BP pays out $4.5bn as workers charged

Two men who worked for BP during the 2010 oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico have been charged with manslaughter and a third with lying to federal investigators, according to indictments made public yesterday, hours after BP announced it was paying $4.5bn in a settlement with the US government over the disaster.

A federal indictment in New Orleans claims BP well site leaders Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidrine acted negligently in their supervision of key safety tests performed on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig before the explosion killed 11 workers in Apr 2010.

The indictment says Kaluza and Vidrine failed to phone engineers onshore to alert them of problems in the drilling operation.