LOUISIANA
ATP Oil & Gas Corp. agreed to pay $41 million to settle a federal environmental claim for dumping oil and chemicals into the Gulf of Mexico, officials announced today.
The federal government alleged that the oil company violated the Clean Water Act and Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, according to officials.
The discharges of oil and chemicals from a floating oil and gas production platform into the Gulf of Mexico resulted in two agreements that imposed $41.8 million in fines for the violations, officials said.
“ATP’s illegal and unsafe actions in the Gulf of Mexico warrant this concerted enforcement effort to deter it and others in the oil and gas industry from committing similar misconduct,” said Assistant Attorney General John C. Cruden for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. “No operator should place oil production goals ahead of protection of its workers or the marine environment.”
The first settlement agreement, lodged today in the U.S. District Court in Louisiana, resolves all U.S. claims against ATP in a case filed in February 2013.
The federal government alleges that ATP discharged oil and an unauthorized chemical dispersant into the Gulf of Mexico from ATP’s oil and gas production platform known as the ATP Innovator.
An inspection on March 2012 revealed alleged unlawful discharges of oil and a piping configuration that routed an unpermitted dispersant – a chemical mixture to break up oil – into the facility’s wastewater discharge pipe to mask excess oil being discharged into the ocean, according to authorities.
At the time of the discovery, ATP Oil was the operator of the facility and ATP Infrastructure Partners was the non-operating owner, according to officials.
The ATP Oil was operating in the Mississippi Canyon area of the Gulf of Mexico, approximately 45 nautical miles offshore of southeastern Louisiana, officials said.
The platform was removed from the deepwater production site in 2013 and towed to port in Corpus Christi, Texas. ATP Oil is going through a Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceeding and is no longer operating.
The federal claims against ATP Oil were settled last year and approved by the court in May of this year, officials said.
“Protecting the Gulf means protecting one of the nation’s most vital economic and ecologic resources,” said Regional Administrator Ron Curry with the EPA. “Companies operating in the Gulf must do their part in ensuring it remains as healthy and productive as possible.”