Transocean is the company that owns the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that exploded and sank in the Gulf, causing the largest offshore oil spillin U.S. history. In a formal letter to BP, Transocean took an accusatory tone in regards to BP's failure to deliver on information requests. "It appears that BP is withholding evidence in an attempt to prevent any entity other than BP from investigating the cause of the April 20th incident and the resulting spill," Transocean attorney Steven Roberts said in the letter.
With new controversy emerging about just how much oil is left in the Gulf from the spill, the attention of the public seems to have shifted away from determining the initial cause of the explosion. Transocean, in particular, seems to be concerned that BP will control all of the data surrounding the accident and will then be able to spin that information in a way that will be favorable to BP.
Determining the reasons for the initial explosion will be a large factor in deciding who is responsible for clean-up costs and the inevitable government fines that will be impose as a result of the spill. The government is also collecting data from BP, but it claims that the company has been in compliance with the government's requests.
It doesn't take much to see that the problem in this case is BP controls all of the information surrounding the initial disaster. They were operating the rig at the time of the explosion, so if anyone knows exactly what happened out there, it's BP. Of course, it's possible that they don't know either, which of course would imply negligence or incompetence on their part. In any event, an investigation of this scope needs to be transparent in order to be credible. At this point, it seems that BP has too much control over the information that is available.
With new controversy emerging about just how much oil is left in the Gulf from the spill, the attention of the public seems to have shifted away from determining the initial cause of the explosion. Transocean, in particular, seems to be concerned that BP will control all of the data surrounding the accident and will then be able to spin that information in a way that will be favorable to BP.
Determining the reasons for the initial explosion will be a large factor in deciding who is responsible for clean-up costs and the inevitable government fines that will be impose as a result of the spill. The government is also collecting data from BP, but it claims that the company has been in compliance with the government's requests.
It doesn't take much to see that the problem in this case is BP controls all of the information surrounding the initial disaster. They were operating the rig at the time of the explosion, so if anyone knows exactly what happened out there, it's BP. Of course, it's possible that they don't know either, which of course would imply negligence or incompetence on their part. In any event, an investigation of this scope needs to be transparent in order to be credible. At this point, it seems that BP has too much control over the information that is available.
