2011-04-01

Transocean LTD., a Swiss-based company, is the world's largest offshore drilling contractor, renting floating mobile drill rigs along with equipment and personnel for operations to oil and gas companies.

On April 20, 2010, an explosion and fire killed 11 crew members and destroyed a Transocean-owned semisubmersible drilling rig called Deepwater Horizon, positioned about 50 miles southeast of Venice, La., in water nearly 5,000 feet deep. The rig, one of the largest and most sophisticated in the world, had been under contract to BP, the London-based oil giant, since September 2007. The Deepwater Horizon accident spewed over 4.9 million barrels of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico, making it  the largest accidental oil spill in history.

BP, which is responsible for the cleanup, has pointed out repeatedly that Transocean had been operating the rig and was the owner of the "blowout valve'' that was designed to cut off leaking oil but which had proved impossible to activate.

Transocean's corporate motto is "We're never out of our depth." But that assertion has been increasingly called into question since the spill began.

The Coast Guard reported in April 2011 that poor maintenance, inadequate training and a lax safety culture at Transocean contributed to the lethal explosion and sinking of the company’s drilling rig the year before. 

The Coast Guard’s harshly worded 288-page study also declared that the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the mobile offshore drilling rig’s flag state, had failed in its regulatory duties. And the study faulted the Coast Guard itself for failing to ensure that large, complex offshore drilling units registered in foreign nations but operating in United States waters were properly maintained, staffed and inspected.