U.S. to announce resolution over 2010 BP oil spill: statement

[October 05, 2015]  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Monday will announce its resolution of federal and state claims against BP PLC over the its deadly Gulf of Mexico oil spill five years ago, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch along with the heads of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Departments of Commerce and Agriculture will make the announcement at 11 a.m. (1500 GMT), the DOJ statement said.

The federal agencies will also announce "the restoration of natural resources in the Gulf of Mexico," the statement said.

Shares of the company were up about 3.5 percent on Monday.

In July, BP announced that it would pay up to $18.7 billion in penalties to the U.S. government and five states to resolve nearly all claims from the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the largest corporate settlement in U.S. history.

At the time, the deal was still pending court approval.

The 2010 rig explosion on April 20, 2010, the worst offshore oil disaster in U.S. history, killed 11 workers and spewed millions of barrels of oil onto the shorelines of several states for nearly three months.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

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