BP plc has filed a federal lawsuit seeking reimbursement from Halliburton Co. for all of the cleanup costs following the Macondo well blowout in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico.

BP also asked the court for compensation from Halliburton to recover lost profits following the blowout and “all other costs and damages” (In re Oil Spill by the Oil Rig Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, MDL-2179, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana (New Orleans). Halliburton was the cementing contractor for the Macondo well, which blew when the blowout preventer failed in April 2010.

The blowout, which led to an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig, killed 11 men and led to the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

BP, which has estimated cleanup and compensation costs at around $42 billion, already has paid more than $14 billion in spill response and cleanup operations and has set aside billions more for damages claims.

BP’s court filing states that it is seeking “the amount of costs and expenses incurred…to clean up and remediate the oil spill, the lost profits from and/or diminution in value of the Macondo prospect, and all other costs and damages incurred by BP related to the Deepwater Horizon incident and resulting oil spill.”

In response Halliburton last week denied the accusation that its engineers destroyed testing evidence to keep it from being used in litigation. In a filing Halliburton stated that its engineers followed company policy to discard the testing results and materials because the tests were “performed on lab stock that remains available today.” Tests on cement samples similar to those used in the well showed the formula was stable, it noted.

Halliburton engineers turned over notes and testified under oath that tests showed “a stable foam was observed after the slurry was conditioned — a critical fact that BP continues to ignore,” said the filing. “At most, the post-incident testing showed how nonrig ingredients performed when tested under lab conditions, not how rig stock performed when pumped downhole.”

The Halliburton response noted that “in fact, a ‘thin’ slurry can still be a stable slurry.” According to Halliburton engineer Rickey Morton who testified under oath, “the slurry he tested foamed all the way to fill up the container, and there were no signs of gas break out, free fluid or streaking.” Morton didn’t testify that he intentionally avoided recording certain test results; those “are not even Morgan’s words,” the filing stated. “BP is doing exactly what Morgan feared: taking his words and work out-of-context and manipulating them to serve BP’s purposes in litigation.”

Halliburton stated that it has volunteered to give BP or third-party forensic investigators duplicates of hard drives that were used to run computer models of cement formulations for the Macondo well that BP has claimed were unfavorable to Halliburton.

BP, which was the operator and held a 65% stake in the well, already has settled with most of the parties involved. Houston-based Cameron International Corp., which manufactured the blowout preventer, last month agreed to pay $250 million to BP to settle its claims (see NGI, Dec. 19, 2011). BP’s well partners Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (25%) and a unit of Japan’s Mitsui Ltd. (10%) also settled claims last year (see NGI, Oct. 24 2011; May 23, 2011).

Like Halliburton, Transocean Ltd., which owned the Deepwater Horizon, also has not resolved any legal claims with BP.

In October BP was cited for seven violations while Transocean and Halliburton each were given four citations by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (see NGI, Oct. 17, 2011). In December federal regulators also slapped BP with two new charges involving five incidents of noncompliance related to the well blowout (see NGI, Dec. 12, 2011). The citations are said to be in preparation for civil penalties likely to be imposed by the federal government.

Jason Stevens, associate director of Morningstar’s energy research, said in a note last week the latest lawsuit against Halliburton “seems similar to an existing suit BP filed in April 2011 but comes a month ahead of a federal trial scheduled to begin in February” (see NGI, April 25, 2011). In last year’s lawsuit BP claimed that Halliburton’s “misconduct” contributed to the Macondo blowout.

“Our read on the lawsuit is that BP is going after both Halliburton and Transocean’s claims of contractual indemnification,” said Stevens. “As is typical of oil services contracts, BP’s contract with Halliburton and Transocean includes language in which the operator (BP) indemnifies the service provider from all liability and potential damages and fines that arise in the course of drilling the well. BP’s suit accuses Halliburton of gross negligence, as it seeks to penetrate Halliburton’s contractual indemnifications.

“We see this development as a continuation of BP’s legal strategy and continue to believe that BP, or the federal government, would face significant challenges establishing gross negligence on part of the services firms, particularly since as operator BP was party to all material decisions on the Deepwater Horizon. However, if BP’s legal strategy succeeds, all bets are off, and either or both service companies could be on the hook for billions.”

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