


BP also said Halliburton “has, at best, lost’’ computer data that undermine a claim that fatal channels formed in the cement because BP didn’t use enough centralizers.
Tommy Roth, vice president in charge of Halliburton’s cement operations, said in an e-mail three months after the blowout that a company computer model “demonstrates that there was no channeling in the Macondo well,’’ according to BP’s filing.
BP said that it didn’t get a copy of Roth’s message until July of this year and that it never received copies of the computer models Roth referenced. Instead, Halliburton told BP the computer modeling results at issue are “gone,’’ said BP.
BP asked U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier, who presides over the consolidated oil-spill litigation in New Orleans, to order Halliburton to give the computer used in the modeling to a third-party forensic data recovery firm, to see if the missing evidence can be recovered.
BP also asked Barbier to consider levying sanctions against Halliburton, such as barring the company from using certain evidence or defenses at trial or even dismissing its claims against BP.
The case is 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).