DOJ Suing Transocean To Force Compliance With Investigation

The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Transocean on Wednesday to force the company to comply with subpoenas from the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), an independent agency investigating the April 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that followed. The lawsuit says Transocean has failed to comply with five subpoenas between Nov. 24, 2010 and April 7. A separate federal investigation found in September that Transocean’s rig crew made mistakes that led to the rig’s blowout and millions of barrels of oil flowing into the Gulf.

And U.S. offshore drilling officials issued citations to Transocean and Haliburton, which were contractors on the rig, as well as BP, which operated the drilling rig. The citations mostly likely will lead to fines, which could be $35,000 per day of the leak under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. The deepwater oil well leaked for 87 days in 2010. In a statement, the Interior Department said penalizing the contractors along with BP “reflects the severity of the incident.”