Officials blast Transocean for handing out safety-related bonuses

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar blasted Transocean, the operator of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, for doling out bonuses to its executives and declaring 2010 “the best year in safety performance in our company’s history.”

“At the end of the day, it was that complacency that created an oil spill that was pouring" thousands of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico every day, Salazar said on a conference call with reporters Monday.

Citing investigations into the oil spill, Salazar said Transocean was “at least at some fault with respect to what happened at the Macondo well,” which lost control last year, spewing 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico over the course of several months.

The Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, 2010, killing 11 men.

“2010 was probably the greatest year of pain” in the oil industry, Salazar said.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Saturday on the Transocean bonuses, detailed in an April 1 filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

"Notwithstanding the tragic loss of life in the Gulf of Mexico, we achieved an exemplary statistical safety record,” the filing said, according to the Journal.

William Reilly, the co-chairman of the national oil spill commission, also slammed Transocean on Monday.

“I think Transocean just doesn’t get it,” Reilly told reporters on the same conference call. “It’s embarrassing to see a position taken like that by an industry leader.”

The SEC filing “ought to be evidence No. 1” of the culture of complacency within the oil industry identified in the oil spill commission’s final report, Reilly said.

This story was updated at 2:36 p.m.