Angry scenes at BP meeting as victim compensation delayed

BP faced protests from angry fishermen and disgruntled shareholders at its first annual general meeting since the devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The meeting took place almost a year since the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers and caused millions of gallons of oil to gush into the sea.

Diane Wilson, a shrimp farmer from the Texas Gulf Coast, smeared her face and hands with a dark syrup resembling oil as she protested outside the meeting venue in London.

“My community is dead. We’ve worked five generations there and now we’ve got a dead community. I’m angry, I’ve been angry a long time,” she said.

Wilson bought BP shares to gain entry to the meeting but police and security guards ejected her from the conference hall amid chaotic scenes.

Around 100 protesters turned up to show their anger at BP’s actions, ranging from Gulf fishermen to representatives of indigenous communities opposed to BP’s involvement in tar sands extraction in northern Canada.

BP has tried to move on from the disaster after agreeing to share responsibility with the owners of the stricken rig and is selling $30 billion (€21bn) of assets to pay the clean-up bill and compensate fisherman.

But Byron Encalade, president of the Louisiana Oystermen Association, said he had crossed the Atlantic to come to London to vent his fury at delays to compensation payments.

“We were the first to feel the impact of the oil spill. I’m here because the claims process has failed the fishing communities along the coast,” he said.

“We’d just like to know where all this money went. We should have got it.”

Keith Jones, father of one of the dead oil rig workers, issued a statement which was read out at the meeting.

“You were rolling the dice with my son’s life and you lost,” it read.

BP’s fortunes were ravaged by the spill knocking billions of dollars off the company’s value.

Bob Dudley, the American who took over as chief executive from Tony Hayward in October, said BP’s actions were proof it had “heard” the concerns about its ability to prevent accidents.

“We are a different company from the one that held this event a year ago,” he said.

BP reported its first annual loss in almost two decades as a result of the disaster and its share price remains 30% below its level before the spill.

Several key shareholders, including the US pension fund Calpers, threatened to vote against the annual report to be submitted at the AGM, partly in protest at the high levels of pay for BP executives despite the disaster.

Dudley defended a huge planned deal to explore for oil in the Arctic, in a joint venture with Russian giants Rosneft, saying “access to the Arctic is a substantial prize”.

A decision has been put off until May.