BP Oil Spill Claims Continue to Be Problematic

In 2010, the world has seen the worst offshore marine disaster in involving the petroleum industry. BP found itself in a huge mess, with the explosion of a wellhead that is drilled for the company. More than 4.9 million barrels of oil poured into the water through this event. It has caused massive damages on the Gulf of Mexico and killed more than a dozen of people. It is the largest oil spill in all of US history and still poses a great threat to marine ecology.

 

 

Two years later, everyone who has been involved in the tragic event is still trying to recover. The cleanup has ended officially in 2011, but with the massive damage the oil spill has made, a lot of local industries are still struggling to get back on their feet.

The whole BP oil spill ordeal has been a nightmarish. It has caused continuous controversy, as the event has significant effects on water life. In July 2012, studies about dolphin deaths were blamed partly on the oil spill of 2010. In early 2011, almost two hundred bottlenose dolphins were washed ashore in Louisiana and western Florida. The spill, alongside the cold 2010 winter, has really caused a lot of deaths among water creatures, as manatees, sea turtles, and other marine birds have also declined in number by then.

Aside from its environmental impact, the BP oil spill has also affected a lot of lives in the worst ways. This is why they are obligated to handle oil spill claims. BP is about to pay about $7.8 billion to more than a hundred thousand claimants.

A great amount of claimants have already started getting paid, while others find a more difficult time in getting compensated. The biggest hurdle is the amount of requirements BP has before they pay out. This, of course, has caused a commotion, forcing the company to loosen up a little bit and relax o the claim requirements. They have decided to cut down the documentation requirements, which promise faster processing of claims.

All seems well, except for the part where the relaxing of requirements tends to result to a negative occurrence. Instead of pushing the paperwork forward, a lot of claimants are now submitting incomplete documents. It may seem like a perfectly easy thing to resolve, if not for the fact that the requirement most of the claimants lack is the trip tickets or other documentation that will show revenues from the catch brought to the dock. Not all of the vessel owners and boat captain have trip tickets, so justifying their claim through that can be quite difficult.

Luckily, some gulf fisheries are now slowly recovering from the BP spill. The catch has increased significantly from last year’s and is showing great signs of resilience. It is said that the total catch for 2012 has been 25 percent bigger from the previous year and 55 percent from 2009.

 

Shell Nigeria oil spill is 60 times bigger than the company claimed

 

 

On the Ground with the Spill Claims Company

Shell Nigeria oil spill is 60 times bigger than the company claimed According to the Amnesty International, the Shell oil spill on the Niger Delta was in reality 60 times greater than it asserted. This news came out when the company was compelled by a US oil spill consultancy to give an estimate of the Nigerian leak. The company has previously faced the lawsuits filed by the residents of that area due to which the relative actions were taken.

Shell stated that in the year 2008 the oil spill which had occurred from a faulty weld in the oil pipeline led to oil spill which could have filled about 1,640 barrels in the affected area (i.e. Bodo in Ogoniland). At that time the number turned out by the assessment which was agreed by the oil spill regency who was governing it, the representative of the Shell and the oil regulator of Nigerian.

“The difference is staggering: even using the lower end of the Accufacts estimate, the volume of oil spilt at Bodo was more than 60 times the volume Shell has repeatedly claimed leaked,”, asserted Audrey Gaughran who is the Amnesty International’s  global issues director.  The Shell’s oil spill case would be heard in the high court in London and these figures have high chances to change the course of action topsy turvy. It might be brought to your notice that Shell is already sued by whopping 11,000 residents of Bodo. They have asserted that the oil spill has destroyed their fishing zones and also that their health has been severely affected due to it. The community is expecting that about 150 million dollars would be needed to clean up the mess. The same mess in the sea is still present there and it has been 4 years now.

Patrick Naagbanton who is the co-ordinator of the local CEHRD (Centre for Enviroment, Human Rights and Development) has asserted that this bad practice of Shell is quite mounting now. Lately CEHRD and Amnesty have been repeatedly called for an independent investigation of the matter. This would make sure that big companies like Shell don’t take the advantage of their power and change the outcome with the help of their influences.  With independent probing in the matter the truth would eventually come out and hopefully then the residents of Bodo would receive the justice they truly deserve.