Reuters: Regulatory News: UPDATE 1-Court lifts Brazil ban on Transocean drilling

Reuters: Regulatory News Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

UPDATE 1-Court lifts Brazil ban on Transocean drilling Oct 1st 2012, 07:57 Mon Oct 1, 2012 3:57am EDT * Judge said losses to public outweigh merits of injunction * Petrobras contracts for eight rigs from Transocean * Rigs are key to Petrobras oil expansion plans SAO PAULO, Sept 30 (Reuters) - A Brazilian court has overturned an injunction to suspend offshore drilling by contractor Transocean, accepting that it could have caused billions of dollars in lost revenue for the government and the state-led oil firm Petrobras. Judge Felix Fischer, president of Brazil's second-highest court -- the STJ, said in a court document seen by Reuters that he would accept part of an appeal filed by the oil regulator ANP on behalf of Petrobras earlier this month to lift the injunction. The Switzerland-listed shares of Transocean rwere up 3.6 percent at 43.46 francs by 0750 GMT on Monday. The Transocean ban is related to a lawsuit seeking nearly $20 billion from it and Chevron Corp for a November oil spill in the Frade offshore field northeast of Rio de Janeiro. Chevron had contracted Transocean's Sedco 706 rig to drill in Frade, where the ban on Transocean remains in force. Chevron and Transocean say they were not negligent in the spill and are fighting the lawsuits and related criminal charges. Brazil's oil regulator ANP said in a July report that Transocean had no responsibility for the spill. If it had remained, the injunction would have shut down Transocean's 10 drilling rigs operating in Brazilian waters, eight of them under contract by Petrobras, by Oct. 27. The court said there are 72 rigs operating in Brazil. Fischer accepted ANP's argument that losses in revenue to Petrobras and the government in royalties would amount to more than 6.7 billion reais ($3.8 billion) over two years if Transocean's rigs were suspended from operating. The court document seen by Reuters is likely to be published early this week but was signed by Fischer on Friday. Brazil is in the early stages of developing its massive subsalt geological oil play, which could hold upward of 100 billion barrels of oil. A shortage of drilling rigs able to operate in waters more than 2,000 metres deep has restrained Petrobras's push to bring on this new oil despite a $237 billion five-year expansion plan. "The original injunction was groundless and targeted Transocean unfairly," a Transocean spokesman said. "The company and its employees were completely exonerated by ANP's investigation which concluded that the leak resulted from geological factors and was totally unrelated to the actions of the Transocean rig crew." Petrobras and Chevron could not immediately be reached late on Sunday to comment on the court's decision to lift the injunction. Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions