A New Orleans company that has failed to stop a 13-year-old oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is asking for more time to negotiate a settlement that could allow it to recover millions of dollars set aside for work to end the leak.
Taylor Energy representatives and U.S. officials have met four times in the past year to discuss possible settlement terms that would resolve the company’s lawsuit against the federal government.
The results of recent surveys and scientific studies at the leak site could have an impact on settlement talks, a court filing says.
U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Nancy Firestone agreed in May to temporarily suspend the lawsuit so talks could continue. She ordered the parties to provide an update this week, but Justice Department attorneys today joined the company in asking the judge for more time to negotiate.
Taylor Energy sued the federal government in January 2016, claiming regulators violated a 2008 agreement requiring the company to deposit roughly $666 million in a trust to pay for work to stop the leak.
The company wants the Feds to return the remaining $432 million in the trust.
The leak began off Louisiana’s coast after a Taylor Energy-owned oil platform toppled during Hurricane Ivan in 2004. Waves whipped up by Ivan triggered an underwater mudslide that buried a cluster of oil wells under mounds of sediment, preventing the company from using conventional techniques to plug its wells.
Taylor Energy has claimed nothing can be done to completely eliminate chronic sheens at the site. Regulators have warned that the leak could last a century or more if left unchecked.
