Eideard

Halliburton Co faces lawsuits over groundwater pollution near a now-closed facility in Oklahoma that cleaned missile casings for the U.S. Defense Department during the Cold War.

Halliburton, which now specializes in oilfield services, said one of its units cleaned solid fuel from missile casings between 1965 and 1991 at a semi-rural facility on the north side of Duncan, Oklahoma. It was closed in the mid-1990s.

A component of the fuel was ammonium perchlorate, a salt that is highly soluble in water. Halliburton said it had been discovered in the soil and groundwater on its site and in certain residential water wells near the property.

The company said it was determining the extent of that contamination and that it had arranged to supply residents with bottled water and, if needed, a temporary water supply system…

The lawsuits, filed in Oklahoma state and federal courts starting late last month, claim the plaintiffs have suffered health problems such as hypothyroidism, which is associated with exposure to perchlorate over time…

According to Halliburton, the lawsuits claim it knew about the releases into groundwater of ammonium perchlorate and, in a federal lawsuit, nuclear or radioactive waste as well, and that Halliburton did not take corrective actions.

But after conducting soil and groundwater sampling along with the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, Halliburton said it only found nuclear or radioactive material in soil in a discrete area on the Duncan site, and that it was not present in groundwater.

“The radiological impacts from this discrete area are not believed to present any health risk for off-site exposure,” Halliburton said in the filing.

Rest easy. Folks in Duncan, Oklahoma, don’t really glow in the dark. They’re just poisoned.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

BP, running weeks behind schedule and tens of millions of dollars over budget trying to complete its troubled Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, took numerous shortcuts that contributed to the disastrous blowout and oil spill last year, federal investigators concluded in a report released Wednesday.

The central cause of the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig was a failure of the cement at the base of the 18,000-foot-deep well that was supposed to contain oil and gas within the well bore. That failure led to a cascade of human and mechanical errors that allowed natural gas under tremendous pressure to shoot onto the drilling platform, causing an explosion and fire that killed 11 of the 115 crew members and caused an oil spill that took 87 days to get under control.

The two-part report, compiled by a joint task force of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement and the United States Coast Guard and covering more than 500 pages, is the most comprehensive to date on the April 2010 disaster. Its findings largely mirror those of other investigations, including the inquiry by the commission named by President Obama to determine the causes of the calamity. That panel issued its findings in January.

“The loss of life at the Macondo site on April 20, 2010, and the subsequent pollution of the Gulf of Mexico through the summer of 2010 were the result of poor risk management, last-minute changes to plans, failure to observe and respond to critical indicators, inadequate well control response and insufficient emergency bridge response training by companies and individuals responsible for drilling at the Macondo well and for the operation of the Deepwater Horizon,” the latest report said.

It concluded that BP, as the well’s owner, was ultimately responsible for the accident. But it also said that BP’s chief contractors, Transocean, which owned the mobile drilling rig, and Halliburton, which was responsible for the cementing operations, shared blame for many of the fatal mistakes.

RTFA. It’s about what I expected.

So it was. So it is.

The probe of diesel use in hydraulic fracturing, a practice that has allowed drillers to tap abundant shale gas, found that oil services firms such as Halliburton and BJ Services, which was bought by Baker Hughes Inc, injected millions of gallons of fluids containing the fuel into wells between 2005 and 2009. A total of 12 companies were cited in the probe for using diesel without proper permits.

Critics say the chemicals used in the process, called “fracking,” can contaminate drinking water.

In 2003, the Environmental Protection Agency entered into a voluntary agreement with Halliburton, BJ Services and Schlumberger to eliminate the use of diesel fuel in hydraulic fracturing fluids injected into coalbed methane wells.

In addition, a 2005 energy law exempted hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act, except when diesel is used…

Democrats who sponsored the probe in the House of Representatives urged the EPA to look into this matter…

The fracking probe was initiated by House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee last year when it was headed by Waxman…

Some lawmakers have called for federal regulation of the practice beyond the use of diesel fuel, but with Republicans now in control of House such legislative action appears unlikely.

Wow, there’s a surprise.

The Republicans will probably [1] forgive the pollution retroactively; and [2] appoint a new commission to be headed by Dick Cheney and charged with reducing environmental restraints on any and all new extraction processes the Oil Patch Boys come up with.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Halliburton and BP knew weeks before the fatal explosion of the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico that the cement mixture they planned to use to seal the bottom of the well was unstable but still went ahead with the job…

In the first official finding of responsibility for the blowout, which killed 11 workers and led to the largest offshore oil spill in American history, the commission staff determined that Halliburton had conducted three laboratory tests that indicated that the cement mixture did not meet industry standards.

The result of at least one of those tests was given on March 8 to BP, which failed to act upon it, the panel’s lead investigator, Fred H. Bartlit Jr., said in a letter delivered to the commissioners…

Another Halliburton cement test, carried out about a week before the blowout of the well on April 20, also found the mixture to be unstable, yet those findings were never sent to BP, Mr. Bartlit found.

Although Mr. Bartlit does not specifically identify the cement failure as the sole or even primary cause of the blowout, he makes clear in his letter that if the cement had done its job and kept the highly pressured oil and gas out of the well bore, there would not have been an accident…

The failure of the cement set off a complex and ultimately deadly cascade of events as oil and gas exploded upward from the 18,000-foot-deep well. The blowout preventer, which sits on the ocean floor atop the well and is supposed to contain a well bore blowout, also failed…

The commission obtained from Halliburton samples of the same cement recipe used on the failed well, including the same proportion of nitrogen used as a leavening agent and a number of chemicals used to stabilize the mixture. The cement slurry was sent to a laboratory owned by Chevron for independent testing.

The mixture failed nine separate stability tests designed to reproduce conditions at the BP well and did not pass any, according to Chevron’s test results, which were returned to the commission this week.

Enough said. Now, we can look forward to years of politicians, pundits, pimps and lawyers delaying resolution of the disaster. Survivors be damned will be the rule of the day.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Scientists have found a decline in oxygen levels in the Gulf of Mexico following the BP oil spill but have found no “dead zones” as a result, a federal task force reported.

Levels of dissolved oxygen in deep water have dropped about 20 percent below their long-term average, according to data collected from up to 60 miles from the well at the center of the worst oil spill in U.S. history. But much of that dip appears to be the result of microbes using oxygen to dissolve oil underwater, and the decline is not enough to be fatal to marine life, said…Steve Murawski, the head of the Joint Analysis Group studying the spill’s impact.

“Even the lowest observations in all of these was substantially above the threshold,” Murawski said…

Early findings from a mid-August survey led by the University of South Florida indicated oil had settled to the bottom of the Gulf further east than previously suspected and at levels toxic to marine life. At about the same time, a team from Georgia Sea Grant and the University of Georgia released a report that estimates that 70 to 79 percent of the oil that leaked from the well “has not been recovered and remains a threat to the ecosystem.”

The latest study “does not discuss the broad ecosystem consequences of hydrocarbons released into the environment,” NOAA said. But it concludes that the oil is continuing to break up and disperse underneath the surface, making the emergency of a major oxygen-poor dead zone unlikely…

BP, rig owner Transocean and well cement contractor Halliburton have blamed each other for the disaster. BP plans to release the findings of its internal investigation of the accident on Wednesday, the company said.

My money’s on Halliburton. Mostly because they have a history of screwing-up in similar disasters – like one off the coast of Australia, last year.

Now, we can return to the usual dead zone caused by pesticide runoff and other profit-based crud streaming out into the Gulf through the Mississippi delta.

The judge who overturned deepwater drilling bans allowing BP to resume oil extraction in the Gulf of Mexico, had shares in Transocean and other firms in the industry, it was revealed.

A Louisiana-based judge Martin Feldman ruled that Barack Obama’s six-month drilling moratorium in the Gulf was unjustified because it assumed that all deepwater drilling was as dangerous as BP’s…

Feldman’s most recent financial disclosure forms show that he was paid dividends from his shares in Transocean, the firm that owned the Deepwater oil rig that exploded in April killing 11 oil workers, prompting America’s worst environmental disaster.

The forms, which relate to the calendar year 2008, also show that he sold shares in Halliburton, which was also involved in the disaster.

Feldman’s other interests included Ocean Energy, Quicksilver Resources, Prospect Energy, Peabody Energy, Pengrowth Energy Trust, Atlas Energy Resources, and Parker Drilling…

Feldman has yet to respond to the disclosures. He is one of many federal judges across the Gulf Coast region with money in oil and gas. Several have disqualified themselves from hearing spill-related claims, while others have sold their holdings so they can preside over many cases being filed.

Sounds like business as usual in Louisiana – and in the Oil industry. A pretense at objectivity may be affected in some American courtrooms; but, not especially for cases involving corporate wealth and power.

It’s the American Way.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Calling the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico the “greatest environmental disaster of its kind,” President Barack Obama vowed to prosecute those responsible.

“If our laws were broken, leading to this death and destruction, my solemn pledge is that we will bring those responsible to justice ,” Obama said.

The president delivered those words as Attorney General Eric Holder announced a federal investigation into whether criminal or civil laws were violated in connection with the spill…

Holder last month dispatched Justice Department lawyers to the spill region to explore whether laws had been broken. Investigators have directed BP and other companies to preserve documents related to the disaster. Although government officials would not say who was being targeted in the criminal investigation, the probe could center on actions by well owner BP and rig owner Transocean…

And no one mentions Halliburton. They were performing the cementing prior to turning the well over to production. They were the outfit performing the same function on the drilling platform that exploded into fire in similar fashion off the coast of Australia, last year.

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BP, TransOcean, Halliburton
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

BP was aware of equipment problems aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig hours before the explosion pumped millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, a congressional hearing was told yesterday .

In a second day of hearings, the House of Representatives’s energy and commerce committee said documents and company briefings suggested that BP, which owned the well; Transocean, which owned the rig; and Halliburton, which made the cement casing for the well, ignored tests in the hours before the 20 April explosion that indicated faulty safety equipment.

“Yet it appears the companies did not suspend operations, and now 11 workers are dead and the gulf faces an environmental catastrophe,” Henry Waxman, the chair of the energy and commerce committee, said, demanding to know why work was not stopped.

The committee heard testimony from oil executives suggesting multiple failures of safety systems that should have given advance warning of a blowout, or should have promptly cut off the flow of oil.

The failures included a dead battery in the blowout preventer, suggestions of a breach in the well casing, and failure in the shear ram, a device of last resort that was supposed to cut through and seal the drill pipe in the event of a blowout.

Nothing has changed since I worked in the offshore oil drilling industry, decades ago. Preventive technology has improved. The willingness of corporate bosses to take a position on the side of safety – still appears to be non-existent.

Army called in to guard torpedos that missed target

A grim report circulating in the Kremlin today written by Russia’s Northern Fleet is reporting that the United States has ordered a complete media blackout over North Korea’s torpedoing of the giant Deepwater Horizon oil platform owned by the World’s largest offshore drilling contractor Transocean that was built and financed by South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. Ltd., that has caused great loss of life, untold billions in economic damage to the South Korean economy, and an environmental catastrophe to the United States…

On the night of April 20th the North Korean Mini Submarine manned by…“suicidal” 17th Sniper Corps soldiers attacked the Deepwater Horizon with what are believed to be 2 incendiary torpedoes causing a massive explosion and resulting in 11 workers on this giant oil rig being killed outright. Barely 48 hours later, on April 22nd , this North Korean Mini Submarine committed its final atrocity by exploding itself directly beneath the Deepwater Horizon causing this $1 Billion oil rig to sink beneath the seas and marking 2010’s celebration of Earth Day with one of the largest environmental catastrophes our World has ever seen.

To the reason for North Korea attacking the Deepwater Horizon, these reports say, was to present US President Obama with an “impossible dilemma” prior to the opening of the United Nations Review Conference of the Parties to the Treat on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) set to begin May 3rd in New York.

This “impossible dilemma” facing Obama is indeed real as the decision he is faced with is either to allow the continuation of this massive oil leak catastrophe to continue for months, or immediately stop it by the only known and proven means possible, the detonation of a thermonuclear device.

Every nutball south of Sarah has joined in on this one.

Here’s your chance!

An oil-drilling procedure called cementing is coming under scrutiny as a possible cause of the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico that has led to one of the biggest oil spills in U.S. history…

The process is supposed to prevent oil and natural gas from escaping by filling gaps between the outside of the well pipe and the inside of the hole bored into the ocean floor. Cement, pumped down the well from the drilling rig, is also used to plug wells after they have been abandoned or when drilling has finished but production hasn’t begun.

In the case of the Deepwater Horizon, workers had finished pumping cement to fill the space between the pipe and the sides of the hole and had begun temporarily plugging the well with cement; it isn’t known whether they had completed the plugging process before the blast.

Regulators have previously identified problems in the cementing process as a leading cause of well blowouts, in which oil and natural gas surge out of a well with explosive force…

The scrutiny on cementing will focus attention on Halliburton Co., the oilfield-services firm that was handling the cementing process on the rig, which burned and sank last week…

Halliburton also was the cementer on a well that suffered a big blowout last August in the Timor Sea, off Australia. The rig there caught fire and a well leaked tens of thousands of barrels of oil over 10 weeks before it was shut down. The investigation is continuing…

Federal officials declined to comment on their investigation, and Halliburton didn’t respond to questions from The Wall Street Journal.

Golly gee, that’s a surprise.

When it comes to sleazy business dealings our nation is working hard at establishing new records for death and destruction.