BP Quietly Hits A Grim Milestone

Lost amid the languid slide into the Labor Day weekend and the general Wall Street obsession with the next new thing, BP (NYSE:BP) quietly reached an unfortunate milestone last week. The large international energy giant announced that the company had spent $8 billion in direct costs tied to the Deepwater Horizon/Macondo disaster. These costs include the direct costs of addressing the spill, as well as various claims paid to date, but likely do not come close to the ultimate cost. 

Better, But Not Over
It does appear that the worst is over for BP in terms of the actual well disaster. Oil is no longer leaking from the well (at least not in significant measurable quantities), the company has successfully cemented the well and Transocean's (NYSE:RIG) Development Driller II and III are on the job for the drilling of the relief well. In a relatively short time, then, the technical and engineering aspects of recovering from the disaster could be at a close.

That is not to say that this accident will not continue to haunt BP and the Gulf coast for years to come. The environmental impact is still very much unknown, though rather likely to be less severe than the radical predictions that it would devastate the area and its economy for decades. All the same, it seems like a virtual certainty that BP will continue to face new claims and will have to go to court with those claimants who refuse BP's settlement offers. (For related reading, check out The Great Oil Spill Of 2010.)

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