BP's Gulf Spill Cleanup Operations End - Analyst Blog

Oil major BP plc's BP share price rose 2.3% on the news that the company and the U.S. Coast Guard are terminating cleanup operations along the shoreline four years after the Deepwater Horizon disaster and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Since the Macondo well spilled millions of barrels of oil into the ocean in 2010, the company hit a milestone with the completion of cleaning on the last three shoreline miles in Louisiana. These operations, which concluded in Jun 2013, were carried out in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi.

The joint effort of thousands of people from all walks of lives including BP workers, local communities, government agencies and academic institutions helped in achieving this milestone. BP had committed to clean up the shoreline following the accident as well as support the economic and environmental recovery.

However, according to the Coast Guard the cleanup is still not over and BP's announcement of completion does not coordinate with it. The announcement also does not reflect the ongoing cleanup efforts.

The shoreline plan may be finished but for the last three miles the Coast Guard is changing to a Middle Response process. The process opens up six active National Response Center cases and requires improved equipment and more focused personnel.

BP's cleanup operations has cost it in excess of $14 billion with more than 70 million personnel hours spent on response and cleanup activities. From the start, BP worked alongside the Coast Guard and in cooperation with state agencies and local governments to restrict the impact of the accident on the environment and remove oil from the water and shoreline.

The operations comprised aerial inspection flights that were flown across 14,000 miles of shoreline, with about 4,400 miles ground-surveyed. The teams established 1,104 miles that contained some level of oiling and 778 miles that needed some measure of cleaning.

BP carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Other stocks in the oil and gas industry looking good with the Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) include Range Resources Corp. RRC, Unit Corp. UNT and Helmerich & Payne, Inc. HP.