Oil Spill, Bp Oil Spill | featured news

A US court approves the biggest criminal fine in US history given to British oil giant BP as part of a settlement related to the fatal 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. In November, BP said it would pay $4bn (£2.5bn) to the US Department of Justice and agreed to plea guilty to 14 criminal charges. The sum included a $1.26bn fine.

BP will pay approximately $4.5 billion and plead guilty to criminal charges as part of a settlement with the U.S. government over the deadly Deepwater Horizon rig explosion and massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, the London-based oil giant announced Thursday.

The Gulf Coast is a hot destination again two years after the massive BP Plc oil spill made the region a tourist dead zone, with the petroleum giant pumping more than $150 million into promotions to help the region recover.

BP and a committee representing plaintiffs suing over the 2010 Gulf oil spill have reached an estimated $7.8 billion agreement to settle the lawsuit, company officials said late Friday.

A partial settlement of claims made against BP for the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is very close, sources tell the BBC.

BP Plc has delayed by one week the start of a massive trial to decide who should pay for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, to allow more time to cut a deal with tens of thousands of businesses and individuals affected by the disaster.

On the cusp of trial over the catastrophic 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, phalanxes of lawyers, executives and public officials have spent the waning days in settlement talks. Holed up in small groups inside law offices, war rooms and hotel suites in New Orleans and Washington, they are trying to put a number on what BP and its partners in the doomed Macondo well project should pay to make up for the worst offshore spill in U.S. history.

Speaking before an audience of Republican activists Saturday, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal blasted the Obama administration over its response to the 2010 BP oil spill in the gulf, saying Obama officials “wasted precious time while that oil was coming in to our coast.”

Oil giant BP is back in the black, announcing profits of $5.3 billion just a year after the Deepwater Horizon disaster left it facing heavy losses.

BP on Wednesday sued the maker of the device that failed to stop last year's calamitous Gulf oil spill and the owner of the rig that exploded, alleging that negligence by both helped cause the disaster.