BP Settlement: Oil Company Gets $250 Million From Company That Made Faulty Blowout Preventer

CP     First Posted: 12/16/11 06:47 AM ET   Updated: 12/16/11 04:18 PM ET

NEW ORLEANS - BP PLC says it will be paid $250 million by the maker of the blowout preventer that failed to halt oil spewing from BP's busted well in the Gulf of Mexico.

Under the agreement announced Friday, BP and Cameron International Corp. will drop all claims against one another. BP says the money will be deposited into the $20 billion fund set up to compensate victims of the April 2010 spill.

BP said the agreement was not an admission of liability by either party.

The settlement comes in advance of a federal trial over the spill.

The non-jury trial is set to begin in February and determine fault in the explosion of the BP-leased rig Deepwater Horizon off the Louisiana coast. The oil spill was the nation's worst offshore oil disaster.

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Exposed marsh grass roots are seen in an oil-impacted area of marshland in Bay Jimmy near the Louisiana coast Friday, Oct. 29, 2010. There is no comprehensive calculation for how much marshland was oiled by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, but estimates range from less than a square mile to a handful of square miles. Regardless, Louisiana loses roughly 25 square miles of marsh each year due to a host of environmental and manmade causes. The state is the site of one of the most ferocious rates of land loss in the world. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
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NEW ORLEANS - BP PLC says it will be paid $250 million by the maker of the blowout preventer that failed to halt oil spewing from BP's busted well in the Gulf of Mexico.Under the agreement announced F...
NEW ORLEANS - BP PLC says it will be paid $250 million by the maker of the blowout preventer that failed to halt oil spewing from BP's busted well in the Gulf of Mexico.Under the agreement announced F...
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05:55 PM on 12/17/2011
If the Oil wasn't bad enough....they use "Toxic."..Corexit to disperse the oil....It is only 4 times worse than the oil...killing the Gulf and People too..... Save the money you won...to help bury all people you may kill....
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TwoZeroOZ
02:19 PM on 12/22/2011
"4 times worse than the oil"
Source?
nbj5215
RETIRED USN AND MERCHANT MARINE
01:41 PM on 12/17/2011
BP has gone above and beyond to try to correct problems from the spill . The Obama administration has done as much as possible to kill the oil fields in the gulf, many of the rigs have moved out .
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jrfunkenstein
'It's a sad and beautiful world'
04:17 AM on 12/18/2011
Above and beyond? Is that a joke?

BP LIED from the moment news of the disaster hit the airwaves; about the nature of the accident, their involvement in shoddy work and cost cutting, the extent of the oil leaking into the Gulf and their attempt to mitigate the damage by insisting it had everything under control, which was pure bs.

Suggesting at this stage that somehow BP was proactive or transparent regarding this utterly avoidable tragedy, is woefully naive.
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TwoZeroOZ
02:23 PM on 12/22/2011
I somewhat agree, but I also agree that any company would have reacted the same way for liabilities sake. They acted that way because they didn't have a choice; If the CEO had said "Yeah it's bad and probably our fault", he would have thrown in jail for violating shareholder protection laws.

When you disregard the "typical", what they have done is actually quite remarkable, and definitely "above and beyond" what most other companies would have done.

That being said, nobody is denying that the "above and beyond" might just all be a big PR campaign designed to help their image - but either way, it's still doing good.
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sonnym941
12:07 PM on 12/17/2011
Winners are the lawyers....................Losers are the gasoline consumers who will ultimately pay this 250 million dollars. Prices due to permanent increased insurance costs to these companies will be passed on to consumers in the form of higher gas prices...................forever. The 250 million is just a drop in the bucket.....................don't you just love our litigious society that the Dems and the trial lawyers have promoted?
nbj5215
RETIRED USN AND MERCHANT MARINE
01:29 PM on 12/17/2011
There is some good with lawyers but for the life of me i just cannot think of one thing. We are in a sue happy society, everything will always be passed on .Another co villain to out society is the insurance companies and the medical field
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jacmed
72, female - whatever happened to common sense?
02:22 PM on 12/17/2011
Absolutely correct re: lawyers, ngj! Are you aware that there is no such thing as a lawyer joke? NOTHING they do is funny! As to insurance companies and the medical field -- you are also absolutely correct! But let's also add pharmaceutical companies to that list!
11:54 AM on 12/17/2011
Lets try to understand something. The Republicans support Big Business, Large Corporations, The Priviledged and The Wealthy. Their agenda is to help them by any means possble including cloaking them with the title of Job Creators!
If you support that type of agenda then, by all means, vote Republican. If you do not then you need to do some serious reflection on your beliefs and who you want running the Country!
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sonnym941
12:08 PM on 12/17/2011
Totally off point...........the democrats have promoted the trial lawyers and these large lawsuits.
12:20 PM on 12/17/2011
I am talking about the Core Beliefs of the Republican Party--Not about some Lawsuits!
nbj5215
RETIRED USN AND MERCHANT MARINE
01:33 PM on 12/17/2011
I will vote republican and hopefully the government will grow smaller and we will regain respect world wide
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jacmed
72, female - whatever happened to common sense?
02:25 PM on 12/17/2011
It'll grow smaller, all right -- only the top 1% will have any say-so whatsoever because that'll be who's running the country. So, I would say a government run by 1% of the population is a heck of a lot smaller than the bottom 99% of that government's citizens!
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viper1ex19
IF IT’S FUN…….IT’S PROBABLY ILLEGAL….
09:55 AM on 12/17/2011
I see the caption in this story asking for people to upload pictures of the devastation caused by the spill but when people do that a lot of them don't get published.

I can tell you why;

There were a lot of shrimp boat workers that were sprayed with the oil dispersants chemicals while they were pulling the booms around trying to contain the surface oil and that has caused a lot of health problems for these people but you don't hear about that do you? I have family members that were on some of those boats and I know what they are going through to this day because of it.

These law suits are far from over and the propaganda of how clean the waters are... BS!

Go down there and pull some blue crab up in the bayou and open them up and see what they have in them, Look at the coloring in comparison to other areas, Look at the coloring of the redfish in comparison to other gulf coast areas.

The effects of that spill will linger for years and years. You're not hearing about the health problems to come because of it and you probably won't for another ten years when people start dropping dead of cancer due to over exposure to crude oil

Mother Nature will heal herself but only in time. The scars will linger for a lifetime.
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se72748
08:26 AM on 12/17/2011
You can be sure a pile of that money will end up in republican hands.
10:44 AM on 12/17/2011
how so?
10:49 AM on 12/17/2011
It will probably be a pretty small pile after the Democrats get through thaking there share
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TwoZeroOZ
02:26 PM on 12/22/2011
"get through thaking there share"
Lol thanks for being a stereotypical republican.
03:21 AM on 12/17/2011
What a joke..... they knew the blowout was going to happen long before blowout happened...they made more money off clean up
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TwoZeroOZ
02:26 PM on 12/22/2011
Source?
02:48 AM on 12/17/2011
Are you kidding me? Remember the R's would not let congress subpeona any records from these companies during their investigation of the oil spill. So much for justice; Corruption of our congress at it's finest.....once again protecting their rich buddies. This is dedpicable for the people and nature that live in these areas...or rather lived in these areas. The gulf was beautiful and as usual no one really loses but the working class trying to make a living in these waters. How long are we going to let big business rape our resources and leave destruction behind? What gives this generation of big business the right to take all the natural resouces they can grab from earth. It belongs to everyone including future generations. All in the name of greed and the almighty buck. We deserve much better.
03:32 AM on 12/17/2011
nice comment
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deborah kitzul
12:18 AM on 12/17/2011
this is just criminal
mm3264
Volunteer Of America, Occupy Wall St
12:14 AM on 12/17/2011
When can we expect indictments for the deaths of the 11 oil workers, this is at least criminally negligent manslaughter with depraved indifference. The CEO's and the major stockholders should be held responsible.
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Tmiley
Science is the greatest accomplishment of man.
11:31 PM on 12/16/2011
BP better pay the people and environment all damages that were caused to our country. I hear that there are a lot of people they still owe money to. Our government better not let this large corporation get away with anything. BP is responsible for cutting cost of operation ahead of employee safety. This is another example of large corporations having their greed out of control. Don't you just love this kind of capitolism. The poeple who are demonstrating do not want to stop our capitalistic society, but they want the system to be played fairly and without so much greed.
12:20 PM on 12/17/2011
Tmiley I am curious who you hear from that causes you to say " I hear that there are a lot of people they still owe money to".

Did you miss the part where a $20 billion dollar fund was set up? Here is a quote from the story "BP says the money will be deposited into the $20 billion fund set up to compensate victims of the April 2010 spill."
hsmachine
life's short, live it fast
11:31 PM on 12/16/2011
A natural disaster called KATRINA did more damage then the BP oil spill, Only as everyone knows YOU CAN'T SUE mother nature. So the next best thing is to sue a company with deep pockets.
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Sam Curcuro
Tell It Like It Is
01:04 AM on 12/17/2011
HUH.. Deep Pockets? .Are we now comparing natural disasters with engineering blunders brought on by cost cutting? Everyone connected to that fiiasco should pay up and pay damages!
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se72748
08:28 AM on 12/17/2011
So because we have devastating natural disastors from time to time, that makes man made disastors OK? You ARE WACKY.
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Sam Curcuro
Tell It Like It Is
08:55 AM on 12/17/2011
hsmachine stated that "YOU CAN'T SUE mother nature. So the next best thing is to sue a company with deep pockets" which implies that the oil companys shouild be making up for Katrina! What you read into my comment is so far from the point just goes to show your ignorance! Think before running your hole!
11:27 PM on 12/16/2011
Let's see if any of this money makes it's way to those oil worker's families, who died because of BP's incompetence. Or at least to cleaning up the Gulf.
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sstevens37
I have the right to hate you
10:55 PM on 12/16/2011
the rich feeding the rich
02:32 AM on 12/17/2011
no just the rich stealing from the rest of us
02:50 AM on 12/17/2011
The lawyer will get it all as usual!
10:44 PM on 12/16/2011
chump change for chumps. lets see if they give to one of the relief funds.....NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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aztrukin
Yes, they are watching me.
12:03 PM on 12/17/2011
You should have read the article.
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TwoZeroOZ
02:31 PM on 12/22/2011
lol....