Shares Rise
“This agreement will resolve the largest liabilities remaining from the tragic accident,” BP Chief Executive Officer Bob Dudley said in a Thursday statement. “For the United States and the Gulf in particular, this agreement will deliver a significant income stream over many years for further restoration of natural resources and for losses related to the spill.”
Shares gained 4.4 percent to 437.4 pence in London as investors welcomed news that the company had reached an agreement.
The company reserved $3.5 billion for the Clean Water Act case before the trial began. It resisted updating the provision even after U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier said BP acted with gross negligence and ruled that 3.19 million barrels had spilled, exposing it to as much as $13.7 billion in fines under the act’s formula.
“We don’t know what the quantum of the court ruling would have been,” BP Chief Financial Officer Brian Gilvary said on a conference call on Thursday. “But it certainly wouldn’t have been over the next 17 years that we now have to pay that amount. So $5.5 billion, and the high end could have been $13.7 billion, over that many years would appear to be a satisfactory conclusion.”