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Showing posts with label Petroleum industry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Petroleum industry. Show all posts

Sunday, September 29, 2013

BP Trial in 2nd Phase, to Set Amount of Oil Spilled

Post shared from the nytimes.com.

With billions of dollars in penalties at stake, the civil trial of the British oil company BP begins its second phase on Monday, which will set the amount of oil that spilled into the Gulf of Mexico from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion that killed 11 workers and soiled hundreds of miles of beaches.

The government will argue that a total 4.2 million barrels of oil was discharged into the sea over 87 days, the equivalent of nearly one-quarter of all the oil that is consumed in the United States in a day. BP will counter that the number was closer to 2.45 million barrels. This phase of the trial will also determine if BP prepared adequately for a blowout and if it responded properly once the oil started flowing.

Both sides will present their case in Federal District Court in New Orleans using competing technical calculations over the next four weeks. Hanging in the balance are Clean Water Act fines that range from a maximum of $1,100 for every barrel spilled through simple negligence to as much as $4,300 a barrel if a company is found to have been grossly negligent.
“This will be largely a battle of experts,” Blaine G. LeCesne, a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans.

The first phase of the trial, which took place over two months this year, centered on whether BP and its contractors were guilty of gross negligence — tantamount to wanton and reckless behavior — in causing the blowout of the Macondo well.
Judge Carl J....
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Sunday, September 1, 2013

Facing Fire Over Challenge to Louisiana’s Oil Industry

Today's post was shared by The New York Times and comes from www.nytimes.com

State Senator Gerald Long of Louisiana calls it “kind of a gentlemen’s agreement.”

For the generations since Mr. Long’s third cousin Huey P. Long was the governor, this state has relied on the oil and gas industry for a considerable part of its revenues and for tens of thousands of jobs. In return, the industry has largely found the state an obliging partner and staunch political ally as it has fought off curbs on its business.

Now, however, a panel of state appointees, created after Hurricane Katrina to be largely insulated from politics, showed just how insulated it was by upending the agreement.