Chevron Says It's Responsible For Brazil Spill

Chevron CVX, the second-largest U.S. oil company, is taking responsibility for a recent oil spill off the coast of Brazil the company's Brazil unit CEO said today. George Buck said a well owned by Chevron, Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras PBR and a Japanese firm has been plugged. “We will share the lessons learned here in the hope that this sort of incident won't happen again in Brazil or anywhere else in the world,” Buck said according to Reuters. Chevron said the spill resulted from underestimating pressure in the well's reservoir and not realizing how strong sub-sea rock was in the area surrounding the well. The Frade well was producing 79,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. Chevron owned 52% of the well and Petrobras owned 30%. The well was being drilled by Transocean RIG, the world's largest provider of offshore drilling services. California-based Chevron said Switzerland-based Transocean is not at fault for the spill. Transocean owned the Deepwater Horizon rig, the rig that exploded in April 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico, leading to the largest oil spill in U.S. history.