In the bank: East Baton Rouge Parish is set to receive $2,145,000 from BP to settle its economic damage claim stemming from the 2010 Gulf oil spill. The Metro Council OK’d the settlement at a special meeting Wednesday. The funds are unrestricted, and the council will next turn to how to spend the money. Mayor Kip Holden has said he expects the money to be used for public safety purposes, including funding for police, fire and Emergency Medical Services. The local settlement comes just weeks after BP reached a historic $18.7 billion settlement with the federal government and five gulf coast states. As previously reported, Louisiana is expected to get a $6.8 billion share of the settlement—about 36% of the total. Other states receiving a share of the settlement are Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and Texas.
Holding back: The largest oil companies have chosen to skip bidding for blocks in Mexico, as that nation tries to entice foreign investment 77 years after seizing energy assets. As Bloomberg reports, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Total SA all passed on the first 14 shallow-water oil blocks auctioned by Mexico Wednesday in the country’s first-ever sale of territory in the Gulf of Mexico. Only one of Mexico’s first five oil blocks auctioned received a qualifying bid. Nine bidders are expected to make offers. A consortium of Sierra Oil & Gas, Talos Energy and Premier Oil Plc won block No. 2 after the first block didn’t receive a bid, Mexico’s National Hydrocarbons Commission and Energy Ministry says. Wednesday’s auctions were the first opportunity for private companies to explore for oil and gas in Mexico since the nationalization of the country’s crude industry on March 18, 1938. Read the full story.
Poor service: IRS service for taxpayers this past tax-filing season wasn’t just as bad as predicted—it was even worse. Phone calls dropped by the IRS switchboard skyrocketed past 8 million, rates of calls answered fell sharply and the length of time callers spent on hold grew in 2015, posing new challenges for taxpayers with questions about their returns, according to the annual objectives report to Congress by the National Taxpayer Advocate. “For the majority of taxpayers who filed their returns and did not require IRS assistance, the filing season was generally successful,” says Nina Olson, head of the office created to help taxpayers who face IRS problems. “For the segment of taxpayers who required help from the IRS, the filing season was by far the worst in memory.” USA Today has the full story.
