Halliburton to Admit Destroying Gulf Spill Evidence

Halliburton will plead guilty to destroying evidence in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster and Gulf oil spill, the Department of Justice said Thursday. According to the federal charge, the energy giant ordered a program manager to destroy the results of the company's internal investigation of the April 2010 blast at the Deepwater Horizon offshore rig in the Gulf of Mexico, a blast that had killed 11 rig workers and sent oil spewing into the water, causing the largest oil spill in U.S. history. That internal report that was destroyed had included two computer simulations of the final cementing job on the oil well, according to the Justice Department. Under its plea deal announced Thursday, Hallburton will admit to criminal conduct, pay the maximum fine, cooperate with the feds' ongoing investigation and be subject to three years' probation.

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