you hit the nail right on the head Alf. In fact BP used the exact same contractors on the relief wells and are probably currently still using them on wells around the world.
I found it funny when someone from BP testified that they had been dissatisfied with Halliburton’s in house engineer Gagliano for the past ten years.
TEN YEARS!! Are you kidding me?
The oil patch I worked in was more likely to call a service company’s home office in TEN MINUTES and request a replacement for an operator or engineer who “wasn’t going with the flow” or having problems completing or comprehending a job assignment. If the situation could not be resolved the service company was “run off the job”.