Transocean To Pay $1.4 bn:
The United States hit drilling rig operator Transocean with $1.4
billion in criminal and civil fines Thursday for its role in the 2010
Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
Nearly two
months after oil giant BP was fined $4.5 billion for its leading role in
the disaster, Transocean agreed to plead guilty to violating the Clean
Water Act and pay the fines, the Justice Department said.
The
blowout on its drilling rig Deepwater Horizon on April 20, 2010, killed
11 and sent some 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf, one of the
country’s most devastating environmental disasters.
The Transocean
vessel was drilling the well for BP at the time, and both companies had
pointed the finger at the other as responsible.
In pleading
guilty, the department said, Transocean admitted its rig crew was
“negligent in failing fully to investigate clear indications that the
Macondo well was not secure and that oil and gas were flowing into the
well.”
The firm was ordered to pay $400 million to resolve
criminal charges and another $1 billion in civil penalties, partly to
fund spill prevention and environmental restoration in the five states
hit by the three-month-long spill.
via AFP
