BP Waves Goodbye to Whopping $131 Billion in Just 24 Hours

At last count, response efforts to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill had cost BP nearly $1.6 billion. But if you total up all the various financial losses or expenditures the company has agreed to in the past 24 hours, the number jumps considerably. Here is the back-of-the-envelope calculation of the costs:

$100 billion to an unemployment benefits fund for rig workers left jobless by the six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling imposed by the federal government. (via Politico)

$20 billion to the victims' compensation fund escrow account (which some estimate will be substantially higher -- as much as $63 billion -- if victims decide not to settle and instead file suit against BP).

$10.5 billion in forgone dividends to help pay for said funds.

$500 million to the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (over 10 years) to "study the impact of the Deepwater Horizon incident, and its associated response, on the environment and public health in the Gulf of Mexico."

$150 million (at least) for the new Q4000 multiservice vessel and containment system.

$16 million to businesses that have filed commercial loss claims in excess of $5000.

Plus: the latest incalculable dent to the company's image following BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg's statement that his company cares about all the "small people" affected by the oil spill.

Equals: $136,166,000,000 (approximately $131.2 billion). That's quite a bit higher than the $28 billion total cost of the spill estimated by financial analysts from Bank of America/Merrill Lynch last week.

On the plus side for BP, the company's stock rose today after its executives publicly agreed to the escrow fund.

The company is also said to have made some $30 billion in cash flow over the last four quarters, with $5 million on hand. Total net income from last year was put at $16.6 billion.

As of yesterday, the company was reported to be worth $98.8 billion, or just over half of what it was worth right before the spill.