Houston-based oil and gas firm Apache Deepwater was awarded $43.2m in a breach-of-contract lawsuit against fellow Houston firm W&T Offshore, according to the Houston Chronicle.
A federal jury in Houston found that W&T had failed to pay an agreed 49% share of the cost of plugging and abandoning three deep-water wells in Mississippi Canyon Block #7674 in the Gulf of Mexico.
But the jury also found that Apache had “acted in bad faith, causing W&T to not comply with the contract” and recommended that $17m be deducted from the award as a result.
Apache claimed that W&T refused to authorize the cost of plugging the wells because of disagreement about what type of drilling rig to use.
The final amount of the penalty, if any, must be determined by U.S. District Judge David Hittner at a hearing yet to be set.
