Houston Division News

American Commercial Lines Inc. (ACL) said on Friday it expects to complete its recapitalization and emerge from Chapter 11 in the coming weeks after the U.S. Bankrptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division confirmed the company's pre-packaged plan. ACL announced it would implement the recapitalization plan in February. Upon emergence, the company will receive $200 million in new capital to support liquidity and investments in the business and will reduce its funded debt by approximately $1 billion…

Two companies filled lawsuits this week in federal courts in Texas alleging that ships they operated in 2018 were damaged by contaminated bunker fuel sold by a Valero Energy Co subsidiary Valero Marketing and Supply Co, according to court documents.A Valero spokeswoman did not reply to a request for comment.The National Shipping Co of Saudi Arabia said it paid out more than $1.1 million for repairs and replacement fuel for a ship that drifted at sea for two days before restarting and arriving at Alexandria…

Harvey Gulf International Marine issues statement on status of Chapter 11 Reorganization. Today, the United States Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of Texas - Houston Division, confirmed the final Plan of Reorganization submitted by Harvey Gulf International Marine. The approval comes just 77 days following Harvey Gulf’s prepackaged filing, considerably faster than all previous Chapter 11 proceedings for vessel operators over the last five years. Following the hearing, Harvey Gulf CEO, Shane Guidry, commented, “We really appreciate the diligent and collaborative efforts of all involved in this process – both within the company and from the legal and financial support teams.” Mr.

FIBERTOWN, a premier provider of high availabilityHouston data centers and business continuity offices has announced that the Houston division of Danish oil and shipping company, Maersk Oil, selected Fibertown data centers for high-performance colocation of its mission critical and disaster recovery systems. The growing oil and gas conglomerate will leverage the private gateway between FIBERTOWN colocation facilities to communicate between its production systems in Houston and disaster recovery systems in Bryan/College Station. “The crucial requirements for Maersk Oil were finding a colocation provider with no history of downtime and the ability to help them grow with no restrictions,” said Brandon Perryman, senior vice president for FIBERTOWN.

Transocean Inc. announced that one of its subsidiaries has entered into a settlement and license agreement with Noble Corporation. In the agreement, the Transocean subsidiary granted to Noble a worldwide and non-exclusive license to utilize Transocean's patents for offshore dual activity drilling methods and structures on the semisubmersible rig Noble Clyde Boudreaux which is currently working in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. The agreement follows a settlement of Transocean's February 2007 patent infringement suit against Noble in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Texas, Houston division. In the lawsuit, Transocean alleged that a recent upgrade to the Noble Clyde Boudreaux infringed claims of the Transocean patents.

According to GlobalSantaFe Corporation, a Houston jury has returned a verdict upholding the dual drilling activity patents of Transocean Inc. and ordered GlobalSantaFe to pay damages of $3.6m for using the patented structures on two of its offshore rigs. The jury also found that GlobalSantaFe willfully infringed the patents, which gives the court the discretion to enhance the damage award. The trial, which began last week in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, addressed the use of the patented structures only within U.S. territorial waters. In June 2006, the European Patent Office revoked Transocean's dual activity patent claims.