Deepwater Horizon Cement was Subpar
The Washington Post reports:
A cement mixture intended to temporarily seal BP's Macondo exploration well repeatedly failed lab tests before the April 20 blowout, a presidential commission investigating the oil spill said Thursday.
As early as February, oil-field service giant Halliburton was getting poor results in lab tests of the recipe for the cement it was planning to use, according to evidence collected by the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling.
Three separate tests suggested that the mixture would be "unstable," according to a commission staff letter released Thursday. Halliburton notified BP by e-mail about only one of the tests before the well explosion, according to the commission. The two companies went ahead with the cementing job anyway. Its failure became the first in a cascade of factors leading to the accident.
The results of a fourth Halliburton test - the only one indicating that the cement slurry might have been able to contain the high-pressure pool of oil and gas at the bottom of the Macondo well - were not available until the night of April 19 at the earliest and perhaps not until after the cement was poured, the commission staff said.
The oil spill commission is sifting through the events leading to the April 20 explosion, which killed 11 workers, sank the Deepwater Horizon and triggered a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The cement at the bottom of the exploratory well was supposed to have provided a seal until a production facility could be built.
The reason for the cement job's failure has been a matter of dispute for months. Halliburton has pointed at BP; BP has challenged Halliburton. Experts still differ.
Halliburton late Thursday night issued a statement disputing the commission staff's letter, calling the February tests "preliminary" and saying that "final well conditions were not known at that time." The company asserted that it informed BP about the later tests. It called one of those "irrelevant" and said that some adjustments were made after the final test.
The news spooked shareholders; Halliburton's stock closed at $31.68 a share, down nearly 8 percent. BP said it had no comment.
