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Hallibuton Pleads Guilty To Destroying Simulation Data From 2010 Gulf Oil Spill
An anonymous reader writes "Oilfield services giant Halliburton will plead guilty to destroying computer test results that had been sought as evidence in the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Justice Department announced Thursday. Company officials threw out test results that showed 'little difference' between the number of devices Halliburton said was needed to center the cement casing in the well at the heart of the disaster and the number well owner BP installed, according to court papers. The issue has been key point of contention between the two companies in hearings and litigation ever since the April 2010 blowout. BP and Halliburton are still battling over responsibility for the disaster in a New Orleans federal courtroom. BP had no comment on the plea agreement Thursday evening."
Cutesy, but the Gulf oil spill was 100% man made. Climate change is man made.
We're at a point in development where we know just enough to be dangerous. And we have a huge industry that's used to f*** up the planet at the whims of clueless and greedy economists.
The nature is big and resilient but not infinitely so. And when the shit starts hitting the fan the poor people who're least responsible for it bear the brunt of the burder, as always. Millions and millions will die thanks to the actions of the 1%.
"Under the plea agreement, which requires court approval, Houston-based Halliburton will also face three years' probation, pay the maximum fine of $200,000..."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/07/25/halliburton-guilty-plea-destroying-evidence-deepwater-horizon/2588105/
Not too bad... I think they may be able to afford it.
Plead guilty to destroying evidence and convicted of manslaughter ... and no one will go to jail. Try that in non-corporate America.
In my wildest conspiracy theories, the English Monarchy and other old money global illuminati types (Bush's?) purposefully had the well blown to punish America for stopping Keystone XL.
In my wildest conspiracy theories, the very rich and mighty are still people and fuck up often. The only difference is that they consider some millions of dollars to just be the expected cost of doing business.
Did they throw out the simulation code as well?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
If I pour crude oil into the ocean, destroy the livelyhoods of fishing communities and kill a few of people on an oil platform in a gas fire (and destroy some evidence), I'll get a couple of hundred $k fine. If I buy a gun and go out and shoot the same number of people (and survive the manhunt) I'll get the rest of my life being a jailhouse bitch. Now, I wonder which I would choose?? Haliburton, do you have any vacancies???
Editor. I do not think that word means what you think it means...
Halliburton perpetrates huge fraud on the government (in billions) and nothing is ever done.
They defraud another corporation, they're in trouble.
You see the pattern here? madoff is only in jail because he defrauded other rich people.
Plead guilty to destroying evidence and convicted of manslaughter ... and no one will go to jail.
Yep.
If the order was given to destroy data then there HAS to be a person who gave that order. It's time they were hunted down.
Presumably it's the same person who's now telling them to plead guilty (and save his ass from further investigation).
No sig today...
"Climate change is man made."
Sooooooo...., the climate didn't change on earth before man appeared here. REALLY?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq4Bc2WCsdE
Don't be an idiot. Of course it did. For many reasons, not one single factor. What's of concern is that there's a new player at the table: human activity. And whether it's altering climate fast enough to damage human life. And possibly render species extinct at a rate not seen in 65 million years.
Well, I don't know about engineering simulations, but I've worked with systems that did public health simulations. What laymen *think* a computer model can do is predict the future. And maybe in some cases a model can come close to doing that. But the real value of models is to generate questions and hypotheses for investigation.
The problem with models is that they're only as good as the input data you feed them, and in many cases the data is unknowable or based on assumptions you aren't sure of. And that leads to a practical application of a model. You don't say, "I know that X is true, therefore Y will or will not happen" because you almost certainly don't know everything you'd need to know to make such a positive prediction. Rather, you say, "If you are worried about Y, you'd better check on X."
Tthat Halliburton destroyed the documentation when it knew that documentation was needed for the DWH investigation makes me wonder whether simulation results suggested Transocean (the operators of DWH) ought to be paying attention to certain preventable factors that contributed to the disaster. Even if that didn't let Transocean off the hook, it might change the distribution of damages and fines paid by the responsible parties.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
My suspicious streak wonders if Anonymous Reader works in the BP PR department.
Ok, we're bringing up Halliburton, which is seen by some as the gold standard in corporate evil, but let's remember that it's BP (AKA Broke Pipeline Inc) that's the plaintiff in this case and are trying to shift the responsibility to Halliburton.
Given the stopping of preventive maintenance and replacing of experienced workers with cheaper ones that BP was widely known for, this is a bit of Pot Kettle Black.
Halliburton hasn't been tagged yet with overall responsibility for the spill as some headlines have claimed, but for destroying computer simulations done before the lawsuits started. That's bad, but it's not some get out of jail free card for BP. There's plenty of responsibility left to go around, and BP was the final word on that rig, not the contractors.
(Full disclosure: My brother worked for Arco before BP bought it. His division was spun off, but he heard quite a good deal about the bone stripping cost cutting that BP did after they bought it. That impacted repeated pipeline spills in Alaska and likely the Deepwater Horizon).