The company that owns the sunken Deepwater Horizon rig said Thursday that it planned to petition a federal court in Houston to cap its overall liability from the incident at less than $27 million.
A spokesman for the Swiss company said the company will cite an 1851 law that says the owner of a sunken vessel is liable only for its value after the accident. Transocean has been named in more than 100 class action, personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits, but a liability limit would cap the amount it would be forced to pay if it loses any of the lawsuits related to the April 20 rig explosion that killed 11.
Transocean expects to receive $560 million in insurance money from the loss of the Deepwater Horizon. If the court approves the liability limit, the company would be left with about $533 million, almost enough to cover its original revenue expectations over a three-year contract with BP.
BP leases the well that's now spewing 210,000 gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico each day.
The announcement comes as a group of West Coast lawmakers announced a proposed ban on offshore drilling along their states' coastlines, one day after congressional hearings raised questions about oil platform fail-safe equipment that allowed the gusher.
rest at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126798122
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