BP Settlement Seen as Probable Outcome of Spill Penalty Trial
Oil floats in the Gulf of Mexico near Orange Beach, Alabama, U.S., on Friday, June 18, 2010.
Photographer: Kari Goodnough/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Last week’s ruling that BP Plc’s Macondo well dumped less oil into the Gulf of Mexico than the U.S. government claimed may trigger a settlement before a decision on the amount it must pay after a trial set to begin this week.
A federal judge determined on Jan. 15 that the penalty will be based on the size of the spill being 3.19 million barrels, about 25 percent less than estimated by the government. That ruling, which was followed by a 5.3 percent jump in BP shares, reduced the potential maximum pollution fines for the 2010 spill to $13.7 billion from $18 billion and increased the incentives for a settlement.