Halliburton to plead guilty to destroying Gulf evidence

US company Halliburton will plead guilty to destroying evidence relating to the 2010 Gulf Of Mexico oil spill.

The plea agreement, which is subject to court approval, means Halliburton will have to pay the maximum possible fine.

The spill occurred at BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico and was the worst in US history. A blast at the Deepwater Horizon oil rig killed 11 workers.

BP had accused Halliburton, its contractor, of destroying evidence and asked it to pay for all damages.

Halliburton is the third of three major companies at the heart of the oil spill to admit criminal wrongdoing. Oil giant BP and rig operator Transocean have already pleaded guilty to charges related to the disaster.

'Accepted criminal responsibility'

The US Department of Justice said that prior to the blowout at the rig, Halliburton had recommended to BP that the Macondo well contain 21 centralizers - metal collars that can improve cementing.

However, BP chose to use only six.

The justice department said that Halliburton had run computer run two computer simulations of the Macondo well's final cementing job to compare the impact of using six versus 21 centralizers.

It said the results of these simulations indicated that there was little difference.

The department said that Halliburton's programme manager "was directed to, and did, destroy these results".

"Efforts to forensically recover the original destroyed Displace 3D computer simulations during ensuing civil litigation and federal criminal investigation by the Deepwater Horizon Task Force were unsuccessful," it added.

"In agreeing to plead guilty, Halliburton has accepted criminal responsibility for destroying the aforementioned evidence."

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