Transocean: No apology over Gulf Oil Spill - BusinessWeek

A Transocean drilling ship and platform used in the effort to containment of the spill in the Gulf Jim Wilson/The New York Times/Redux

By Paul M. Barrett

Fourteen months after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded 50 miles southeast of Venice (Louisiana), killing 11 men and triggering the largest offshore oil spill in the history of United States, Transocean, the company owned in and ran the ship unfortunate 32,600 tons, finally issued its official account of what happened and why. He has produced a report of not less than 854 pages, divided into two volumes, on 22 June and spared no detail. The bottom line, however, is complicated: it is the fault of BP.

Transocean seeks to divert responsibility is not surprising. The contractor drilling incorporated Switzerland, based in Houston is taken in a frenzy of litigation involving British Petroleum; Halliburton, which was of cement work; and many in the well including Anadarko, one piece essential security known as the Eruption. They debate on who will be stuck with tens of billions of dollars in claims of environmental and economic damage related to the eruption of the BP Macondo well on April 20, 2010.

Since then, Transocean refused to recognize the errors that may have contributed to the disaster. He refused to help pay the remediation. There is no excuse. And what is remarkable is that this blame-client, admit-no-wrong, take-no-prisoners approach seems to work.

126 People on deep water Horizon when it exploded, 79 works for Transocean (as opposed to only six for the BP). Nine of the 11 deaths were Transocean men. Transocean settled with several families of those lost in the disaster, for undisclosed amounts and said in the deposition of the Securities and Exchange Commission that its costs related to the eruption reached 160 million through March 31, 2011. It has not yet developed a single penny in the victims-compensation fund of $ 20 billion established BP, a fund which is close to finalizing the institutions with 17 former employees of Transocean, according to Anthony g Buzbee, the Attorney for the plaintiffs a Houston representative workers. Overall, the BP spent $ 17.7 billion related to the oil spill at the end of 2010 - more than 100 times as Transocean, which last year, according to the U.S. Justice Dept., "effectively reserved a 270 million" accounting gain' on the difference between the actual value of the deepwater Horizon and the amount he received in insurance of hull after the sinking of the ship. "".

Clever, rebellious of Transocean response strategy began almost from the moment where the crew lost control of the well. Within 12 hours to receive medical care after the disaster, survivors Transocean employees were transported in a hotel in New Orleans, where they were interviewed by counsel for the company that seeks to exonerate the drilling contractor, according to the Buzbee and counsel for the other applicants. In the following months, so even that BP has promised to "make it right" and to raise billions for relief funds, Transocean has worked behind the scenes to minimize liability and to convince investors that all that was very well.

In May 2010 it filed articles before the Federal Court in Houston seeking to use a 169-year-old Marine Act to limit the liability of the company of dead and injured less than $ 27 million. (The owners of the Titanic claimed the same right to notable success). Then, shortly after having tried to minimize his payments to widows and survivors, Transocean announced its intention to issue $ 1 billion in dividends to its shareholders. He also said in its annual report that despite the death and destruction in the Gulf, 2010 was "the best year in safety performance in the history of our company." She even provided security for senior bonus. "You have to almost admire their butt - almost,"Steven Gordon, counsel for the plaintiffs, one in Houston, said Transocean." Gordon represents eight former employees of Transocean who survived the disaster and continue the company and BP.