Halliburton: One Shoddy Piece of Work Among Many Revealed in Today's BP Study

This is a small piece of the investigation BP paid for and published today on the Deepwater Horizon disaster, pp. 57-60. (bold is mine) It speaks for itself.

Slurry Testing on Halliburton Products

The cement components were stocked on Deepwater Horizon. Halliburton shipped samples of those components to its laboratory in advance of the date on which the components were used for the Macondo well.  

Halliburton retained surplus samples from the testing program. However, the investigation team was unable to acquire and test these actual cement samples from the rig due to a court-ordered injunction on Halliburton to preserve this material. At the time this report was written, Halliburton had declined the investigation team’s requests for equivalent samples of the cement components used on the rig. The investigation team was, therefore, unable to conduct any lab testing using Halliburton products. The only sources for data derived from rig-sourced components are the lab test reports received from Halliburton. (Refer to Appendix J. Halliburton Lab Results - #73909/2.)

Evaluation of Halliburton Lab Test Results

The investigation team reviewed Halliburton laboratory test results dated April 12, 2010, and noted several discrepancies, as follows:

**Halliburton indicated in subsequent correspondence that this April 12, 2010, document reported results of slurry tests conducted on April 18, 2010.

**The report did not include testing for fluid loss, free water, foam/spacer/mud compatibility, static gel strength transition time, zero gel time or settlement. Testing for these parameters is commonly provided.

**Some of the data provided appeared to pre-date the April 18, 2010, slurry testing. 

At the time this report was written, the investigation team was unable to reconcile these discrepancies with Halliburton. 

After the accident, the investigation team contracted a third party cementing lab (CSI Technologies) to evaluate Halliburton’s lab reports and to conduct tests on representative cement products and additives. The purpose of this effort was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Halliburton cement slurry design....

Analysis—Cement Design

The investigation team identified that:

**The Halliburton lab tests on nitrified foam cement slurry had insufficient, non-representative nitrogen volume.

**The nitrified foam cement slurry tested and recommended by Halliburton had an abnormally low yield point.

**A defoamer additive was used in the nitrified foam cement slurry and could potentially destabilize a foamed slurry.

**The cement design did not include a fluid loss additive. It is established practice to control fluid loss in cement slurries that are placed across hydrocarbon zones.

**CSI Technologies could not generate stable nitrified foam slurry with a foam quality representative of, although not identical to, that used in the Macondo well.

Based on consideration of the properties and testing of the nitrified foam cement slurry used in the Macondo well, and on CSI Technologies’ lab results and analysis, the investigation team concluded that the nitrified foam cement slurry used in the Macondo

well probably experienced nitrogen breakout, nitrogen migration and incorrect cement density. This would explain the failure to achieve zonal isolation of hydrocarbons. Nitrogen breakout and migration would have also contaminated the shoe track cement and may have caused the shoe track cement barrier to fail.

Halliburton is a major player in the horizontal gas drilling business, and they are ruthlessly greedy. We don't want them in New York State. The damage they have already been a part to in Pennsylvania is horrific. They are dangerous and deceitful. 


We do not want them in our back yard tinkering with our water. Ever.


Never forget for even a moment the "Dick" Cheney connection.