BP, Transocean, Halliburton settle their oil spill disputes.
British oil company will dismiss legal claims against Transocean and Halliburton over Macondo well
BP has agreed to dismiss legal claims against two contractors that worked on its doomed Macondo well, Transocean and Halliburton Co., closing a chapter in the legal saga surrounding the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig, and Halliburton, BP’s cement contractor for the subsea well, also said Wednesday that they’re settling long-running legal disputes with BP and are aiming to restore their relationships with the British oil major.
The separate deals are steps toward ending the mass of litigation that followed the accident, which killed 11 workers, spilled millions of barrels of crude into the ocean and destroyed the Deepwater Horizon after the Macondo blew out a mile below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010.
But BP still could face a large bill for the oil spill. The company is waiting for a federal judge to assess
how much it should pay in environmental fines. Those penalties could be up to $13.7 billion.
Transocean’s settlement means BP won’t recover funds from the rig contractor’s insurance policy and that it will pay Transocean $125 million for its legal fees. Insurance proceeds
For its part, Transocean will indemnify BP against personal and bodily injury claims from its employees and will be able to recover $538 million in insurance proceeds that had been held during the legal proceedings.
“These settlements provide substantial closure to five years of litigation and we are confident that this agreement can be a significant step forward in our efforts to renew our partnership with BP,” Transocean CEO Jeremy Thigpen said in a written statement. Gulf Coast residents
Separately, Transocean has agreed to a $212 million settlement with thousands of Gulf Coast residents and businesses claiming economic damages from the spill, and represented by an attorney group called the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee. The settlement is subject to court approval.
Halliburton agreed several months ago to a $1.1 billion economic damages settlement.
“We applaud Transocean for adding to the settlement funds established in the Halliburton settlement to help compensate people and businesses for their losses,” co-lead plaintiff attorneys Stephen Herman and James Roy said in a written statement.
BP and Halliburton also resolved their legal claims against each other but did not disclose any financial terms of the deal. Service contracts
Halliburton CEO Dave Lesar said his firm can now move forward negotiating a “global master service agreement” with BP, which means it is trying to strike a deal that would set terms for service contracts across the company’s businesses.
Halliburton had reserved $805 million for possible oil spill liabilities, according to regulatory filings. Spokeswoman Emily Mir declined to elaborate on Wednesday’s announcement.
In an emailed statement, BP spokesman Geoff Morrell said the deals settle all matters with its contractors stemming from the 2010 accident.
In a September ruling, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier of New Orleans apportioned two-thirds of the fault for the disaster to BP, 30 percent to Transocean and 3 percent to Halliburton.