BP appeals violation notices stemming from Gulf of Mexico oil spill

BP and its contractors are appealing a series of notices issued by the Interior Department in recent months that found the companies violated federal offshore drilling regulations during the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The companies — including BP, Deepwater Horizon rig owner Transocean and drilling services giant Halliburton — appealed all of the formal violation notices issued by Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), the agency said Friday.

BSEE said the Interior Board of Land Appeals will hear all of the appeals, but the proceedings will be delayed until the court battle over the spill makes more progress.

The violation notices are the first step toward imposing penalties on the companies, which were blamed for the spill by the Interior Department and the U.S. Coast Guard in a report released last year.

BP said in December that it planned to appeal the violation notices, arguing that the issues identified by federal regulators “played no causal role in the accident.”

Interior issued an initial round of violation notices in October to BP, Transocean and Halliburton, which performed cement work on the well. The notices accused the companies of neglecting to “protect health, safety, property and the environment by failing to perform all operations in a safe and workmanlike manner,” among other things.

The department issued a second round of violation notices to BP in December after an additional review of evidence conducted by BSEE staff.

The April 2010 BP oil spill dumped 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and resulted in the deaths of 11 men.

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