BP Dodges Charges in Alaska Oil Spill (BP)

In August 2006, a pipeline owned by BP plc (NYSE: BP) ruptured and spilled more than 5,000 barrels of crude oil on Alaska’s North Slope. The company pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was fined $20 million. Three years later another BP pipeline burst and dumped more than 1,000 barrels onto the ground.

The broken pipeline in 2009 violated the terms of the three-year probationary period the government had slapped on BP for the 2006 spill. The US Justice Department sued the company for criminal negligence in November 2011 and a federal judge ruled yesterday that BP had done all it could to prevent the 2009 leak and that the company had not been negligent.

This is good news for BP, which still faces plenty of legal action related to the April 2010 explosion and spill at its Gulf of Mexico Macondo well that killed 11 workers and spilled more than 5 million barrels of crude into the Gulf.