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AP - BP shares fell sharply in London Friday following the company's announcement that the cost of responding to the Gulf of Mexico oil leak has risen to $2.35 billion.

The share price dipped as low as 303.6 pence ($4.52) during morning trading, a 6.3 percent drop. That took the shares well below half of the 655 pence price on April 20, the day an explosion killed 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.

Analysts at Collins Stewart continued to recommend BP shares as a "buy" in a research note released Friday. The company earlier this month had lowered its target price for BP to 450 pence, noting that the investment was "not one for the faint-hearted."

BP said a containment cap was continuing to collect some of the oil and gas flowing from the seabed, following a 10-hour interruption on Wednesday.

Even with the interruption, BP said the containment system collected or burned 16,830 barrels of oil.

U.S. government experts estimate that the leak is spewing between 35,000 barrels to 60,000 barrels of oil into the gulf every day.

Last week, BP bowed to President Barack Obama's demand that it set up a $20 billion escrow fund to cover damages and to suspend dividend payments.



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Now how is this possible.... there is still oil in Alaska, plus they still have rights to other deposits in the area....

Don't really like to think on the impact on "OUR" fuel prices after this one..

Appears prices on gas have moved about .25 cents in three to four weeks ... up

Not sure how 3.25/ gallon gas is going help the poor American with no money and no jobs..

Might be a means to keep people in one place...

No more migratory movement of large amounts of people around the county ....

Could allow for better planning by our Government...

Not sure I understand why no one appears to have checked out what sort of casualty insurance policies BP has. No enterprise conducts business without carrying insurance for liability. Would seem to me that even if BP was under-insured, it would still have a substantial amount of coverage. That said, should an investigation determine that the cause of the "spill" was the result of criminal negligence, that could relieve their insurers of their burden. It's way too early in this right now. But, I still wonder why the press seems to portray the reparation obligation as strict on BP.

Price of oil will likely go up over all of this and BP will probably break even or better when you factor in all of their other reserves...

Originally Posted by Bajahowodd

Not sure I understand why no one appears to have checked out what sort of casualty insurance policies BP has. No enterprise conducts business without carrying insurance for liability. Would seem to me that even if BP was under-insured, it would still have a substantial amount of coverage. That said, should an investigation determine that the cause of the "spill" was the result of criminal negligence, that could relieve their insurers of their burden. It's way too early in this right now. But, I still wonder why the press seems to portray the reparation obligation as strict on BP.

I suspect that most oil companies are self-insured. Just checked on BP, and it is self-insured.

Interesting. Looks like the lawyers are going to be the ultimate victors here. I'm guessing that being self-insured was something that actually enabled Obama to wrestle the $20 Billion escrow commitment from BP in such short order.

Here's a few links if anyone is interested.

BP Oil Spill Sparks Debate on Captive Insurers - The Source - WSJ

Lloyds syndicates launch legal action over BP insurance claim - Times Online

BP oil spill insurance to pay over $1.2 billion

http://www.reuters.com/article/idAFN...0100430?rpc=44