Transocean has high-level talks with BP
Transocean has had high-level talks with BP about last year’s Macondo well disaster, for which it believes BP is responsible for the damages, an executive said.
Asked about last week’s deal between well operator BP and well co-owner Mitsui, Transocean chief financial officer Ricardo Rosa said its relationship as a BP contractor was different, and one should not compare “apples and pears”, Reuters reported.
“This being said, we have had contacts at CEO level with BP,” Rosa said in a webcast presentation Tuesday at the UBS Global Oil and Gas Conference in Austin, Texas, describing those talks as “constructive”.
“We would be foolish to discard any opportunity that may arise, so we keep an open mind,” Rosa added.
Rosa said no evidence has surfaced to show that Transocean, owner of the drilling rig destroyed in the Macondo well blow-out, was negligent, and his company has high confidence in the indemnity clause BP provided in their contract.
Mitsui unit Moex, which owned 10% of the Gulf of Mexico well, had sought to avoid paying its share of the costs by claiming BP was negligent and Moex should be exempted, before agreeing last week to pay $1.1 billion for the clean-up.
Transocean is preparing to release its own report on Macondo late next month, Rosa said.
Source: Upstream Online
