BP calls on Halliburton to pay costs of Gulf spill

BP HAS called on contractor Halliburton to pay all costs and expenses it incurred to clean up the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, which the oil major previously put at about $42 billion.

Halliburton cemented the failed well that caused the US’s biggest offshore oil spill.

In a US court filing, BP said it was suing to recover costs and expenses from cleaning up the oil spill, lost profits and “all other costs and damages incurred by BP related to the Deepwater Horizon incident and resulting oil spill”.

It did not specify an amount and it was not clear how the latest suit differed from a previous one brought last year. A BP spokesman declined to put a figure on the costs sought in the latest filing, but said the “documents speak for themselves”.

In April 2011, BP asked a court to award it damages “equal to or in the alternative proportional to Halliburton’s fault”, to cover clean-up costs and government fines BP may face. The company previously said it expected the costs of sealing the blown-out well, cleaning up the damage, compensating those affected and government fines to reach $42 billion.

BP has spent $14 billion in the Gulf Coast region in its response to the spill and set aside $20 billion for economic claims and natural resource restoration, according to its website.

Halliburton officials were not immediately available for comment.

The explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in April 2010, which killed 11 workers and spewed more than 4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf, has sparked a slew of lawsuits and federal citations against the companies involved.

Last month, Cameron International Corp agreed a $250 million settlement with BP to help pay for costs associated with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, raising hopes that deals between the British oil group and two other contractors could follow.

Yet settlement agreements with two remaining parties, Halliburton and Transocean, have proved elusive. Transocean, owner and operator of the Deepwater Horizon, and Halliburton, which supplied cement to cap the well, are both being sued by BP to share the cost of the spill and clean-up, while the two have launched lawsuits of their own. – (Reuters)