25.06.10 BP shares plummet to 13-year low

The BP oil slick disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has already had an environmental cost that is difficult to measure. One thing that can be measured quite accurately, however, is the drop in the share prices for BP to a 13-year low.

The shares have been going steadily down for the last few weeks, but the most recent drop came on Monday 14th May, when the value decreased by 9% after Barack Obama compared the disaster to 9/11. He said that “in the same way our view of our vulnerabilities and foreign policy was shaped profoundly by 9/11, this disaster is going to shape how we think about the environment”.

Shares also fell by 4% when US senators were considering forcing BP to put $20 billion (£13.6 billion) into an escrow account in order to pay for all of the compensation that will be required.

So far BP has spent over $1.6 billion on the cleanup operation since the disaster, and the shares just keep on going down. Shares were recently down by as much as 43% from the day of the accident on April 20. In total, the company has seen a £56 billion fall in its market value.

However, after BP officially agreed to put the money into the account, the shares rallied on Thursday 17th June and rose 7%.

Standard Chartered has revealed that the bill for BP could now be over $40 billion in total. And things are not going to get any better for BP as the US administration has suggested that the company may lose leases for exploration and production as a punishment.

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