BP 444 articles

Chemical oil dispersants BP used in 2010 to break up its Deepwater Horizon oil spill are still turning up in samples collected from the Gulf’s beaches and deep sea corals, a new scientific study has found. Scientists studying the presence the dispersant chemical DOSS (dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate) in the Gulf of Mexico environment expected to see a slower degradation in the deeper, colder areas of the Gulf, but the lingering presence of the chemical along the shore came as a surprise. The study, conducted by scientists from Haverford College and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and published in the journal Environmental ... Read More

As if causing the worst environmental disaster in the nation’s history weren’t enough of a blow to the U.S., BP appears determined to waste millions of taxpayer dollars by fighting every court decision until it gets the outcome it demands. On Friday, BP filed a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming the New Orleans federal court and the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals wrongly approved the multi-billion dollar settlement that the oil giant itself helped draft and then approved in March 2012. BP has been trying to suspend payments on claims to businesses harmed by the 2010 Deepwater ... Read More

Cases of beach-goers contracting the flesh-eating bacteria Vibrio vulnificus continue to occur in the warm water of the Gulf Coast this year, and one Auburn University professor has uncovered a link between the potentially deadly bacteria and tar balls still present in the water after BP’s 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Dr. Cova Arias, professor of aquatic microbiology at Auburn University, who has studied the impact of Vibrio on the Gulf’s oyster industry, set out to find if the bacteria could live in the tar still found in the water and along the beaches of the Gulf Coast. According to ... Read More

BP and its Deepwater Horizon partner Anadarko Petroleum Corp. asked the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals last week for another chance to demonstrate they should not be penalized for Clean Water Act violations as a result of the 2010 Gulf oil spill. According to Law360, the oil companies filed separate petitions for another hearing, claiming as they did the first time the issue was argued in court that the blowout preventer controlled by Transocean should have stopped the oil from escaping, as it was designed to do. However, last month the Fifth Court upheld a lower court ruling rejecting ... Read More

A former BP executive can be tried on a criminal charge of lying to Congress during its oil spill investigation, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday, overturning the decision of a lower court that had dismissed the charges in May 2013. Judge Stephen Higginson of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans said that David Rainey, a former BP exploration vice president, can indeed stand trial for obstructing Congress because a lower court judge had misinterpreted the obstruction statute when he threw the charges out. Prosecutors accused Mr. Rainey of downplaying estimates about the quantity of ... Read More

Louisiana’s seafood industries are in serious decline more than four years after BP’s Deepwater Horizon exploded and flooded the northern Gulf with millions of barrels of oil. Recent reports from the state’s oyster and shrimp industries indicate that fisheries have a long way to go before they return to pre-oil spill levels, if they ever recover at all. Al Sunseri, co-owner of French Quarter-based P&J Oyster Co., told the Associated Press that his company’s oyster yields are the lowest they have ever been in the company’s 130-plus years of business. “We’re shucking a tenth of the oysters that we used ... Read More

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected BP’s request to freeze payments to businesses harmed by its Deepwater Horizon oil spill as the oil giant waits to hear whether the high court will hear its appeal of the settlement agreement it reached with plaintiffs’ lawyers in 2012. In its fight to kill the uncapped oil-spill settlement agreement it helped design and then approved in 2012, BP has pushed its argument all the way to the Supreme Court. The company says oil spill fund administrator Patrick Juneau misinterpreted the agreement terms and is paying fictitious and inflated claims to businesses. However, ... Read More

A “litany of flaws” still plagues the devices offshore oil drillers in the Gulf of Mexico rely on to prevent blowouts like the one that exploded BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig in 2010, according to findings by the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. The Board’s findings potentially mean key risks that contributed to the BP oil spill – the largest environmental disaster ever to hit the U.S. – are still in place. The Chemical Board’s report, which focused on BP’s blowout preventer or “BOP,”  is one of a number of ongoing federal safety and industry investigations of the BP spill ... Read More

A new scientific study estimates that BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill killed between 600,000 and 800,000 coastal seabirds, a figure that surpasses previous estimates and underscores that likelihood that the 2010 disaster’s effects continue to send devastating shockwaves through the Gulf of Mexico’s ecosystem. According to a Marine Ecology Progress Series study, at least twice as many seabirds died as a result of the BP oil spill than the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, the second-largest oil spill in U.S. history and far smaller than the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Scientists estimated that the Valdez spill killed about 300,000 ... Read More

Anadarko Petroleum Corp. has agreed to pay $5.15 billion to clean up radioactive uranium, thorium, and other hazardous waste that was dumped throughout the United States, the U.S. Justice Department announced Thursday. The settlement is the largest recovery for environmental contamination in the nation’s history. Anadarko is the parent company of energy company Kerr-McGee Corp., which it acquired in 2006. According to the Justice Department, Kerr-McGee has an 85-year history of polluting U.S. communities and resources with toxic waste. Kerr-McGee’s perchlorate business contaminated Lake Mead, which flows into the Colorado River and provides drinking water to much of the Southwest United ... Read More