BP Finalizing Deepwater Horizon Payments

BP has $2.5 billion left to pay as a result of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon accident, bringing the total cost of the disaster to almost $62 billion.

On Thursday, BP announced that it can now reliably estimate all of its remaining material liabilities, and taking into account this estimate together with other positive tax adjustments, BP expects to take an after-tax non-operating charge of around $2.5 billion in its second quarter 2016 results.

The charge is expected to include a pre-tax non-operating charge associated with the oil spill of around $5.2 billion. This would bring the total cumulative pre-tax charge relating to the Deepwater Horizon incident to $61.6 billion or $44.0 billion after tax.

BP believes that any further outstanding Deepwater Horizon-related claims not covered by this additional charge will not have a material impact on the Group’s financial performance. It will deal with remaining claims in the ordinary course of business.

Brian Gilvary, BP chief financial officer said: “Over the past few months we’ve made significant progress resolving outstanding Deepwater Horizon claims and today we can estimate all the material liabilities remaining from the incident. Importantly, we have a clear plan for managing these costs and it provides our investors with certainty going forward.”

Gilvary reconfirmed that BP expects to continue to use proceeds of divestments to meet Deepwater Horizon commitments in line with the financial framework laid out in previous quarters.

A year ago, BP reached agreements to settle outstanding federal, state and local government claims arising from Deepwater Horizon. In the months since, BP has made much further progress in resolving outstanding claims arising from the incident. The announced charge includes the estimated cost of settling all outstanding business and economic loss claims under that settlement, which are expected to be paid by 2019.

In February 2016, the U.S. federal district court estimated that there were more than 85,000 valid opt-out and excluded economic loss plaintiffs. The vast majority of these claims have since been settled or dismissed. An estimate of the cost of the remaining claims, expected to be paid by the end of 2016, is also included in the charge.

In June, BP announced a $175 million settlement of claims from a class of post-explosion ADS purchasers in the MDL 2185 securities litigation, payable during 2016 - 2017. This cost is also included in today’s announced charge.