What did Halliburton do to the Deepwater Horizon drill hole,
April 19, 2010?
Part 1
By: Devvy
July 6, 2010
"This is not an environmental disaster, and I will say that again and again because it is a natural phenomenon," Congressman Don Young [R-Alaska]
Millions of words have already been written about the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon platform, April 20, 2010, and the horrific damage done and that will still come from the massive gushing of oil.
Right off the bat, the world screamed for BP to do something - anything - to stop the oil belching into the beautiful Gulf of Mexico. Hundreds of millions of people around the globe continued to watch this massive disaster unfold. Thousands in the gulf region immediately began to lose their income and as the weeks wore on with one failed attempt after another to shut off the source of the "spill," reality began to really sink in: Our fellow Americans by the thousands will go bankrupt, losing their livelihoods, businesses and their homes. The normal tourist season would not materialize. State and local government began to feel the short term effects and realize the long term destruction to their cities, towns and environment was just beginning. Photos of dead dolphins, bodies bloated with oil, pelicans drenched in black oil, rusty oil clogging marshlands and beaches covered in oil hit the Internet. As I haven't watched ABC, NBC or CBS "news" for more than 30 years, I have no idea their coverage.
BP went into high gear with their public relations machine assuring the world they would return the Gulf of Mexico to its original splendor and make everything right. Their corporation would compensate Americans for their legitimate losses. To say it's been a nightmare by BP from day one is the understatement of the century. Lies flowed like the oil gushing from the damaged drill hole. Payments were and are slow to reach those who desperately need it. From our hard working fishing industry, the family owned gift shop at one of the beaches, hotels, the shop that rents various recreational vehicles, you name it.
The money has been coming from BP, but not fast enough and the long term destruction to all the business owners and those who live in the gulf region could run into several trillion dollars. We just don't know at this time.
Then came the warnings about people getting sick from the dispersant Corexit. The EPA told BP to stop using so much; BP ignored them. I have to wonder if it's because that rig was way out in international waters - some 50 miles?
Then came more photos of huge plumes of oil under the water, driven down by the dispersants which were in turn, making rescue workers sick. Warnings were issued - not by BP - but by independent scientists and those with the knowledge to understand the effects of methane gas and all the other highly toxic chemicals. Local residents all along the gulf began reporting a variety of illnesses. There has been a great deal of talk and some reports about evacuating areas of the gulf, i.e., the Tampa, Florida area. This is so horrible for everyone affected. Having to be forced from their homes is the last thing people need, but if the air is as dangerous as some of the testing has showed, what are they to do?
Literally within a couple of days after the explosion, my email box filled up with all kinds of conspiracy theories and nonsense. Independent web sites shouted headlines that could not be proved, based purely on rank speculation. One web site claims: "The 'disaster' in the Gulf of Mexico is beyond a false flag; it's an illusion. What I'm about to reveal will more than likely go by the wayside, and the charade will continue. The reason for writing this is not for attention, games, or folly, but to expose the biggest scam in the 21st century, and to relieve some aching hearts. There is no need for fear as this is a staged event. I cannot reveal my sources, they do go straight to the top, but hopefully what I write will echo inside of each person reading this as the truth.....Much of the information I present here cannot be easily verified, fast checked, or ever presented as anything, but hearsay, as they are just words of an anonymous online entity."
Where have I read that one before?
The claim made is that the BP disaster is an illusion, a hoax. What really happened is BP drilled into the side of an asphalt volcano. A lot of talk about this asphalt volcano, but doesn't give a location The justification given is this web site. If you read that piece, you'll learn about the Chapopote Knolls which are located in the Southern part of the Gulf of Mexico which encompasses part of the southwest and south by Mexico. It also includes some area by Cuba. The Deepwater Horizon was located 50 miles off shore and no where even close to the Chapopote Knolls.
While asphalt volcanoes are in the Gulf, after a good hour of searching I could fine absolutely no where any data that Deepwater Horizon was located near, by or on an asphalt volcano. Let me just throw this out: Do you really think with all the money involved, like hundreds of millions of dollars, to bring a rig to pumping stage, any oil company would deliberately drill right into one of those volcanos? With all the technology they have to search the ocean beds and do their testing they would be that dumb?
That claim by the above referenced web site is now all over the Internet and repeated as fact. Asphalt volcanoes, what are they? Here is a good web site to get the facts. There was a major discovery of one off the coast near Santa Barbara a few years ago.
One thing that isn't speculation is the pain for the families who lost their loved ones that day. Eleven workers died and to this day, their remains have never been recovered. Because BP has maintained a thick wall of secrecy, we don't even know if any effort was made to recover those bodies. I do know (because I watched the hearings on the boob tube), that BP never contacted the family members of those killed with so much as a phone call. Nothing. I watched one woman, now a widow, tell our current crop of corrupt U.S. Senators during the hearings of her pain; how much she loved her husband and he is gone forever. I darn near started crying my eyes out.
As I always do, I collect news items and try to research the when, who and why every time something horrible happens. It's always depressing. I also believe one should go back to where and when the problem started. In this case, we know that Halliburton worked on that drill hole 20 hours before the explosion. Halliburton is a corrupt corporation that employs thousands of decent, hard working Americans who either don't know how rotten their employer is, don't care OR are those employees who will do anything for a paycheck. Halliburton's reputation is rancid.
Anyway, let's get back to the big question: Was this a real accident (and they do happen), were dangerous short cuts taken or was that drill hole sabotaged? BP leased the Deepwater Horizon platform from Transocean. One thing that needs to be scrutinized are the work orders given to Halliburton for the work done on that drill hole, the pipes and any other scope of work that had been performed right up to the explosion.
May 1, 2010. Spill probe puts Halliburton in spotlight
"Investigators delving into the causes of the massive Gulf oil spill are examining the role of Houston-based Halliburton Co., the giant energy services company that was responsible for cementing the deepwater drill hole, as well as the possible failure of equipment leased to British Petroleum.....
"After an exploration well is drilled, cement slurry is pumped through a steel pipe or casing and out through a check valve at the bottom of the casing. It then travels up the outside of the pipe, sheathing the part of the pipe surrounded by the oil and gas zone. When the cement hardens, it is supposed to prevent oil or gas from leaking into adjacent zones along the pipe.
"As the cement sets, the check valve at the end of the casing prevents any material from flowing back up the pipe. The zone is thus isolated until the company is ready to start production. "The process is tricky. A 2007 study by the U.S. Minerals Management Service found that cementing was the single most-important factor in 18 of 39 well blowouts in the Gulf of Mexico over a 14-year period.
"Halliburton has been accused of performing a poor cement job in the case of a major blowout in the Timor Sea off Australia last August. An investigation is under way. In its statement, the company said: “Halliburton originated oil field cementing and leads the world in effective, efficient delivery of zonal isolation and engineering for the life of the well, conducting thousands of successful well-cementing jobs each year.”
"The company had four employees stationed on the rig at the time of the Gulf accident, all of whom were rescued by the Coast Guard. It had completed the final cementing of the well and pipe 20 hours before the blowout April 20. But at the time of the accident, “well operations had not yet reached the point requiring the placement of the final cement plug, which would enable the planned temporary abandonment of the well,” the Halliburton statement said. Experts were cautious about attributing blame, pending what are expected to be lengthy investigations by Congress and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Coast Guard.
“What we do know is that highly pressurized oil is coming out of the wellhead with no control possible at this time,” said Richard Charter, a drilling expert with the Defenders of Wildlife. “For that to happen, at least three redundant fail-safe mechanisms on and below the rig had to either fail to operate or not have been properly installed.”
"Charter said a piece of equipment known as the blowout preventer is required to shut automatically, according to regulations by the Minerals Management Service. “And it obviously did not,” he said. "Moreover, he added, a manual acoustic shutoff switch could have stanched the flow but may not have been available.
"Joe Leimkuhler, past president of the American Association of Drilling Engineers, said it was difficult to speculate about the role of cementing in the accident. “The process to place the cement in the well is very similar from job to job, but the details that make up the risk and challenges are specific to each well. You really need the details of the well design and the formation characteristics.” He added that only the companies involved have that information.
"Some speculation has centered on methane pockets frozen into crystallized formations beneath the seabed that could be warmed by the cementing process and become unstable. A 2009 Halliburton presentation to the drilling engineers association described the challenges of methane hydrates, asking: “When do hydrates become unstable?” and “Will cement hydration cause this outcome?” The presentation noted that “gas release is a challenge for safety and economics.”
Something happened in the days leading up to the explosion and after Halliburton worked on that drill hole. The truth must be found.
As I'm not trained in the field of oil rigs and drilling, I tried to find a qualified source to explain the process (covered to a small degree above). I believe this one provides a factual explanation of what happened from a petroleum engineer with 30 years experience:
May 29, 2010. What's really happening in the Gulf Oil Spill
"I appreciate all of the concern with the disaster in the gulf, but there is an awful lot of ignorance concerning the mechanisms both on ATS as well as the myriad of so-called experts in the MSM. I am posting this thread, since I have been in the oil business for over 30 years working as a petroleum engineer and have actually designed drilled and operated oil & gas wells. This explanation may get too technical, but at least it will expose and dissipate myths concerning this disaster." Very informative read.
June 29, 2010. Ralph Whitley who heads up Backflow Prevention, Inc., was a guest on my radio show. Ralph walked my listeners through his company's efforts when they contacted BP immediately following the explosion with the solution. According to Ralph, the spilling could have been stopped fairly quickly. Not easy, but doable because accidents happen out there all the time. (The federal Minerals Management Service has recorded more than 500 fires on platforms in the gulf since 2006.) They are still waiting for BP to contact them; you could sense the frustration and sadness in his voice. If you want to listen to my interview with Ralph, which also covers the very real danger to humans from the chemicals, please click here to my archives.
Former Chief Scientist of US Navy has suggestions for BP - Why isn't this resource being explored?
June 4, 2010— John Pena Craven's job was solving problems deep under the Ocean for the Navy including an oil well leak off the coast of Santa Barbara, California. Craven’s job as the Director of the Navy’s Office of Special Projects required him to deal with many challenges. Despite his history of solving problems as intractable as the current BP oil leak, nobody has contacted Craven.
I hope you can take the time to listen to that show because one of the things Ralph discussed is cement and seawater as it is used for those drill holes. I have read that Halliburton may have used diluted seawater. I do know some of the statements from survivors that day point to potential criminal conduct by both Halliburton and BP:
June 9, 2010. Rig survivors: BP ordered shortcut on day of blast
"The morning the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, a BP executive and a Transocean official argued over how to proceed with the drilling, rig survivors told CNN's Anderson Cooper in an exclusive interview. The survivors' account paints perhaps the most detailed picture yet of what happened on the deepwater rig -- and the possible causes of the April 20 explosion. The BP official wanted workers to replace heavy mud, used to keep the well's pressure down, with lighter seawater to help speed a process that was costing an estimated $750,000 a day and was already running five weeks late, rig survivors told CNN.
"BP won the argument, said Doug Brown, the rig's chief mechanic. "He basically said, 'Well, this is how it's gonna be.' ...Shortly after the exchange, chief driller Dewey Revette expressed concern and opposition too, the workers said, and on the drilling floor, they chatted among themselves. "I don't ever remember doing this," they said, according to Barron. "I think that's why Dewey was so reluctant to try to do it," Barron said, "because he didn't feel it was the right way to have things done."
"Revette was among the 11 workers killed when the rig exploded that night."
It also appears that safety was flushed for expediency for which BP and possibly Halliburton will pay for a long, long time:
May 6, 2010. Safety fluid was removed before oil rig exploded in Gulf
"The investigation into what went wrong when the Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20 and started spilling millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico is sure to find several engineering failures, from cement seals that didn't hold back a powerful gas bubble to a 450-ton, 40-foot-tall blowout preventer, a stack of metal valves and pistons that each failed to close off the well.
"There was, however, a simpler protection against the disaster: mud. An attorney representing a witness says oil giant BP and the owner of the drilling platform, Switzerland-based Transocean Ltd., started to remove a mud barrier before a final cement plug was installed, a move industry experts say weakens control of the well in an emergency.
"When the explosion occurred, BP was attempting to seal off an exploratory well. The company had succeeded in tapping into a reservoir of oil, and it was capping the well so it could leave and set up more permanent operations to extract its riches.
"In order to properly cap a well, drillers rely on three lines of defense to protect themselves from an explosive blowout: a column of heavy mud in the well itself and in the drilling riser that runs up to the rig; at least two cement plugs that fit in the well with a column of mud between them; and a blowout preventer that is supposed to seal the well if the mud and plugs all fail.
"In the case of the Deepwater Horizon, Scott Bickford, a lawyer for a rig worker who survived the explosions, said the mud was being extracted from the riser before the top cement cap was in place, and a statement by cementing contractor Halliburton confirmed the top cap was not installed."
Why? Why, if all the experts in this field say such and such must be done at a certain stage of operation - did Halliburton not do what is required to insure a disaster like we're seeing doesn't occur? Who made that decision?
Devvy Kidd authored the booklets, Why A Bankrupt America and Blind Loyalty; 2 million copies distributed. Devvy appears on radio shows all over the country. She left the Republican Party in 1996 and has been an independent voter ever since. Devvy is a constitutionalist who believes in the supreme law of the land, not some political party.
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