A bad combination
Houston-based Halliburton's stock price mired in cement, but BP still caught inlegal crosshairs
Halliburton is still expected to face less litigation than BP.
Deepwater HorizonPhoto courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard/Wikipedia
Attempts to plug the leak
Houston-based energy services company Halliburton is absorbing blame for the devastating Deepwater Horizon spill in April, new reports show.
A report by a federal investigation panel says that Halliburton knowingly supplied a shoddy cement mix to BP, which the company used to seal the oil well. When the cement failed, the platform in the Gulf of Mexico exploded and released millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf over a period of five months, the full implications of which are still unknown.
Halliburton, which had before shifted blame to BP, has responded in similar fashion this time. The company claims that February tests that indicated the cement mixture did not meet industry standards were "preliminary," and that BP was made aware of most test results. "Halliburton believes that significant differences between its internal cement tests and the Commission’s test results may be due to differences in the cement materials tested," the company's response read.
It should be noted that Halliburton also supplied the cement to an offshore well near Australia that blew up last year.
The company is already feeling the aftershocks; its stock fell 16 percent in the moments after the report was released. However, analysts still expect BP to face the brunt of litigation.
Halliburton has duel headquarters in Houston and Dubai.
