UNITED KINGDOM: Reaxction after BP agrees to pay $4.5 bln in penalties for U.S. oil spill

Record ID: 861882

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: Reaxction after BP agrees to pay $4.5 bln in penalties for U.S. oil spill
  • Date: 15th November 2012
  • Summary: NEAR DEEPWATER HORIZON OIL RIG, GULF OF MEXICO (FILE) (REUTERS) AERIAL SHOWING OIL SURROUNDING BOAT QUEEN BESS ISLAND, LOUISIANA, UNITED STATES (FILE-JUNE 5, 2010) (REUTERS) SIDE OF BOAT MOVING THROUGH OIL
  • Embargoed: 30th November 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: At Sea, Usa, United Kingdom
  • City:
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Disasters,Environment,Economy
  • Reuters ID: LVA88RA6L3L98WPKH0U1CY5ND3E
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: BP Plc will pay $4.5 billion in penalties and plead guilty to felony misconduct in the Deepwater Horizon disaster that caused the worst offshore oil spill in the country's history, the company said on Thursday (November 15).
    The settlement includes a $1.256 billion criminal fine, the largest such levy in U.S. history, the company said. A settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is also part of the deal, as are payments to the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation and the National Academy of Sciences.
    "Getting this fine out of the way is a big hurdle for the stock price, it's a big overhang. So once this is done it then leads onto the civil claims which should be done in February and this will set a sort of level and people can start working out what level these civil claims are going to be," said EXT analyst Joe Rundle.
    The April, 2010 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers. The mile-deep Macondo oil well then spewed 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf over 87 days, fouling shorelines from Texas to Florida and eclipsing in severity the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska.
    The oil company said Thursday it would plead guilty to 11 felony counts related to the workers' deaths, a felony related to obstruction of Congress and two misdemeanors.
    BP, which replaced its chief executive after the spill as its market value plummeted, still faces economic and environmental damage claims sought by four Gulf Coast states and other private plaintiffs.
    "In some ways BP has come back down from being one of the biggest companies in the world by market capitalisation to just around the fourth, that's a huge fall back and I think it has a long way to climb if it's going to retake that particular position," said IG analyst Brenda Kelly.
    BP has been negotiating for months with the U.S. government and Gulf Coast states to settle billions of dollars of potential civil and criminal liability claims.
  • Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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