The cement failed. Either during a test and during the drilling the cement failed to isolate the disaster.
The cement failed.
Among the most endangered species in the Oceans today is the Bottlenose Dolphin.
By Laurel Brubaker Calkins and Margaret Cronin Fisk on September 15, 2012
Deepwater Horizon Gear Failed Pre-Spill Test, Lawyers Say (click here)
Transocean Ltd. (RIG) employees talked about blaming the failure of the Deepwater Horizon’s blowout preventer on a bad cement job, after the device ‘blew up’ casing during a test two months before the rig exploded, according to an e-mail cited by lawyers suing the company.
An employee identified as Jess Richards “states that during a test of the lower annular, Transocean blew up their 22 casing,” lawyers suing Transocean and BP Plc (BP/) said of an e-mail that the rig owner turned over as part of the litigation. “She then remarks, ‘I’m sure we will find some way to blame it on the cementer,’” the attorneys said in a filing yesterday in federal court in New Orleans.
...“The precipitating cause of the Macondo incident was the failure of the downhole cement to isolate the reservoir,” Transocean said, based on an internal investigation issued 14 months after the Deepwater Horizon sank. In its report, the rig owner blamed Macondo’s bad cement job on faulty decisions and improper well design by BP and Halliburton....
...U.S. Magistrate Judge Sally Shushan ruled Sept. 4 that spill-victims’ lawyers may question Transocean Chief Executive Officer Steve Newman about that particular e-mail as well as other documents the company belatedly turned over in the litigation. She said the victims’ lawyers were disadvantaged by not having seen the memo before they questioned Newman the first time.
