Transocean Ltd., the company now entangled in the oil spill accident in the Gulf of Mexico — reported overnight on Thursday net income in the first quarter of 677 million dollars, down from 942 million dollars a year earlier, amid lower revenues.
Revenues in the quarter weighed in at just over 2.6 billion dollars, compared with 3.12 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2009.
The world’s largest offshore drilling contractor, which trades in New York and last month was also listed on the Zurich exchange, released the results after markets closed in the United States.
On Tuesday, representatives of BP and Transocean, which owns Deepwater Horizon — the oil rig that exploded last month in the Gulf of Mexico — briefed Congress behind closed doors about the extent of the damages and their containment measures.
In related documents to its first quarter reporting filed to the SEC, and made available on the Transocean Website, the drilling company said its underwriters declared the sunken rig a total loss and, as of May 5, received 401 million dollars as partial payment of the expected insurance recoveries.
“There have also been numerous lawsuits filed related to the incident, and we expect additional lawsuits to be filed. We expect to incur significant legal fees and costs in responding to these matters,” Transocean wrote to the US regulator.
The incident is “expected to have a material effect on our future consolidated results of operations and cash flows and may have a material effect on our future consolidated statement of financial position,” said the filing by the Zug, Switzerland—based company.
BP, which contracted Transocean for the drilling, said it has so far plugged one of three leaks and is working to stem the remaining flows of crude.
Swiss Re, the Zurich—based re—insurer, has estimated the total insured losses as a result of the April 20 explosion at between 1.5 billion and 3.5 billion dollars.
Eleven people died in the oil rig explosion.
