|
BP, Justice say close to settling case Parties ask for three-month extension; want to focus on settlement of federal civil lawsuit over 2006 pipeline leaks in Prudhoe Bay Wesley Loy For Petroleum News
BP and the Justice Department appear close to resolving a lawsuit the federal government brought against the oil company over the 2006 pipeline leaks in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay oil field.
“The parties have made significant progress in the last few months and are cautiously optimistic that they will soon be able to reach a settlement of this case,” lawyers for the two sides said in a Jan. 19 joint filing in U.S. District Court.
The lawyers made the filing to request a three-month extension of trial preparation deadlines so they can focus on settlement talks. If granted, it will be the third such delay in the case.
The Justice Department on March 31, 2009, sued BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency and federal pipeline regulators.
The suit seeks millions of dollars in penalties for alleged water and air pollution violations, as well as failure to meet deadlines in a corrective action order from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
The suit was fallout from a 212,252-gallon oil spill — the largest ever on Alaska’s North Slope — in March 2006, and a much smaller spill the following August. The spills were from corroded pipelines.
Making progress In their Jan. 19 court filing, lawyers for BP and the Justice Department said they have “diligently pursued settlement discussions, including multiple exchanges of proposals for resolution of the case and drafts of a potential consent decree.”
The two sides said they want to put aside costly trial preparations to instead concentrate on settlement efforts, which they describe as complex and time-consuming “due to the many companies and government agencies involved.”
BP runs Prudhoe Bay, the nation’s largest oil field, on behalf of itself and partners ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and Chevron.
The government filed its civil suit after criminal prosecution of BP Alaska was complete. The company in late 2007 was sentenced to three years on probation and ordered to pay $20 million in penalties after pleading guilty to a federal environmental misdemeanor.
BP’s legal problems Aside from the federal suit, BP is involved in a number of other legal tilts in Alaska.
The state is pursuing its own civil suit against BP stemming from the 2006 Prudhoe spills. The suit seeks an array of damages, including oil revenue the state claims it “lost” due to production shut-ins resulting from BP’s negligent pipeline upkeep.
BP also is defending a so-called shareholder derivative lawsuit filed in state Superior Court in Anchorage in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The suit against BP board members and executives alleges “gross mismanagement” with respect to not only Deepwater Horizon but BP’s North Slope operations and the deadly Texas City refinery explosion of 2005.
Finally, BP Alaska has been accused of violating its probation from the 2007 criminal conviction. An evidentiary hearing expected to last three to five days is scheduled to begin April 25 in federal court in Anchorage.
| 