Black Gold: An Inquiry into the BP Oil Leak: BP Repiration Payments and When They Will be Delivered

Although everyone concerned wishes that the oil spill had not occurred, British Petroleum is at least making repiration payments to those affected. BP has said they will provide up to 20 billion US dollars to go toward those people affected by the oil spill and have set up a third company party with around 1,000 employees processing claims around the clock. So far, over $100 million has been payed out in the seven weeks since the fund has been set up to over 31,000 claims. In addition, a further $100 million is being set aside for layed off workers of the oil rigs. In order to fund this arrangent, BP has recently stopped paying their dividends to stockholders and will possibly not start paying again until late 2011. This disaster, despite being terrible for the environment, has also called into question certain laws and responses to oil disasters. The Oil Pollution Act passed by Congress in 1990 states that companies are only liable for up to $75 million dollars. This law is of course outdated, as many revolutions and changes in oil drilling and extraction methods has happened in the last 20 years as well as the amount of money being made by said oil companies (BP alone made $17 billion last year). In addition to the energy laws being considered, these liability issues must also be accounted for to prevent disastors from springing up again. The amount of money being talked about is immense, so, just like during the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, the panel from BP should be weary of fraud as unscupuous people try to recieve handouts. Although 31,000 checks have been written, over 64,000 claims have been recieved. Whle the Gulf states may never recover fully from the spill, at least BP is accepting some responsibilities and is prepared to help those affected recouperate their losses.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

BP Repiration Payments and When They Will be Delivered

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