“In my own view, 2010 was probably the greatest year of pain in terms of oil and gas development in the deep water all across the world, especially in the Gulf of Mexico,” Mr. Salazar said. He added that Transocean was “at least at some fault” in the explosion, which killed 11 workers and led to the biggest oil spill ever in the United States.
The interior secretary was visiting Mexico with officials from the presidential commission that investigated the BP oil spill to discuss regulation of offshore drilling with Mexican officials. William K. Reilly, co-chairman of commission, called Transocean’s comments “embarrassing.”
“It’s been said with respect to the disaster that some companies just don’t get it — I think Transocean just doesn’t get it,” Mr. Reilly said.
The spill commission concluded in a report released in January that the oil spill was an avoidable accident caused by a series of failures and errors by the companies involved in drilling the well — BP, Transocean and Halliburton — and several subcontractors as well as the government regulators assigned to oversee their work.
Transocean moved on Monday to contain the damage from its description of 2010 as a good safety year, which appeared in a securities filing on Friday disclosing that its top executives received about 45 percent of their targeted performance bonuses for the year.
Ihab Toma, Transocean’s executive vice president of global business, said in a statement on Monday that “some of the wording in our 2010 proxy statement may have been insensitive in light of the incident that claimed the lives of 11 exceptional men last year and we deeply regret any pain that it may have caused.”
Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=fee3a5c874337d432cca2fee903162b9
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