WASHINGTON — The administrator of BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil-spill compensation fund has started to wind down his operations after paying out $4 billion — just one-fifth of the $20 billion fund available, The Sunday Telegraph in London reported yesterday.
Ken Feinberg, who was appointed by President Obama to oversee the Gulf Coast Claims Facility in the wake of the disaster, told the paper he had processed more than 80 percent of the claims submitted to the fund.
“I’ve used just over $4 billion . . . I don’t envision a flood of new claims,” he said. Submissions are being accepted until August 2013.
The oil spill, which began after a deadly blast aboard the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in April 2010, devastated hundreds of miles of coastline from Texas to Florida, killing wildlife and wrecking key local industries, such as tourism and fishing.