{"id":568384,"date":"2010-05-18T09:19:22","date_gmt":"2010-05-18T13:19:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/climateprogress.org\/?p=25356"},"modified":"2010-05-18T09:19:22","modified_gmt":"2010-05-18T13:19:22","slug":"transocean-to-give-shareholders-1-billion-while-trying-to-cap-its-responsibility-for-gulf-spill-at-27-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/568384","title":{"rendered":"Transocean to give shareholders $1 billion while trying to cap its responsibility for Gulf spill at $27 million"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Transocean, Ltd., the giant oil contractor that leased its Deepwater Horizon rig to BP, held a \u201cclosed-door meeting<\/a>\u201d with shareholders Friday, \u201cjust days after\u201d executives appeared before Congress to explain the company\u2019s role in the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill.\u00a0 As ThinkProgress noted, the meeting took place at the company\u2019s headquarters in Zug, Switzerland, where Transocean relocated two years ago to avoid paying taxes<\/a>. Though CEO Steven Newman \u201cignored questions<\/a> from reporters,\u201d the company said in a statement<\/a> that it would distribute $1 billion in dividends<\/a> to shareholders:<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The revelation that Transocean is distributing a $1 billion profit to shareholders as one of its drill sites leaks millions of gallons of oil into the sea is sure to inflame an already smarting debate over offshore drilling and the company\u2019s role.[…]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

To put the distribution in perspective, the amount of profit that Transocean plans to pay out in the next year is half of what Exxon ultimately paid for the Exxon Valdez disaster off the Alaska Coast.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s also more than double what BP has said they\u2019ve spent on the cleanup to date.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Meanwhile, Transocean has \u201cpassionately argued<\/a>\u201d to limit its financial responsibility for the disaster. The company filed a court request last week to cap its liability under $27 million<\/a>, a paltry sum considering BP has already spent over $450 million<\/a> on cleanup, and analysts estimate the effort could ultimately cost up to $8 billion<\/a>. As Raw Story notes, Transocean has actually made money from the disaster, collecting over $400 million<\/a> from insurers, leaving it with a profit of $270 million<\/a> after the costs of the rig are subtracted. As maritime attorney Jeff Seely told NPR, \u201cThey are the only people who have been compensated<\/a> for this tragedy. The decedents [of the 11 workers killed in an explosion on the rig] haven\u2019t been the compensated. The injured people who still are suffering, all the fishermen out in the Gulf that can no longer work haven\u2019t been compensated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reposted<\/a> from Think Progress.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Transocean, Ltd., the giant oil contractor that leased its Deepwater Horizon rig to BP, held a \u201cclosed-door meeting\u201d with shareholders Friday, \u201cjust days after\u201d executives appeared before Congress to explain the company\u2019s role in the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill.\u00a0 As ThinkProgress noted, the meeting took place at the company\u2019s headquarters in Zug, Switzerland, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-568384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}