WASHINGTON — A subsidiary of Houston-based ATP Oil & Gas will pay a $1 million fine to settle government charges alleging it illegally dumped oil and chemicals into the Gulf of Mexico.
Under the settlement agreement reached between ATP Infrastructure Partners LP and the United States, the company will also be forced to remove a pipe from its Innovator platform that the government says allowed the firm to inject chemical dispersants into the water and mask illegally discharged oil.
And if ATP Infrastructure Partners wants to use the now-idle floating production platform again, it must submit the facility’s wastewater treatment operations and other safety systems to an independent audit.
The settlement is limited to the government’s lawsuit against ATP Infrastructure Partners; additional charges against ATP that have been filed under the Clean Water Act and other statutes are still pending.
ATP, which filed for bankruptcy two years ago, could not be reached for comment.
According to court filings, offshore regulators with the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement discovered the alleged Clean Water Act violations during an inspection in March 2012.
They accused the companies of discharging more oil than allowed into the Gulf, and then applying a chemical dispersant at the site to break up the resulting sheen.
That dispersant-delivery pipe — nicknamed the “sheen buster” by workers on the facility — added the chemical Cleartron ZB-103 after required sampling, helping to prevent its detection, according to the federal government’s complaint.
At the time, the facility — then operated by ATP Oil & Gas Corp. — was working in deep Gulf waters, about 45 miles off the southeast Louisiana coast. ATP Infrastructure Partners owned the facility at the time of the incident and now, even as it sits in Port of Corpus Christi.
Government officials said the legal action showed their commitment to policing offshore oil and gas activity.
“This joint enforcement action demonstrates our resolve to hold non-operating owners of oil production facilities and their operators accountable for unlawful discharges from their facilities and will result in important steps to help prevent future unlawful discharges of oil and chemicals from the ATP facility,” said Sam Hirsch, acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.
But it us unclear if the Innovator will ever return to service. According to the consent decree, the ATP ceased operations, left the deepwater Gulf for the Port of Corpus Christi and has been unleased for more than a year. ATP Infrastructure Partners “currently has no plans to use or lease the ATP Innovator for operation in waters within the jurisdiction of the United States,” according to the legal filing.
Although the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement has traditionally taken enforcement steps against offshore operators, it began rapping drilling contractors for violations last year.
Read more: Feds put contractors on notice
The action against ATP Infrastructure Partners appears to be an outgrowth of that new approach.
“When violations occur, we will exercise our full authority and leverage the authorities of our sister agencies to hold companies accountable,” said bureau director Brian Salerno.
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