Green Earth Africa

Posted by Dr. Emily Pidgeon 

BP’s next chief executive tells City analysts compensation claims will probably fall below the $20bn set aside

Deepwater Horizon oil spill compensation should cost BP less than $20bn, says Bob Dudley. Photograph: Nasa

BP‘s incoming chief executive, Bob Dudley, has reassured the City that the company will probably end up paying out less than the committed $20bn in compensation for those affected by the Gulf oil spill.

The White House ordered the company to pay $20bn into a compensation fund over three and a half years, making it clear that further payments may be required.

Although BP still does not know how much it will have to contribute, Dudley’s comments that the $20bn already pledged should cover these claims reflect BP’s growing confidence that it can emerge from April’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in a relatively strong position.

It is understood the company also informed City analysts at a meeting in London on Friday that a facility allowing any unpaid amounts from the fund to be paid back to BP has now been set up.

Analysts even believe BP will soon be able to resume paying dividends, with Citigroup predicting it could do so as early as February, when it reports its full-year results.

Dudley, who formally takes over from Tony Hayward on 1 October, stressed that the decision to suspend the dividend in June was for liquidity reasons, to conserve cash to pay for the spill costs.

Since then, BP has raised about $10bn from asset sales and its costs from the clean-up operation are tailing off because oil has stopped flowing from the stricken well. Because the size of the spill has stopped growing and has been measured, the extent of BP’s potential liabilities have also become clearer.

Dudley also told analysts the estimate BP made in July of $32.2bn for its total liabilities from the spill – officially the biggest in US history – remained reasonable. This assumes BP is not found to have been grossly negligent, in which case its liabilities would soar.

BP has privately been confident for some time that the compensation fund – now being run by White House appointee Ken Feinberg – would not pay out anywhere near $20bn. About $500m in claims have been paid out in just under five months and the claims process will remain open for three years. It is thought Dudley has been in regular contact with Feinberg.

But Dudley did acknowledge the ongoing risks in the aftermath of the disaster when he said one of BP’s priorities was to retain its licence to operate in the US. BP makes more than a third of its total revenue from producing oil and gas from its operations in the Gulf of Mexico and onshore in the US, and some politicians have called for the company to be banned from operating there. One analyst at the meeting told the Guardian: “He was upbeat. I wouldn’t say he was optimistic but he was definitely confident about BP’s position and seemed more comfortable.”

This week retired coastguard Admiral Thad Allen, who is handling the BP oil spill crisis on behalf of the US government, is expected to explain in more detail how the level of pollution in the Gulf will be measured, which will go a long way to determining the amount of reparations BP must pay. BP has hired scientists as subcontractors to work alongside federal agencies and universities to take samples, which has led some to question whether the company could seek to influence the results. A spokesman said there was nothing untoward about assisting the effort.

Jackie Savitz, a marine biologist from campaign group Oceana, said some scientists were concerned about BP being able to influence the process, although no evidence has emerged that this has taken place.

“There is no question that BP would be less committed than the government to showing the full impact and degradation caused to the environment since the company will be on the hook for the damages. The question is whether the government will allow BP to influence its analysis.

“The scientists I have spoken to are aware of the possibility that BP could try to influence the process, and that there can be other pitfalls from the company participating. For example, with BP constantly looking over their shoulders when they collect data, they have to do it 100% right otherwise BP could challenge it in court later.”

Scientists confirm the Deepwater Horizon explosion, which released 5m barrels of oil, was the worst accidental spill ever as preparations are finalised to seal the ruptured well

Rigs drilling a relief well and preparing the static kill are seen at the site of the Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico

Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

BP hopes to carry out a crucial test later today in final preparation for sealing the ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico, which scientists agreed last night has been responsible for the worst accidental oil spill in history.

Nearly 5m barrels of oil have gushed into the ocean since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank in April, according to federal scientists. That makes the spill larger than the 3.3m barrels released into Mexico’s Bay of Campeche when the Ixtoc I oil rig suffered a catastrophic blowout in 1979.

At its peak, the BP well was spewing 62,000 barrels a day, according to the federal team, which is higher than the original worst-case scenario of 60,000. But by the time that BP was able to cap the well last month that figure had dropped to 53,000 a day.

The new estimate of the size of the spill – of a total of 4.9m barrels – means the potential penalty that BP faces under US law has ballooned. Under the Clean Water Act, BP faces a fine of $1,100 (£691) a barrel, or $4,300 a barrel if it is found that the spill was the result of gross negligence. As a result, BP could be fined either $5.4bn or $21bn. The federal team reckon BP’s own containment efforts saved about 800,000 barrels which could be taken into account as a mitigating factor, reducing the fine to either $4.5bn or $17.6bn.

The largest oil spill in history came at the end of the first Gulf war in 1991 when retreating Iraqi forces destroyed countless Kuwaiti wells, which resulted in an estimated 1.4m to 1.5m tonnes of oil being released into the Persian Gulf. That spill is not, of course, counted as accidental.

In an attempt to finally close the Macondo well, BP engineers will today carry out a pressure test to see whether they can begin the so-called‘static kill’ procedure, which involves pumping heavy drilling mud into the well.

If tests go to plan, BP will begin pumping mud into the well from a nearby ship loaded with 8,000 barrels of it. The plan is to slowly force the oil back down into the reservoir by steadily pumping in the heavier mud. If successful, BP will be able to either cement the well from the top, or wait until the relief wells – which are due to be completed later this month – have reached the correct depth and cement the well from the bottom.

Preparations for the “injectivity” test – which was delayed on Monday because of a small leak of hydraulic fluid in a control panel – come as it emerged BP has sent a bill for $480m to one of its partners in the well.

Japan’s Mitsui, which has a 10% stake in the well through its unit Mitsui Oil Exploration, said overnight that it has received a bill for $480m from BP which it will “carefully” study but has yet to decide if it will pay any clean-up costs.

Last month it emerged that BP was looking to recoup some of the costs of the clean-up from Mitsui and Canada’s Anadarko Petroleum, which has a 25% share in the well.

Anadarko has flatly refused to accept any blame for the disaster. In June its chairman and chief executive, Jim Hackett, said BP’s actions probably amounted to “gross negligence or wilful misconduct”.

Last month, BP announced that it had set aside $32.2bn to pay for the spill as embattled chief executive Tony Hayward announced plans to quit his job.

by Christiana Ferris

It’s a dry, sunny November day with almost no breeze in the rolling grasslands of the Conservancy’s 10,000-acre Rancho Los Fresnos in the Sonoran Desert. 

Hot-shot bomberos from Mexico’s National Forestry Commission (CONAFOR)—fire chiefs from 11 different states, all bosses in their own right—take orders from the one man designated as that day’s prescribed burn chief, Baruk Maldonado, director of local partner Biodiversidad y Desarrollo Armónico (BIDA). It’s a job that will rotate over the course of the 10-day project. It’s not easy for a general to play the role of foot soldier. But when dealing with fire, heeding commands can mean the difference between survival and disaster for the entire team.

The participants are recent graduates of Mexico’s Prescribed Burn Academy, a joint project started five years ago between The Nature Conservancy and CONAFOR to train the agency’s staff and other partners as the country’s foremost experts infire as a conservation tool.

“Our challenge is finding young leaders to be tomorrow’s fire experts,” says Alfredo Nolasco, manager of CONAFOR’s forest fire protection division, “and creating a new generation of fire managers.” 

But the academy is not just benefitting conservation efforts inMexico. Among the trainees is Faustino Osavas, threat abatement specialist for the Conservancy’s work in Honduras.

“To me,” Osavas says, “this is a great opportunity to better understand that fire management is a universal issue. Mexico has taken a great step. Now state fire bosses think and apply ecological principles to fire management.

”

Regenerating grasslands

Grasslands, for example, have adapted to depend on periodic fires to clear out woody shrubs that compete with native grasses and encourage their regeneration.

“We need a really hot fire to kill the mesquite,” Maldonado says before the burn begins, “but not so hot that we sterilize the soil. It’s a balancing act.” 

Why kill mesquite? 

“Left unchecked, mesquite can overtake the increasingly rare grasslands, a habitat that is highly under-protected globally and particularly important in the Mexican desert.”

Migrating birds like the bald eagle, yellow-billed cuckoo and willow flycatcher stop over or nest here, and grassland sparrows, which are in rapid decline, too, flit among these rolling plains thanks to the abundant insects present. Every acre saved makes a difference for the prairie dogs, Huachuca tiger salamanders and up to 400 bird species and 180 butterfly species that call the area home.

Putting the plan into action

Brigade members in the ignition crew wield gas-powered drip torches, while liquidation crew members carry 40-pound backpacks of water. Others measure temperature, humidity and wind speed and direction every half-hour to make sure that the window of opportunity remains open. Everything has to be just right or the burn will have to wait or be called off.

The team burns a small test parcel on the easiest part of the property where the terrain slopes more gently and there is less fuel. They lay control lines and then burn the gaps in between.

Bright orange flames shimmy in broad daylight and crackle when they hit larger shrubs. The intense heat and black smoke singe the nostrils. After about an hour, an ebony carpet covering the rocky ground and the occasional tiny wisp of smoke rising from the earth are the only remnants of the morning’s work.

The goal is to burn from 12 to 75 acres each day, with the level of difficulty increasing as the brigades become accustomed to local conditions. By day 10, crews will have burned nearly 900 acres on the ranch.

The ranch as a model

“Thankfully, the grasslands here are in good condition,” adds Gabriel Valencia, also of BIDA. “Unlike neighboring ranches, Los Fresnos does not graze cattle or raise agricultural crops, and activities like prescribed fire also help preserve these grasslands.”

The difference is visible. The mesquite cover is denser on nearby properties, with grasses completely choked out in some arroyos outside Los Fresnos. 

“Our goal,” Valencia says, “is to use a recently established ranchers’ network to encourage neighbors to adopt fire management, invasive species control and other land stewardship practices that will renew and preserve the region’s grasslands.”

At the conclusion of the project, academy graduates not only have helped the Conservancy’s habitat restoration efforts, they also have garnered camaraderie and the expertise necessary to train the next generation of CONAFOR fire leaders. 

The Conservancy’s Osavas says, “Being on a ten-day burn with fire management professionals from CONAFOR in Mexico allowed me to share some of my knowledge and learn from them as well. I’ll pass on this knowledge to other fire managers in Central America.”

Deepwater spill will soon be invisible but could linger beneath the surface for decades

The slick has begun to disappear, but its effects may linger for decades.

 Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP

Images from the Gulf of Mexico suggest a once vast expanse of oil is breaking up so rapidly it may soon be invisible to satellite photography. But scientists warned today that underwater plumes of oil could linger for a year or even decades.

One hundred days after the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon, the US moved into a new phase in its response to the country’s worst environmental disaster today.

John Amos, president of SkyTruth, an environmental satellite organisation, said the slick was “breaking up in more isolated patches. In the next few days, if there are no new oil leaks, we expect those patches to break down so that we can’t see them in satellite images.”

Amid the relatively good news about the slick, the justice department has stepped up its criminal investigation of BP and two other companies and is assembling a “BP squad” in New Orleans, the Washington Post reported.

In Washington, House and Senate Democrats have introduced bills to toughen government oversight of offshore drilling and make oil companies more responsible for damage caused by spills.

The House version of the bill could see BP shut out of future offshore drilling projects in the US, with a proposed ban on new drilling for oil companies that have had more than 10 deaths offshore. The Senate bill came as a huge disappointment to businesses and environmental organisations, which had hoped the spill would give a boost to climate change legislation. It provides only a token bow to climate change in incentives for electric cars.

In the Gulf, SkyTruth, which had warned early on that the spill was far greater than BP’s estimates, said the total area covered by the oil slick was significantly reduced.

“It appears to be on its way out – at least the stuff we can see floating on the surface, ” said Amos. “We don’t see any obvious new oil coming to the surface at the site of the well and that is a good sign. We think what we are seeking is residual oil slick that is steadily breaking up, being collected or being dispersed naturally by evaporation.”

After several failed attempts, BP capped the well on 15 July by installing a new, tighter-fitting cap. The company says, though, that the leak will not be stopped for good until a relief well is completed next month.

But scientists said it was unclear what was happening in the ocean depths and warned that oil could already be buried in coastal marshes. Tar balls continued to wash up on the coast of Louisiana this week.

“Less oil on the surface does not mean that there isn’t oil beneath the surface, however, or that our beaches and marshes are not still at risk,” Jane Lubchenco, the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told reporters.

Scientists are worried that most of the oil remains trapped below the surface by the nearly 800,000 gallons of chemical dispersants that were pumped into the ocean depths.

John Kessler, an oceanographer at Texas A&M university who led a research expedition to the Gulf last month, said the experience of natural releases of oil and natural gas suggested the oil would remain in the deep water long after it had disappeared from the surface. “The oil could remain for anywhere from a year up to decades,” he said.

He detected thick underwater plumes of oil from just below the surface to depths of 3,000ft within a 10-mile radius of BP’s ruptured well. “It is most likely that this plume of natural gas and oil is not going to immediately dissipate, even if there is no other source in the water,” he said.

Another oil leak, unrelated to the Deepwater Horizon blowout, hit Louisiana’s coastal waters yesterday when a dredge barge being towed by a tugboat hit a shallow well. Photos show oil gushing more than 6 metres into the air.

The accident occurred some about a 100 kilometres south of New Orleans in the already hard-hit Barataria bay. Deepwater clean-up vessels were dispatched to the site and responders laid out some 1800 metres of boom to contain the spill.

It’s not clear how much oil actually spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, but unlike its big brother out to sea this spill appears to have petered out by midday.

On the bright side, said Thad Allen, the retired coastguard admiral tasked with coordinating the government’s response to the Deepwater spill, everybody was ready for action when the spill occurred. “One of the positive things, I suppose, about having this response going on is we have a significant amount of resources… there’s skimming equipment close by and booming equipment,” he said.

It all makes one wonder just how many little leaks – both natural and unnatural – regularly go unnoticed. Just over a week ago, Allen had to explain that leaks appearing 5 kilometres from the Deepwater well head were also unrelated to the blowout.

Work to plug Gulf of Mexico oil well could be delayed for two weeks

BP’s efforts to finish relief oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico have been set back. Photograph: Lyle W Ratliff/EPA

The tropical storm Bonnie has forced BP to temporarily suspend drilling on its relief well in the Gulf of Mexico. Work to permanently plug the oilgiant’s leaking Macondo oil well, which has spewed more than 4m barrels of oil into the gulf, could be held up for up two weeks.

In a major setback for BP, ships working on the damaged oil well are leaving the site due to the storm, which formed over the Bahamas and could reach the area by the weekend. They have been ordered to evacuate by the US government.

The fleet of 65 ships involved in the disaster response is now leaving, including vessels being used in the monitoring of the well, although some may remain.

Thad Allen, the official appointed by Barack Obama to lead the federal response to the disaster, said: “Some of the boats may be able to remain on site but we will err on the side of safety.

“While these actions may delay the effort to kill the well for several days, the safety of individuals at the well site is our highest concern.”

He warned: “If we have to evacuate the area … we could be looking at 10- to 14-day gaps in our lines of operation.”

BP said: “We will continue to monitor the well as long as weather permits. Duration of the suspension of relief well activities will be dependent on the weather.”

Undersea robots that monitor the sealed well would be the last to leave the site and first to return, because they were connected to ships able to handle waves as high as 15ft, Allen said.

“We are staging our skimming vessels and other assets in a manner that will allow us to promptly restart oil mitigation efforts as soon as the storm passes and we can ensure the safety of our personnel,” he said.

The threat of bad weather has already delayed efforts to plug the well at its source deep beneath the sea bed. Engineers were obliged to suspend work on the first of two relief wells that are being drilled down to the source, setting back the final procedure to plug it.

They had been expecting to spend this week reinforcing the last section of the relief well with concrete, which would have allowed an attempt to plug the well with heavy mud over this weekend. Now that will be delayed.

A federal investigation panel in New Orleans continues its exploration of the causes of the disaster which began on 20 April when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded. A widow of one of the 11 workers who died, Natalie Roshto, told the hearing on Thursday that he had been anxious about conditions on the rig before it went up. She said that her husband Shane had called it the oil well “from hell” and told her: “Mother Nature just doesn’t want us to drill here.”

Meanwhile a Senate committee has called on BP boss Tony Hayward to testify before it on whether the company played any role in the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi from prison in Scotland last year. It has been suggested BP lobbied for his release in the hope of securing a lucrative oil deal with Libya.

Two managers from BP have been named as subjects of a US investigation into the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig on 20 April, the Wall Street Journal has reported. Both were aboard the rig at the time of the explosion which killed 11 and triggered the worst offshore oil spill in US history. Investigators said last night they had named as “parties in interest” Robert Kaluza, a BP employee overseeing operations on the rig, and Patrick O’Bryan, BP’s vice-president in charge of drilling.

AP investigation finds BP was responsible for 600 of more than 27,000 abandoned wells in the Gulf of Mexico

The Gulf of Mexico is packed with abandoned oil wells from a host of companies including BP, according to an investigation by Associated Press, which describes the area as “an environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades”.

While the explosion and subsequent sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig has thrown the spotlight sharply on BP’s activities in the Gulf of Mexico, environmental safety in the area has been neglected for decades.

There are more than 27,000 abandoned wells in the Gulf of Mexico, according to AP, of which 600 belonged to BP.

The oldest of these abandoned wells dates back to the late 1940s and the investigation highlights concerns about the way in which some of them have been plugged, especially the 3,500 neglected wells that are catalogued by the government as “temporarily abandoned”. The rules for shutting off temporarily closed wells are not as strict as for completely abandoned wells.

Regulations for temporarily abandoned wells require oil companies to present plans to reuse or permanently plug such wells within a year, but AP found that the rule is routinely circumvented, and that more than 1,000 wells have lingered in that unfinished condition for more than a decade. About three-quarters of temporarily abandoned wells have been left in that status for more than a year, and many since the 1950s and 1960s.

AP quotes state officials as estimating that tens of thousands are badly sealed, either because they predate strict regulation or because the operating companies violated rules. Texas alone has plugged more than 21,000 abandoned wells to control pollution, according to the state comptroller’s office. In state-controlled waters off the coast of California, many abandoned wells have had to be resealed. But in deeper federal waters, AP points out, there is very little investigation into the state of abandoned wells.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (formerly the US Minerals Management Service), which is charged with keeping an eye on offshore drilling, has little power to deal with abandoned wells. It merely requests paperwork to prove that a well has been capped and, unlike regulators in states such as California, it does not typically inspect the job.

The Deepwater Horizon disaster has so far cost BP more than $3bn (£1.98bn) in actual clean-up expenses, but many times more in terms of the company’s financial value. Its share price has more than halved since the explosion on 20 April and the clean-up is likely to take months if not years. The AP investigation raises the question of whether there are more such environmental disasters waiting to happen.

White knight wanted

BP boss Tony Hayward, meanwhile, continues to try to deal with the fallout from the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The BP chief executive is understood to have met with the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) as he continues his world tour in search of a so-called “white knight” investor to ward off a takeover by a foreign rival.

Having already held talks with the Kuwait Investment Office, a current investor, Hayward has switched his interest to other cash-rich oil states as he tries to bolster support for BP, which has become increasingly vulnerable as a result of the share price collapse caused by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. ADIA is one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds.

The news comes after it emerged on Tuesday that the US government has demanded that the oil group give it advance notice of any potential disposals. Earlier this month BP said it would raise $10bn by selling some of its non-core assets to help shore up its balance sheet in the face of the mounting cost of dealing with the spill.

On 23 June, the US assistant attorney general Tony West wrote to BP to request that the department of justice be alerted to any sales or even joint ventures entered into by the company. BP has yet to respond.

Speculation has centred on the disposal of some of BP’s assets in South America, while “mature” assets in the North Sea have been seen by other oil watchers as obvious candidates for sale. Hayward was in Azerbaijan on Tuesday to reassure local politicians that it is not about to jettison its assets on the Caspian and met with Azerbaijan president Ilham Aliyev.

BP has ruled out issuing any new shares, instead hoping that it will be able to persuade investors to pick up their stakes in the market. But many in the City believe it will need to raise more cash to bolster its balance sheet, with a bond issue seen as the most likely route.

 (Reuters) – Here are some developments in BP Plc’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the largest in U.S. history.

TOP DEVELOPMENTS

* BP (BP.L) ruled out a share issue and talk persisted of sovereign wealth fund interest in the British oil major, boosting its shares on Tuesday even as its Gulf of Mexico oil slick spread to the Texas coast. [ID:nLDE6650FT]

* The first of two relief wells seen as the most promising way to plug the leak is close to its target but drilling will be slow and precise in coming weeks, the U.S. official overseeing the spill response said.

* Energy traders are watching two tropical weather systems that have potential to disrupt BP’s clean-up of its massive spill. [ID:nN06268130]

MARKET IMPACT/COMPANIES

* BP shares traded in New York rose nearly 7 percent on Tuesday, while its London shares climbed 3 percent.

* BP shares had lost around half their value since the spill started after an oil rig exploded in the Gulf in late April.

POLITICS/POLICY

* The Obama administration expects to announce a revised deep-water offshore drilling moratorium in the next few days, the White House said on Thursday.

* The U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee voted to eliminate limits on liability oil companies would face for oil spill damages. The measure now goes before the full Senate. It would also need to win passage in the House of Representatives before becoming law.

* Bipartisan lawmakers on Friday sought tax breaks for mostly small businesses in Gulf states to help cushion the economic blow.

ENVIRONMENT

* Initial tests of the dispersant BP is using to break up oil in the Gulf of Mexico show it does not harm endocrine systems in aquatic life, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said.

* Environmental groups, BP and the U.S. Coast Guard reached tentative agreement on a plan allowing biologists or other trained wildlife observers to accompany oil-incineration vessels at sea to remove as many turtles as possible from designated areas before burning starts.

* The spill’s toll on birds is set to get drastically worse, scientists say.

CAPTURE/CONTAINMENT/CLEANUP

* Tests on a supertanker adapted to skim large quantities of oily water from the Gulf of Mexico surface are inconclusive because of high seas, ship owner TMT Shipping Offshore said on Monday. [ID:nN05191855]

* BP Plc (BP.L) (BP.N) said on Tuesday that its oil-capture systems at the leak in the Gulf of Mexico collected or burned off 24,980 barrels of oil on Monday. [ID:nN0679053]

* An undetermined amount of oil continued to billow out from under the containment cap and through vents on top into the sea. A team of U.S. scientists estimate the leak is gushing up to 60,000 barrels a day.

SPECIAL REPORT

* A nuclear fix to the leaking well has been touted online and in the occasional newspaper op-ed for weeks now. Washington has repeatedly dismissed the idea and BP execs say they are not considering an explosion — nuclear or otherwise. (Compiled by Alyson Zepeda in Houston)

Little Danger Seen for East Coast

The likelihood that the oil from the spill in the Gulf of Mexico will reach shorelines along the Eastern Seaboard remains remote, according to projections issued Friday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The agency devised its shoreline trajectories by using modeling of historical wind and ocean currents. The projections inform state and federal preparedness, response and cleanup efforts. The agency said that the Florida Keys and the Miami and Fort Lauderdale areas were more likely to see oil wash ashore — a probability of 61 to 80 percent — than much of the west coast of Florida, which faces a probability of no more than 20 percent.

Some Skimmers Return to Sea

Some oil skimmers have returned to the gulf after rough waves and high winds from Hurricane Alex kept them ashore, Rear Adm. Paul F. Zukunft of the Coast Guard said during a news conference Friday. The delay meant that more oil was pushed farther onto beaches in the past week. Admiral Zukunft said he was very concerned about oil reaching into the barrier islands in the gulf, specifically in Chandeleur Sound.

Judge Is Asked to Throw Out Decision on Drilling Ban

A court filing on Friday by several environmental groups asked Judge Martin L. C. Feldman of Federal District Court to throw out his June 22 order overturning a six-month ban on deepwater drilling in the gulf because of his investments in several oil and gas companies.

Deal to Save Turtles Is Negotiated

BP and several wildlife protection groups are working out the final details of an agreement to resolve a lawsuit alleging that turtles were being killed as BP burned oil from its blown-out well, lawyers told The Associated Press on Friday. The deal calls for biologists or other trained observers to be present whenever oil is burned, looking for any turtles trapped in corrals that BP is using to capture and burn oil on the surface, said William Eubanks, a lawyer for the plaintiffs.

BP Says Workers May Talk to News Media

BP said it had started handing out cards to all 40,000 of its cleanup workers in the gulf region that say that they should “feel free to talk” to the news media. The company said it also told contractors working on the project to cooperate with media requests or risk being fired, according to The Associated Press. The company has been criticized for restricting media access to public areas affected by the spill. BP officials said they had gone to great lengths to accommodate the hundreds of journalists who have traveled to the gulf.

An interactive map tracking the spill and where it has made landfall, live video of the leak, a guide to online spill resources and additional updates: nytimes.com/national.