Nothing about this actually makes sense. According to the DOJ, Halliburtor recommended 21 centralizers. BP went with 6. Halliburton ran two simulations that showed 6 centralizers would be as effective as 21. If that is the case, then no one did anything wrong. BP used an appropriate amount of centralizers. Halliburton made an overly conservative recommendation. And the blowout was a tragic accident.
So why delete the data on the simulations? It doesn’t really make sense.
Efforts to forensically recover the original destroyed Displace 3D computer simulations during ensuing civil litigation and federal criminal investigation by the Deepwater Horizon Task Force were unsuccessful.
The data recovery was unsuccessful, so we only have the DOJ and Halliburton’s assurances that the simulations showed 6 centralizers would work as well 21.
This story would make a hell of a lot more sense if the simulations showed that using only 6 centralizers would definitely or probably cause a blowout. In that case, both Halliburton and BP would have known there was a problem and neither company corrected it and they both. That would be evidence worth hiding.
