Report: Owner of Oil Rig Seeks to Limit Liability to $27M

[marmar]

from Democracy Now! :



Report: Owner of Oil Rig Seeks to Limit Liability to $27M

The Dow Jones Newswire is reporting that Transocean, the owner and operator of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that exploded and sank last month, is seeking to limit its liability to just under $27 million. The world’s biggest offshore driller is filing the request in the US District Court in Houston under a century-and-a-half-old law originally aimed at helping US ship owners compete with foreign-flagged vessels. Transocean’s rig was being leased by BP at the time of the April 20th explosion that killed eleven workers and caused the devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, evidence emerged Wednesday that the oil well failed a pressure test hours before the drilling rig exploded. Pressure tests are conducted to ensure the integrity of cement poured into the well to keep out natural gas. Congressman Henry Waxman discussed the test findings at a congressional hearing Wednesday.


http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/13/headlines#4

[Skidmore]

1. Limit liability to protect profits...

that's the name of the game.

[JDPriestly]

2. Perhaps we should require all companies that have anything to

do with offshore drilling in the future to post a bond of 10 billion dollars before beginning work. They could afford that.

[dsn]

3. He means "per hour," right?