By ANDREW W. GRIFFIN

Oklahoma Watchdog, editor

Posted:  July 19, 2010

andrew@oklahomawatchdog.org

OKLAHOMA CITY – Details about the final days and hours aboard the doomed Deepwater Horizon oil rig could very well be in the Tulsa, Okla. office of Schlumberger Oilfield Services in the form of mud logs, computer data and other vital drilling-related information, according to an oil-industry insider who spoke to Oklahoma Watchdog this week but did not want to reveal his identity.

And as for the folks at Schlumberger, they aren’t talking, at least when it comes to the gritty details.

Stephen Harris, the Schlumberger spokesman who told Oklahoma Watchdog last week that investigative reporter Wayne Madsen “made up” a story about the oilfield service company’s involvement with the April 20, 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has not answered follow-up questions regarding the Houston-based company’s connection to the catastrophe.

Madsen, based in Washington, D.C., reported July 9 at both Wayne Madsen Report and Online Journal that “smoking gun” documents connected to Schlumberger’s work on the doomed rig may have been squirreled away at either their Tulsa or Houston office and would likely explain in detail what really happened out there in the Gulf.

Oil industry sources who have consulted with Oklahoma Watchdog this week noted that Harris’s denial is what he is supposed to tell the media when questioned about their involvement. Saying as little as possible is their way of damage control.

“They’re like lawyers, they look for loopholes,” the oil industry source said of public relations executives like Schlumberger’s Harris. “They have every motivation in the world to deny everything and hide evidence. Schlumberger is covering their ass in this one. They don’t want to get caught up in a lawsuit.”

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