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Jan 29 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge has accepted an agreement byBP Plc to plead guilty for its role in the DeepwaterHorizon disaster and pay $4.0 billion in penalties for the worstoffshore oil spill in U.S. history, a court official said onTuesday.
The company had said previously it would plead guilty to 11felony counts related to the workers' deaths, a felony relatedto obstruction of Congress and two misdemeanors. It also facesfive years' probation and the imposition of two monitors whowill oversee its safety and ethics for the next four years.
"The judge has accepted the plea," a court official said onTuesday.
The April 2010 explosion on a rig in the Gulf of Mexicokilled 11 workers. The mile-deep (1.6 km) Macondo oil well thenspewed 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf over 87 days,fouling shorelines from Texas to Florida.
With the plea agreement approved, BP has 60 days to send aremedial plan to the Department of Justice and the EnvironmentalProtection Agency laying out how it plans to meet all of itsstipulations.
The agencies will then review the plan and likely send itback to BP with proposed changes. The plan could go back andforth among all three parties before a final plan agreed to byall sides is reached.
The plea agreement stipulates that nearly $2.4 billion beused for projects to address damage to the environment from theMacondo oil spill. Distribution of those funds will be overseenby the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF.)
"We are going to be diligent in making certain the funds areused effectively, efficiently and transparently," Don McGrath,chairman of the NFWF's board, said in a statement following thejudge's approval of the agreement.
BP's payments will be spread over six years, which thecompany has said it believes it can handle after selling off $35billion worth of assets. As of November, when it agreed to theplea deal, BP had paid $23 billion in clean-up costs and claims,and had $12 billion more earmarked for payment in a spill trustfund.
BP is now working towards settling civil claims related tothe spill, for which negligence is a key issue. A grossnegligence finding could nearly quadruple civil damages owed byBP under the Clean Water Act to $21 billion.
The British company has already announced an uncappedclass-action settlement with private plaintiffs that the companyestimates will cost $7.8 billion to resolve. The litigation was brought by over 100,000 individuals and businesses claimingeconomic and medical damages from the spill.
The U.S. government in November banned BP from new federalcontracts over its "lack of business integrity" in the 2010spill, which could threaten its role as a leading U.S. offshoreoil and gas producer.
