BP profits gush skywards as US criminal trial looms

BP RETURNED to profit with a bang last year, posting net earnings of US$23.9 billion yesterday as the British energy giant prepares for a criminal trial over the US Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster.

BP announced adjusted profit after tax equivalent to €18.2 billion for 2011, as higher oil prices offset a drop in production, according to a group statement.

The company had suffered a loss of US$4.9 billion in April 2010 when an explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers, sent millions of barrels of oil into the sea and left the company with huge compensation costs.

Including changes in the value of BP's energy inventories, net profit hit US$25.7 billion in 2011, the group added.

"BP is on the right path," the company's chief executive Bob Dudley said in the release.

"2012 will be a year of increasing investment and milestones as we build on the foundations laid last year."

BP said that it had committed US$1 billion "for the early restoration of natural resources following the Deepwater Horizon accident in 2010."

It added that by the end of 2011 it had paid more than US$7.8 billion to meet claims and government payments, while US$15.1 billion had been paid into the trust fund used to compensate victims of the oil spill disaster.

The British company and its partners are set to face a trial beginning February 27 in New Orleans that consolidates a host of lawsuits seeking damages for economic losses, injury claims and environmental violations.

The trial also aims to resolve competing claims of liability among BP and its subcontractors, rig operator Transocean and Halliburton, which was responsible for faulty work on the Macondo well, whose leak triggered the oil spill.

Commenting on the upcoming case, Dudley said: "As I have said before, we are prepared to settle if we can do so on fair and reasonable terms, but equally, if this is not possible, we are preparing vigorously for trial."AFP