Halliburton did not respond to AP requests for comment.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jXPlR-dnGz8bZVGgYh2-O49Ve6xgD9FSVL204

AP IMPACT: Bad cement jobs plague offshore rigs

By MITCH WEISS and JEFF DONN (AP) – 3 days ago

The tricky process of sealing an offshore oil well with cement — suspected as a major contributor to the Gulf of Mexico disaster — has failed dozens of times in the past, according to an Associated Press investigation.

Yet federal regulators give drillers a free hand in this crucial safety step — another example of lax regulation regarding events leading up to the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. snip

There are three major U.S. cementing companies: Halliburton, Schlumberger and BJ Services. Cementing is typically performed by such rig contractors as part of a broad range of drilling services that they supply.

Halliburton, which had the Deepwater Horizon job, mixes in nitrogen to make its slurry more elastic. The nitrogen also helps create a lightweight cement that resembles a gray foamy mousse and bonds better to the casing. snip

In the aftermath of the blowout, questions have been raised about the safety of nitrogen-laced cement foam. But several cementing experts told the AP it is a sound technique. Halliburton says it has used such a mix on scores of wells and told a congressional committee that the cementing on the Deepwater Horizon job was successful.

Halliburton did not respond to AP requests for comment.

Where is Dick Cheney anyway? :grr:

which takes a sample of the drilling mud from the deepest part of the well to measure pressures and temperatures there. An attorney for Halliburton, the cementing contractor on the rig, asked Harrell if he was aware that Halliburton had "recommended running substantially more mud than BP decided to run," but Harrell said he was not aware of that and wasn't concerned about the lack of a bottoms-up test.

Douglas Brown also testified Wednesday that he'd heard Harrell leave the morning meeting and say in frustration, "Well, I guess that's what we have those pinchers for." Harrell said he may have said that and would have been referring to the possibility that they would have to employ the last-ditch shear rams on the blowout preventer to shut off the well in an emergency. He said the reason he would have said that was to prepare his crew for the possibility that the cement, a relatively new kind of nitrogen-infused cement from Halliburton, could cause problems.

Harrell said the Deepwater Horizon had used the nitrified cement to seal well casings at shallow depths, but never on the full length of a well as deep as this one. He said he'd heard of other rigs where nitrogen from the cement got into the riser and caused problems. The nitrified cement is supposed to bond faster and prevent the slurry from channeling into the surrounding rock formation.

more: http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/hearings_negative_test_to_meas.html

Did Deepwater methane hydrates cause the BP Gulf explosion?
¬snip¬

Methane hydrates are volatile compounds — natural gas compressed into molecular cages of ice. They are stable in the extreme cold and crushing weight of deepwater, but are extremely dangerous when they build up inside the drill column of a well. If destabilized by heat or a decrease in pressure, methane hydrates can quickly expand to 164 times their volume.

Survivors of the BP rig explosion told interviewers that right before the April 20 blast, workers had decreased the pressure in the drill column and applied heat to set the cement seal around the wellhead. Then a quickly expanding bubble of methane gas shot up the drill column before exploding on the platform on the ocean's surface.

Even a solid steel pipe has little chance against a 164-fold expansion of volume — something that would render a man six feet six inches tall suddenly the height of the Eiffel Tower.

Scientists are well aware of the awesome power of these strange hydrocarbons. A sudden large scale release of methane hydrates is believed to have caused a mass extinction 55 million years ago. Among planners concerned with mega-disasters, their sudden escape is considered to be a threat comparable to an asteroid strike or nuclear war. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a Livermore, Ca.-based weapons design center, reports that when released on a large scale, methane hydrates can even cause tsunamis.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=537027

everyone is talking about the oil being released, but nothing is said about the methane.

...certainly put a blip in atmospheric methane levels.

A sudden nasty thought, methane is a very potent greenhouse gas. Will enough linger over the gulf to raise local temperatures significantly? Could this lead to an intensifying of storms and hurricanes that build over the gulf this season? Particularly if efforts to disperse the oil leave enough open water to feed moisture into the storms.

runs from paying taxes. takes, and refuses to give....

i didnt know this until recently, but have been so pissed since finding out. silly me, it isnt like i hated this corp prior, but this just chaps my ass