Alabama is suing BP and Transocean for damages sustained from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the state's attorney general said today.
"We are making this claim because we believe that BP has inflicted catastrophic harm on the state," attorney general Troy King told Reuters.
"We are suing them for the amount it will take to make Alabama whole," he said, declining to name a figure.
The oil company said today it has completed a pressure test on its blown-out Gulf of Mexico well and those results are under review by government scientists and the British oil company.
A recommendation on how to proceed is expected to to go to the US government, BP said in a brief news release.
BP may not need a nearly completed relief well to drill into the bottom of the ruptured Gulf of Mexico well if the pressure test shows that cement poured in from the top last week killed the leak, the top official overseeing the government's spill response said today.
The test could indicate BP already cleared the last hurdle to terminate the source of the world's worst offshore oil spill, retired Coast Guard admiral Thad Allen told reporters at a briefing on Thursday.
No oil has leaked into the Gulf of Mexico since July 15th, when BP plugged the top of the well with cement.
Reuters