Does BP have to pay royalties on the oil leaking into the Gulf?

Factual Questions
1

I assume BP holds some kind of a federal oil lease that requires them to to pay a royalty on oil they take out of the ground.

So do they still have to pay the royalty on the 5000+ barrels of day of a public resource that are being lost?

2

I doubt that’s written into the lease. :slight_smile: We’ll be lucky to get them to pay for the cleanup much less the oil lost. And there are indications that the flow rate is a good deal more than they’re admitting to at the moment.

3

BP has already stated that pay the cleanup costs. Link

4

Royalties are paid on production that is sold. Therefore, no they would not pay any royalties on either the oil or natural gas that is leaking.

5

Thank you for the link.

I think I know why he chose not elaborate. Out of sight, out of mind. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/us/16oil.html?partner=MYWAY&ei=5065

6

They’ve also stated that they (BP) will not attempt to cleanup the ‘undersurface’ oil plumes that have been discovered. I’d guess that this also means that the effects of the undersea plumes if they get into currents that take them to the keys and then up the Atlantic coast will be uncompensated as well.

7

No doubt BP finds it cheaper to “disperse” it than to remove it.

8

It’s too bad they didn’t decide it would be cheaper to fix the damn thing before it blew up than to pay cleanup costs.

9

Ha ha ha. BP has by far the worst oil industry safety record.

And on guestimating the flow.
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2010/05/guess-the-volume-of-oil-spilli.html