Environmental issues[edit]
In 2002, Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) reports were completed to measure the amount of chemicals emitted from Halliburton's Harris County, Texas facility. The TRI is a publicly available EPA database that contains information on toxic chemical releases and waste management activities reported annually by certain industries as well as federal facilities. The facility had 230 TRI air releases in 2001 and 245 in 2002.[59]
On June 7, 2006, Halliburton's Farmington, New Mexico facility created a toxic cloud that forced people to evacuate their homes.[60]
Halliburton may also be implicated[61] in the oil spills in the Timor Sea off Australia in August 2009 and in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010 for improper cementing. Halliburton staff were employed on the Transocean operated Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Mexican Gulf. Halliburton staff completed cementation of the final production well 20 hours prior to the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion, but had not yet set the final cement plug.[62]
In July 2013, Halliburton Co agreed to plead guilty to charges that it destroyed evidence relating to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. This incurred a $200,000 fine; the firm also agreed to three years of probation and to continue cooperating with the criminal probe into the spill.[63] In September 2014, the company agreed to pay $1.1 billion in damages to settle the majority of claims against it relating to the explosion, removing the uncertainty which had hung over the company for the previous four years