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Article image Buncefield fines are too lenient

The fines handed out by the Crown Court to the five companies found guilty of having a hand in the 2005 explosion at the Buncefield Oil Storage Depot, in Hertfordshire have been described as an insult by local residents who fell victim to the disaster. The Buncefield blast shattered the local community and left a long-term legacy of pollution. The Health and Safety Executive has estimated the cost of dealing with the disaster at more than £1 billion. Concluding the four month trial at St Albans Crown Court, Mr Justice Calvert-Smith said the companies had shown slackness, inefficiency and a more or less complacent attitude to safety but only ordered the five firms to pay less than 1% of the cost of the damage, which is thought to be the...

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BP will strengthen its finances Article image

BP has plans to sell worldwide assets to help pay for the clean-up and compensation claims following the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico last April. The costs for the clean-up have passed the $3 billion mark and the company has been forced by the US authorities to create a $20 billion fund to cope with future bills. BP is looking for investors to help fend off any potential takeover attempts, which may be launched while the company’s shares have slumped to a 13 year low. Chinese investors could come to the rescue by buying up to $9 billion worth of energy assets in South America, raising vital money for BP to pay bills from its Gulf liabilities. The Russian management of the TNK-BP joint venture, based in Moscow, has...

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BP counts the cost as storm clouds gather Article image

BP’s costs in its seemingly endless task of dealing with the Macondo oil spill disaster have now soared to $100m a day. The company admitted this week that the cost of recovering the oil, which has been spewing into the sea since April, and the clean-up operation in the Mexican Gulf has now reached $2.65bn. And now, with the start of the hurricane season in the Gulf, the weather is set to play a bigger part. Tropical Storm Alex, is the first named hurricane of the season and is predicted to reach full strength this week. It is reported that the storm has already killed 10 people in Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador although it is forecasted to run to the west and south of the Macondo spill, which lies about 50...

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The ups and downs of offshore exploration Article image

North Sea operators are looking forward to another period of boom operations with the discovery one of the largest finds in years following shortly on a government announcement of record levels of interest in new developments in the UK sector. Initial data from the Catcher East prospect field in the central North Sea suggests it is connected to an earlier discovery, which indicates a larger single field than had been estimated before drilling. An offshore consortium including Premier Oil, Nautical Petroleum and EnCore Oil has made what looks to be one of the largest North Sea oil discoveries in many years. Early analysis shows that the Catcher fields could contain up to 300m barrels of oil, 40% of which could be recoverable. Added to ...

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