By ANDREW W. GRIFFIN

Oklahoma Watchdog, editor

Posted: July 13, 2010

andrew@oklahomawatchdog.org

OKLAHOMA CITY – Washington, D.C.-based investigative reporter Wayne Madsen reported late last week that secret “smoking gun” mud log documents from the doomed Deepwater Horizon oil rig are holed up in their Tulsa office and would further expose BP’s alleged negligence.

Schlumberger, a subcontractor to BP, was on the Deepwater Horizon and were reportedly concerned by things they were witnessing aboard the oil rig.

Madsen, who runs the Wayne Madsen Report and contributes to the Internet news site Online Journal, wrote on July 9, 2010 that “Oil drilling industry inside sources have reported to WMR that “smoking gun” documents, including what are known as “mud logs” are being kept at the Tulsa, Oklahoma headquarters of Schlumberger Oilfield Services.

These “mud logs,” reports Madsen, entail “the detailed analysis of rocky material and sediment from a borehole for signs and pressure levels and types of gas being encountered during the drilling process. Mud logging is always carried out by a third party and in the case of the Deepwater Horizon, this function was performed by Schlumberger.”

Madsen then notes that Schlumberger’s workers on the Deepwater Horizon tried to warn BP that they were acting recklessly as they reported “an increase in gas pressures” and that “warnings about an impending disaster were ignored by BP supervisors and the evidence of BP’s criminal malfeasance sits in a secured room at Schlumberger’s offices in Tulsa.”

Curious to learn more, Oklahoma Watchdog contacted Stephen Harris, the media relations official in Schlumberger’s Houston office.

Asked about the Madsen report on the alleged “smoking gun” documents in Tulsa, Harris responded that he had read the story and said, “Schlumberger did not run any mud logs for the Deepwater Horizon. (Madsen’s) story, is for all intents and purposes, made up.”

Harris continued, “We don’t have any files or paperwork on mud logs within our organization.”

Oklahoma Watchdog has attempted to contact Madsen, who is currently on assignment in Louisiana, to get a comment from him regarding Schlumberger’s reaction to his story.  This online newspaper has also emailed Harris at his Houston office seeking further comment on Schlumberger’s role on Deepwater Horizon.

Others have reported on Schlumberger’s connection to the final hours aboard the Deepwater Horizon.

Louisiana Gannett reporter Mike Hasten, reporting from Baton Rouge on June 18, 2010, reported in an article “Crucial test might have saved Deepwater well,” that La. State Sen. Nick Gautreaux was questioning a Halliburton official,  Tommy Roth, about the processes taking place prior to the catastrophe aboard Deepwater Horizon.

Writes Hasten: “Two pressure tests were conducted on the well and Schlumberger, an oilfield service company that does specialty testing, was called to the rig to conduct a test to determine the integrity of the cement with a “bond log” test. After that, Halliburton was to do a final cement plug that would have caused a temporary abandonment of the well.

“Schlumberger was sent away?” Gautreaux asked.

Roth confirmed that the final cement test was never done.

According to a Christian Science Monitor article from June 17, 2010, “A crew from subcontractor Schlumberger was on the Deepwater Horizon rig on the morning of April 20 to carry out this test, but they left after BP officials told them they were not needed.”

And as reported early on, Transocean employee Jason Anderson, one of the 11 workers killed in the Deepwater Horizon explosion, had told his family that BP was cutting corners and looking to “sacrifice safety for the sake of time and money”

Copyright 2010 Oklahoma Watchdog