ABC News and other media outlets reported yesterday that BP's profits were soaring nearly two years after the Macondo well blow-out.
Indeed, the embattled oil giant posted profits of $7.69 billion for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2011.
For Louisiana residents who've watched the company as it fights to drill again, pay claims, battle claims, clean up the shoreline, retreat from the shoreline, dodge the press and also run one savvy ad campaign, the news of a fat bottom line is no doubt met with mixed emotions.
Yet, the company is obviously keen to tout what it feels is a rebound in the Gulf. In a press release issued from London yesterday, BP said:
In the Gulf of Mexico, there are now five deepwater rigs working on BP-operated fields, under BP’s enhanced voluntary standards, and an appraisal well was spudded on the Kaskida field in November 2011. By the end of 2012 BP expects an additional three rigs to be working in the region, subject to regulatory approval.
BP has committed $1 billion for the early restoration of natural resources following the Deepwater Horizon accident in 2010, and in December 2011 the trustees announced the first projects to receive funding through this process.
The company claims that by the end of 2011 over $7.8 billion had been paid to "meet claims and government payments and a total of $15.1billion had been paid into the Trust fund, including payments from settlement agreements with Anadarko, Weatherford and MOEX."
Further, a $250 million payment from Cameron following settlement with BP during the fourth quarter was paid into the fund last month, says BP.
Despite the rosy news for the company, though, all eyes are on the impending civil trial in New Orleans in U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier's court Feb. 27. Here, penalties will be assessed in this juryless trial that will determine fault for the explosion. BP may also try to settle as the trial nears, biting into its sizeable cache.
Comments