W&T Offshore to pay $1 million in CWA case

JANUARY 4, 2013 – W&T Offshore, Inc. (NYSE: WTI) reports that the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana has accepted a previously announced agreement between the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana and W&T Offshore, resolving environmental violations related to the Company’s Ewing Banks 910 oil and gas production platform (“EW-910”) in the Gulf of Mexico.

During 2009, employees of a contractor working for W&T Offshore on the EW-910 platform violated established protocols for collecting produced water samples before submitting the samples to the laboratory for testing. Additionally, on November 27, 2009, Federal government inspectors observed a light, visible sheen on the water around the EW-910 platform, resulting from ongoing platform cleaning efforts.

Under the agreement, W&T Offshore pled guilty to one felony count under the Clean Water Act for altering monthly produced water discharge samples from the EW-910 platform in 2009 and to one misdemeanor count under the Clean Water Act for negligently discharging a small amount of oil from the same platform in November 2009.

The plea agreement requires W&T Offshore to pay a $700,000 fine, make a $300,000 community service payment, be placed on a three-year term of probation, and implement an environmental compliance program subject to a third-party audit.