Deepwater Horizon - Transocean Oil Rig Fire

Offshore
6922

The questions which need to be answered are:
How was the Macondo well allowed to vent hydrocarbons without any form of volume control?
Do TO have procedures in place to control and monitor volumes?
Would there have been a blowout if they on the vessel had recognised a flowing well?
Can another blowout occur if we fail to monitor well volumes?
Did the crews fail to monitor pressure trends?
Is it acceptable to backload to the boat while displacing, thereby, ignoring volume control?
Is it acceptable to inform the logger that monitoring of well volumes is not required or possible?
How was it possible to misunderstand the results of the Inflow test?
Did the cement failure cause a blowout?
Were the barriers verified?
Do the crews offshore need further training?
Is there a culture problem in the industry?
Why was a Shear Ram installed in the BOP which was unable to shear pipe…in any position?
Is it acceptable to rely on the BOP while ignoring displacement volumes?
What is the contractual obligation between TO and BP regarding monitoring well volumes?
Has the practice of displacement without monitoring volumes been a widespread failure on all vessels in the GOM?
Why is there so little coverage in the investigations concerning volume control, the best indicator of an anomaly?
Again, is there a culture problem?
Did the crews adhere to stated volume control procedures?
If volume control had been in place would the crew have had time to intervene? And, would there have been a blowout?
Could the Macondo be producing today if volumes had been controlled?

Steve, you speak of all ‘potential causes’. It’s important that everyone understands that there would not have been a blowout if volumes had been tracked, if pressure had been interpreted, and if the inflow test (testing to see if the cement barrier was holding back hydrocarbons) was conducted in a professional manner. As we all know, the authors of this tragedy are all from the US. And yet, the citizens, media and President of the US concluded within hours/days that a foreign company was at fault.
Apparently, we’re still looking for the causes! What does this suggest to the rest of the world?

Regarding the evidence, from day one, drillers and drilling teams around the world knew that they couldn’t have been monitoring volumes on the vessel.
You do not get blowouts when you monitor volumes. You react and shut in the well, circulate out the hydrocarbons or bullhead them back into the formation.

It’s true that a liner was an alternative to running the long string casing. But, the long string was successfully run and landed in the wellhead. The cement failed. Was there a blowout? No. The inflow test was the first opportunity to verify the barrier. It failed, and no-one understood, but recklessly continued with the operation. Is there a blowout at this stage? No.
They displace to SW above the BOP to test the barrier. No blowout.
They perform the inflow test. No blowout, but a very significant indication that all is not well as demonstrated by the anomalous volumes being bled off. Good opportunity to recognise all is not well and the cement barrier may not be withstanding the differential pressure. Good time to act! But, they somehow agree that the test passed…because there was no flow up the Kill line despite 1400 psi on the DP gauge.
Rig personnel focused on the fact that no flow was coming out of the kill line instead of
addressing the implications of the shut in pressure having built up on the drill pipe. After some discussion
on the rig, the negative test was deemed a success. However, the pressure build up actually meant that the
test had failed. The explanation used on the rig was an erroneous theory referred to as the “bladder effect”
(see BOEMRE 2011, 95). The term, as used in the industry, is unrelated to the situation faced during the negative pressure test.
Again, reckless decision-making. Has the well blown out or is it about to? No. Can we control it if we recognise the anomaly? Yes.
Then, the final part of the SW displacement! Is the well flowing? Yes.
Have we had a blowout? No. Can we still shut in if we recognise a 50 Bbl gain in volume. Absolutely. Would we have a blowout? No. We would have a well control situation and decisions would have to be made on which method of killing the well we wish to select, as is often practiced on wells around the world. Do we have a blowout? No.

So, why was there a blowout on the Macondo? No-one checked for any form of volume control.
The biggest question is: Why have the investigators failed to follow this up? Why do they persistently look for causes where they don’t exist? There are always alternatives to well design, pros and cons, but a decision is made and those decisions may not reflect well on BP when the media, lawyers, President Obama and others distort the facts relating to the CAUSES of the blowout.
No argument from me on standards, they can only improve. But the basics of controlling a well hasn’t changed.

Steve, I defy you to check if I’m wrong. Ask the Well Control Schools how to maintain control of a well.
The stated procedure of all drilling contractors is to minitor the well’s volumes when the BOP is attached to the well. Not to do so is gross negligence and reflects the hopes of a poker player.
It is so easy to recognise a kick taking place when culture, standards, practices and procedures are adhered to. But you need qualified people to police the well and ensure activities are conducted according to procedure.

6923

BP ‘surprised’ by exploration wins after Gulf of Mexico disaster - Telegraph

By Emily Gosden
Last Updated: 6:40PM GMT 18/01/2012

(snippet)
Energy giant BP’s chief executive has said he was “surprised” that the company had not been more hindered in its oil and gas exploration plans in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

Bob Dudley said that BP had in fact had its best year in three decades for gaining new exploration acreage last year – despite the damage the company’s reputation took after the spill and explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in April 2010.

The blast resulted in the deaths of 11 men and unleashed the worst offshore oil leak in US history.

Mr Dudley said: "I have to say one of the surprises – and it’s been a surprise all year – is after the events that we had in the Gulf of Mexico I thought that we would have more a difficult time in taking on exploration roles and being offered rights around the world than has happened.

“It’s been the best year in 30 years of increasing exploration acreage for BP, we have signed roughly 80 contracts in 11 countries in the last year with acreage roughly the size of Norway or Italy.”

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BP, Anadarko Should Be Held Liable Before Trial, U.S. Says - Businessweek

http://mobile.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-19/bp-anadarko-should-be-liable-for-spill-before-trial-u-s-says.html

By Margaret Cronin Fisk and Allen Johnson Jr.
January 19, 2012 4:07 PM EST
Jan. 19 (Bloomberg) – BP Plc, Transocean Ltd. and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. should be found liable before trial for violations of federal pollution laws stemming from the April 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, lawyers for the U.S. argued today at a hearing in federal court in New Orleans.
The Justice Department is asking U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier to find the companies violated the Clean Water Act on the basis of so-called strict liability because they were operators of the doomed project. Barbier, who’s overseeing much of the spill litigation, has scheduled a nonjury trial for Feb. 27 to determine liability and apportion fault for the disaster.
A ruling by Barbier against the companies would mean they couldn’t fight allegations of Clean Water Act violations at the trial and would allow the U.S. to seek fines of as much as $1,100 from each company per barrel of oil spilled. The government has also asked Barbier to find Anadarko and Transocean liable under the Oil Pollution Act, a separate environmental law, for cleanup costs and damages. BP already accepted responsibility for those costs.
Made Admissions
“They have admitted they are owners. They have admitted they discharged oil into the Gulf of Mexico,” Steven O’Rourke, a Justice Department attorney, told Barbier today. “Each should be punished according to his own culpability.”
Referring to the Clean Water Act fines, Barbier asked, “So one could be penalized for $1,100 [per barrel] and another defendant higher?”
“Yes, sir,” O’Rourke replied.
The judge said he wouldn’t rule today.
“Interesting arguments,” Barbier said. “Interesting issues. I will take this under advisement.”
Even if Barbier does rule for the U.S. on its bid for a pretrial decision, the question of gross negligence, which will determine whether the companies are subject to enhanced fines under the Clean Water Act, will be considered at trial.

(article continues)

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Bp likely-to-settle-in-deepwater-horizon-case
BP (NYSE:BP) will likely consent to pay $20 billion to $25 billion to the U.S. Justice Department next month to settle all criminal and civil charges surrounding the Deepwater Horizon explosion and the resulting oil spill, said industry analyst Martijn Rats.
Rats, Morgan Stanley’s head of European oil research, said in a research note that he thinks there is a 70-80 percent chance that BP will settle sometime between the company’s full year results on Feb. 7 and the Feb. 27 start of legal proceedings in New Orleans.
The estimated payout in Rats’ note is significantly greater than predicted by other analysts, and nearly twice the amount BP has prepared for.
Here’s how BP shares reacted to the news:
BP plc (NYSE:BP): BP shares recently traded at $44.71, up $0.15, or 0.34%. They have traded in a 52-week range of $33.62 to $49.09. Volume today was 7,425,321 shares versus a 3-month average volume of 6,791,340 shares. The company’s trailing P/E is 6.19, while trailing earnings are $7.22 per share.

BP Likely to Settle In Deepwater Horizon Case
Wall St. Cheat Sheet

6926

Imagine a scenario where I’m a driller on a well encountering the same scenario as on the Macondo.
We have managed to run the casing to TD and landed successfully in the wellhead. All metal displacement volumes are as defined by theoretical values (the driller has recorded every 5 joints run and verified the volume increase accordingly).
We establish circulation in stages of 200 liters/min up to 1000 lpm.
We start circulating and after a nervous period where we recognise that we have full returns from the well without any indication of expanding gas in the annulus, based on volumes being constant, we decide to go straight to the cement job.
Is this a good decision? Yes and no! Why would we not continue the full annulus circulation? Remember, everything is based on theoretical circulation pressure values. The driller, the Co Man and the logger are often continuously commenting on pressure values with a constant pump rate. If values are constant then we have an opportunity to move to the next stage, the cementing process. We stop the mud pumps, perform a flow check and verify the well is stable… if volumes in the trip Tank/Active system are constant.
Do we give up monitoring volumes because the flow check was ok? Never! Never! We must always monitor volumes.
The cement job is about to commence. We have a pre-job meeting. What do we discuss? Well, the complexity of mixing cement and pumping it downhole ‘nitrified’ is a big job to perform. Why? We have a team of approx 2 Halliburton Cementers mixing the cement in their own tanks, recording volumes pumped to the last liter for the sake of precision. Meantime, the logger verifies the volumes pumped versus returning volumes from the well. The process requires radios and constant communication because both the driller and logger must observe the volumes.
When pumping nitrified cement downhole, there is an obvious compression factor which has to be calculated in advance in order not to be alarmed while pumping and displacing the cement. This means that the driller doesn’t need to shut down operations unless the volume calculations are indicating an anomaly. What does this mean? We’re either losing mud or gaining back to the pits, losses or gains, a very common scenario while pumping cement. The lovely, beautiful, and scientifically proven version of how the job should have been performed will at some point be established by the famous organisations attempting to find out why this well blew! We’ve all read the versions which took over a year to publicise, the considered thoughts of great scientists from a variety of backgrounds (I’m still not sure why they didn’t seek the assistance of the very body of folk educating drilling personnel on the hazards to look out for, the drilling schools. If they had considered input from these people, sponsored and accepted by the government, they might be able to come to a very simple conclusion; the driller, toolpusher, the Co Man and the OIM seriously screwed up. Is that so hard to admit?).

So, we’re pumping nitrified cement. what do we expect to happen with active pit volumes? They’ll decrease according to the compression values the driller should have been presented with. I haven’t heard any different, and therefore accept that the volumes were fine…no gas coming up the annulus and no losses to the formation. If this was the case, then it’s a highly commendable achievement considering the narrow pore pressure between kick and formation breakdown, which I suggest has been overplayed by the investigating authorities in an attempt to further the specific frailties of BP, and by dragging up other offences we are able to make the shit stick!

So, nitrified cement is in place…but there is the anomaly concerning the volume displaced. What does this mean? It means that we may have overdisplaced without meaning to do so or…because we were told to do so by the BP Rep onboard (apparently, he consulted contractors). So, a positive test is performed by applying pressure from surface. It passed. So, the Casing suggested no leaks existed.

Wait on cement! They waited and the they ran in the hole with pipe to 8367 ft. This is the crucial challenge!
If I fill up two pits with 400 Bbls of heavy fluid (16 ppg LCM, as I recall), and 100 Bbls of SW and I tell the driller these are the pits the mud pumps are sucking from he will immediately update the pits in the active system, in order to monitor volumes. He also needs to know the pits receiving oil based mud back. He relays this information to the Logger, and we all know what’s planned. Hopefully, they all had a face to face meeting in advance of the operation!!

So, the driller starts the pumps and starts pumping heavy fluids through the drill pipe. When the fluids enter the Annulus, Bottom Hole pressure increases. So, he is keen to see that the well doesn’t incur any losses…even though a positive pressure test was conducted previously. After pumping the heavy fluid, the driller instructs the Derrickman to line up on SW. He then pumps the SW at maximum pump rate…while verifying volume pumped = volume back. The logger is constantly watching the progress and either listening on the radio or to the drillers instructions. Meanwhile, the man who devised the displacement plan is overseeing the progress, the mud engineer. And remember, his suggested plan has already been sanctioned by the OIM and the BP Co Man.

So, someone has calculated the strokes required to get the SW above the BOP (and the driller has verified as it’s his responsibility). We pump the planned strokes and shut down the pumps. What is the driller immediately interested in as the Toolpusher or Assistant Driller are closing the Annular? The drill pipe pressure should reflect the imbalance in the hydrostatic pressure and should indicate to him whether he has managed to pump all the heavy fluids on the Annulus side high enough in the Annulus. If not, he needs to keep pumping. Whatever happened, the Annular leaked when they went to vent off through the pipe (the first big mistake). So, they had a large volume of fluid drained back, and no-one is sure how much that was. No problem! They’ve cocked up. They close the Annular with more pressure and manage to get a seal. They re-perform the test by bleeding off through the drillpipe (no monitoring of the annulus side). There is considerably more flow then there’s supposed to be!! Alarm Bells ringing? No! But, they aren’t sure!

So, the Co Man states that the test should be conducted by monitoring both sides of the ‘u’, both drill pipe and the Annulus. This was achieved by monitoring the Kill side and drill pipe gauges simultaneously. So, they bleed off on the kill side and after a number of barrels back there is no further flow up the kill side and yet the drill pipe gauge is reading between 1200 and 1400 psi.

They thought about it and considered options. Somewhere in the debate, the BP Co Man was convinced of the ‘badder effect’ being responsible. Apparently, these educated folk on the rig believed that it was possible to show 1400 psi on the drill pipe gauge while showing no flow on the Annulus side! No engineer worldwide can explain what the phenomenon is! The simple fact is that they all screwed up seriously at avery critical point in the well. Apparently, they decided the cement barrier was intact!

So, the displacement begins. And. the backloading to boats is continued during the displacement. And, the logger is no longer required to monitor volumes…as requested by the Assistant Driller. At any time, the driller, AD or TP should have seen the obvious indication of pressure anomalies and shut in the well. It appears everyone was complacent, accepting that the cement barrier had been proven. Anyway, they just kept going, defying logic!

A blowout can only occur if we recognise what’s happening. If hydrocarbons are entering the well and we wait until the ‘returns’ are jettissoning above the rotary table, I have to tell you we are very very very late in our detection! We are compromising our ability to shut in the well and form a seal, with fluid erupting in such a forceful manner. The scenario confronting the crews would have been horrific!

I can understand that the various investigation teams want to ensure a complete analysis is performed, but the emphasis away from the bare facts leaves me hopelessly wondering if any of their degrees are worth any value or weight. To more or less absolve the folk on the vessel of any blame suggests to me that authorities are performing a dereliction of their duties. And, the lawyers just love all the bullshit associated.

BP, will get the bill for the spill. They’ll pay it because of contractual obligations. But, a blowout can only take place when drilling crews fail to monitor a well. TO, are responsible for the blowout and the demise of the Deepwater Horizon. It would be quite perfect to turn around and say that drilling crews have absolutely no responsibilities. The truth is that they have a responsibility to each and every person on the vessel.

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Thank You ALCOR for you post # 6643

“Imagine a scenario where I’m a driller on a well encountering the same scenario as on the Macondo.”
<><><><><><><>
Many good points in your scenario.

Could you elaborate a bit or express your opinion on the WOC (waiting on cement) time before the positive pressure test was executed. I’m interested because I have reservations about what I thought was a short period of time before jacking around with varying pressure on the casing & fresh cement job.

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[B]Here we go again,a potential repeat of the catastrophe of DWH,60 miles from the coast of Key West Fla,wake up,!!![/B]
[B]

[ul]
[li]About Us[/li][li]Our Blog[/li][/ul]Posted by: [B]lisaparavisini[/B] | January 21, 2012 Cuba set to explore offshore as oil rig arrives

[B]A huge drilling rig arrived Thursday in the warm Gulf waters north of Havana, where it will sink an exploratory well deep into the seabed, launching Cuba’s dreams of striking it rich with offshore oil, the Associated Press reports.[/B]
The Scarabeo-9 platform was visible from Havana’s sea wall far off on the hazy horizon as it chugged westward toward its final drill site about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the capital, and 60 miles (90 kilometers) south of Key West.
Spanish oil company Repsol RPF, which is leasing the rig for about a half-million dollars a day, said it expects to begin drilling within days to find out whether the reserves are as rich as predicted.
“The geologists have done their work. If they’ve done it well, then we’ll have a good chance of success,” Repsol spokesman Kristian Rix said by phone from Madrid. “It’s been a long process, but now we’re at the point where we discover whether our geologists have got it right. It’s a happy day.”
It’s been a long, strange journey for the Scarabeo-9, Repsol and Cuba, a process shadowed at every step by warnings of a possible environmental debacle and decades of bad blood between Cuba and the United States.
The U.S. trade embargo essentially bars U.S. companies from doing oil business with Cuba and threatens sanctions against foreign companies if they don’t follow its restrictions, making it far more complicated to line up equipment and resources for the project.
To avoid sanctions, Repsol chose the Scarabeo-9, a 380-foot-long (115-meter), self-propelled, semisubmersible behemoth built in China and Singapore and capable of housing 200 workers. The rig qualifies for the Cuba project because it was built with less than 10 percent U.S.-made parts, no small feat considering America’s dominance in the industry.
While comparable platforms sat idle in the Gulf of Mexico, the Scarabeo-9 spent months navigating through three oceans and around the Cape of Good Hope to arrive in the Caribbean at tremendous expense.
Even after the rig is in place, the embargo continues to affect just about every aspect.
The Scarabeo-9′s blowout preventer, a key piece of machinery that failed in the 2010 Macondo-Deepwater Horizon disaster, is state of the art. But its U.S. manufacturer is not licensed to work with Cuba so replacement parts must come through secondary sources.
It’s also more complicated to do things like the maintenance necessary to keep things running smoothly and decrease the chances of something going wrong.
If it does, Cuba would be hard-pressed to respond to a major spill on its own, and getting help isn’t as simple as making a phone call to Washington. The embargo would require licenses to be issued for all manner of equipment and services for an emergency response.
Few U.S. companies so far have gotten permission to work with the Cubans in the event of a spill — representing just 5 percent of all the resources thrown at the Macondo blowout, according to an estimate by Lee Hunt, president of the International Association of Drilling Contractors.
Two U.S. companies have received licenses to export capping stacks, crucial pieces of equipment for stopping gushing wells, but related services like personnel and transportation have not been green-lighted, Hunt said.
“So what you have is a great big intelligent piece of iron without a crew,” he said. “You can’t just drop it on the hole and hope (the spill) will stop. It’s not a cork.”
Even Tyvek suits worn by cleanup crews cannot currently be exported to Cuba because potentially they could be used for the construction of bacteriological or chemical weapons, Hunt added.
Meanwhile cooperation between the two governments, which often struggle to see eye-to-eye on things as basic as delivering each other’s mail, has been only bare-bones.
“With any other country — Mexico, Canada or Russia — we would already have in place agreements between the coast guards of the two countries,” said Dan Whittle, Cuba program director for the Environmental Defense Fund. “There would be contingency plans written and publicly available. There already would have been drills, a comprehensive action plan for responding to a spill.”
“We don’t have that yet.”
There has been some movement.
U.S. inspectors examined the rig last week in Trinidad and gave it a clean bill of health, though notably said that did not constitute any certification. And American representatives at a regional oil meeting last month in the Bahamas were left impressed by their Cuban counterparts’ openness and willingness to share information.
But the countries’ proximity has increased fears of a disastrous spill with the potential to foul not only Cuba’s reefs and gleaming, white-sand beaches, but also, swept up by the Gulf Stream, the coast of Florida and the Atlantic Seaboard up to North Carolina.
Curiously, those fears have been cited by people on both sides of the embargo issue: Some say the prospect of environmental disaster shows the U.S. needs to lift the embargo and work with the Cubans in the interest of safety; others say the fact that the trade ban failed to prevent Cuba from drilling shows it needs to be made even tougher.
Some of the harshest criticism has come from Cuban-American members of Congress such as House Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who recently accused the Obama administration of dropping the ball on Cuban drilling.
“Oil exploration 90 miles off the Florida coast by this corrupt, unaccountable dictatorship could result in horrific environmental and economic damage to our Gulf Coast communities, in addition to enriching the Castro tyranny,” Ros-Lehtinen said.
The exact size of Cuba’s offshore reserves, estimated at 5 billion to 9 billion barrels, is still unknown. And production would not come online for years, so any windfall is still on the horizon. But island officials are hopeful of a big strike that could inject much-needed cash into their struggling economy, and they’re not asking anyone for permission.
“Cuba is going through its own change regardless of American foreign policy,” said U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the U.S. Senate who met with Cuban officials in Havana this week on oil and other matters.
“This discovery, or potential discovery, of significant amounts of oil could dramatically change the economy of Cuba, and change the relationship with the United States in small ways and large,” Durbin said while visiting Haiti on Thursday

[/B]

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[QUOTE=Infomania;61282]Thank You ALCOR for you post # 6643

“Imagine a scenario where I’m a driller on a well encountering the same scenario as on the Macondo.”
<><><><><><><>
Many good points in your scenario.

Could you elaborate a bit or express your opinion on the WOC (waiting on cement) time before the positive pressure test was executed. I’m interested because I have reservations about what I thought was a short period of time before jacking around with varying pressure on the casing & fresh cement job.[/QUOTE]

The positive pressure test should either take place as soon as the plug is bumped (wet cement), or when it is cured, but not halfway through the curing process. The negative pressure test should be performed after the prescribed waiting time in order to ensure cracks/weaknesses don’t develop. BP call the shots on this based on advice from Halliburton and the verification of surface samples showing an indication of setting.

But, it doesn’t matter to the drilling contractor if the cement sets or not. We perform the negative test and it will tell us what the next stage in the well is. If it fails BP have an expensive problem to resolve. They may have to drill out the shoe track and set more cement plugs. The engineers will decide on the best solution based on cost and meeting the demands of Gov’t guidelines on acceptable and verified plugs. The rig move would be delayed. The rig contractor and Operator must stop the displacement and consider bullheading the hydrocarbons back into the well, and the problem of displacing back to mud would have to be performed through the rig Choke with applied back-pressure to ensure no further invasion of hydrocarbons occurs during the OBM displacement.

The drilling contractor and BP decided the cement had set and the negative test had passed. This clearly shows their collective lack of experience or their will to gamble with the unknown. They decided to continue the displacement to SW without any consideration for the possibility of the cement barrier suddenly failing (even though we know pressure build up on one side of the ‘U’ clearly indicated communication with the reservoir). So, this is a critical time in the well when we are supposed to verify volumes pumped against volumes back. The lack of any analysis on this subject as to the general practices in the GOM leaves me with the conclusion that all vessels have been switching off after barriers have been proved, and therefore, they have all been backloading without volume control. On this occasion, they payed the price.

From my point of view, I am only interested in tracking volumes as one of the early warning signs that all is not well. The lessons to all drilling contractors around the world is invaluable. Plan the displacement and include volume control if you want to avoid a needless blowout. We don’t want to be in a position again where we are over-intellectualising the failures in this well, as many of the reports have illustrated.

6930

Referenced to New Orleans Lady’s post about the Cuban Drilling rigs. Good find NOLA.

Seems obvious that a Macondo sized blowout and spill would not be contained within a relatively confined area.
BOTH Governments need to get the proper authorizations with ALL Departments in place to facilitate operations required to combat a spill.

Expending weeks or months on the front end of a spill clearing personnel, companies, and equipment has the potential to be catastrophic in regards to the potentially large area a spill off of Cuba might affect.

Compare this Link 2 minute simulation of the UNDERWATER plume path for Macondo to the current maps below.

6931

Fuel Fix » Judge denies BP request to penalize Halliburton


Published on January 20th, 2012
Written by: Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge shot down BP’s request to penalize Halliburton for allegedly destroying damaging evidence about the quality of its cement slurry that went into drilling the oil well that blew out in 2010 and caused the nation’s worst offshore oil spill.

BP did not prove that it had been “prejudiced” by Halliburton’s actions, U.S. Magistrate Judge Sally Shushan wrote in a ruling on Friday. But Shushan told Halliburton to turn over a computer that ran tests on the cement slurry. The judge ordered a third party to run forensics tests on the computer to see if data Halliburton says was lost can be retrieved.

BP made the allegations against Halliburton on Dec. 5 in advance of a trial over blame for the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon blast.

The explosion killed 11 workers and led to the release of more than 200 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

BP and its two main contractors on the ill-fated well, Halliburton Corp. and Transocean, have been sparring in advance of a trial that starts Feb. 27. U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier will decide fault for the spill in the first phase of the non-jury trial.

BP accused Halliburton employees of doing an internal investigation and discarding and destroying early test results after the blowout that found problems with the cement slurry. BP said Halliburton’s chief cement mixer for Gulf projects testified in depositions that the slurry seemed “thin” to him but that he chose not to write about his findings to his bosses out of fear he would be misinterpreted.

In defending itself against BP’s allegations over those early tests, Halliburton called the tests “random, informal post-incident testing” and said that their results in no way meant that the slurry used in the Macondo well was “unstable.”

Federal and independent investigations of the disaster have found fault in Halliburton’s cement job because it failed to properly plug the well. Halliburton used a foamy cement slurry.

While denying BP’s request to penalize Halliburton, Shushan told the companies to work quickly to do the forensic computer tests and gave them until Jan. 26 to appeal.

6932

Halliburton presses to protect confidential information

Louisiana’ Legal Journal
By Steve Korris
1/20/2012 9:55 AM

http://www.louisianarecord.com/mobile/story.asp?c=241129

NEW ORLEANS - BP hired former Halliburton cement engineer Ronald Crook as a last minute substitute for an expert that Magistrate Judge Sally Shushan disqualified for hiring former Halliburton cement engineer Michael Viator.

Halliburton hasn’t challenged new expert Ronald Crook, but continues pressing for disqualification of BP attorneys who worked with previous expert Fred Sabins.

“Just as Crook should not have any contact with Sabins’ tainted work product, he should not have contact with the attorneys who helped develop that work product,” Donald Godwin of Dallas wrote on Jan. 16.

He wrote that Viator had direct knowledge of Halliburton’s confidential information and worked directly with Sabins, who in turn worked directly with BP’s counsel.

“Once BP received notice of the conflict resulting from Sabins’ employment of Viator, it could have erected a wall between the attorneys who worked directly with Sabins and those who would work with the substitute expert,” he wrote.

He wrote that attorneys who worked with Sabins currently work with Crook.

“Allowing these attorneys to work as closely with Crook as they did with Sabin frustrates the integrity of the judicial process,” he wrote.

Crook faces a sharp learning curve, for U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier plans to start a fault allocation trial on Feb. 27.

BP blames the Deepwater Horizon explosion on the failure of cement that Halliburton Energy Services Inc. supplied.

Court records showed Crook would endure 16 hours of depositions on Jan. 17 and 18.

Shushan allotted six hours to Halliburton, which asked for seven.

She allotted five to the United States, which asked for five and a half.

She allotted two hours and five minutes to a plaintiff steering committee, which asked for four hours and 50 minutes.

She allotted an hour and 15 minutes to rig owner Transocean, which asked for an hour and a half.

She divided an hour and 45 minutes among rig contractors Weatherford, Cameron International, M-I, and Dril-Quip.

She gave BP 30 minutes for rebuttal.

Shushan disqualified Sabins and his firm, CSI Technologies of Houston, on Dec. 8.

Viator had developed software and strategy for Halliburton’s defense against BP.

“As to BP, it is a harsh result, but one which is warranted by Mr. Sabins’s actions and which is necessary to preserve the integrity of the judicial process,” Shushan wrote.

She wrote, “Sabins acted to his, CSI’s, and ultimately BP’s detriment.”

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier affirmed her order on Dec. 16.

Halliburton moved for clarification on Jan. 3, calling on Shushan to disqualify all BP counsel involved with Sabins, CSI, and Viator.

“The attorneys who worked with Sabins and CSI will inevitably taint the substitute expert,” Godwin wrote.

“Sabins did not submit an affidavit explaining his actions or the scope of his contact with Viator, and thus the use of HESI’s confidential information,” he wrote.

He wrote that clarification might avoid any delay of trial scheduling.

BP opposed the motion on Jan. 13, claiming Halliburton should have challenged counsel when it moved to disqualify Sabins.

“Halliburton’s delay has all the hallmarks of an attempt to use disqualification of counsel for tactical purposes, and the request should be considered for that reason alone,” Don Haycraft of New Orleans wrote.

"Halliburton does not even purport to identify misconduct by any BP attorney that violates ethical standards so as to warrant disqualification.

"Halliburton has not provided any evidence that BP’s counsel has actually received any Halliburton confidential information from Sabins.

"Viator had no contact with any of BP’s attorneys until his deposition.

“If the attorneys who worked with Sabins are prohibited at this point from working at all on cement issues, or even from working with BP’s substitute expert, BP’s ability to present a core part of its case against Halliburton will be severely compromised.”

Godwin replied, "Sabins made no effort to act in an ethical manner, and when BP learned of Sabins’ conduct, it made no effort to distance him from the case or withdraw his opinions.

"Instead, BP fought tooth and nail to utilize Sabins’ tainted opinions until this court disqualified him.

"The same can be said for the attorneys who worked with Viator and Sabins.

“After receiving clear and unequivocal evidence that Viator worked with HESI’s defense counsel in this litigation, these attorneys failed to erect any kind of wall between themselves and BP’s substitute expert.”

He wrote that Halliburton doesn’t seek Crook’s disqualification but seeks adequate protection of its confidential information.
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I wonder why BP does not retain an expert witness that is completely disassociated with Halliburton, like an expert associated with Schlumberger’s DeepCEM deepwater cementing additives orDeepCRETE deepwater cementing solutions.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
google search results for former Halliburton cement engineer Ronald J. Crook

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=safari&q="Ronald+j.+crook"&oq="Ronald+j.+crook"&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=s&gs_upl=20742l24378l0l27651l9l7l0l0l0l1l2411l3469l7-1.0.1l2l0&mvs=0

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BP poised to enter legal labyrinth
Financial Times
This is the court where Judge Carl Barbier, a federal judge for the US District Court in the eastern district of Louisiana, will hear case MDL10-2179: the big civil trial to resolve damages for the Deepwater Horizon disaster on April 20 2010. …

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Judge Pares Down Fees For Attorneys in BP Case | WJTV

NEW ORLEANS (AP) A federal judge has ruled that people pursuing their Gulf of Mexico oil spill claims against BP outside of federal court do not have to pay fees to hundreds of lawyers working on behalf of about 120,000 claimants fighting the oil giant in court.

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier issued the ruling Wednesday to clarify a previous ruling that left everyone still seeking damage payments from BP having pay 6 percent of their claims to lawyers suing BP and other companies involved in the nation’s largest offshore oil spill. Now, people attempting to settle out of court won’t have to pay the trial lawyers.

Also, Barbier approved this week an agreement between plaintiffs’ attorneys and the states of Louisiana and Alabama to set aside 4 percent of damage payments to pay for attorneys’ fees. The states are seeking damages for lost tax revenues, overtime and other costs to their treasuries that resulted from the spill.
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Common sense prevails after all.

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Speculation on a settlement.

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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/618b7500-45e3-11e1-9592-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1kLVoOiG4

By Ed Crooks in New York

Lawyers for plaintiffs suing for damages over the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010 have alleged that Tony Hayward, BP’s former chief executive, lied in a court statement and gave untruthful testimony to the US Congress when he testified about the spill.
In a filing at the court in New Orleans that will hear the trial of BP and other companies involved in the accident, the plaintiffs’ lawyers said Mr Hayward “at best, has a unique view of the truth”.
More

They alleged he had twice been untruthful when giving evidence to Congress in June 2010: when describing the scope of BP’s internal investigation into the disaster and when discussing the company’s spending on safety.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers also said Mr Hayward had “admitted that he had lied” about having a personal email account.
In a videotaped deposition for the trial, he initially denied having a personal account, but later said that he had a Yahoo email address, which was “an account I never used”.
Mr Hayward on Monday declined to comment on the legal proceedings.
The New Orleans trial is scheduled to start on February 27. It will hear the claims for damages and civil penalties brought by the US government and more than 120,000 individuals and businesses who say they suffered losses as a result of the disaster, which killed 11 men and caused the largest ever offshore oil spill.
The plaintiffs’ filing was made in response to an attempt from BP to exclude from the trial sections of evidence by Mr Hayward and others on the grounds that it resulted from “bad faith” questioning.
In a “motion in limine” – a request that some evidence should be ruled inadmissible – BP’s lawyers said Mr Hayward had been subjected by the plaintiffs’ team to “bad faith questions, ranging from self-serving speeches to sarcastic responses to personal attacks,” which “went beyond their right of inquiry into a zone of improper questioning and badgering the witness”.
One section objected to by BP extends over 13 pages of Mr Hayward’s deposition.
In response, the plaintiffs’ lawyers argued that Mr Hayward’s evidence to Congress showed it was “proper to question his veracity”.
In his evidence to Congress, the filing says, Mr Hayward testified that BP was conducting a “full and comprehensive investigation” of the blow-out that “would cover everything”.
However, the filing argues that in his deposition, Mr Hayward said the company’s internal investigation “did not look at the overarching management process at that time”.
Similarly, the plaintiffs argue, Mr Hayward told Congress that BP had “invested billions of dollars” and “recruited thousands of people” to improve safety, but had previously told investors that he had cut costs by $4bn and reduced headcount by 7,500.
The plaintiffs’ team rejected the suggestion that the questioning was improper or objectionable. The team argued that Sally Shushan, the magistrate in the case who has run much of the trial procedure, was present throughout, “and was never called upon to terminate the deposition or otherwise intervene” by lawyers for BP or Mr Hayward.
In a statement, BP said: “At least some of the issues raised in Mr. Hayward’s deposition will be the subject of trial testimony beginning next month. This includes the issue of BP’s internal investigation, whose core conclusions have been consistent with all official investigations.”

Comments
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ReportIan Alan Watson | January 24 2:46am | Permalink
Would anyone want to rely on Haywards words? I would seek to have his testimony examined for pergury

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I suppose Hayward’s name had to resurface at some time!
Vengeance, is a dirty word, and it allows no quarter to they who have mistakenly committed an unlawful act or crime from the clutches of the mob. Justice, requires that we sympathetically ‘listen’ to a man under intense duress while being cross-examined by men full of venom and hatred whose own credentials could never ever be defined as saintly.

In contrast, it’s interesting to discover that the Republican party are having trouble finding a single individual with comparable credentials to Hayward whom they may consider choosing to become the next President of The United States of America! Perhaps, the culture issue has no bounds!

I think Hayward spoke honestly with integrity and concern for the misfortune of all those who suffered. He didn’t do it like a bumbling idiot or a lamenting woman. He stood tall and accepted that his company had a hand in the demise of the Macondo Spill. He suggested that BP would provide its findings concerning the incident, which followed within three months of the incident. All of the other investigators used the BP findings as a blueprint for finding hidden failure and deceit. I think we all know that BP has been honourable from day one of the accident in all their actions, responsibilities and gestures. Remember, because of the way the system works, BP are contractually responsible. But, others caused the whole fiasco. BP, will pay the bill.

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“The plaintiffs’ lawyers also said Mr Hayward had “admitted that he had lied” about having a personal email account.
In a videotaped deposition for the trial, he initially denied having a personal account, but later said that he had a Yahoo email address, which was “an account I never used”.
Mr Hayward on Monday declined to comment on the legal proceedings.”
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Really, is this a crime or even a problem?

6940

Dril-Quip says it was cleared in Gulf spill - Houston Chronicle

http://www.chron.com/business/article/Dril-Quip-says-it-was-cleared-in-Gulf-spill-2682583.php

HOUSTON (AP) — Equipment maker Dril-Quip Inc. says a federal judge found it didn’t contribute to the Deepwater Horizon disaster two years ago.

Dril-Quip, which makes offshore drilling equipment that was on the rig at the time of the blowout, said Tuesday that U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier dismissed all claims against the company.

The company said the judge ruled Friday that Dril-Quip’s equipment didn’t appear to be connected to the well blowout on April 20, 2010.

The well, which was owned by BP PLC, Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and MOEX Offshore 2007 LLC, created the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

BP expects to spend more than $40 billion to clean up the spill and repair damages. It asserts that other contractors including service company Halliburton Co. and rig owner Transocean Ltd. contributed to the disaster. Civil and criminal investigations are still working to determine who is responsible.

Its shares finished at $66.42 on Monday. That is midway between its 52-week low of $47.40 set in early August and its high of $82.49 in mid-February of 2011.

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BP Executive Expected to Be First Trial Witness

http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=15436659

Today, 3:11 AM