Transocean, owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig, settles over criminal and civil charges
Transocean, owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig at the centre of BP's Gulf of Mexico blowout, has reached a $1.4bn settlement with the Department of Justice to settle criminal and civil charges.
The Swiss-based rig operator has been in the dock since April 2010 saw the worst spill in American history. The $1bn in civil penalties and $400m in criminal ones is in line with what the company was expecting.
A formal statement had not been released last night but sources in the US confirmed the two sides had reached a deal far lower than the $4.5bn agreed by BP, which only covered criminal claims.
Shares in Transocean soared 10% last night as Wall Street investors saw a major cloud being lifted. Transocean had said in a regulatory filing three months ago that it had discussed a $1.5bn settlement with the DoJ but had set aside a $2bn fund for paying claims related to the Macondo disaster, when 11 lives were lost.
Despite the problems BP reported profits of more than $25bn for 2011 but Transocean recorded a loss of about $5.7bn, hit by contingencies for the Deepwater Horizon and other market problems.
In November Transocean reported a $381m quarterly financial loss and unveiled plans to sell off 38 shallow-water rigs to concentrate on the more lucrative deep water drilling end of the market.
The company has been awarded 10-year contracts by Shell for four new drillships which will suck in $7.6bn of revenue from 2015 and the following year, and it has had a ban partially lifted that would have kept it out of the growing Brazilian offshore sector. This followed a 2011 oil spill by operator Chevron.
