Noble Drilling

Oil Drillers Gain Billions from 'Immoral' Tax Break

The two largest offshore drilling companies in the world, Transocation and Noble Corporation, are in reality headquartered in the Houston area but moved their legal domiciles first to the Cayman Islands and then to Switzerland to avoid U.S. tax. Calculations shown below indicate that those maneuvers have reduced their tax bills by more than $2 billion.

Transocean owned and operated the floating, dynamically positioned rig that exploded on April 20, leading to a loss of 11 lives and spilling hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.