BP to pay record $4 billion in damages for role in oil spill disaster
AP: BP will pay an unprecedented $4 billion in criminal penalties and plead guilty to manslaughter and other charges for its role in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster.
A US judge approved the agreement Tuesday. BP is pleading guilty to charges relating to the 11 workers’ deaths and for lying to Congress about the scale of the spill.
BP could pay billions more once the US federal government resolves its civil claims against the company.Photo: Sean Gardner/Reuters
So now we’ve got a slightly clearer impression of the terms of BP’s settlement over the Deepwater Horizon disaster – the company, in addition to the payout, will accept a guilty plea on manslaughter charges, accepting responsibility for the deaths of those 11 rig workers during the initial explosion.
Two BP Plc employees face criminal indictments for their part in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, and charges could be unveiled as early as Thursday, a source told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
London-based BP is expected to pay a record U.S. criminal penalty and plead guilty to criminal misconduct in the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon platform in the Gulf of Mexico, which caused the worst offshore oil spill in the country’s history, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The sources told Reuters that a plea deal with the Justice Department over the 2010 disaster, in which 11 workers died, may be announced as soon as Thursday.
READ ON: BP workers face criminal charges from 2010 spill - source
Will be interesting to see if anyone goes to jail over this.
I have been lucky. Having the opportunity to do something like this is fantastic. It is fair to say I wanted to recover some of my self-esteem.Tony Hayward, former CEO of BP • In a New York Times profile, examining the daily life of the former BP executive, just over two years after he famously lamented his loss of life. Hayward now finds himself at the helm of Genel Energy, a drastically smaller oil company (currently worth about $3 billion on London’s stock market), and he hopes to redeem his image globally. source (via • follow)
» But are the fines enough to teach BP a lesson? Some say no, including shrimp producer Dean Blanchard, who told The Guardian, “I want my day in court. If they can get off with just paying the money — well, they’ve got plenty of money, they are not really going to learn a lesson.” In addition to the settlement, BP announced that it would use the remainder of the $20 billion compensation fund it raised during the summer of 2010 to settle additional complaints from residents and businesses in the region. In a statement released late Friday night, BP chief executive Bob Dudley said, “the proposed settlement represents significant progress toward resolving issues from the Deepwater Horizon accident and contributing further to economic and environmental restoration efforts along the Gulf Coast.”
One year after the worst oil spill in U.S. history, it is crucial we stay educated on the effects of the BP Gulf disaster.
Everywhere you look today, you’ll find stories on the lives of Gulf residents, the response from BP, and the actions of the federal government.
Here are the stories you need to read … [more]
This is an amazingly detailed list. Take a look and dig through it. This is an important story, and one that shouldn’t be forgotten because of the changing news cycles. Great work.
Hey, let’s not forget about this: A report compiled by risk management firm Det Norske Veritas on last year’s oil spill in the Gulf came out today. (They were hired by the federal government, not BP, by the way.) They claim that design flaws scuttled the blowout preventer; as the well lost control, the drill pipe bent and buckled, which blocked the shear rams. Shear rams are the means by which the blowout is supposed to be prevented, as they’d cut through the drill pipe to safeguard against the well’s pressure level. Sadly, these sort of industrial fail-safe systems don’t always work as well in reality as in theory. source
Kevin Costner, Stephen Baldwin fight over BP oil spill: Remember how Kevin Costner somehow came up with a way to separate oil from water? Seems one of the Baldwin brothers was also involved. Now Stephen’s suing. source
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