China's Qingdao Maritime Court on July 27 ruled that a lawsuit against ConocoPhillips China and China National Offshore Oil for a 2011 oil spill can proceed. The suit was brought by the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation and it the first case to proceed since the country revised a law (LoC backgrounder) allowing NGOs to directly sue polluters in the public interest. The Chinese government has already fined the companies approximately $258 million for the spill. Other cases are also pending under the law, which became effective on Jan. 1.

BP on July 2 reached a settlement that will require the company to pay $18.7 billion in penalties and damages to settle all claims regarding the 2010 Gulf oil spill. The agreement, the largest corporate settlement in US history, will add to the $43.8 billion that BP had budgeted for penalties and cleanup costs, bringing the total cost of the spill for BP to $53.8 billion. The settlement with the US Department of Justice and the affected Gulf states specifically requires the company to pay at least $12.8 billion in penalties stipulated under the Clean Water Act and natural resource damages. Another $4.9 billion will go to the affected states. [An additional $1 billion will be paid to local governments.] Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch in a statement said, "Since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill—the largest environmental disaster in our nation's history—the Justice Department has been fully committed to holding BP accountable... The Deepwater trial team has fought aggressively in federal court for an outcome that would achieve this mission, proving along the way that BP's gross negligence resulted in the Deepwater disaster."

This week, the Obama administration released a draft of its next five-year plan for offshore drilling—opening up a previously off-limits area along the Southeastern coast, from Virginia down to Georgia, as well as offering many new oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico. And while it would protect some key areas north of Alaska from drilling, it would open other Arctic areas up. The plan designates 9.8 million acres of Alaska's Beaufort and Chukchi seas off-limits to oil-and-gas leasing, and asks Congress to set aside 12 million acres in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) as "wilderness area," affording another level of protection. Daily Caller is outraged that the Alaskan waters are to be off-limits; Grist is outraged that the Southeastern waters are to be opened up; Bloomberg tries to play it objective. However, read the small print last line of the White House memo on the supposedly new polcy: "Nothing in this withdrawal affects the rights under existing leases in the withdrawn areas."

Royal Dutch Shell on Jan. 7 reached a settlement in a lawsuit concerning the Niger Delta oil spills of 2008. The settlement, totaling $84 million, will be divided between 15,600 individuals who will receive $3,300 each as compensation for losses caused by the spills. The remaining $30 million will be disbursed throughout the community, which also suffered significant damage from the spills. Rights group Amnesty International noted that this settlement is "an important victory for the victims of corporate negligence," but expressed disappointment that it took six years for the victims to be compensated. They argue that Shell knew that the oil spills [which took place near Bodo in October and December 2008] were a distinct possibility since 2002 and took no "effective" action to prevent them from occurring. However, the managing director of the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited, Mutiu Sunmonu, contends that they have taken responsibility for the spills from the beginning, and that the spills were due to operational pipe failure. AI also accused Shell of making false claims about the impact of the oil spills in documents presented to a UK court in November. They state that Shell claimed that only 4,000 barrels of oil spilled for both spills but AI believes the number is closer to 100,000 barrels for the first spill alone.

The UN General Assembly on Dec. 20 approved a resolution calling upon Israel to pay Lebanon over $850 million in damages for an oil spill caused by air-strikes on storage tanks at the Jiyyeh power station during the 2006 war. The assembly voted 170-6 in favor of the nonbinding resolution, with three abstentions. Only Israel, the United States, Canada, Australia, Micronesia and Marshall Islands voted "no." The resolution called the oil slick that covered the entire Lebanese coast and extended into Syria an "environmental disaster." Some 15,000 tons of oil were released into the Mediterranean in the July 2006 air raids. (Middle East Eye, Al Jazeera, BBC News, AP via Times of Israel, Dec. 20)

A massive oil spill from a stricken tanker is threatening endangered dolphins and other rare wildlife in the world's largest mangrove forest, Bangladesh officials warned Dec. 11. Rescue vessels have now salvaged the tanker, but the slick had already spread to a second river and a network of canals in the Sundarbans, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which straddles India and Bangladesh. "It's a catastrophe for the delicate ecology of the Sundarbans," the area's chief forest official Amir Hossain told the AFP news agency. "The oil spill has already blackened the shoreline, threatening trees, plankton, vast populations of small fishes and dolphins." The tanker was carrying more than 350,000 liters of oil when it collided with another vessel and sank in the Sundarbans' Shela River, home to the endangered Ganges dolphins. Forest and security officials are on high alert amid fears the spill may cross over to the Indian side of the Sunderbans, home to Bengal tigers, ridley turtles, and other rare flora and fauna. The Sunderbans is also an important feeding area for migratory birds from Siberia. (Radio Australia, Al Jazeera, Business Standard, India, Dec. 11)

Over 80 people were treated for respiratory problems on both sides of the Israel-Jordan border Dec. 4 following a massive oil spill that flooded the highway leading into Eilat. The vast majority of those affected were in Jordan. The leak, near the village of Be'er Ora, was caused by a leak from the Trans-Israel Pipeline, that runs between the Red Sea port of Eilat and the Mediterranean hub of Ashkelon. Be'er Ora sits in the sparsely populated Arava region, home to multiple nature reserves that protect indigenous flora and fauna, including rare acacia trees and over 280 deer. The Environmental Protection Ministry said that it has so far removed 6,000 tons of contaminated soil from the Avrona nature reserve, in an attempt to contain the impact of the disaster. The Eilat Ashkelon Pipeline Company now says the flow of oil has been halted, and that the breach was likely due to a "maintenance failure." The Environment Ministry has dispatched its "Green Police"  to investigate the cause of the incident. Ministry official Guy Same said the spill could take years, to fully clean up. (Times of Israel, Times of Israel, Dec. 6; Times of Israel, ThinkProgress, Dec. 4)

More than 100 Colombian farmers on Oct. 15 filed a lawsuit with the UK high court against British company Equion Energia, previously known as BP Exploration Colombia (BPXC), for alleged negligence when it built the Ocensa oil pipeline. The farmers are seeking around USD $29 million in compensation for environmental damage caused by the pipeline, including severe soil erosion, reduced vegetation coverage and damaged water resources. The farmers' lawyers said that the farmers did not understand the agreements they signed with BPXC and said that they were not provided full and fair compensation for environmental damage caused by the pipeline. The trial is BP's first in Britain for its overseas business.