BP Links Compensation to Continued Drilling In The Gulf

WKRG.com ^ | August 11, 2010 | WKRG.com

[BobP]

The $20 billion victims' compensation fund established for the Gulf oil spill may use revenue from BP's oil and gas drilling as collateral, according to details released Wednesday by the White House.

[BobP]

The government watchdog group Public Citizen criticized the arrangement as a conflict of interest, arguing that it gives the government a financial incentive to encourage BP to keep drilling offshore.

BP has already made a $3 billion initial deposit, announced Monday. The company must pay $2 billion more this year and continue in installments of $1.25 billion, according to the trust documents released Wednesday.

The trust calls for a collateral fund to ensure that all the necessary money will be available if something happens to the BP subsidiary that established the trust. Details must still be negotiated, but the trust documents say that unless a different agreement is reached, BP will agree to give the trust first priority to production payments from the company's U.S. oil and gas production as collateral.

Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen's energy program, said that securing the compensation fund with drilling revenue "is wildly inappropriate, as it will make the government and BP virtual partners in Gulf oil production. ... It will give the government a financial incentive to become an even bigger booster of offshore oil drilling in the Gulf."

The trust fund was negotiated by the Justice Department. A department spokeswoman did not immediately return a call for comment.

The trust is to be administered by two independent trustees, with claims being processed by Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama administration's pay czar.

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'Drill baby, Drill!'

B.O. More Damaging Than BP

[John O]

The trust is to be administered by two independent trustees, with claims being processed by Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama administration's pay czar.

Only blacks and moslems need apply. All white claims will be rejected.

[bert]

I told you so..... the money to pay the cleanup bill is coming from the well.

[Venturer]

So the Moratorium means that other companies have moved their drilling equipment out of the gulf , leaving the whole gulf to BP equipment that is there drilling a relief well.

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

Wow! Look What They Found in the Gulf

The Associated Press reports that the microbe was found while scientists were studying the underwater dispersion of millions of gallons of oil that spilled into the Gulf following the explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. Best of all, the microbe consumes oil without significantly depleting oxygen in the water. “Our findings, which provide the first data ever on microbial activity from a deepwater dispersed oil plume, suggest a great potential for bacteria to help dispose of oil plumes in the deep-sea,” research leader Terry Hazen, who is with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, said in a statement.

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