HOUSTON, Jan 15 (Reuters) - BP Plc will face CleanWater Act fines for its Gulf of Mexico oil spill of up to $13.7billion, less than a maximum of $17.6 billion it could have beenfined, after a judge ruled on Thursday the size of the spill was3.19 million barrels.
The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Carl Barbier put thespill's size well below the 4.09 million barrel estimate of thegovernment and the 3.26 million estimated by BP.
All these totals exclude some 810,000 barrels that werecollected during clean-up of the worst offshore disaster in U.S.history.
Under a "gross negligence" ruling Barbier issued inSeptember, BP could be fined a statutory limit of up to $4,300for each barrel spilled, though he has authority to assign lowerper barrel penalties. Penalties will be assigned after the thirdand final phase of the company's trial is held later this month.
U.S.-listed shares of BP rose about 1 percent to $36.20 inafter-hours trading. (Reporting By Jonathan Stempel; Writing by Terry Wade)
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