The U.S. Department of Justice and Gulf Coast states are likely to make an offer to BP to pay $16 billion in exchange for a waiver of prosecution on the charges, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing anonymous sources.
According to the Journal, it remained unclear whether the government had formally proposed the offer to BP. $16 billion settlement could cover the fines for BP's violations of the U.S. Clean Water Act and Natural Resources Damage Assessment (NRDA) fines.
The Wall Street Journal said that BP is to pay $17.6 billion for the U.S. Clean Water Act violations, while the company states it is to pay not more than $5 billion. NRDA fines are also likely to amount to billions, but they are to be deducted from BP taxes.
By now BP has allocated $30 billion; $14 billion of it the company has already spent on the cleanup and other technical procedures. The company also paid about $9 billion to businesses and individuals affected by the oil spill. The rest money was spent on research and environmental restoration.
In early February BP reported that Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi authorities demand $34 billion compensation. The states allege that the oil company has to reimburse the tax losses they sustained because of the environmental disaster.
The oil spill catastrophe took place in April 2010 after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico, which resulted in 11 people killed and hundreds of millions of gallons of crude oil spilled into the waters of the Gulf.
