Louisiana firm to pay $475M over longest-running U.S. oil leak – By Rebecca Falconer (Axios) / December 23, 2021
A Louisiana-based oil company will pay $43 million in civil penalties and damages and $432 million to a clean-up trust fund over a spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Justice Department announced Wednesday.
Why it matters: Taylor Energy’s former Gulf of Mexico offshore oil production facility is the source of the longest-running oil spill in U.S. history, ongoing since 2004, per a Department of Justice statement.
- Nicole LeBoeuf, director of NOAA’s National Ocean Service, said in a statement the proposed settlement “represents an important down payment to address impacts” of the spill — which began when a Taylor Energy production platform some 10 miles off Louisiana’s coast collapsed during Hurricane Ivan.
- The resulting oil discharge “continues to this day,” the DOJ noted.
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