MENU
MENU
Posted in BP British Petroleum,Deepwater Horizon,Environment,Government,Gulf Coast,Louisiana Maritime News,Maritime Law,Maritime Lawsuits,Texas Maritime News,Transocean,World Maritime News on June 21, 2011
HOUSTON, TX – A high ranking Transocean oil rig worker, who was on the Deepwater Horizon when it explode on April 20, 2010, has refused to testify in civil lawsuits over the disaster.
Jimmy Harrell, the rig’s offshore installation manager, was in charge of drilling activities on the Deepwater Horizon, when it exploded while drilling the BP Macondo well 50 miles off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico.
Mr Harrell told federal investigators last year that he was in command of the rig before the explosion that killed 11 workers and caused the worst offshore oil spill in the United States, according to court records.
Harrell was a key conduit for decisions between the well operator, BP, and the drilling crew.
FuelFix.com reports:
Doug Brown, an electrician on the rig, said during testimony before a joint U.S. Coast Guard/Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement investigation hearing that Harrell and Don Vidrine — one of BP’s two onsite supervisors — got into an argument over plans to complete the well.
“I guess that’s what we have those pinchers for,” Harrell mumbled, according to Brown, at the end of the argument, a reference to the shearing rams in the blowout preventer that are supposed to seal off the well in a blowout.
Harrell was scheduled to give a deposition in the case on July 11, but in an update filed Monday, June 20, on the dozens of lawsuits brought against BP, Transocean and other companies and individuals involved in the accident, US magistrate Sally Shushan said she had been advised that Mr Harrell would invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald
Related Searches: