Did Schlumberger Abandon Deepwater Horizon Platform Hours Before Explosion Due to BP's Refusal to Follow SLB's Safety Protocols?

***UPDATE (June 7, 2010) - For additional reference on the Deepwater Horizon incident from BP's perspective, check out BP's Deepwater Horizon Interim Incident Investigation Washington Briefing (Draft) for an overall background on this matter. Please note that this briefing document has not yet authenticated by BP or the federal government.

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I hope that someone with some serious reporting chops and resources will take a further look at this assertion to see if there is any truth to it. If this story about Schlumberger leaving the Deepwater Horizon oil platform at its own expense right before the explosion is true, then this will be damning evidence in any future court actions. Any Schlumberger employees/workers who witnessed these allegations should be very careful and should give a sworn statement immediately.

AlanfromBigEasy on May 14, 2010 - 3:06pm

Story circulating in New Orleans

With appropriate caveats:

BP contracted Schlumberger (SLB) to run the Cement Bond Log (CBL) test that was the final test on the plug that was skipped. The people testifying have been very coy about mentioning this, and you'll see why.

SLB is an extremely highly regarded (and incredibly expensive) service company. They place a high standard on safety and train their workers to shut down unsafe operations.

SLB gets out to the Deepwater Horizon to run the CBL, and they find the well still kicking heavily, which it should not be that late in the operation. SLB orders the "company man" (BP's man on the scene that runs the operation) to dump kill fluid down the well and shut-in the well. The company man refuses. SLB in the very next sentence asks for a helo to take all SLB personel back to shore. The company man says there are no more helo's scheduled for the rest of the week (translation: you're here to do a job, now do it). SLB gets on the horn to shore, calls SLB's corporate HQ, and gets a helo flown out there at SLB's expense and takes all SLB personel to shore.

6 hours later, the platform explodes.

Pick your jaw up off the floor now. No CBL was run after the pressure tests because the contractor high-tailed it out of there. If this story is true, the company man (who survived) should go to jail for 11 counts of negligent homicide.

Alan

Please note that this quote is sourced from the comments of a message board at The Oil Drum (if the above link is unavailable, click here for the cached version). However, The Washington Post does indicate that Schlumberger had representatives on the platform and these representatives left the platform before the explosion.

Industry sources say that BP also told three workers from the oil services firm Schlumberger to go home without doing a key test of the sturdiness of the cement in the hole, something that would have taken several hours; they left the rig 11 hours before the well blew up.

Source: GodLikeProductions ; Washington Post ; The Oil Drum