Bp

NEW ORLEANS - Energy giant BP, behind schedule and $50 million over budget drilling a deep-water well, emphasized cost-cutting over safety, causing the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history, lawyers said Monday as the company's high-stakes civil trial began. Lawyers used PowerPoint presentations to provide a dramatic recounting of the April 20, 2010, explosion and fire in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 crew members. Workers were preparing to temporarily cap the Macondo well 4,100 feet underwater when it blew up. The 30-story drilling vessel about 50 miles offshore burned for two days before crumpling into the gulf.

Tesoro Corp. won federal and state clearance for its purchase of BP's Carson refinery, Arco stations and other assets for $2.4 billion, an acquisition that would further concentrate the state's fuel-making capacity into only two players - Tesoro and Chevron Corp. The twin actions Friday were immediately blasted by consumer advocates as a disaster for California consumers, who already pay some of the nation's highest gasoline and diesel prices. Tesoro and Chevron would control more than half of the refining business in California, which the activist groups contend would allow the two companies to influence what customers pay at the pump.

With the ink barely dry on the record-breaking $4-billion check BP wrote to settle criminal charges stemming from its Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster, the energy giant now faces a protracted court battle that could cost it billions more. The civil trial scheduled to begin next week could expose BP to about $17 billion in fines for violating the Clean Water Act. If imposed, the fine would be the largest environmental penalty in U.S. history. The first phase of the nonjury trial will focus on the cause of the April 20, 2010, explosion that killed 11 people and spewed an estimated 4 million barrels of oil into the gulf over 84 days.

An expert witness for those suing BP over the nation's worst environmental disaster criticized the company's investigation of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as the civil trial entered its second day. UC Berkeley engineering professor Robert Bea was the first witness in the day's proceedings and told the federal court in New Orleans that BP management's role was not examined. He argued that the company's own investigation of the 2010 spill failed to look at systemic causes, which would include management's actions and the company's cost-cutting culture.

This seven-mile squiggle of homey rentals and streets with names like Redfish and Speckled Trout had wrung hope for weeks from a single belief: Oil would land somewhere else. But on Friday, oil the color and consistency of brownie batter began tarnishing the shore of Grand Isle, a tourist town of 1,500 that draws its livelihood from thousands of weekend visitors. The dark ooze — the first direct hit from the massive gulf oil spill on a populated, popular shoreline — deepened anger and anxiety on the Louisiana coast as the slick swirled offshore with no containment in sight.

Oil giant BP will unload its Southern California gasoline business, including the huge Carson refinery and its local Arco gasoline operations, as part of a broad overhaul following last year's Gulf of Mexico oil spill. BP said Tuesday that it also would sell its Texas City, Texas, refinery, where a 2005 explosion and fire killed 15 people and injured more than 170 others. The sale of the California and Texas facilities will cut BP's refining capacity in half as it moves to divest $30 billion in assets to pay gulf disaster costs.

London (Reuters) -- Halliburton Co, the oilfield services company that cemented the blown-out Gulf of Mexico well which caused the United States' worst-ever oil spill, Sunday said a BP report into the disaster that laid the blame on the cement job offered a questionable account of events and “erroneous conclusions.” Halliburton, based in Houston, Texas and Dubai, questioned tests BP said it conducted that showed Halliburton's cement had failed, allowing channels to form, through which hydrocarbons could flow up the well and cause the explosion.

Oil company BP has agreed to plead guilty to misconduct and negligence charges and pay a record $4.5-billion fine in connection with the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill, one of the nation's worst environmental disasters. In an announcement Thursday morning from its London headquarters, BP confirmed that it had reached an agreement with the U.S. Justice Department to resolve all federal criminal charges and all claims by the Securities and Exchange Commission against the company stemming from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion, the subsequent oil spill and the response.

The containment cap BP had placed over its blown-out well was removed by an undersea robot vehicle, and the oil company was working to place it again. U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, incident commander for the Deepwater Horizon disaster, said BP feared methane hydrates were coming through the pipe leading from the cap to surface vessels, and the cap was removed out of "an abundance of caution." BP also found that one of the vents of the cap had been closed, possibly due to a bump from one of the remotely operated vehicles hovering around the well.

Apache Corp. said Tuesday it agreed to buy a handful of BP's oil and natural gas fields throughout North America and Egypt for $7 billion, though the oil giant's Prudhoe Bay, Alaska operations were not part of the deal. Apache Corp., known for purchasing mature oil and gas properties and wringing more value out of them, will scoop up BP properties in Alberta and British Columbia, as well as the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico and Egypt's Western Desert. All told, the Houston oil and gas company will add estimated proved reserves of 385 million barrels of oil equivalent to its portfolio.

NEW ORLEANS -- Oil giant BP, barring a last-minute settlement, goes to trial here Monday, with billions of dollars on the line -- for the London-based company as well as the Gulf states that stand to reap a share of the potential $17 billion in fines. Federal District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans will decide whether BP's actions on the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon were negligent -- as has already been determined in the criminal case -- or grossly negligent, which could force the company to pay significantly higher fines.

NEW ORLEANS - Energy giant BP, behind schedule and $50 million over budget drilling a deep-water well, emphasized cost-cutting over safety, causing the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history, lawyers said Monday as the company's high-stakes civil trial began. Lawyers used PowerPoint presentations to provide a dramatic recounting of the April 20, 2010, explosion and fire in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 crew members. Workers were preparing to temporarily cap the Macondo well 4,100 feet underwater when it blew up. The 30-story drilling vessel about 50 miles offshore burned for two days before crumpling into the gulf.

NEW ORLEANS -- With the drilling of its deepwater Macondo well running behind schedule and $50 million over budget, energy giant BP was under intense financial pressure to save money, setting in motion a reckless disregard for safety that led to the largest oil spill in American history, the prosecution said Monday as the company's long-awaited civil trial got underway. Lawyers for the prosecution gave a dramatic recounting of the April 20, 2010, blowout 50 miles offshore of the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico . The explosion and fire killed 11 crew members, and the resulting spill severely damaged the waters and economies of five states.

Most 43-year-olds are happy to trot out to the pitching mound and toss some batting practice to their children. If you're Yankees closer Mariano Rivera, taking the mound for BP after returning from a torn knee ligament is a bit more meaningful. Rivera threw 25 pitches Friday during batting practice in Tampa, Fla., his first extended time on the mound since surgery last June to repair the torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee. Ironically, he injured the knee shagging fly balls during a batting practice.

With the ink barely dry on the record-breaking $4-billion check BP wrote to settle criminal charges stemming from its Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster, the energy giant now faces a protracted court battle that could cost it billions more. The civil trial scheduled to begin next week could expose BP to about $17 billion in fines for violating the Clean Water Act. If imposed, the fine would be the largest environmental penalty in U.S. history. The first phase of the nonjury trial will focus on the cause of the April 20, 2010, explosion that killed 11 people and spewed an estimated 4 million barrels of oil into the gulf over 84 days.

So Texas Gov. Rick Perry is trying to poach California companies? Perry has been on a whirlwind trip to the Golden State, pitching his own brand of woo, in person, to our sun-splashed but, apparently, anxious-to-bail business folks. (Although presumably he didn't mention that other kind of whirlwind, the kind that flattens buildings and tosses cars every spring, summer and fall in the Lone Star State.) And I can hear his pitch now: “Come to Texas, padnah, for three things: our low taxes, our loose regulations and, uh, dang it, don't tell me, I'll think of it ... ” The death penalty?

Robots using giant hydraulic shears finished cutting away the pipe atop a BP well gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, clearing the way for a cap to be placed over the well on Thursday in an effort to contain the 45-day-old spill. Cutting away the riser pipe is "a significant step forward," Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander, said at a briefing Thursday morning. "The challenge now is to seal that containment cap over it." Allen said the shears used in the cutting did not give the clean edges that officials had hoped for, which could make it more difficult to fit the cap tightly over the pipe.

A cap placed atop a gushing well on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico could allow BP officials to begin pumping oil to the surface later Friday, the Coast Guard admiral leading the response to the disaster said, but he warned that strong winds had sent oil surging to the Florida Panhandle and had split the disaster into several slicks that would strain the resources available to clean them up. "The scope of this thing is starting to extend to...

Oil giant BP said it is confronting more than $34 billion in damage claims related to the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico and the nation's biggest offshore oil spill. Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida presented their claims to BP for alleged losses, including economic losses and property damage as a result of the oil spill. BP said it is evaluating these claims. The British company made the disclosure Tuesday in its latest financial statement. “BP considers the methodologies used to calculate these claims to be seriously flawed, not supported by the legislation and to substantially overstate the claims,” the company said.

California Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris has filed a civil lawsuit against BP West Coast Products, BP Products North America Inc. and Atlantic Richfield Co., accusing them of violating state laws on hazardous materials and hazardous waste. The lawsuit accuses the parties of failing to properly inspect and maintain underground tanks used to store gasoline at more than 780 gas stations in California. "Safe storage of gasoline is not only common sense, it is essential to protecting the integrity of California's groundwater resources," Harris said.