Halliburton pleads guilty to destroying Gulf spill evidence


* Third company to plead guilty over Gulf spill

* Halliburton to pay $200,000 fine

* $55 million to be donated to fish and wildlife group

July 25 (Reuters) - Halliburton Co has agreed to plead guilty to
destroying evidence related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the
U.S. Department of Justice said on Thursday.

The government said the guilty plea is the third by a company over the
spill, and requires the world's second-largest oilfield services company
to pay a maximum $200,000 statutory fine. Halliburton also made a
separate, voluntary $55 million payment to the National Fish and
Wildlife Foundation, the Justice Department said.

Halliburton also agreed to three years of probation, and to continue
cooperating with the criminal probe into the April 20, 2010 explosion of
the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.

Court approval of the settlement is required.

A Halliburton spokeswoman did not immediately respond to requests for
comment.

The disaster caused 11 deaths and triggered the largest U.S. offshore
oil spill following the rupture of the Macondo oil well, which was 65
percent owned by BP Plc. Halliburton had earlier provided cementing
services to help seal the well.

According to the government, Halliburton recommended to BP that the
Macondo well contain 21 centralizers, metal collars that can improve
cementing, but BP chose to use six.

The government said that, during an internal probe into the cementing
after the blowout, Halliburton ordered workers to destroy computer
simulations that showed little difference between using six and 21
centralizers. Efforts to forensically locate the simulations were
unsuccessful, the government said.

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This will never stop with itsy-bitsy fines, because they are just a cost
of doing business. Halliburton execs should be doing time.