The first settlement has been reached in connection with the 2010 gulf oil spill. Above, the U.S. Coast Guard battles the blazing remnants of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. (U.S. Coast Guard / April 21, 2010) |
A minority stakeholder in the Macondo well project agreed to pay $90 million in civil penalties for its liability in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, federal officials announced Friday.
The agreement reached with MOEX Offshore LLC 2007, a subsidiary of the Japanese oil company Mitsui, is the first of several settlements expected to come as a major trial over the disaster prepares to open in 10 days.
The Obama administration touted the settlement reached with MOEX as the largest penalty paid for violating the Clean Water Act.
Said Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr.: “This landmark settlement is an important step – but only a first step – toward achieving accountability and protecting the future of the gulf ecosystem by funding critical habitat preservation projects.”
But independent analysts offered mixed reviews about the settlement and its implications for future penalties for the companies that played major roles in the disaster, including BP, the operator of the well, and Transocean, which owned the drilling rig.
On Feb. 27, opening arguments are scheduled to begin in New Orleans in the civil lawsuit brought against BP and other companies by the Justice Department and thousands of gulf-area residents allegedly hurt by the oil spill.
“There’s a limit to how much the MOEX settlement tells us what may happen with BP and other companies involved in the spill, but it certainly doesn’t signal the government is going to seek anything approaching the maximum penalties against the other defendants,” said David Uhlmann, director of the environmental law program at the University of Michigan and former head of the Justice Department’s environmental crimes unit. “There’s no escaping the conclusion that this is an extremely small penalty in the context of the gulf oil spill.”
MOEX was the smallest shareholder in the project and a passive partner that had no role in the drilling operation that was underway when the Macondo well blew out, killing 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon rig and spewing nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the sea.
Under the terms of the settlement, MOEX would pay $70 million in penalties, and another $20 million that would go “to facilitate land acquisition projects in several gulf states that will preserve and protect in perpetuity habitat and resources important” to the region’s water and environment.
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