Report: Halliburton, BP knew Macondo well cement was faulty

The National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, investigating the cause of the BP gulf oil spill,  has found evidence that Halliburton and BP had tests in hand which showed that the cement formulation used on the well was deficient and subject to failure. According to the report, Halliburton, at the time the cement was pumped in to case the Macondo well, had the results of three tests that showed the formula was likely not up to the job of sealing oil from the well bore, and none that showed this batch would hold up. We should note that one test came back after the fact showing the cement would be OK, and that BP says it never conducted a test of the cement's stability.
In short, Halliburton produced and tested cement, says the government panel, that it knew was likely to fail, sent that cement to BP anyway, and BP -- with the test results in hand -- used that faulty cement anyway. Oil and hydrocarbons leaked through the faulty cement and pooled on the deck of the oil well and then ignited, leading to the Deepwater Horizon rig's explosion, Bartlit says in his letter. The environmental consequences of the decision by Halliburton to ignore failing test results will be felt for many years in the Gulf of Mexico and those states surrounding it.

When those tests came back, someone at Halliburton should have said, "Let's put that batch on hold." Instead, they sent it along anyway. Someone at British Petroleum should have read the reports (or performed their own tests) and rejected the substandard cement. If that had happened, it is likely that those 11 men would still be alive today. The environmental damage to the fragile gulf ecosystems could have been averted, but that didn't happen. No one decided to stand up and rock the boat.