BP spends 8 billion dollars on Gulf oil spill

British oil giant BP said Friday the total cost of its response to the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has now reached 8 billion U.S. dollars.

That figure includes the cost of the spill response, containment, relief well drilling, static kill and cementing, grants to the Gulf states, claims paid and federal costs, the company said in a statement.

It had made 127,000 claims payments totaling about 399 million dollars, according to BP.

BP also had agreed to create a 20 billion dollars third-party account to cover some of the costs and obligations arising from the spill triggered by the explosion of BP-leased Deepwater Horizon drilling rig off the Louisiana coast in late April.

Source:Xinhua