Nov 15, 2012

BP has plead guilty to felony misconduct and agreed to pay $4.5 billion in penalties for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The disaster was the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. Eleven oil rig workers were killed and 4.9 million barrels of oil spewed into the Gulf over 87 days. Here’s a look back at the oil spill and recovery efforts.

: May 19, 2010 – Smoke rises from a controlled burn in the Gulf of Mexico. (Photo by John Kepsimelis/U.S. Coast Guard via Getty Images)

: In this June 4, 2010 photo, a clean-up worker picks up an absorbent snare filled with oil on Queen Bess Island near in Plaquemines Parish, La. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

: June 5, 2010 – An exhausted oil-covered brown pelican tries to climb over an oil containment boom along Queen Bess Island Pelican Rookery, 3 miles northeast of Grand Isle, La . (REUTERS/Sean Gardner)

: June 14, 2010 – One of 10 Kemp’s Ridley turtles is recovered by a team of sea turtle experts who are working to recover oiled and endangered turtles. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)

: June 15, 2010 – A member of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s staff reaches into thick oil on the surface of the water. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

: June 17, 2010 – With protesters behind him, BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward awaits the start of a hearing before the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee on “The Role Of BP In The Deepwater Horizon Explosion And Oil Spill” (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

: June 19, 2010 – Fires burn around the site of the BP Deepwater Horizon rig site in the Gulf of Mexico. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)

: June 24, 2010 – A worker pulls up a boom soaked in oil in the wetlands in Cocodrie, La. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)

: July 1, 2010 – A Northern Gannet seabird is cleaned by rehabilitators at a rescue center facility set up by the International Bird Rescue Research Center in Fort Jackson, La. (REUTERS/Sean Gardner)

: July 5, 2010 – Danene Birtell (L) and Melanie Reed clean oil off of a laughing gull at the Fort Jackson Oiled Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

: July 9, 2010 – Workers clean up oily globs that washed ashore in Waveland, Miss. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

: July 17, 2010 – A tri-colored heron covered in oil was found along Queen Bess Island near Grand Isle, La. (REUTERS/Sean Gardner)

: July 17, 2010 – An oil absorbent boom sits idle in a canal awaiting to be be cleaned up near Port Sulphur, La. (REUTERS/Sean Gardner)

: July 22, 2010 – Administrator of the BP Oil Spill Victim Compensation Fund Kenneth Feinberg testifies before a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. (REUTERS/Jim Young)

: December 6, 2010 – A worker cleans tarballs from the BP oil spill in Waveland, Miss. Nearly eight months after the spill, tarballs continued to washing up on the beach. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

: April, 15, 2011 – One year after the Deepwater Horizon accident, life in many parts of the region was getting back to normal. Tomas Maldonado, center, and Gilberto Reyes, throw nets to catch shrimp off of the quiet docks in Grand Isle, as a loaded shrimp boat covered with birds pulls into port. In May 2010, the same docks were used as a command center for the oil spill disaster efforts. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)

: April 19, 2011 – A sheen of oil floats in a marsh in southern Louisiana. A year after the BP oil spill coated Gulf coast beaches and marshes, BP claimed that most of the oil had been removed. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Read the full story on baltimoresun.com

HOUSTON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – BP Plc will pay $4.5 billion in penalties and plead guilty to felony misconduct in the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which killed 11 workers and caused the worst U.S. offshore oil spill ever.

The settlement includes a $1.256 billion criminal fine, the largest such levy in U.S. history, the oil company said on Thursday. Wall Street analysts said the deal will allow BP to focus again on oil production.

One U.S. senator from Louisiana said he hoped the settlement would not prevent his state and others for collecting civil penalties. An environmental group said BP should ultimately pay billions more.

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 company said 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.

A look back at the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill

Leave a Reply Cancel