The Dow Jones Newswire is reporting that Transocean, the owner and operator of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that exploded and sank last month, is seeking to limit its liability to just under $27 million. The world’s biggest offshore driller is filing the request in the US District Court in Houston under a century-and-a-half-old law originally aimed at helping US ship owners compete with foreign-flagged vessels. Transocean’s rig was being leased by BP at the time of the April 20th explosion that killed eleven workers and caused the devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, evidence emerged Wednesday that the oil well failed a pressure test hours before the drilling rig exploded. Pressure tests are conducted to ensure the integrity of cement poured into the well to keep out natural gas. Congressman Henry Waxman discussed the test findings at a congressional hearing Wednesday.

Henry Waxman: “The anomalies in the pressure testing present a significant question that should be thoroughly investigated. Just hours before the explosion, tests on the well returned results that signaled a possible well failure and the influx of gas up the wall. Yet it appears that the companies did not suspend well operations, and now eleven workers are dead and the Gulf Coast region faces catastrophic environmental damages. We need to know if that’s the case and why it was the case.”