sanctions against Halliburton alleging that Halliburton destroyed evidence relating to post-incident testing of the foam cement slurry. BP has been aware of post-incident tests for some time, but has chosen this late date in the litigation to mischaracterize the results of such tests.
“Contrary to BP’s assertions, the post-incident testing referred to in its motion was not conducted on rig samples or in a manner approved by Halliburton.
"Rather, the informal testing BP refers to used off-the-shelf materials that yielded results which Halliburton believes have little or no relevance to the case, particularly when pre-incident testing using rig samples and formal lab processes showed that the cement slurry was designed to be stable.
“In September 2011, the U.S. Department of Interior reported testing done on the actual Deepwater Horizon rig sample, confirming Halliburton's position that the slurry was designed to be stable. The Department further concluded that the cement likely did not fail in the annulus part of the well.
“For over 60 years, Halliburton has led the industry in developing cementing solutions for oil and gas operators around the world. BP is attempting to divert attention from its poor decisions and practices by criticizing the work and reputation of Halliburton.”
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-appointed computer forensic team to recover the modelling results.
The allegations in the 310-page motion are the latest in a series of twists and turns between BP and the contractors Halliburton and Transocean over blame for the Deepwater Horizon blast in April 2010, which killed 11 workers and led to 206 million gallons of crude oil escaping into the Gulf of Mexico.
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