Transocean Offshore Deepwater Drilling Inc. (TODDI), a subsidiary of Transocean, has filed a motion for summary judgement in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana requesting the court to compel BP to honour its contractual obligation to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Transocean for damages associated with BP’s failure to contain flow from its Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.
The US services behemoth has accused the British oil giant of shirking contractual duties and taking an “offensive” stance in its own law suit against Transocean over the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig and subsequent vast oil spill.
In a new legal motion lodged by offshoot Transocean Offshore Deepwater Drilling at a US district court in Louisiana on Tuesday, Transocean accused BP of threatening “the sanctity of contracts” and of potentially undermining the US offshore exploration industry as it hounds the contractor and other parties for compensation as a result of the April 2010 incident which left 11 rig workers dead.
BP hit Transocean with a $40 billion lawsuit on the anniversary of the Macondo well blowout, also launching legal action against Halliburton on the same day.
Although other parties who had an interest in the rig or well have since reached financial settlements with the UK supermajor, both Transocean and Halliburton as holding out, leading to Transocean’s filing on Tuesday.
The filing asks the court “to compel BP to honour its contractual obligation to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Transocean for damages associated with BP’s failure to contain flow from its Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010”.
Transocean claims that it and BP penned a contract in 1998, which was extended several times, in which the latter “agreed to ‘defend, release, protect, indemnify and hold harmless’ Transocean for any and all fines, penalties and damages associated with environmental pollution originating from the well ‘without limit and without regard to the cause or causes’ including negligence, ‘whether such negligence be sole, joint, active passive or gross’,” Tuesday statement, quoting from the contract, read.
Transocean alleges that BP has refused to honour the contract despite what the contractor terms as “clear and unambiguous terms”. Instead the oil company has accused Transocean staff, including the dead rig workers, of having “wilful and callous disregard for the welfare of their colleagues and the environment”, a statement detailing the filing reads.
“Transocean has honoured its contractual indemnity obligations to BP nonetheless,” it continues.
The US Company is also looking to force BP to stump up any unpaid charter fees for the ill-fated rig as well as legal fees and other expenses.
Transocean senior vice president and general counsel, Nick Deeming, commented: “BP’s posture in this matter is not only offensive to the thousands of men and women who work together at Transocean, but it constitutes a direct threat to the sanctity of contracts and to the economic underpinnings of an industry that employs hundreds of thousands of people in the United States alone.
“This motion is about more than just two companies. It is about the future of the contract drilling industry at large.
“If BP truly intends to make things right, it must either voluntarily or by the order of the court honour all of its contracts – not just the ones that serve its convenience or financial purposes.”
BP has yet to issue a statement concerning Transocean’s latest court action. However, the company’s lawyers are understood to be pouring over the document with a rispote imminent.
