BP Made $3 Million An Hour In 2011, While Spill Victims Continued To Suffer

BP’s 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill is still affecting the lives of many Americans, particularly the tens of thousands that have not settled lawsuits with the company. Yet the company today that its 2011 profit totaled $26 billion, a 114% jump from the year before, when the company caused the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Let’s take a look at how BP has made out after the Deepwater Horizon disaster:

BP earned $3 million every hour in 2011. Its fourth-quarter profits reached $7.69 billion, which is up 38 percent from 2010.

The company is sitting on another $14 billion in cash.

BP contributions to federal candidates totaled more than $98,000 in 2011, with more than half (65 percent) to Republican candidates.

For every dollar the big five oil companies use in lobbying, they effectively receive $30 in subsidies. This could mean BP potentially gained up to $243 million in subsidies, although the exact amount for an individual company is undisclosed.

In the third quarter, BP announced the company had reached a “definite turning point” of boosted profits. However, nearly two years following the Deepwater Horizon disaster, BP has still only paid $7.8 billion of the $20 billion fund they created to compensate individuals and businesses for losses incurred by the spill.

Despite being found “ultimately responsible” for the most devastating oil spill this nation has ever seen, BP has spent millions lobbying on bills that would speed offshore drilling and leases. This includes filing a total of 24 reports on bills undermining safety regulation in the Gulf of Mexico. At the time, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar accused House Republicans of having “amnesia” about the oil spill. No doubt the total $137 billion profits in 2011 for the five big oil companies had something to do with it.