Gulf of Mexico expected to recover from BP spill by end 2012

Almaty. February 3. Kazakhstan Today - The Gulf of Mexico should recover from the massive BP's oil spill by the end of 2012, the administrator of the $20-billion victims compensation fund said on Wednesday, the agency reports.

The Gulf of Mexico will have largely recovered from the BP oil spill by the end of 2012, the administrator of the $20bn (?12bn) pay-outs fund has said, BBC reported.

Attorney Kenneth Feinberg said that compensation to those who lost revenue from the disaster would be based on this prediction.

Meanwhile, a judge has ruled that Mr Feinberg make clear to claimants that he is not independent from BP.

The Deepwater Horizon spill was the biggest in US history.

The fund was set up by BP in August to compensate those affected by the spill, and has so far paid out about $3.3bn to 168,000 people.

Mr Feinberg said experts have determined that most of the oil would have dispersed and the economy picked up by the end of next year. There will be a 30% recovery in 2011, he added.

But he also noted that the recovery of oyster harvesting may take longer.

The assessment was based mainly on reports from a Texas professor and a consulting firm.

Based on the predictions, Mr Feinberg has proposed that claimants receive twice the amount they lost in 2010, apart from oyster harvesters, who will be offered four times as much.

The damage from the spill is still visible in parts of Louisiana

Florida Attorney General Pamela Bondi, however, questioned the experts' predictions.

"While this office had hoped that the methodology would finally provide some transparency, this document provides no useful information to claimants beyond a simplistic multiplier and is based on very optimistic assumptions about unknown environmental and economic conditions," she said in a court filing.

About half of the total 485,000 claims filed have been denied because of ineligibility or lack of documentation.

Louisiana resident Mike Helmer, a fishing guide, described the proposed offer as "a joke".

"He's asking people to sign away their rights for basically peanuts. I don't see anyone accepting this," he said . "This is an insult. This is unbelievable."

As informed earlier, the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on 20 April and sank off the coast of the Louisiana, killing 11 workers.

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