British Petroleum merged with Amoco Corporation (American Oil Company) in 1998, becoming BP Amoco plc, then in 2001 changing their name to BP plc. Looking at the history of BP’s oil-related incidents and disasters, the high profile ones all appear to be in the US: the Texas City Refinery explosion in 2005, and later accidental fatalities at that plant, the Prudhoe Bay oil spill in Alaska, and the recent Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Perhaps there is a culture of gung-ho management in their American operation — maybe a legacy of Amoco, who also had a poor history including incidents like the massive Amoco Cadiz oil spill off the Finistère coast in 1978, and the 1980 fatal explosion at a plant in Delaware.

According to news reports, BP’s liability for non-cleanup costs is $75 million under US law unless gross negligence is proven. BP has gone further than this and said it would pay for all the cleanup and remediation regardless of its legal obligation.

Will gross negligence be proven? Is BP solely to blame, or will the other companies involved (the rig owner Transocean, the contractor Halliburton, and others) share the blame? We don’t know yet.

Whatever the outcome, if we are expecting BP to pay out a significant amount of money we need the market to maintain confidence in its business, and we need to maintain the morale of its employees. Its other operations may be covering the costs of this oil spill for years to come.

What else could BP’s management could have done in the past couple of months?

Whatever else happens, lawyers will make a lot of money out of this.