With less than a week remaining before their big trial in New Orleans, BP and other defendant companies involved in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill have stepped up negotiations with plaintiffs’ lawyers in an effort to settle claims.
BP and supplier M-I Swaco, a Houston-based drilling mud supplier, agreed Friday to settle all claims with each other over the Deepwater Horizon explosion that led to the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
Weatherford U.S. LP, a Swiss oilfield service company that built key parts of BP’s failed Macondo well, will not have to face civil or criminal penalties and punitive damages for its role in the deadly Deepwater Horizon explosion and Gulf of Mexico oil spill, U.S. District Judge Judge Carl Barbier said Friday.
Congressional representatives and municipal officials from the Gulf Coast are in Washington pushing for legislation that would direct billions of dollars in BP oil-spill fine money to the states harmed by the 2010 spill before time runs out.
Top White House officials manipulated the scientific findings of independent experts to “seriously lowball the amount of oil leaking from the BP Deepwater Horizon,” according to a group of federal, state, and municipal employees.
Lawyers for the federal government are posturing to collect heavy fines from BP and other companies for playing a role in the causing 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The Justice Depratment argued in a hearing in New Orleans Friday that BP, Transocean, and Anadarko should be found liable ahead of February’s trial for violating U.S. pollution laws.
Priding itself on “making things right” in Gulf of Mexico and coastal communities hard-hit the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, BP says it has big plans for expanding its operations in the United States. The announcement wasn’t supposed to comfort residents and businesses still struggling to recover in the BP spill’s oily aftermath, but to reassure investors that it doesn’t intend to hold back on its push to find and extract more oil and gas from U.S. lands and waters, despite the ongoing destruction of Gulf ecosystems and frustration of people who depend on them for a living.
The Troy, Alabama, city council voted recently to allow the city to pursue a claim against BP for revenues lost during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and in its aftermath. The disastrous oil spill erupted less about 50 miles south of Louisiana in April 2010, flooding the Gulf of Mexico with crude oil just before peak tourism and fishing seasons began.
BP levied some hefty accusations against Halliburton Energy Services in court Monday, claiming the company intentionally destroyed cement samples, test results, and computer models that would have demonstrated the contractor’s culpability in the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
The city of Orange Beach, Alabama, and BP reached an agreement Wednesday over tourism revenues the city lost during and after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The settlement came after a year of negotiating, with BP agreeing to pay $1.27 million to cover lodging and retail taxes and other “small claims” the city has tried to recover since the BP oil spill fouled Alabama’s coastline.
