Halliburton Pleads Guilty for Destroying Evidence in 2010 Gulf Oil Spill

Halliburton Energy Services has pled guilty to destroying evidence involved in the 2010 Gulf Oil spill.

You probably remember the 2010 fiasco where millions of gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico after a BP oil rig caught fire and exploded, killing 11 workers.

Well, after that incident BP tried to blame Halliburton, its cement contractor, for shoddy construction of the oil well's production casing. Production casing, among other things, keeps the oil well from erupting under pressure and uses centralizers to keep it centered away from the well walls.

Apparently when Halliburton advised BP, it recommended using 21 centralizers but BP ignored the advice and decided to go with six.

Now I don't know that much about the physics of this, but I have a hard time believing that 6 can do the same job as 21.

What helped BP's case though was that Halliburton showed them a 3-D simulation of the well using 21 and six centralizers and in the simulation, there was little difference between the two. Halliburton employees were allegedly directed to destroy the model after the oil spill. The model still hasn't been recovered.

The US Justice Department filed a charge against Halliburton for destroying the evidence and today it announced that Halliburton pled guilty, agreeing to a $200,000 dollar fine and a 3-year probation.(http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2013/Ju...)

Essentially Halliburton admitted that it had backed up BP's decision to cut corners and then tried to make amends by pleading guilty and donating $55 million to the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

So what do you think about this? Was it Halliburton's fault for showing a faulty model or were both parties guilty for cutting corners? And what do you think about off shore drilling? Should this practice continue even if it threatens the cleanliness of our water and the health of sea life? Let us know in the comment section below and don't forget to like, subscribe and share this video with your friends