Halliburton bought an oil cleanup company 8 days before rig explosion.

[Da6s]

http://inspiredeconomist.com/2010/06/17/why-did-halliburton-buy-an-oil-cleanup-company-8-days-before-the-oil-spill/

There are innumerable of bits of information floating around in the battle over the narrative of this national disaster. This one is particularly disturbing. From AOL's Daily Finance just over a week before the spill:

"...the days of independence have come to an end for Boots & Coots as the company has agreed to sell out to Halliburton (HAL) for $240.4 million."

M&A in the industrial and oil services sectors is totally normal, but the timing in this case, is not. Boots & Coots sure seems like the perfect company to own if it would soon become necessary to get more involved with some oil disaster (emphasis mine):

I'm not one for the tinfoil hat emoticon but  

[Cramulus]

  that is a great piece of information, whether it's real or not

it tells a piece of why haliburton doesn't want to contribute any money to cleanup

and hoo wow if it doesn't make them look like a bunch of dick cheneys

[Requia ☣]

Who do you think trained Dick Cheney?

[Jenne]

...I was gonna SAY...thought Haliburton were his cronies from yesteryear?

[Adios]

Conspiracy is the hawts.

[Doktor Howl]

Conspiracy is the hawts.

What conspiracy?  Halliburton walked off the Deepwater Horizon job, citing it as a bomb waiting to go off.

If I were them, I'd have bought a clean up company, too.  It's just good business sense.

[Requia ☣]

There were four Halliburton employees on the rig when it blew (according to Halliburton, not sure how much that's worth), so they never walked.

[Jenne]

There were four Halliburton employees on the rig when it blew (according to Halliburton, not sure how much that's worth), so they never walked.

[Jenne]

Conspiracy is the hawts.

Aw, but looky what I found:

http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/about_hal/chronology.html

1995

Without any previous business experience, Cheney leaves the Department of Defense to become the CEO of Halliburton Co., one of the biggest oil-services companies in the world. He will be chairman of the company from 1996 to October 1998 and from February to August 2000. Under Cheney's leadership, Halliburton moves up from 73rd to 18th on the Pentagon's list of top contractors. The company garners $2.3 billion in U.S. government contracts, which almost doubles the $1.2 billion it earned from the government previously. Most of the contracts are granted by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers.

...and that's just a small bit.  The rest is ever-so-delish.

I sorta stopped thinking this was all tinfoilhatshit when Cain started kicking down some SRS linkage on this sort of thing way back in the day.  I used to be all, "aw, hogwash, it's all smoke n mirrors made to look substantial" and now I'm more like, "Dude, don't blink, you'll miss the 'show' the government wants you to see so you don't see the guy whizzing around behind the curtain."

In THIS scenario:  Haliburton is the Great Oz, Cheney = the wizard.

[Doktor Howl]

There were four Halliburton employees on the rig when it blew (according to Halliburton, not sure how much that's worth), so they never walked.

How many were the core engineering crew that started there, you pedantic asswipe?  Why do you do this shit?  You have a compulsive need to correct everything anyone says, and you're ALWAYS FUCKING WRONG, Ms "Reuters is full of shit".  How about BP not buying congressmen?  How's that one working out for you?  For fuck's sake.  Stop trying to show how fucking clever you are, and how you're an expert on every goddamn subject.  Do you have ANY FUCKING IDEA how annoying that is, and how much of a fucking UNFUNNY JOKE it turns you into?

Goddammit.

[Doktor Howl]

Okay, don't know why I let you get me mad.  It's not like you don't do this every day.

Just going to ignore you from now on, it's best for everyone.

[Requia ☣]

How many is Halliburton supposed to keep on hand between jobs?  They were there to pour cement, the only thing left to do was pour the cap for the well when they shut it down, you don't keep the whole team on hand for a job that hasn't started yet.

Fuck off or cite your sources.

[Doktor Howl]

Fuck off or cite your sources.

Why?  You didn't. 

"Reuters is full of shit."   

[Requia ☣]

I did cite my source, Halliburton (specifically their testimony before congress).

I'll ad to this, while Halliburton completed the jobs up to the point several BP internal emails reveal that Halliburton was also pressuring BP to use better designs and parts, which BP rejected. source

So yes, Halliburton had every reason to expect that well to blow, even if they never stopped working the job.

[Doktor Howl]

I did cite my source, Halliburton (specifically their testimony before congress).

I'll ad to this, while Halliburton completed the jobs up to the point several BP internal emails reveal that Halliburton was also pressuring BP to use better designs and parts, which BP rejected. source

So yes, Halliburton had every reason to expect that well to blow, even if they never stopped working the job.

So, it is your position that 4 guys pouring concrete plugs under contract = an engineering team?

Because, yes, engineers are trained to pour concrete, and companies are willing to pay engineers to do so.

   

Do go on.  I am all ears.