BP insists it was properly prepared to respond to the 2010 disaster, but plaintiffs' attorneys will argue the London-based global oil company could have capped the blown-out well much sooner if it hadn't ignored decades of warnings about the risks.
The plaintiffs' lawyers, who are teaming up with attorneys for the five Gulf states and two of BP's contractors for the second phase of the trial, also say BP repeatedly lied to federal officials and withheld information about the volume of oil that was flowing from the well
"It should pay the price for its choices. BP should be held accountable for the lengthy delay caused by its fraud," they wrote in a pretrial court filing.
BP maintains that its spill preparations complied with every government requirement and met industry standards. But the April 20, 2010, blowout of its Macondo well a mile under the surface of the Gulf of Mexico 50 miles (80 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast presented "unforeseen challenges," the company's attorneys wrote.
"With these uncertain and unique conditions, one overarching principle governed the team's work: `Don't make it worse,"' they wrote, saying BP deserved "recognition, not condemnation" for its spill response efforts.
The federal judge presiding over the case without a jury has set aside exactly 120 hours over 16 days for the trial's second phase, which he divided into two segments.
The first part, lasting four days, focuses on BP's efforts to seal the well. The second segment, lasting 12 days, is designed to help U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier determine exactly how much oil spilled into the Gulf.
The first phase of the trial featured testimony from high-ranking company executives and rig workers who described their harrowing brush with death after an explosion on the rig Deepwater Horizon killed 11 of their colleagues. The second phase will consist almost entirely of technical testimony by dueling experts in several scientific disciplines.
The Justice Department's experts estimate 4.2 million barrels, or 176 million gallons (666 million liters), spilled into the Gulf.
Government experts believe the oil was flowing from the well at a higher rate shortly after the blowout than it was when the well was sealed with a capping stack, which was equipped with a pressure gauge. BP's experts concluded that flow rates increased over time, due in part to the erosion of steel rams on the rig's blowout preventer.
For the first phase, lawyers for Gulf Coast residents and businesses and for the Gulf states were adversaries with Deepwater Horizon owner Transocean Ltd. and cement contractor Halliburton. But they are aligned against BP and Anadarko Petroleum Corp., a minority owner of the Macondo well, for the second phase.
Barbier ultimately could decide how much more money BP and its contractors owe for their roles in the deadly disaster. A "penalty phase" for the trial hasn't been scheduled yet.
Transocean and Halliburton argue that their share of responsibility should be reduced as a result of BP's alleged misconduct in planning for and responding to the spill.
In May 2010, BP tried in vain to use the "top kill" method to stop the flow of oil by pumping mud and other material into the blowout preventer. Plaintiffs' lawyers claim BP knew the strategy was doomed to fail based on higher flow rate estimates that the company didn't share with federal officials at the time.
BP says it already has spent more than $26 billion on its Gulf restoration efforts, including more than $14 billion on spill response and cleanup costs and more than $11 billion to compensate businesses, residents and government entities.
Take ABC13 with you!
Download our free apps for iPhone, iPad, and Android devices
